Del-Roy is nervous. Nervous about us. Nervous for us.
Del-Roy is thin, bald, dark and big-hearted. He's also a security guard for the American Embassy and we're standing at the edge of the gravel driveway that leads to his family's plot of houses/coconut grove/featch (dominoes) throwdown arena and Del-Roy looks me in the eye and says,
"Joe, I really don't like this hitchhiking thing. Maybe it's my job, but I really don't like this hitchhiking thing..."
But a pick-up truck pulls to a stop on the gravel driveway and we give Del-Roy one last hug, chuck our gear in the bed and it's goodbye to the coconut grove, goodbye to Camalote, goodbye to biking bearded New Zealander Selweeno who aint never gone leave because we're leaving and now we're cruising down one of two paved roads that comprise the Belize interstate system.
Del-Roy's fears don't pan out. The truck takes us smoothly into Cayo, even slowing for the speed bumps, where it's one last Belizean Blue Bird to the border town of Bengue. And this my brothers is a real border town. None of the Applebee's or shopping malls we ran into in Chetumal, Mexico; instead we get rude cabbies flashing $10 smiles that turn to frothing spit the moment you decline.
But another hitch takes us to the border and now it's really bye-bye to the country of Belize. Her Majesty the Queen exchanged for Maya-laden Quetzales. Creole (Hot damn I love Creole. The syllabic spit-fire semi-French poetic bebop dialect that turns English into a romance language) exchanged for a true romance language. We sneak past the $40 exit fee station, get the quick exit/enter stamps and -- well damn, now we're in Guatemala.
We're sitting in a bus station in the town of Santa Elena and it's hot in that bus station. Sweat sticks to our backs and our packs and when we breathe we breathe in the dirt that hangs in front of our faces.
We're looking for a bus that will take us to Antigua, Guatemala, segunda clase. We got hustled onto a pricey tourist liner at the border -- ferrying rich surfer yuppies from one rad surf spot -- one Lonely Planet tourist town -- to the next, promising minimal interaction with real Guatemalteca (Guatemalans) outside the softly humming A/C bus bubble -- and we don't want to make that mistake again. I find a bus line named Rosita that will take us to Guatemala City (so we can then find a bus that will take us to Antigua) for $110 Quetzales ($14.39 USD), and that's the best deal in all of Santa Elena, so we jump on it.
There's a guy pissing on the rear left tire when we board the bus at 9pm. The bus ride should take around 9 hours and there's no toilet on the bus, so I follow suit. A little after 9:15 we pull out of the station. The weary rattle of an exhausted engine struggling to carry its weight lulls me to sleep. 53 minutes later, that rattle dies, along with the engine.
The lights on the outskirts of Santa Elena, Guatemala are dim at 10:00 o'clock at night, especially dim when your segunda clase Rosita sputters to a stop and begins to roll backwards down a speed bump. Without a word spoken, five or six of the male passengers (author not included) jump from their seats, bound outside and disappear behind us. Ashley and I wipe our groggy eyes at the dim lights of night on the edge of town, dumbfounded, disbelieving, as the bus receives a gentle push and, after a few lunges, lumbers over the speed bump.
We're being pushed, by the passengers. And we're gaining speed. The driver slips Rosita into gear and that weary engine coughs itself back to life. A universal sigh of relief, the pushers jump back on, and away we go.
And then, a few hours later, it happens again.
It's three in the morning and we're somewhere in Guatemala and it's black outside. And I'm standing outside in the blackness pissing in a bush. Rosita is dead behind me. Her carcass sits on a dusty roadside lot in front of a black gas station, skeleton exposed, lights fighting the darkness. The driver and his co-driver are underneath her hood, listlessly tinkering. They accomplish nothing. Eventually, the Rosita roadside crew appears and patches things best they can. There is much Spanish cursing; from the crew, the passengers and even the two gringos taking pictures of the whole mess. But we're back on the road and surely, surely, after an hour of maintenance work in the dead of night, we'll cruise into Guatemala City without another hitch.
Another hitch. Half the passengers abandon Rosita, flagging down taxis and rival busses in the parking lot of a home improvement store. We stick it out.
And then another hitch. More passenger blood-letting. We stick it out.
And then another hitch and now Rosita's dead -- dead-as-a-doornail dead -- on a winding mountain road a half-hour outside of Guatemala City and it's 12 noon and that 9-hour bus ride has become 15 and we still haven't hit the city. Our six fellow passengers collect their belongings. Rosita will go not one mile further. We collect our packs while the driver flags down a Chicken Bus. He pays the nickel fare.
In the Guatemala City bus station, I head straight to the Rosita office. We do not get refunded.
In Antigua we climbed a volcano for $10 and roasted marshmallows over hot volcanic rock. Ashley's stomach pains hit their peak and she spent two whole days vomiting in a $5 hostel. I met a barista/roastmaster/fireman extraordinaire named Javier who, after testing my coffee abilities, invited us to stay a few nights at his house a couple towns over, in San Lorenzo el Cubo. I accepted the invitation and the Bug and I ended our week in Guatemala sleeping on a coffee farm complete with washing station, roaster, veggie garden, guest house and homegrown marijuana -- the coffee good for my soul. The marijuana, it turns out, good for Ashley's stomach -- two towns away from the UNESCO museum city of Antigua.
No gringos on the chicken bus to San Lorenzo el Cubo. No Hang 10 Yuppies with surfboard in-tow. Just me and my chica, stumbling along real streets instead of curated cobblestone.
From Antigua we took another chicken bus back to Guatemala City --
"Guate! Guate! Guate-guate!" shout the fare collectors who hang from the front doors of each moving bus, scanning the crowd for passengers. When they see you jogging toward their bus they leap from the doorway, rip your pack off your back, chuck it to the roof and even help your woman up the steps in one swift motion, shouting "Guate! Guate-guate!" all the while--
and from Guatemala City it was a straight shot to San Salvador. We made damn sure the bus company was not named Rosita. And wouldn't Del-Roy be proud, we were too exhausted to even try hitchhiking.
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