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Day 1 is already an adventure! On the plane, I made friends with the girl sitting next to me. She has a warm face surrounded by long flowing hair and is going to visit her mother in El Capital for the first time in 6 years. She was nice. Works ar Rite Aide in Long Beach. Once through customs and out of the airport (at 5 am), her mother and her mother´s husband agreed to drive me to the bus station where I can catch the chicken bus to Antigua. This was very nice for me considering the bombardment of solicitations that I recieved coming off the plane, and being the only gringo to arrive that early in the morning it is hard to know who to trust. If you are not aware yet, being white is like having a target on your skin. All white folks are seen as rich folks with money to spend, or better yet, money to steal. This is a common theme I have experienced in any poor or developing country that I have visited thus far. That´s fine. In many ways, they are right. I make more in one hour than most people in the world make in one day of work. I am fortunate enough to have the money and the opportunities to see many amazing places in the world that most can only dream of visiting. For this, I am truly thankful and even more so, rich.
Regardless, we didn´t have to wait long for the chicken bus to arrive, maybe 10 minutes and I was off to Antigua with 40 pounds worth of my s*** piled up in my lap. I have provided a picture of a classic chicken bus here for you to enjoy. As you can see, these busses look a lot like old american school busses and that is becuase they are! After the American busses have served their time, they are auctioned off and many of them sent down to central America for service as transport busses. Then, they are re-fitted with chrome, paint and dirtier motors an violá! They load these f***ers up with everything from people, bags of rice, motorbikes and... you guessed it! CHICKENS! Thus the name. The fare was 5 quetzales, about 75 cents.
I arrived in Antigua maybe an hour and a half later with no map, no phone numbers, no addresses. Great! Wandering the streets aimlessly, however, has served me well in the past so I set out again a la mode. Only shacks and Guatemalans...keep going...only turn down a new street. Perhaps a change of direction will lead me to a more familiar part of town where my lack of spanish abilities will not hinder my productiveness for the first day. It is important to keep your wits for at least the first 24 hours or so. Become comfotable and aware of your surroundings before doing dumb things that might get you in to trouble. Not that Antigua is dangerous, but I remain careful non the less. After a time I come across a string of hotels, most of them still closed as it is only about 7 am. I stop in one that is opened already, halfheartedly examen an available room. ¨esta bien¨ I tell the wrinkled and hunched over ladina woman manning the front dest. ¨¿cuantos?¨ ¨Noventa quetzales¨ she replies. More than I wanted to spend, but I am tired from the long red eye last night with scarce minutes of sleep and I no longer feel like wandering the streets in search of a more suitable domicile. AND it is Saturday after all, which usually means higher prices.
OUT! I slept for hours. until about 13:30 and I decided that I would take a walk of the city to help get my wits about me. I lock my key in my room while while going to brush my teeth and have a fun time explaining it to the woman at the desk. ¨Tengo una problema...um...mi llave esta en mi cuarto, pero la puerta.........um.....¨ I don´t know the work for locked and can´t think of a better way to explain my predicament. ¨el dentro¨ she spouts out amidst a stream of spanish sentences I can make little sense of. We both agree to something, though I am not certain of what exactly it is. She seems in control despite her frail dispostion, so I sit on the porch and wait for our agreement to commence. In the process of waitiing, a bus arrives loaded with jovenes. Turns out, they are students from El Salvador on a sort of field trip, I guess. Long story short, they want to book the place up for the night and move my ass to another hotel across town. I agree to the arrangement just as the key lady walks through the door amidst the commotion.
She unlocks my door, and as I pack my things back into my backpack I hear the roar of thunder overhead and within minutes the sky is falling. I haven´t seen rain like this since Indo´ in December and the key lady, who also happens to be my guide to my new residence, comes by to make sure I am OK with walking through a downpour. It´s fine, I tell her, I brought my rain jacket and a cover for my bag. Though I look like a comic book character with the whole getup on, we set out towards the distant rolling thunder and into the relentless faucet of rain. It´s hard to believe that this much moisture can actually exist in the atmosphere before becoming too heavy and returning to earth with a vengence. 3kms and one soaked pair of jeans later and we arrive at the new place. It is deserted and the key lady/tour guide must unlock the
snake like chains encircling the front gate to let us in. Walking down the dank, colorless halway leaves me with the impression that this place will suit me just fine.
I am given a room with 2 beds because apparently the rest of the rooms are booked up despite the entire building being completely deserted. My room is
up a dilapidated cement staircase and down yet another dark, grey hallway. A private bath indicates that I have recieved an upgrade and I am apparently closer to the central park now as well. Though without a real reference, this means little to me at this moment. After setteling in, key lady informs me that this building has the best rooftop view in town. Lucky for me, the stairs to the roof are located just across the hall from my door. You´ll enjoy it, she says, though you will have to wait until tomorrow because the whole sky is grey right now and the clouds are blocking the view. I slip on my rain jacket and head up anyways as I am already soaked and anxious to get a look at this place from an appropriate vantage. The view is spectacular as promised. I have provided photos and a video to prove. As the sheets of rain tumble from the sky and slowly flood my rooftop outlook, I am hungry. So I decide to step back inside and prepare for an evening romp.
The rest of the day finishes in a more traditional Kelly fashion. As I walk back through the errily deserted hallway towards the street, a more somber mood prevails. I remember that I haven´t eaten all day and that the last of my water was gone somwhere over Chiapas. Odly though, my energy is still high. The pungent smell of cat urine permiates the walls, moist and dripping from the ongoing rain. A lid of dark rainclouds covering the sky has dampened the sun´s energy to nearly nothing. Outside, it appears as late evening though the songs of passing cars and casual chatter amung friends that fills the humid afternoon air remind me that much of the day still remains.
I hit the streets with the intention of familiarizing myself with the orientation of this quaint city. Old stone buildings of colonial Spanish archietecture loom overhead. The overgrown vegetation and moss covering their claustraphobic walls begs the history of this place from the sewers. The rumble of tires racing across the uneavenly cobbled streets echos through the alleyways. It wasn´t far from here near the Iximché that the first spanish colonials established their own capital city adjacent to the ancient Mayan one of the same name. Antigua is a modern remnant of sad and bloody history. An uncomfotable mix of timber and aluminum plated hovels nestled at the base of proud and arrogantly stainding structures still odly reflects European dominance over the indigeonous peoples. I pass silently through the bustling parque central, the urban hearbeat of the city rife with finely dressed locals and bohemian clad travelers alike. All searching for an experience to write home about, I suspect. As expected, this square and the surrounding streets are peppered with shops and cafés of all kinds. The comforting smell of fried chicken and espresso linger in my nostrils as I slip past the tiendas off to find something a bit more authentic.
Not far down 5a calle poniente, I find what I´ve been craving in a sprawling outdoor market remenicent of those that I enjoyed so much in eastern Asia. The stalls spill over with myriad goods. Curtains of hanging clothes and textiles seductively hide the treasures that wait behind them. Through cramped passages, past piles of shoes, bathroom goods and finally...food! Fried tortillas, pollo and vegetables and a hefty commotion of vendors and families gather here for a cheap afternoon snack. Bags overflowing with newly purchased items rest peacefully atop mothers´ heads or are passed freely between the children at their feet. This feels a bit more real.
Somewhere near the iced fish and live chicken section I begin to realize that maybe I have gotten myself in a bit too deep. The twisting maze of makeshift walls draped in colorful products of all sorts has gotten me lost. I search hoplessly for a way out. But everytime I think I have found an escape, a chainlink fence or sketchy, narrow alley busy draining a river of mud from the afternoon rains blocks my escape. Back into the abyss in seach of an alternate way out. More than once my paranoia convinces me that I am being followed. My eyes dart back and forth pretending to scan the stalls for a potential purchase, but really I search for a familiar face. Was that guy in the blue shirt behind me before? I can´t remember. After an hour or more of floundering between the stalls, I find an accessable way out and am deposited into an unknown sidestreet. The buckets of rain previously drowning the mid-afternoon air have been reduced to a drizzle. The occasional flash of lightning illuminates the streets, but it is clear that what remains of the afternoon sunlight is winning. A break in the clouds offers a glimps of the surrounding volcanoes and I am taken with a feeling of contentment.
Being in an unfamiliar place again brings back a deluge of good memories and this euphoria guides me from one end of the city to the other. The rains have all but ceased and the neighborhoods crawl with residents in a frantic scurry to clear the drains and sweep the mud from their doorsteps. Their efforts seem fruitless, however, as I resign to walking ankle deep in the silty reddish-brown water. Hopping between the scattered broken islands of exposed concrete, I am thinking about what microbes might be swimming in the cesspool I tread through. Eventually, hunger grips my stomach and I am forced to make moves back to the comfortable territory of tourism. I need a coffee and a meal before the sun sets and I am left to the ghettos alone and blanketed in darkness.
I ask an older gentleman standing peacefully in his doorway for directions. His eyes remain solemly cast out on the commotions of the street as he answers, seemingly disinterested in whether or not I am comprehending his mumbled spanish instructions. The only thing that I am able to gather from his lethargic gestures and distracted vocal suggestions is that it is a complicated path back to the central park. Many right and left turns. But I gather the general direction and at best, he claims I am 5 minutes away. I thank him briefly and continue my trek through the mud, eventually finding my way back to the hotel in time for sunset. I stop in the neighboring coffee bar for a cappuchino before finding a nearby taqueria for tacos al pastor and una gallo (beer) for dinner. Euro 2012 is on the TV, though the blowout 5 to nil romping that the Netherlands is serving up to Northern Ireland is hardly a distraction to anyone in the room other than myself. As the sounds of early evening drift slowly through the chilly, damp night air, I make my way back out into the streets to see what the rest of the evening holds.
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