Guatemala - Gunshots and Good Times

Well, it’s been 6 weeks since our last post and to be honest, so much has happened that it is hard to recap it all.  We could probably write a short novel but in the interests of brevity, we’ll try to stick to only the most interesting stories.  Firstly, we want to get this out of the way: we love Guatemala – we love the people, the scenery, the culture, in general we even feel safe here… but God damn it’s dangerous.  We’ve lost count of stories from other travellers of muggings, shootings, hold ups and robberies.  Just for an example, our host brother got robbed at gunpoint yesterday for his mobile phone outside our house.  It’s hard to explain why we continue to feel safe given constant stories we hear like this, but people are so genuinely friendly and we have never felt threatened.  It’s not naivety; we are aware of the risks and take care to avoid the obvious dangers, but it’s hard to mesh them with our other reality; the one which consists of smiles, families on the street and benign normality.  Maybe it’s the moustache that scared them off.      

 Guatemala is so interesting precisely because it is so wildly unpredictable: there always seems to be something crazy happening.  Volcanoes erupt when you’re sitting on the balcony of your hostel, streets flood knee deep when you’re walking down them, huge fireworks explode around you constantly sounding like gunfire and bombings, the ocean tries to kill you and everyone you talk to has a wild story about a mugging or a shooting that just happened.  Many of the long-term travellers and ex-pats we’ve meet seem to have incorporated some the unpredictability of Guatemala into them, (otherwise known as becoming dead set crazy).  From the guy that talks to rocks (seriously), to the guy tripping on mushrooms hiding in a tree, to the fanatical preachers screaming scripture at you on the bus. There’s always something going on.   

The crazies always make a good story and it was in Antigua having a beer at a motorbike café that we got talking to our first, Dan. In any other life Dan would have been raiding coastal villages with battle axe and propensity for extreme violence. Having been born a few centuries too late for this past time, he did motorbike tours around Guatemala. He was an absolutely top bloke, but is what you might call a little bit odd… After sitting next to him at the bar, we got to talking about motorbikes and a motorbike jacket he had for sale, all of sudden with a intense expression on his face he told Jack to get on the back of his bike; a little hesitantly I jumped on the back and he took off through the winding cobblestone streets of Antigua to God knows where, holding on for dear life as we hit speed bump after speed bump at speed without helmets.  It wasn’t until some near misses and unnecessary swerving that I realised how absolutely hammered he was.  A pretty good clue was probably when he took about 30 seconds to put his key in bike. Surreal would be an understatement of what happened next.  As we flew along, Dan suddenly slammed on the brakes and swerved into the side of a building.  We hit a low speed but he only turned around with a scarily intense look, and ran across the road to a Guatemalan woman with three young children. 

The youngest couldn’t have been more than 3 and looked a mix of bewildered and terrified as a man that might as well have been a Viking ran at him.  Dan scooped him up with both hands and held him dangling above his head, ran back into the middle of the road, and started doing overhead push-ups with him. I watched with morbid bewilderment as he got to about 15 before he started practicing WWF moves like pretending to break him on his knee or drop him on his head. He then ran to the other kid of about five and grabbed a half eaten biscuit out of his mouth and chewed it in front of him with his mouth open laughing manically. I didn’t know whether to laugh or call the police. Undeterred, he proceeded to do some more overhead push ups with the other kid, before shadow boxing the woman. To her credit, the woman gave a good account of herself and gave a few back.  It was at the point that Dan was telling them to stand still while he attempted to fly kick the wall above their heads that I thought I’d better step in. ‘Come on mate, time to go’.  He just gave me a strange look and did a few more overhead push-ups with one of the kids in the middle of the road. I managed to coax him back to the bike and we resumed the journey with me utterly confused and Dan still chewing on the kids biscuit.

I later found out that they were his semi-adopted Guatemalan family, but for anyone who didn’t know the back story, like myself, it was one of the most random and strange things I’ve ever seen anyone do. Guatemala seems to have been one long string of crazy experiences and very interesting people.

Even the plane into Guatemala City from Mexico City was intense; we weren’t sure which was more unnerving: looking out the window as we descended to see volcanoes towering above the height of our plane; or the prospect of landing in Guatemala City with a murder rate of 27 people per day. You know it’s bad when Lonely Planet describes Guatemala City as ‘big, dirty, dangerous and utterly forgettable’; needless to say we weren’t keen to stick around very long.  As we drove through the streets, we had our first experience of Guatemala City architecture – picture a cross between bombed out Bagdhad (on a bad day) and the chaotic building standards of a built up slum.  Every wall or roof is covered in razor wire and broken glass bottles set in concrete, the kind you see on the top of prison walls in Australia.  Every window, door or skylight is covered in iron bars and every shop with anything worth stealing is guarded by a guy with a pump action shot gun. After 40 years of civil war, Guatemalans aren’t taking any chances.  Last week, we even saw a man carting 6 large bottles of water being escorted by an armed guard down the street – couldn’t have been worth more than $12 and the guy would have blown you away for it.        

After getting out of Guatemala City, we spent our first week in Antigua – the ex-pat hub of Central America and one of the prettiest cities we’ve seen.  Set in between towering volcanoes, paved with cobblestone streets and littered with funky cafes and bars.  We’ve been back four times and have only just scratched the surface.  It’s the sort of place that keeps drawing people back; or the sort of place where people permanently wash up.  We’ve met many other long term travellers in Antigua and have found a gaggle of friends on the ex-pat scene and even been to a few raving house parties, giving us an interesting insight into life here. 

From one of the prettiest places, we went to one of the worst places we’ve ever travelled to: Monterrico.  Destination: shit hole.  Despite every Guatemalan person’s recommendation about a ‘beautiful coastal town’, there was nothing to like about Moterrico.  A million degrees during the day, 100% humidity, 100% mosquitoes (with 100% malaria), murderous ocean (see previous post) with molten lava black sand and rubbish strewn everywhere.  The place is literally a festering swamp of death.  Well…maybe figuratively, just don’t go there. Ever.  

 After our traumatic experience at Monterrico, we went to San Pedro la Laguna on Lake Atitlan.  Set in front of a vast, beautiful fresh water lake high in the mountains and surrounded by volcanos, we never wanted to leave San Pedro.  We spent over 2 weeks there enjoying the rich culture, swimming in the lake and generally relaxing. But wherever we go we apparently can’t get away from the crazies… It was on one of our leisurely walks through the town that a dishevelled looking white man draped in Guatemalan traditional highland dress, unshaven and looking like he hadn’t bathed in months approached us offering weed.  Diego was a washed up hippy toeing the line between travelling and abject poverty.  It’s often hard to tell just how crazy someone is on first impressions… and it’s always a shock when you find out way too far down the line. This was one of those occasions.             

As we talked to Diego, he came across as a down on his luck long-term traveller, sane enough and we got talking and eventually had a beer with him. It was on about the third beer Diego started talking some wild stories of abandoned Mayan ruins in the jungle on the other side of the lake, on the face of a towering volcano and extremely remote. It was like something out of a movie where you meet a guy in a bar and he has a treasure map to a lost city and adventure and hilarity ensues. How can you turn that down? Intrigued, and after a few more beers, us and a Canadian couple we befriended decided to take his ‘tour’ the following day.  This tour was like nothing you’ll ever find in a brochure, more like meeting a homeless guy who shows you a dead body. We walked to the dock at 7am, met up with Diego and the Canadians and took a boat 30 mins across the lake.  The boat was so overloaded with people and luggage that it took great skill not to fall overboard and hats off to the skipper for not sinking.  After half and hour we arrived to a lake side city, Diego promptly entered into an extended yelling match over the price.  First inklings of crazy.  We eventually paid the $2 and set about trying to hire a canoe to paddle further up the lake where the local boats don’t go and giant anacondas eat people. Jokes. After a lot of walking, a lot of talking and not much happening, we finally chartered a boat to take us up the lake to the base of the volcano where we would start our hike. 

We jumped off the boat as we landed, and with a few words the boat pushed back out and left us alone on the deserted shore with a promise to be back at 5pm. We got our stuff and started the hike through dense jungle up the side of the volcano. These Mayan ruins weren’t marked on any map and were unexcavated and so remote that it was only the Mayan farmers, and Diego, who knew about them.  The five of us trekked along a winding path and after a tough climb and a few wild avocados directly from the tree, we found them. Huge carved stone heads, ruined temples, hundreds of rock carvings and pieces of obsidian and broken pottery littered all over the ground. It was amazing as we explored and climbed the ruins, and even more so because nobody ever goes there but Mayan farmers. It was at one particularly large rock that Diego started talking to it…  (Yep, full crazy). Channelling the rock spirits and talking to the creator.  He could feel the energy from the rock and see its history.  We all looked around and knew what everyone else was thinking – how do we keep finding these people? To give him credit, it was a pretty cool rock... It had four carved stone heads around it and a sacrifice bowl in the middle with blood channels running down the side. 

As we wandered amongst the ruins, we surprised a Mayan farmer who had obviously never seen people come up this far.  Only speaking Mayan, he stopped his work and gave us a tour of his land. It was at the base of a large carved rock tower that he disappeared for a moment and returned with a human skull covered in dirt. The skull had a spear hole through it, undoubtedly the cause of death.  For all we know our guide killed the guy and was showing off his work…he was very enthusiastic. It’s pretty crazy holding a human skull in your hands and looking at the teeth that he used to eat for his entire life and the hole that killed him.  Our little Mayan guide eventually went back to his farming (or possibly killing someone else) and didn’t ask for anything in return.  To Diego’s credit the ruins were amazing, so I guess the moral of the story is if any slightly unbalanced person in a bar tells you about some fantastic place in the middle of the jungle, you should go with him…

As we left San Pedro on the bus, we head a rumour from some fellow travellers of a bus hijack a few days before on the same road we were travelling.  It was another reminder of the potential dangers of Guatemala and coincidentally at a house party in Antigua a few weeks later, we got the full unadulterated story when we met ‘Bad Luck Thomas’. 

‘Bad Luck Thomas’ was enjoying a quite beer at his hostel in the north of Guatemala when he and his drinking companions saw a bright light.  The bright light got steadily bigger and before long smoke was everywhere, a few moments after that the entire hostel was on fire. They could only stand by and watch as the hostel went up in a raging inferno.  It was lucky it was early evening because if it had happened at night, everyone would have died.  Luckily for Bad Luck Thomas, he came out of it relatively unscathed and thought it would be a great idea to go and relax in San Pedro.  The following is his account of what happened:

In the last half hour of a 3.5 hour bus ride to San Pedro, at around midday, Bad Luck Thomas was chatting to two Australian couples sitting either side of him.  Suddenly, four masked gunmen rolled a huge boulder onto the road up ahead, forcing the bus to stop.  As the bus slowed, the lead gunman shot the bus driver in the face.  The gunman then opened the doors and pulled a few people off the bus at gun point and demanded that everybody hand over their valuables and day bags.  Everybody handed over their day bags and wallets at gunpoint.  As they were rifling through them, an unsuspecting motorbike rider came down the mountain pass behind them, only to see the hold up in progress, slam on his brakes and quickly turn around. The gunman then shot at him as he swerved all over the road and bullets whizzed past his head.  This interruption made the robbers uneasy and they grabbed whatever they could and started to run, not before the last gunman turned and fired several shots into the side windows of the bus.  One Australian guy narrowly missed being hit in the head and later found bullets in his luggage above his head.  As it turned out, the bullet had missed the driver by about a centimetre and lodged into his headrest, but as the bullet impacted the windshield it sprayed glass into his face and into his cheek.  Despite his injuries, the bus driver drove them to the police station in San Pedro and himself to a hospital.  Bad Luck Thomas found himself with no passport, no money and no credit cards and the prospect of going back along the only road out of San Pedro. It was a pretty bad story but he said he was overwhelmed by people’s generosity in the following days as people helped him with everything from meals to accommodation.

This occurred while we were at San Pedro and was only a few days before we took the return journey along the same route.  However, the road was filled with police road blocks and security check points. For all the bad rap the Guatemalan police get, they seemed to be taking it seriously. The hold up made the local news in Guatemala although it wasn’t the first or the last story that has happened while we’ve been here.           

On a much happier note we’ve spent the last three weeks in Guatemala’s second largest city, Xela doing a Spanish language course. We live, eat and sleep with a Guatemalan family, three kids aged 8 -10 -18 and the parents. During the day we do five hours a day one on one teaching everyday at a school down the road. The experience has left our brains reeling and both of us passing out at five pm most days from exhaustion. It’s intense but really beneficial. Already we can string sentences together and get across basic things like ‘ I have 26 anuses’ and ‘can I have some tits’ , all the embarrassing mistakes that come with mispronouncing or misusing a word in a new language. For the record we were trying to say we are how old we are, and asking for some sausages at a shop. But we are actually getting much better and can now get across a surprisingly large amount of information and useful phrases. When we were in Indonesia a guy once told us some of the best advice we have ever heard. He told us to learn this phrase in every language you possibly can and everything will be alright…

‘It was like this when I got here’.

We’re yet to test it out but we will be sure to use it liberally.

From Xela we went back to Antigua and did something we have been consistently called crazy for. We bought a motorbike. It’s a ridiculously special and sadly rare occurrence when you can say a dream has become a reality.  It’s an indictment to our all too hectic modern society that despite our affluence and wealth most dreams go unfulfilled. What are we if can’t have a dream and live to do it.  Well we can firmly say that on this occasion, we did it. A Kawasaki KLR 250, a magnificent machine in its ability and relative mechanical simplicity. It’s huge by Guatemalan standards and tiny by Australian but it will do the job. 

When we bought it, it was in pretty rough condition but we found a mechanic and with a bit of work now have a bike that fingers crossed will get us the thousands of kilometres to South America. It’s pretty well suited to the job, 250 is 50cc bigger than the biggest Guatemalan bikes, it’s a dirt bike so it can take rough roads and big potholes, its got a ‘bullet proof’ motor by most standards,  its got enduro tires which are good for dirt and bitumen, Its simple mechanically which will come in handy when things break, and it has got two people who are ‘crazy’ enough to ride it thousands of kilometres though more than 14 countries and some of toughest geography, climate and roads in the world. Fuck. Yeah.

And all we had to do to get it was wade through a mountain of Guatemalan bureaucracy. Without some serious help and sometimes even with it this would have been impossible, luckily we met a local ex-pat called Chris who not only helped point us in the right direction but knew a Guatemalan guy selling the KLR. The bureaucracy is staggering and even if it wasn’t in Spanish it would have been massively confusing. I don’t want to bore you with too many details but if anyone was thinking about doing something similar then I’ll leave a brief list at the end.

It was tough we won’t lie, but what we did was turn a dream into a reality, and that’s truly priceless. We’ve been on a few big rides already without packs (we’ll cross that hurdle when we come to it) and it’s insanely awesome. Flying along twisting mountain passes surrounded by jungle and wispy clouds, leaning into corners hugging the road as you smell and taste the wind on your face.  Words don’t do it justice.

Live the dream.

  

Buy motorbike – ($200 limit on all ATMs in Guatemala, go figure out how you can pay for bike)

Get title, rego card and photocopy of licence of previous owner.

Pay emissions tax

Pay road tax

Pay 2012 rego - all at a random bank (Ban rural)

Buy a Nit form and fill it out in Spanish (kind of like a tax file number)

Line up at random counter to get a NIT from Sat office (you need a fixed address in Guatemala and some charming of the official at the desk or you’re fucked) If you don’t get a NIT your dream is over

Pay at random police station for parking or traffic offences on other side of town

Photocopy every single page of your passport. Every. Single. One.

Get and pay a lawyer to sign title and authenticate every piece of information, must already have everything above, 3hrs wait.

Go to Sat Office, line up to pay for each new form, then line up at separate desk to hand in each form

Fill in Shit-loads of paperwork about change of ownership

More paperwork in Spanish of every conceivable detail for every conceivable detail. 

Then go with you 1cm thick paperwork back to SAT office to random desk, if you missed one step or did it incorrectly start again, sit there as they go through every piece of information that you filled in in Spanish and look at you menacingly. Fine the shit out of you for a SINGLE TYPO.

You end up with this (photo)

Done, Simple right. LTD