(Xela, Guatemala)

I arrived in Quetazltenango (also known as Xela) on Christmas Day. All was quiet on Christmas Day and the bustling bus terminal I arrived in nearly a week ago was silent save for the odd rat or tourist. It took a while to find a place as most hostels sent their staff home for the holiday. The streets were still and after settling in, I grabbed my camera bag and headed out to explore the city.

(Xela, Guatemala)

I turned a corner and headed down a narrow sidewalk on an empty street. At one point, I was squeezed between the wall and a parked car. Two Guatemalan males came from behind. One of them grabbed my hand and the other shouted something in Spanish. For some weird reason, my first thought when I was grabbed was: “someone is trying to molest me.” As a reflex action, I pulled the guy grabbing me over the front hood of the car as I tried to comprehend the situation. The guy lost his grip and I made my way to the main street, where I engaged in a staring match with my muggers.

(Xela, Guatemala)

Nothing was lost, but I wondered if the second mugger might have been saying “I have a knife.” The incident shocked me, and I spent the next 32 hours in town paranoid. At night, I ran into my two muggers again. However, I had spotted them early and they seemed disappointed. As I made my way back to the hostel, the dark and unfamiliar streets seemed hostile and angry. I eventually stumbled upon a nice Seattle girl who spoke Spanish and helped me find my way back.

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

I spent Christmas Eve in this quaint little cobble-stone town. In the evening, I talked to a girl who was helping out at a milkshake shop here. I asked, “what do you do for Christmas here?” “Shopping, hugs and fireworks,” she replied. That does not sound too different from Singapore.

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

At night, the owner of the hostel fed me Tomales, a rice dish wrapped in banana leaves that is the staple Christmas gift. I celebrated the night with firecrackers with the hostel owner’s four children. We bought a ton of fireworks and were throwing it up and down the street outside of the hostel. The male kids in particular love the “boomba” which makes a bang on exploding. The girls loved the “mariposa” which is a butterfly shaped firecracker that lights up, makes a screaming sound and spins wildly in the air. We got into a firecracker fight with some kids down the streets so I ended up running back to buy more firecrackers to “shock and awe” our competitors into defeat.

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

Midnight was a magical moment. From the rooftop, the dimly lit street came alive as uncoordinated lights streaked across the sky in all directions. Smoke filled the streets giving it a mystical glow and the silence of the night was shattered by the screams of the “mariposas” and the bangs of the “boombas.”

(Chi Chi, Guatemala) Me and the amigos (and amicas)

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

Chi Chi is an old town with cobble-stone streets, crumbling houses and a multi-colored cemetery. In short, it’s the kind of place that charms me. Chi Chi is also know for muggings and markets. There is crime (which I never encountered) and a sprawling market that attracts way too many tourists. The hostel I stayed at overlooks the cemetery and had a nice rooftop patio from which to do so.

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

Aside from visiting the cemetery, I visited the shrine of Paschua Abaj, a Mayan deity that is represented by carved stone pieces that sit atop a hilltop. It was a good 20 minute trek to get there. On the way down, I took a wrong turn and ended up walking through the woods into someone’s corn (?) field. The farmer who saw me emerge from his field was stunned for a second before laughing uproariously.

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

(Chi Chi, Guatemala)

(Lake Attilan, Guatemala)

I chose to stay in San Marcos, one of the towns that sit beside Lake Attilan, a highland lake on an extinct volcano. I knew that there was something strange with the town when I noticed that every other person on the island wore a thick bushy beard. The town was full of hippie types as the main attraction here were the Reiki and Yoga facilities.

(Lake Attilan, Guatemala)

The town briefly reminded me of Pyongyang at night and that I will be headed there soon enough. At night, the town plunged into darkness and sounds from a loudspeaker blared into the eerie silence. The loudspeaker sounded distant and the words it was meant to say echoed, so distorted it seemed almost a natural part of the background.

(Lake Attilan, Guatemala)

The next morning I hiked with a friendly lady from Devon to the next town. The road used to have problems with bandits, but it appears that these days, its not too much of a problem. It probably also helped that we only took with us bananas and apples for our hike.

(Xela, Guatemala)

In trying to get from the border to the city of Xela in Guatemala, I ended up staying at Hue Hue, a town with pretty much nothing to do except for one Reggaeton disco (more on this later). I got on the Chicken Bus not knowing where it was headed except that someone told me to do so to get to Xela.

(Xela, Guatemala)

It was late and I could not make the connection to Xela, so the bus stopped at Hue Hue instead. I got out disoriented and unsure of what town I was in. Thankfully, I met a taxi driver who spoke English. “You are in Hue Hue,” he said. The driver used to work in Ohio State and I spent the night in this nondescript town.

Another time, I was heading to Antigua but ended up at Lake Attilan instead. I decided to stop halfway in my journey rather than making the final transfer as I changed my mind in the middle of the journey. Thankfully, the short-haul nature of most Chicken Bus trips made this possible.

(Xela, Guatemala)

What I like most about the Chicken Bus is the the constant flow of hawkers in and out of it trying to sell jaded passengers sweets, oranges, bananas, drinks, ice cream, pastries and even goodwill (i.e. begging). I am also glad to have an Ipod Touch (I finally succumbed to Apple) with me as I could share music and photos with random strangers who had the good luck or ill fate of sitting next to me.

(La Mesilla, Guatemala)

Lonely Planet lists a cautionary note on Chicken Buses: it says that some travelers avoid the Chicken Buses and swear by the shuttles. Taking the Chicken Bus in Guatemala can definitely be an adventure. These buses are old school buses from the US painted in an exciting multi-colored hue. They do not seem to operate on a schedule and they haul travelers from one village to another without heed of safety nor want of comfort.

(La Mesilla, Guatemala)

My first trip began at La Mesilla. I simply walk to the makeshift station and mention my final destination. A person at the station points me to the bus and indicates that I will have to make a transfer someplace else. There is no schedule and the bus leaves when it becomes full. The system is rather efficient and fair: the people you ask seem to work on the principle of filling up one bus at a time rather than directing you towards buses they are affiliated with. Most of the time, I had no idea where I was going. All I knew was that I would get off, say the name of my final destination again, and someone would point me towards the right bus.

(La Mesilla, Guatemala)
Neither comfort nor safety is a concern of the buses. Each bus has an assistant. Heavy packages are tied to the top of the bus and as the bus reaches a stop, the assistant climbs out the back, while the bus barrels up and down the highlands of Guatemala at full speed, grabs a package and throws it to the person getting off when the bus reaches a stop. Once, they forgot my backpack and I chased the bus down a street while a frantic assistant tries to throw my backpack towards me.

(La Mesilla, Guatemala)

I have a love affair with border towns. They have a frontier air that is at once exciting and threatening. It beckons to you with the allure of adventure that lies on the exotic “other side.” La Mesilla is one such town that lies on the Guatemalan side of the Mexico-Guatemala border. This town is entirely contiguous with its Mexican cousin Ciudad Cuauhtemoc; one simply steps over a line in one town and appear in another country that is pretty much in the same town.

(La Mesilla, Guatemala)

La Mesilla seemed like a quintessential border town. It is a long strip of road with shops selling trading items – I suspect that this town takes advantage of price differentials between Mexico and Guatemala. Money changers prowl the street with a thick wad of notes. Some sidle up to me, whispering the name of the national currency “quetzal! Quetzal!”

(La Mesilla, Guatemala)

I find that exchange rates at border towns tend to be the best. I am not sure what explains this phenomenon but I would guess that the massive flow of money changing hands in this area encourages competition and allows traders to earn a quantity premium.

(Sumidero, Mexico)

We floated down Sumidero Canyon near San Cristobal in Mexico and disappointed at the half-submerged crocodiles we saw, we decided to head to the zoo in Tuxtla, the region´s capital. I have not been to a zoo for a while but the jungle-like environment of this zoo made it worth the trip. Howler monkeys, whose screams sound like those of an angry puma, would swing from overhead and howl to announce their presence. I later found out that they also like to announce their presence by shitting on the heads of visitors below.

(Tutxla, Mexico)

I have to credit crocodiles for being amazingly patient, or amazingly lazy, as they would sit motionless for 10 minutes or so with their jaws gaping, leaving us wondering if we were staring at a replica or a real croc.

(San Cristobal, Mexico)

An exhibit of the yellow head parrot reminded me of Shawn, an animal smuggler I met back when I was in the army. The sign by the cage said that the yellow head parrot would often have its head painted white by smugglers in order to pass it off as its smarter cousin. Shawn used to smuggle parrots, along with bears and other exotic animals. He told me of how birds were stuffed into a plastic (PVC) tube and dropped into the ocean if a coast guard patrol happened upon the vessel. He mentioned how he used to call the local zoo to determine how many bears were donated, and tell from this what the market was like for bears. Eventually, he dropped animal smuggling as he loved animals and felt the trade was cruel. The last I heard, he was helping people “trade-in” their “lost” passports for cash. Time flies, its been five years.

(San Cristobal, Mexico)

This trip has brought me closer to understanding why I steer away from tours or depending too much on Lonely Planet (LP). As a disclaimer, I actually use Lonely Planet to take me from point to point. However, this dependence makes me aware of its faults and I encourage myself to temper this dependence with serendipity.

(San Cristobal, Mexico)

The problem with tours and LP dependence is that they limit opportunities for serendipity. When we stick too closely to a LP-defined route or embark on a tour, we lose opportunities for interacting with our environment. If I had all information delivered to me pre-fabricated, I would never have asked the Mexican youth I met to explain the significance of the San Juan Chamula church, or crash a wedding at Zinacantian. I would never have stumbled onto some of the places I have been, or find the need to interact with the locals to obtain information on what I should do. I would never have wandered down the side of Paekdusan to spend hours lying by the Heaven’s Lake on this mountain in China.

Using tours or LP is tapping into a heuristic that trades off local interaction with readily-available and pre-approved experiences. There is nothing wrong with depend on using this heuristic, but we have to be aware of the danger of making travel an atomistic affair divorced from local interaction.

(Zinacantian, Mexico)

At Zinacantan, another village near San Juan Chamula, villagers wear a pretty purple and blue costume. There was a wedding going on and we hung around to watch the event. A lady beckoned to us and said “baila” and we promptly dived in and joined the bride and groom in dance, where I was well-embarassed - why can´t they play dancehall or reggaeton instead?

(Zinacantian, Mexico)

(Zinacantian, Mexico)