December 17, 2009

Maarten, far right.

In Leon, I stumbled upon a good friend Maarten, a dj from Amsterdam, who I met at Lago de Atitlan through his cousin and stayed with in Antigua for a week.

Though I have no money, Maarten needs to get back to Antigua which would normally cost $60 from Leon. Intrigued by the idea of hitchhiking back, and that it would save him cash, he agrees to pay for my border crossing fees and food for the day.

Though still early, we are leaving “late”, trying to convince our friend Kim (whom we met in Antigua as well) to join us. She stayed, we stepped out, with slight trepidation, which for me had more to do with our estimated time of arrival than with the rides we would get during the day. With 4 countries (Nicaragua,Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala) to cross, 420 miles from Leon to Escuintla, Guatemala, we must arrive in Esquintla before nightfall when it becomes quite dangerous.

We walk past the colorful churches, shophands washing sidewalks, the smell of sweet pan dulce and the sounds of tropical birds filling the early morning air to our hitchhike post. Maarten has never hitchhiked before, and no less in Latin America, where two gringos hitchhiking does not go unnoticed.

6:30 AM.  We catch a ride within 5 minutes in the back of a pickup truck that brings us all the way through northern Nicaragua, Honduras, to the border with El Salvador, a warm wind in our face, past volcanoes, sugar cane fields, and the sea.

At the border into El Salvador, a driver for a bus, seeing us hitchhike, waves us to come on board. We tell him we are hitchhiking and have no money for the bus, but he waves us in more hurriedly. “Vamos!” A slow moving cargo truck, two wealthy El Salvadorians in an air conditioned car give me $40 (El Salvador uses USD) and 4 hour ride to the north end of San Salvador.

Another ride in the back of a pickup. He speaks English, and his son, who does not, is an American citizen. Dropped off, we switch roads to head back toward the coast. A very large and very friendly man in a pick up truck loaded down with steel pipes and junk in the front, graciously lends and hand and gives a ride. He is jovial, but with no room in the front, I am in pain. Winter, it is approaching 5 PM. The light is golden, but for me means danger.

Another short ride, back of the pick up, with others, day laborers, doing the same. We get of to take the coastal route north. The sun sets big and orange over cane rustling in the wind.

Another short ride with a family in a p/u to the border, they take us a “back” way, a shortcut with which we were obviously not familiar. It is a family, but it still makes you flinch.

We arrive at the border at dusk.

A woman and her daughters give  us a ride from the border, distributing wedding invitations to family on her way back to Guatemala City.

She has stopped in her home village while the clock ticks. We have a ride now, we are not sure for how long, and it will become increasingly difficult to get rides at night. Most traffic virtually stops at night in Guatemala due to poorly lit roads, animals, cows, and ambushed hijackings.

Maarten and I eat and wait, eat and wait, we don’t want to be rude as she is talking with family about a wedding, but we have to arrive soon in Esquintla if Maarten is to make it to Antigua and I am to make it to Tapachula, Mexico. We leave our bags in her car, thinking it safe, while she drove off down the road “just for a second”.

Waiting–just for a second–we have a fantastic time talking and laughing with the local villagers, playing football (soccer) with the kids, a candle-lit religious procession makes its way down the street towards us, passing us, carrying a medium sized felt draped and flowered statue of the virgin overhead, polls on their shoulders.

Our friend returns and we ride in the back of her truck under a warm starry night, flying down the road making excellent time. Bumps don’t do my rump well. We still aren’t sure where she is letting us off, thinking she is taking another road, but it is taking too long. In between our anxieties,  Maarten and I have a fantastic time,  great conversations  about God, philosophy, heaven, the possibility of reincarnation, what is in vogue to think and what we actually believe, and whatever else comes to mind. Although he is from a good family in Holland (his grandfather was a prime minister), Marteen is one the least pretentious people I have met.  Lava oozes out of volcano silhouetted by the lights of Guatemala city, barely visible in the distance. We are getting close(r), still not sure where she is taking us.

Finally, we have arrived in Esquintla. It is already late. 10 PM. We make our way to the fork in the road where we will say our goodbyes. Asking for directions, a man offers to walk us and show us the way. We tell him a little about our stories and he tells us his, asking me (that means you) to pray for his daughter who had recently committed suicide.

Here now at the fork, I look at Maarten. Cold, he has put on a v-neck sweater, which, coupled with his blond hair, definitely has him looking like a mark. We hug and part ways down two dark streets. His a 30 minute ride to Antigua, mine a 6 hour ride to Mexico…

Today return to the place where a guy my age, 32, Ronaldo, asked for too many gifts, ending in a slight altercation that had me loose my passport and end up face-planted in the dirt.

After breakfast, I find the bus terminal near the market to make my return. I decide the bus is too expensive and that I will easy find a ride if I hitchhike, so I start to make my way out of the city, only a bus picks me up instead. They refuse to let me pay, and ask me only where I am going.

On the bus, I reflect, not so much on the passport, or on what happened with Ronaldo that night, but more on what I said to the woman and her family and how I might now make amends.

In transit, I carefully hide anything of value, my camera in particular, counting of the bills I will need to pay the finders fee for my passport, hoping, praying, this will work.

It seems odd for me to ride in a vehicle, even knowing that I will return to the place where I stopped walking to continue on foot again. The times when I do take rides, buses even more so, are few and far between.

This bus, like most here in Central America, is a school bus from the United States. US school districts have a policy of selling off well-maintained  buses when they reach 200,000 miles, no matter what their condition. Many entrepreneurs from Central American buy these bargains at auctions, turning them into public transportation in their respective countries.

Arriving at my stop, I thank the driver and his assistant, and cross the highway from the billiard hall where it all began.

I think about going straight to the house where the theft occurred, but instead decide to apologize first to the family that I had cursed for not letting me stay in the safety of their yard.

There is a small group of men on her property building a concrete block home, raising beams for the roof. I speak to the men first explaining the situation and why I am here.

They ask if I am the person whose passport was stolen. They say they have heard about the incident, and want to help me. I thank them and tell them that first I must apologize to the family that lives here and why. They understand saying the señora is in the back yard and that it is fine that I go around to make amends.

After a very awkward introduction, I remind the family who I am and tell them why I have returned. I apologize for the things that I said. The mother of the house, plump, wrinkled, in her late 50s, apologized as well and said she felt bad for sending me out that night, especially after she heard what had happened to me. I tell her that it wasn’t her, it was me, that I had arrived too late, and that it wasn’t proper for me to ask for such a favor at such a hour in the evening.

Her face immediately lightens as she gives me a warm, slightly sweaty, hug. The man working on the house in the front comes to the back to see what he can do to help. He tells me that Ronaldo had been arrested over the incident, and that he had talked to Ronaldo, who told him that he had my documents. He heads over to Ron’s house to retrieve the passport and I start to thank God again for miracles in my life, perhaps a bit too soon.

He returns quickly saying Ronaldo isn´t there and that the parents do not know anything about it. He offers to go to the police station after 3PM, when he is finished working on the house to see if they know more.

In the meantime, I get to know the family well. They are very Catholic, and like others here, very poor. The matriarch, Rosa, has a son in Houston, Texas. She shakes her head when she talks about the economic conditions of her country and the poverty of the soil.

I get to know her daughters, 4 and 8, who take to me well. The four year old girl is very funny in particular with a spirit larger than life. She is missing a front tooth and loves to smile.

We play second-hand Barbie games on a pink mock laptop computer in English. Counting games, spelling games, all for words they don’t yet know.

3PM comes around. The man leaves to the town to see if my passport has been retrieved by the police. He returns, saying it has not.

He says that he will go to Ronaldo’s  house at 7PM to see if he still has the passport. 7PM. Ronaldo is still not there. I begin to loose faith, but pray that all will work well, trusting in the mystery of it all…glad at least that I had the chance to repair my word, and to connect with the family I had written off.

It is getting late. The 8 year old daughter brings me a plate of food and a glass of Pepsi. Though difficult for me to convey here, limited for time on a computer in an internet cafe, this is one of the most warm families I have yet to encounter.

The woman who first directed me to this home (see part 1)walks in through the front door, it is her cousin. Then the man on the bike, the man I thought was also a thief, walks in with a big bag of candy for the kids, also a family friend.

They talk about the situation and what we might do to recover my passport. I tell them that I will gladly offer a finder´s fee, and that tomorrow I will go to stay with a friend in the capital, Tegucigalpa, to wait for their call.

They ask me to stay here for the night, in the hammock that they DO have, and leave in the morning at 5 to catch the bus to Tegucigalpa.

A side note: Hammocks are like heaven. I love the way they wrap around my body, hugging my sore legs, letting my legs flop to the side.

Continued …

While after some initial hemhawing and what seems to have been a complete policy about face, the United Statues has agreed to officially recognize the results provided there was a significant turnout, polling was regular, and there was no significant violence, all conditions which seem to have been met.

Ousted President Manuel Zelaya

Argentina and Brazil, notebly, are refusing (for now) to recognize the results saying that the election will serve nothing more than to legitimize an illegal coup, setting dangerous precident.

Route (Note: if the route doesn´t apprear, please click on the map to see the route from Bing.com)