Driving in Guatemala; aka 'Fear and Trembling'

As you may expect, driving in Guatemala is a little different than in the US.  I thought I had seen harrowing traffic when I lived in Beijing, but it’s nothing compared to Guatemala. 

The city streets are mostly narrow, seemingly one-way streets that go up and down mountain hills and curve around blind corners.  The city streets are mostly made from cobblestone.  When it rains, these streets quickly become rushing creeks – and you better have worn waterproof shoes, because there’s little chance you’ll escape a mad rush of water somewhere in your journey. There is a preponderance of pedestrians on the roads– especially gringos, who magically appear en masse in July to study Spanish.  Sidewalks, however, are not always present, paved, or passable (they are only wide enough to fit one person at a time, and when the curb elevation makes it possible cars are often parked up on the curb, probably because the roads are so narrow).   There aren’t street signs in Xela, but the street names sometimes painted on the side of the building your shoulder is rubbing up against as you use the sidewalk, and you can usually spot it by standing in the middle of the road.  So as a pedestrian, you find yourself alternating between a steep, slim sidewalk and a wet, uneven road – until a rapidly approaching motor or abrupt honk causes you to scatter back onto the sidewalk.   

Mayan men and women transporting goods

In addition to the pedestrians, at any given moment the streets also hold buses, microbuses (a kind of van with the people packed in like sardines and hanging out the sides); cars; pickups – often with a full bed of cargo and/or people; motorcycles, dirt-bikes and scooters carrying at least 3 family members at once (I’ve seen 5 on one cycle – 8 year old kid riding on the gas tank in front of Dad, and two younger kids smashed between he and Mom, who is the caboose); bicycles, street dogs, goats, toddlers, and Mayan women (and men) carrying their load on their heads.  In the smaller towns, there’s also a plethora of tuk-tuks creating havoc through the streets, which are like motorized tricycles with a covered carriage for 2-3 on the back.  They can fit into alleys and maneuver around pedestrians easily, but come careening around corners without much warning.  In towns like San Pedro La Laguna, where most of the ‘streets’ are paved walkways with 90-degree corners (that fit 4 pedestrians across, but are also used by motorcycles and tuk-tuks), these tuk-tuks are especially efficient and alarming at the same time.

 

'Picop' (pickup) full of riders

 The common way to drive in Guatelmala is to accelerate as much as possible until you reach the next intersection, where you are more likely to apply your horn than your brake.  There seem to be essentially no stop signs or yield signs.  A local newsletter counted 41 stoplights in Xela with some malfunction that is in need of repair (it went on to note that the total number of stoplights in Xela is 41).  

There aren’t really bus ‘stops’, but any bus, microbus or pickup is liable to stop at any moment to release or pick up passengers.  The drivers have ‘helpers’ that stand in the door or hang off the side of the vehicle yelling ‘there’s space!’ and looking for new riders (their idea of ‘space’ is a wholly different blog post entirely).  As you can imagine, motorcycles and scooters squeeze into whatever space will fit them, including zipping around slowed traffic or between speeding cars.  No one wears helmets here.  Rules for ‘passing’ actually may not exist – when I rode with my host sister Jessica on the back of her scooter the other day, as we slowed to turn right (and I think she used her signal), a truck barreled past us on the left and then turned right immediately in front of us, giving me a heart attack.

Dogs in the street

Worse yet, speed bumps seem to be the method of choice for controlling speed – which might explain why everyone uses the accelerator like they are in an arcade game - because in just 400 meters, they will have to slow down for the next speed bump.  Some of these ‘tumulos’, as they are called in Spanish, are in fact a problem for something like a scooter, because instead of one continuous hump of concrete, they is a jagged line of smaller, metal humps, which requires a two-wheeled vehicle to come to an almost complete stop to cross without losing balance.  (Yes, it’s freaky from the back of a scooter).  Street dogs are also constantly strolling through the road in front of oncoming traffic, minor roads and highways alike.  Some cars slow for them, some honk, and some consider it a game to see how long it will take the dog to move.  The evidence of this can sometimes be spotted on roadsides like deer.   

Camionete parked at left

The common mode of public transportation in Guatemala is the Camionete, which is ‘chicken bus’ in English.  (Last Friday I actually saw a chicken, enveloped in a Mayan cloth and sitting in a basket, on top of the Camionete that passed below my window at school).  These are retired US school buses – the yellow kind that my generation rode in elementary school.  Whereas in my school, there was a max capacity of something like 57 persons (I remember it because it was always posted in the front of the bus), in Guate the seats that used to hold no more than 2 children often hold 3 adults, perhaps with children on their laps or strapped to their back.  In fact, I noticed today, rather than walk to the back of the bus some people seem to prefer sitting as a third with their butt half-off the seat – as long as the seat across also has 3 people and they can balance each other out in the aisle with their shoulders.  But it’s pretty humorous to watch additional passengers push through this human barrier in the aisle.  There doesn’t seem to be any common idea about moving to the back first.

Well, perhaps that’s because the tumulos have taught riders what we all learned in elementary school – that the back of the bus has more bounce after the second wheel.  More on those tumulos – perhaps you thought they were only near intersections or schools or alleys, like they are in Chicago?  Guess again.  Major highways (those rare roads that are not made out of cobblestone) are also covered with tumulos every few kilometers, forcing speeding, cramped and swaying buses and microbuses to come to a near stop constantly on any long journey. For a country that has chosen school buses for their major mode of transportation, I don’t think there could be a more painful way to control traffic.  

Finally, all of this pales in comparison to traveling via Chicken Bus into the mountains.  I’m not a mechanical type of person, but I can’t imagine the type of engine required for this feat.  Drivers doing the aforementioned acceleration technique (which I would call ‘careening’), carrying 50-some adults and cargo, while climbing thousands of meters on a road that snakes around a mountainside like those in San Francisco must be hell on an engine.  It’s certainly hell on my peace of mind!  Having just visited Golf and Games before I left Illinois, I have to say it bears a striking similarity to a go-cart race with buses, sometimes even in competition.  When passing through mountain towns on the way to San Pedro La Laguna, rather than slow, the driver felt it adequate to lay on the horn all the way through the town like our train whistles in rural areas, even though these buses were passing mere feet in front of residential homes!  And let’s not forget the brakes; even though they don’t like to use them, when heading down a 45 degree incline with a bus full of people in a tropical rainstorm on a street that has maybe 1 ½ feet to spare on either side of the bus…you better be sure the brakes are well padded.  On our mountain descent Friday, one curve was so severe that our bus had to do a 5-point turn to get through it.  (This is also a function of the ‘helper’ – to guide.  And to climb up on the roof while the bus is moving to retrieve baggage).

But the best part is when the bus is hurtling around one of the mountain curves, with a wall of earth on the right and nothing but sky on your left, at breakneck speed, only to round the curve and find all traffic stopped in front of you because a mudslide has occupied half of the road after the last rainfall.  Rather than slow, bus drivers move to the left lane, and when that’s occupied, into the lane for oncoming traffic until all available space has been filled like Tetris, regardless of the fact that it is impossible to see what was causing the backup.  On our return to Xela this afternoon, this resulted in a single line of oncoming traffic being forced to use the shoulder, passing us so close that if I had opened the bus window I could have dirtied the side mirrors of all the drivers.

Needless to say, every time I travel in Guatemala I learn fear and gratitude, again.

Bienvenidos a Xela, Guatemala

So I've been studying Spanish in Quetzaltenango (Xela for short) for over 2 weeks, and I don't want to spend too much time writing because that's time I should be spending studying.  But I can't resist posting a little bit...

Xela is in the Western Highlands of Guatemala.  The altitude here is 2,335 meters above sea level at the town level. I only had mild altitude affect - one day of extreme fatigue and hunger at the same time - but some people have it much more seriously.

Volcano Santa Maria is just south of town.  She feels like my constant companion - the first thing I see when I leave the house in the morning, in view throughout all my classes, visible from everywhere.  

My school, Pop Wuj (pronounced Pope Woo, so named for an ancient, sacred book of the Mayans - Popol Wuj) is a co-operatively owned project that partners with many community efforts.  My teacher (mi maestro) for the last three weeks has been Benedicto (to the right), who is pretty awesome.  We have class every morning from 8 am to 1 pm.  On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday there are volunteer options for students to do in addition or in lieu of class, depending on if you are a morning or afternoon student.  Here, he came with me on the reforestation effort on Thursday morning.  (His shirt says "Solidarity is our Language".)

We were planting 'arbolitas' (little trees) on this woman, Victoria's, private land.  Xela is strongly populated with Mayans, and Victoria is in typical Mayan dress.  Another of our school projects is a Family Support Center, which operates as an after/before school tutoring center and resource for women raising children.  Note the kids in the background - they were on their week-long break during this Thursday morning.

 We planted trees with 10 kids, 3 adults, one hoe and one machete.  First time I've ever used a machete!

On Friday, we took a field trip to the nearby town of Zunil, that is 100% Mayan.  It is a little pueblo in the middle of the mountains.  The major industry is farming, and you can tell.  On the bus into town, the smell of cilantro wafts in the windows, and standing on a balcony above town carries the unmistakable smell of onion. Note on the right, not only do people carry loads on their heads, but many of the workers in Zunil transport multiple sacks of vegetables by strapping cloth over their forehead, under the sacks (see the guy in the very edge of the photo), and running.  It's shocking. All these things end up in the market, and big trucks pull out regularly.   

Weekend trip to Volcan Chiqubal

It looks like a lake at the end of the world, especially given the fog.  In fact, the Mayans may think so - it's a cold lake at the top of a volcano that is fed by natural spring, and sacred for the Mayan people.  Swimming is not allowed in this lake, but offerings of flowers are given. Legend has it that years ago, 3 tourists (from a group of 4) decided to disregard the ban on swimming, and three of them were pulled under by the serious undertow.  The fire department only ever found two of the bodies because the lake is 600 meters deep. 

Do I look tired?  With the altitude, there were times I wondered if I'd make it to the top. After spending about 1 1/2 hours on a, at times, very steep ascent, we descended crazy treacherous jungle stairs to the lake below.

Which was beautiful with mysterious, rolling fog.  When we first arrived, it was clear, then it became completely obtuse.  At right, note the flower offerings of the previous Mayan ceremonies.

Even though the setting was full of beauty, it was muy dificil (very very difficult).  And, suprisingly, the descent is not much easier with the slippery dirt road after a little drizzle, and the steep, steep desent.  Here is Daniella and I making our 'gremlin faces' (the face my sister Kassi makes when she encounters a Gremlin, which scares the daylights out of her) when we realize that we are only 1/2 the way down.