all aboard the chicken bus

all aboard the chicken bus:
tales from the open road...

My first venture aboard the infamous chicken bus is with Andulina, the mother of my home-stay family.  She insists on accompanying me on my first trip into the city so I will not get lost – no estoy perdida.

“Vamonos,” declares Andulina.  She gathers her keys and ushers me out the door.  We walk up the dirt road from her house to the main road that intersects Ciudad Vieja, the old city.  I juggle the items in my hands, wondering if I will regret having so much to carry later in the day.  We crest the top of the hill and cross to wait on the other side. I look down the road for a sign of the bus only to find Volcan Agua looming over the horizon.  I clutch the black plastic bag in which Andulina packed a lunch of green beans, potatoes, half an ear of corn, and a simple mixed salad, tidily arranged into two Tupperwares, aside silverware wrapped in a napkin and salt packets.  This is the first time in my life someone has packed my lunch for me.  And I am the first vegetariana Andulina has ever had to feed.

“Es panadería,” Andulina points to the bakery on the corner, with its open doorway and blue and white tiled floor.  From her gestures, I realize she is instructing me to imprint its image in my mind so I know where to get off the bus when I return on my own.  If I miss the stop, she warns, I’ll end up in Duenas, several miles past here.  She again asks what time I will return home, as if she is my actual mother, so as not to worry.

A bus approaches, its driver blasting the horn.  A man jumps off the bus to shout, “Antigua! Antigua!” attempting to persuade passersby to come along for the ride.  I climb in and take the seat next to Andulina directly behind the driver.  Music blares from a floor speaker, shaking the entirety of the bus, a strange sensation this early in the morning.  We jolt forward and the driver shoots through the narrow streets at chilling speeds.  On every corner, I can’t help but fall into Andu, who simply smiles nervously and shrugs her shoulders as if to tell me she has no idea what we’re in for.  We both hold tight to the bar in front of us and try to contain our laughter.  We have just boarded the party bus and the cost is a mere two quetzals – or twenty-five cents.

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I sit wondering where the name “chicken bus” originated.  This is the name even the locals give to these brightly painted, often amazingly polished down to the shine of their chrome bumpers, buses that in all reality are little more than a glorified version of the Blue Bird school bus.  I never glanced a live chicken on any of the busses I traveled in Guatemala.  I prefer to think that the name is due to the fact that these buses never adhere to a maximum number of passengers.  Just when you think not a single person could possibly squeeze in, six more climb aboard at the next stop.  Three crunch into each seat that is designed for two, a child on someone’s lap and another slung onto a back.  The aisle, barely wide enough for one person to maneuver, becomes two and three people thick.  The co-pilot pushes his way through the bodies smashed together in order to collect everyone’s fair. Soon, someone is hanging onto the back of the bus or climbs aboard the top.  There simply is no such thing as too close on a bus in Guatemala.  Good thing I’m not shy.  

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I awake to darkness and walk with my backpack to my bus stop in the faint hints of twilight, stars peeking out from the thick cloud cover, roosters crowing repeatedly.  Today I leave for Lago de Atitlan, which required getting up at five o’clock in hopes of catching the only direct bus to Panajachal.  My host family was excited to explain this possibility to me, ensuring that we’ll be traveling in style – on a Pullman – and we’ll reach Pana in about half the time it would take on the regular busses.  I agreed to meet my friend Patty, a fellow teacher who chose Guatemala as our destination, at the bus stop in the city.  I am nervous about making it to the city on time, but my family assured me that the busses run this early. I breathe in the damp air and am eager for the next phase of my journey.  Even the familiarity of the chicken bus has a new appeal as it approaches, just as they said it would, with its lights alit, flashing as it comes to a stop.

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This morning we woke early, packed up our things, and caught a seven o’clock chicken bus for Chichicastenango.  We decided to press on rather than return to Pana for another night.  In Los Encuentros, we need to change buses.  We are dropped off at an interchange flanked with snack and beverage stalls.  We look around for some sign of where to go next.  

“Salis Panajachal?”  inquires a man who makes it his business to know our whereabouts.  Rather than the expected chicken bus, we are scurried onto a microbus – a small minivan that comfortably seats 11 – 12 passengers.

“Do you want to take it or wait for a bus?” I ask Patty.

“We might as well take it.  I read about microbuses in my travel guide.  They’re a little more expensive, but it’s here and we don’t have to wait.  It should be fine.”

Patty and I squeeze into the back row with two men – a Belgian and a Guatemalan.  Two other women relinquish their backpacks to the driver, who is trying to secure the back door of the van by repeatedly slamming it against our bags.  They have no idea that the van is already full.  I envision us driving off with these women’s backpacks as they watch helplessly from the road.  Yet somehow, as if by magic, the girls are pushed in, along with a couple more passengers.  The final count: 19, including the driver and co-pilot.  Simultaneously humorous and frightening.  Of course, being Guatemala, the objective is to see how many people can be crammed into this small space. No one speaks.  I try to read to keep my mind off of the situation as we speed along the road with no sense of the laws and regulations back home.  And then, about halfway into our journey, we stop and pickup number twenty from the side of the road.

When we finally arrive in Chichi, the side door opens and one by one, we spill out into the street, though apparently not fast enough for our Belgian friend, who launches himself over the seat and out the back door in an awkward headfirst dive, without regard for the driver or the backpacks in his way.  

“I guess he didn’t like it too much either,” I laugh.  We pick up our bags and head into town.

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Meandering the market at Chichi is like navigating through a vast maze of colorful fabrics and plump, ripe fruits and vegetables.  The set-up is different than I expected.  I envisioned an open-air market along an expansive plaza, consisting of women with their wares spread out on blankets before them – much like the indigenous market in Antigua, only on a grander scale.  Instead, quasi-stalls are set up along the street as an extension of the storefronts, protruding out into the street, leaving a tarp-walled corridor along the sidewalks and creating narrow passageways.  Meandering these pathways amounts to a slow yet steady inching forward, never fast enough for the merchants, who press their hands into my back, as if doing so will part the seas.  Instead, they only succeed in pushing me into other people who are working just as hard as me.  Still, the merchants somehow manage to move through us, finding secret passageways around the market-goers.

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Once again, I am on the move.  This time we plan to head south from Nebaj to catch the overnight bus to Tikal.  When we arrive at the crossroads of the Interamericana, I once again need to change buses.  Several men shouting questions and gesturing in all directions engulf me.  Each wants to shuffle me onto the next bus or shuttle, and the faster they can make this happen, the better.  My concern, however, is securing my backpack – which hopefully still sits on top of the bus – before it rambles off down the road.  I push my way to the back of the bus, my arms uplifted as I watch for my backpack to appear dangling over the side.  The driver’s sidekick is already up top, rummaging through the parcels and packages to find my bag.  His memory, like that of all the bus directors, impresses me to no end.  Of course, I’m usually one of no more than five gringos on a bus at any given time, so remembering whether or not I have paid or which bag belongs to me is probably not that big of a deal.  Still, none of them ever got it wrong.  I retrieve my bag and barely get it slung over my shoulder before the men are once again closing in.  I take a deep breath and spit out the lines I have practiced for the last five miles.  

“Donde hay el autobus para Antigua?”  I am whisked over to a bus idling on a side street, my bag taken in a swift maneuver and launched once again to the top rack as I board.  All of this goes down in less than four minutes.  It definitely helps to know where I’m headed and what I’ll need ahead of time, so that I don’t get swept away in the whirlwind.

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We arrive at Templo IV in the dark, and I am the first to ascend the wooden stair-ladders – 156 slippery steps to reach the top.  Another group or two is already assembled on the roof crown.  I scramble up to a side shelf and check my watch – 5:34 a.m.  Flashlight beams streak through the dark shadows below.  Within minutes, the howling begins.  My skin prickles and I smile.  The roar they emit sounds more fitting of a lion than a monkey.  Despite their size, howlers hold the title for the loudest land animal.  For all I know, they could be up to three miles away.  Soon, the monkeys cease their calls.

The air is moist and thick with humidity.  The canopy before me shifts in the darkness, sections of trees fading in and out of view as their silhouettes take shape and then suddenly disappear.  My attention shifts to a previously unnoticed sound, a churruping pattern that I assign to tree frogs.  Bird song emanates from various sections of the canopy, gentler than at other times of day.  We each welcome the new dawn, as the world begins to stretch and shift and breathe.

From the north, another group of howlers makes its presence known.  This chorus is more determined than the former.  Dawn has progressed somewhat.  The sky has lightened yet remains a smoky haze of grayish-blue.  The trees become sharper.  The other temples are invisible, cloaked by the dense fog.  At times, the fog rolls by in pulsating waves, being pushed out and thinned by the wind.  Wisps of white mist, nearly transparent in the growing light, waft by.  The light continues to grow as the howlers busy themselves with their ritual.

What is it they communicate to one another?  While this is a daily practice to stake claims on feeding ground, I wonder if deeper messages exist.  Is this a show of strength and power, equal to that which the Mayans believed necessary to proclaim to the world?  The groups call back and forth to one another.  Perhaps this simply signals a shift in activity – a siren call for the beginning of the day’s action.  Regardless, their ritualistic vocalizations are a component of their being.

I look about me and realize that daylight has settled in completely.  The monkeys notice this as well and grow quiet, their work complete.

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We missed the only afternoon Fuente del Norte, so we agree to a shuttle for 35 quetzals.  I am less than thrilled to climb into another minivan, but when we pull away from the station, we revel in the fact that we are two of only three passengers.  Little do we know that we are about to circle through Flores so our determined co-pilot can secure other passengers.  As others pile in, Patty and I find ourselves seated once again in the back seat, and the combination of the humidity and my being damp from the rain and sweat cause me to feel lightheaded.  My mind begins to swim and I wonder if I might pass out.  I consider that this is just how Henry in The Time Traveler’s Wife feels as he is about to shift into another time and space.  I press my head against the foggy, streaked window, close my eyes, and say a short yet heartfelt prayer for a safe passage to Poptun.  All told, we are loaded down with 30 people.

Two painful hours later we roll into Poptun and passengers are dropped off at various locations.  I deepen my breathing to regain my composure as we ride the final three miles to our destination.  When we arrive at Finca Ixobel, a woman named Yoli greets us in the driveway.  I work to be back under my own control, no longer at the mercy of two men determined to have a bountiful day while enjoying cat-and-mouse antics as they raced another minibus, passing at stomach churning speeds, or slipped onto the shoulder without decelerating to squeeze through a section where semis edged into our lane because of an obstacle on the side of the road.

Yoli notices my edginess and fetches a cup of chamomile for me.  The warmth slides into my belly and immediately drenches my body with a tranquilizing calm.  Yoli is calming and welcoming – a needed shift from the stress of my harrowing minibus ride – and has been volunteering here for three weeks.  She leads us along a path to the casa de arbolles, the tree houses.  While these amount to little more than tiny rooms on stilts, I’m all about imagining I’m living in a tree house for a few days; it adds to the magic of this lesser-known location.  We decide on Casa Luna.

Finca Ixobel is another piece of paradise – a remote and secluded spot on the road from Flores to Rio Dulce.  It possesses a magnetic attraction, as there is little other reason for stopping along this route.  I know I have landed in the right place at the moment I need it most.  I am feeling full and need a moment to unwind, an unusual longing for downtime lingering in my soul.  I grab a book and sink into a hammock as dinner is being prepared.

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This morning we take a short boat ride out of Fronteras to get our kayaks, which are simply waiting for us in a random spot along the lake’s edge, floating among the mangroves.  We’ve hooked up with three Canadians – Nancy, Nathaniel, and Lynn – and the five of us are venturing out with our guide Cisco, a free-spirited 27-year-old Guatemala who welcomes fun. We spend the day paddling along the lake, El Golfete, and take slow side trips down narrow, meandering rivers, which prove to be the place to spot brilliant blue butterflies, darting hummingbirds, egrets, and countless other birds.

Late in the afternoon, we pull up to Finca Tatin, a small riverside "hotel" accessible only by boat.  We secure the kayaks and collect our belongings.  Thousands of tiny crabs meandering from the dock as Patty and I follow the owner up a path lined with stepping-stones, through the dense jungle to an independent bungalow.  We dump our gear and head right back down to the dock for a swim.  A rope swing hangs above the dock, luring each of us to enter the water with a jubilant flourish.   We continue to take turns, each striving to be more creative in our dismount than the person before us.  While we have only known each other for a day, we already play pretty well together.

Before dinner, we settle into the central common space that consists mainly of a covered, open-air deck.  Nancy and Nathaniel sit together, reading in the diminishing light.  Cisco swings in one of several hammocks; Lynn is sprawled on a sofa with her iPod.  I, on the other hand, take up company at the bar, where I enjoy my first "Cuba Libre" of the trip.

Around 7:00 pm, a generator switches on, providing light for our family-style dinner.  It feels good to be in the company of several other travelers.  I fill up on homemade bread and pasta along with tales of others’ lives and experiences in Central America.

When I retire for the night, I am thankful for the generator powering the fan that stirs the thick humid air of our little bungalow.  When it shuts off at 11:00 pm, the jungle encloses on us a bit more.  The darkness becomes more complete, the air grows thicker still, and the cicadas take up a space inside my head.  Without warning, the rain crashes down in torrents.  I can’t get over how securely the palm-thatched roof above me keeps out the rain.  I contentedly drift in and out of sleep, thunderstorms being one of my greatest pleasures.  

As I ride one of these waves into sleep, I am rocked by the most incredible thunder I have ever experienced -- I picture four bolts of lightning simultaneously striking the water as only something of that magnitude could accompany the resounding thunder coursing through every fiber of my being as it pulses and rolls away into the outer reaches of the jungle, rumbling over and around and through anything in its course.  My ears ringing and my heart pounding, I sit in awe and amazement at the force of what has just transpired.  As I continue to listen, echoes of thunder reverberate through various sections of the jungle as though they are attempting to find their way to the sea.  Sheets of rain continue to wash down over my tiny area of the world.  I drift along, in and out of sleep, riding the storm until morning.

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– Jeanne Boland