The journey to Chicaman

I left Antigua around 7am in a tourist shuttle bus that was to drop me off at a transfer point called Los Encuentros along the highway that leads to Panajachel. Of course, the bus was packed with people and their luggage. However, there were two less people in this bus than in the bus that went to the beach on Sunday. It was not uncomfortable, but definitely not the best way to travel. My ass fell asleep multiple times and I kept wanting to fall asleep but couldn’t because I didn’t really have anywhere to rest my head. I was sitting in the middle of the seat between two other people so I couldn’t lean against a window or anything. So, my ass got more rest than my brain…Little did I know, that more people could fit into a van this size. I was a kinda worried that I would miss the stop or that the driver wouldn’t remember that I was not going all the way to Panajachel, but soon enough, the bus arrived in Los Encuentros and I embarked on my first solo journey on Guatemalan public transportation.

Because of the rain, I had wrapped my backpack in trash bags and had to readjust the straps so that I could keep the wrapping on my luggage in case it would rain the rest of the way. My backpack was too big to fit inside any of the buses so it was tied to the top of first the tourist shuttle, then the large chicken bus (one that used to be a school bus in the US and since has had the exterior repainted and a loud sound system installed. Said sound system blasted popular Spanish music the whole way) and finally the two minivans that brought me from Quiche to Chicaman. Catching the first chicken bus was interesting but fairly easy. It came shortly after I was dropped off and I boarded with no problems other than accidentally dropping my full Nalgene water bottle on an unknowing elderly woman. I felt so bad but couldn’t do much other than apologize profusely in Spanish. Getting off the bus at Quiche was interesting as well. There was an onslaught of men asking me, “A dondé vas?” I correctly responded, “A Chicaman,” and one man took my backpack and told me to follow him. From the outside looking in, this could seem a little sketchy and I probably would have been more wary but someone at a travel agency in Antigua told me this would happen and that’s pretty much just the way it works at the bus stops. So, I followed the man and saw that his bus was carrying a family, an elderly woman and a mixture of other locals. I asked him how much it would cost before getting in the van and he gave me a reasonable price. So, I had little reason to believe this was anything other than normal public transportation. I was really glad to have asked people at the travel agencies how much the journey should cost and in the end it was right around the price the travel agencies said it should be.

I don’t have any photos of the journey because I didn’t dare take out my camera while riding on the bus. I had a hard enough time trying to eat a snack and not fall into the person sitting next to me every time the bus turned a corner, and there were a lot of turns on the road to Quiche. I also didn’t want to stick out too much like a tourist. Nor did I even have room to maneuver and get my camera out of my purse. The joke about chicken buses is true…How many people can fit into a chicken bus? Always one more! There were even little boys and young adult men riding on top of the minivan that I took from Quiche to Uspantán. It was interesting that only the men rode on top of the minivan. The women were always given preference to ride inside. However, that meant that if there was no more room inside, the women who needed a ride had to wait for the next bus while the men could just climb on top of the minivan or ride on the ladder attached to the side of the van. I was glad to be riding inside, no matter how packed it was. I think at one point we probably had 17 or 18 people in a space that usually fits 12 or 13.

Upon arriving in Chicaman, I hoisted my heavy backpack onto my shoulders and checked my dictionary one last time to make sure I knew how to say, “I’m looking for the Martinez family.” I asked a friendly man, who seemed to be working as some sort of civil servant by directing the minivans, where the Martinez family lived and he showed me to a house just across the street from where I was dropped off. Eni, Juan’s sister, greeted me warmly and showed me to a room on the second floor of her very large house. It is a big house because many members of the Martinez family live here. I am slowly piecing together who lives here and where everyone is at the moment. Right now, Juan’s parents are on their way to visit Jenny and Juan in Nebraska and Sergio, Juan’s brother, took them to Guatemala City to catch their flight. Sergio will be back on Wednesday but Juan’s parents will be in Nebraska until August 3rd. I get back to Omaha on August 1st so hopefully I will get to meet them before they return to Guatemala.

I had arrived in Chicaman around 2pm and had not eaten anything except for a bag of platanos (dried plantain chips). So, just as Jenny had told me she would, Eni promptly fed me some delicious chicken, rice and tortillas. After a short conversation, I went back up to my room to settle in and do a bit of studying. Of course, I ended up snoozing for about 15 minutes but that is to be expected when one studies in bed. The rest of the afternoon/evening was spent chatting with Eni, showing her photos and trying to talk as much as possible and at the same time understand what she was telling/asking me. I also spoke with the daughter of the woman who helps Eni around the house and showed her a few pictures as well. She was really cute and corrected me when I pronounced something incorrectly. I appreciated her candor and childhood honesty.

Eni also brought me next door and introduced me to her sister, Miny and Miny’s husband, Tito. Tito runs a pharmacy that is attached to their house. Miny and Tito have been hosting a French family that is in Guatemala for a vacation because their children were adopted from Guatemala. I ended up having dinner with the French family and Miny. We had quite an interesting mix of languages during the meal. We mostly spoke slow simple Spanish but also peppered into the conversation were English and French words or sentences as needed to clarify certain explanations. It was a nice way to end the evening.

I slept very well last night and woke up, well rested, at about 7:30am. Breakfast was a wide spread of eggs, beans, tortillas, corn flakes, coffee and more. Eni asked me if I’d like eggs and beans for breakfast and I said sure but then I felt bad because I didn’t want her to go to too much trouble to make me breakfast so then I think I said I could just have a bowl of cereal but I think that was interpreted as having cereal in addition to the eggs and beans. So, I ended up having a bowl of corn flakes, a hard boiled egg and a small portion of refried black beans with the whole wheat pita bread I had brought with me on my trip yesterday. It was a big breakfast and as I get ready to eat lunch right now, I’m still not quite hungry. I thought maybe I’d loose a little weight on this trip but now that I’m in Chicaman, I might put on a pound or two. Maybe this could be the motivation for me to get back to running. That’s the next question I have to pose to Eni…Where in Chicaman, can I go running?

I didn’t put any pictures of the beach in my last post so here are a few now that I’ve loaded them onto my computer.

Flooded roads on the way to the beach.

This is where we watched the final game of the World Cup.

Good view of the strong waves in the ocean.

Johnny's Restaurant in Monterico.