Onwards and Upwards

The last time I regaled you with extracts from my notebooks I had crossed Honduras to Copán, on the border with Guatemala on my way up through Central America to the USA. Sadly, I was beginning to long for those first world comforts.

And, so it goes on:

Left Copán at 9-ish. Emigration is in the town. Transit is at the border. The two older girls left at 5 for San Pedro Sula where they fly home. The younger ones were on a micro bus going to the border. Transit took another dollar off me. I pushed them into giving me a useless receipt. On the Guatemala side, the army was represented at a roadside desk by a small, fat man with a bristle (how commonly that’s so). He was in a class of his own though.

“How do you say in English” he said in English “when you have too much in the night?”

“Hangover” I said.

“Hamburger?” he said.

“No, hangover!” and I wrote it out for him.

I HAVE A HANGOVER

“I have a hamburger,” he read. He was entertaining us both.

When he asked for his dollar, and I asked for a receipt he laughed happily.

“Oh no,” he said, “this is for me so that tonight I can make another hamburger.”

For once I didn’t mind losing my dollar. That’s how I like my corruption – honest.

Then there was a police post. An even grosser man, but in uniform, was officiating. He wouldn’t let the girls in because they had no visa, and he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – issue tourist cards. They had to go back on a hundred-mile loop to arrive at the next frontier post at Santa Rosa de Copan – Agua Caliente. I felt for them but there was nothing to be done.

Riding in Guatemala I expected a bad road, but it was quite as good as the Honduras side, but for a couple of easy water splashes.

By now I was in a mood to shorten the journey. At the junction with the asphalt, I should have gone left to Esquipulas but the smooth road to Guatemala City beckoned and I succumbed. It was the beginning of a general crumbling away of intentions, All the planning I did at the Fowlers’ house came to nothing.

At the Capital I nearly came unstuck Took ages to find the Williams’ number (had it in my book all the time, on a card) and then found he was packing up house to move to Paraguay. Kept getting cut off on the phone. But he found a spot for me with Bob Webb of the consulate, and that turned out well.

A new cast of characters now.

Bob Webb, Pat and Greta McCormick, John Rutton (the CARE man) and his nice wife with beak nose, both of German origin. We shot an air rifle, played darts and badminton, went to dinner with an oil man and his family where we sang badly to three guitars and played ping pong. Webb has a maid, country girl with big round eyes, full of superstitions. On my last night there when we had been out and she had gone to spend her day off at Atitlan, Bob locked her out by accident. She had to go to her aunt’s house – a good way off and come back next morning. It upset her a lot, especially having to be out alone at night. I think she said earthquakes are made by the devil.

Visited the market. Very close packed – full of stuff. If only I could see it with fresh eyes. But the profusion of still-unknown vegetables and fruits, the endless variations on woven and embroidered material, left me dazed. If I had a kitchen, if I could ship a ton of stuff home – but this endless looking at things means nothing anymore.

A shopper in Guatemala City

The church also had an imposing interior _ a long narrow aisle, thick square pillars on either side, with oil paintings on each one. The seventy-year-old relief map of Guatemala was a curiosity – fun to look at – and parties of schoolchildren were there to visit. A small group of amusements for children were installed, all made of old car parts, axles, gears, differentials, to turn the roundabouts. Very appealing, human, brightly painted – but all disconnected for some reason.

From Guatemala City I rode on to Lake Aititlan, which was a bowl of mist and rain. Stopped at a Mirador and filled the small hut with my things hung out to dry. Ate sandwiches. (My ”kitchen” is newly re-arranged with shiny new plastic from a very smart supermarket in the city.)

Four Americans stopped to talk. Couple worked for AID. Younger man gave address in Oakland (Berkeley). Suggested a ride from Nepal to Afghanistan. Went on into lakeside town, but all Gringos. Rain threatening. Saw concrete wall with “Las Buenas Nueves” – The Good News – painted on it. Warned there was much hepatitis about. Nothing to keep me there. Rode on towards frontier.

And here my journey very nearly ended, together with my life. I was wearing glass goggles with my open-face helmet. The fog on the lakeside road was almost impenetrable. I was attempting to clean one of the lenses with my fingers and failed to see a big truck charging down on me. We missed each other by inches and the blast of wind almost blew me away.

Somewhere on my computer is a picture of me wearing those goggles and I’ve spent a day looking for it, but no luck.

You’ll just have to imagine it.

Next week, Mexico.