“For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say “Farewell.” Is a new world coming? We welcome it – and we will bend it to the hopes of man.” Lyndon B. Johnson

 

2/11

Morning came and we got up together, Charlie and I. The hotel was partially under construction and the exposed rafters framed a nearby volcano. Today I’d travel with a friend. We walked out into the streets of San Miguel. El Salvador is famous for one thing in particular, the pupusas! It’s a small dumpling made out of corn flour dough, meat and cheese wrapped in it, and fried on a flat top grill. We saw some ladies frying them, setup on the sidewalk, and I offered to buy my friend breakfast. It was 1$ for each of us including coffee. El Salvador uses US currency, and actually makes use of those 1$ coins we have shunned back in the states. The food was unbelievably delicious, crisp and crunchy and cheesy. We walked the streets. Let’s hitchhike today, I told my friend, we need to walk like 6 blocks to the main highway which was leading a long ways to the capitol city of San Salvador. I showed him the map, but he wasn’t seeming to comprehend it. He asked a lady for directions and she pointed us the other way. I followed my friend but was a bit frustrated, if I was on my own I’d be walking a different direction. I didn’t realize it then, but Charlie didn’t actually know how to read a map. We had to double back after more directions. It was handy having him, because he had the power to just walk up to someone and, “Disculpa… blahblahblah…” then we’d have directions.

We walked through an alleyway to arrive at a bus terminal. People approached us and steered us right over to the proper bus to head to San Salvador. I wanted to hitchhike, but I was taking the path of least resistance. The bus it is. There was a market in the bus station with all kinds of dazzling food items on display on the people’s open air stands. I wandered, lately I had been being gluttonous. How can I help it when delicious food is so readily available on the streets, and it cost next to nothing. For a dime I bought a bag of candied peanuts, another nickel bought me some taro chips. All homemade and fantastic. Another dime bought me a bar of sticky toasted coconut and other sweet mysteries. Your change goes far here! However, if you want to give them a ten dollar bill, forget it, they probably can’t or won’t make change. So get change for your larger bills when and wherever you can.

The bus cost another dollar coin and I paid for Charlie too. I decided I’d pay for everything for him as long as he was travelling with me and helping me. Me, the rich American, must have a helper/guide of course… (He’d need all the help he could get as an illegal immigrant to the US…) For another dollar coin I bought 2 Gatorades for us both. The bus traveled through the countryside. There were volcanoes here and there peeking through the trees. The forest was dry jungle. There was one range of massive barren mountains. I tried to write… sometimes the bus was bouncing along the rough road and controlling my pen on the page would become impossible. We got off in San Salvador where we were approached by many people, yelling and chattering, asking if we need anything, or need a TAXI! The area was very run down. We walked away from there, and people would still approach Charlie asking to help. So I realized they weren’t just approaching me because I was a gringo, they approached him too- it’s the backpack which gives it away that we are travelling. Charlie shunned them like I do, I went to buy another ten cent pastry, this one was flaky and filled with cream, even though I didn’t need more food. Yum! Why not keep eating! I shared it with Charlie.

There was a bus and the bus driver called to us. Charlie had asked around, this one was the one we needed. We got on. La, la, today I wasn’t thinking, just following Charlie. I told him in the US, the buses don’t ask you if you want to get on. Nobody approaches you ever asking if you need a taxi, nobody tries to help you. In the USA you’re on your own. I regretted taking this bus ride though, because as it traveled slowly stuck in traffic through the pedestrian friendly city, I wished to be out walking across the city instead. Although I had heard San Salvador is a dangerous place, perhaps it’s better to be in a bus anyway.

It looked fun out there, the tall crumbling buildings walled in the teeming streets. They were lined with vendors stands sheltered between shacks and tarps, all useless/useful things imaginable on display. Toys and clocks and plastic dishware, second hand toaster ovens and appliances, watches, more toys, things from China. Dangling chains made out of phone cases swayed and glittered in the breeze. Mixed in with all the junk is lots of fruit and food. People everywhere, buying or selling. People would board the bus constantly and walk through selling things. This happened elsewhere too, in Nicaragua and Honduras. Women would come through chanting in shrill voices, “Pina… Melon… Agua Fresco… Pina… Melon… Agua Freco…” Sometimes I’d buy a bottle of water. One girl had chewy candies for 5 cents. Why not! Then a man would get on the bus. He had a presentation, a ‘special offer.’ He’d announce it loudly from the front of the bus. Lots of Spanish I wouldn’t understand, but I’d gather: “I have here, for this one time low, low price, a toothbrush!” or maybe, “some used batteries!” Something very important, maybe the toothbrush comes complete with toothpaste too. I almost bought those batteries… This is the way people get by, selling food and junk to each other, and buying food and junk. Feeding off each other, all with very small quantities of money spinning around in a cycle. .

We got off the bus on the other side of the city. I felt many feelings, including feeling bad for the shambled state of the city. I thought about how they all live with so little compared to the way people live in the USA. Yet these people grow our food, which our companies pay them pennies for. These people’s labor manufactures our clothes for US based companies outsourcing labor here. These people immigrate to build our roads, and then send money back to their families to support this society. This place isn’t very far away geographically, are these people not Americans too? Our companies just screw them. If these people were paid higher wages for their labor, would this place still be a third world country? Meanwhile our companies get rich, by exploiting their work, importing, and exploiting us too. Taking jobs out of the US, instead giving them to people they can rip off. This has made their economy dependent on ours, but then by not treating them fairly at all, we’ve basically ruined their society. Or at least they’d be better off without us. Anyway… El Salvador is a very small country, this next bus would bring us to the Guatemalan border.

After buying a ten cent pastry, I was on a bus. It was unbelievably crowded, I paid another 25 cents for Charlie to ride it. People were crammed up against me and my giant pack, I counted 8 people occupying one row of seats. The seats could comfortably accommodate two people each, but each had 4 people including children and screaming babies, and here I am, the 9^th person standing in the aisle. I chatted with some guy who was about 1 inch away from me, in Spanish and English, he had worked construction in the US in Utah. The bus took us through mountainous country. I saw murals on buildings in small towns and some graffiti. I saw an enormous wildfire burning the side of one mountain to cinders. The mountains were grand again like they were in Honduras, we were near Guatemala now. From the topographical map, I knew Guatemala would be a beautiful country. I walked with Charlie through another frontera town. We crossed customs easily here. We exchanged our money from someone in the streets, I was just following Charlie’s lead, although I know that is a bad idea. They rip you off, but I had no way to tell how much. The Guatemalan dollar is the quetzale, featuring a colorful bird with long tail feathers called the quetzal; it’s the countries symbol.

There were some busses, we didn’t know where we were going. Charlie suddenly became a little stressed out. The day was getting late and we didn’t know where we’d be spending the night. Okay, okay, I took him into the shade of a tree and showed him the map. We want to go to Guatemala City tomorrow, right now we have two or three towns in different directions we could get to before nightfall. Just have to decide which route would be better to the capital. Charlie told me he had never been out of Nicaragua before, this country was starting to feel very foreign to him. This was Charlie’s first time really travelling in his life. Charlie only had a small backpack with him, and a duffel bag full of his possessions (just clothes). He could camp on the side of the road only “if he needed to.” It was amazing that even though we spoke different languages, we had a magical way of communicating where we could understand each other almost perfectly. I loved him for being my friend, he needed my help and I needed his. Today was not easy.

We left the busses and walked down the road out of town as we got our heads together. We’d hitchhike. The first passing pickup truck picked us up and we climbed in the back. It took us to the town of Asuncion Mita. The town was rough but looked friendly and beautiful in the late afternoon sun. The truck kept driving through a sweeping mountain landscape. We drove along the edge of a lake with peaks behind it, horses and pasture in front… “Isn’t this mejor! No necesitamos la autobus!” Charlie agreed, riding in the truck was much better. We just didn’t know exactly where it was taking us. We didn’t worry. It started climbing mountains. The highways here are crazy, only two lanes with all cars gunning it up the mountains and passing each other. I saw another dusty landscape and beyond mountains which actually has snow on them! I told Charlie, this! This looks like California.

We saw a fork in the road leading to the town I had originally planned to go to. We went the other way. We looked at the map in the truck bed as the sun began to set. We were heading to the town of Jutiapa. We’d stay there.

We arrived in Jutiapa and left the truck. We walked until finding a hotel and stayed there. It cost 15 dollars for two, and even that felt like a rip off at this place. The bathroom was more like a gas station bathroom then a hotels, place had no wifi… only cold water coming out a pipe in the wall. I went to the unpleasant guy running the place and demanded a towel!

I went into town and I had misplaced Charlie. I wandered Jutiapa on my own in the gathering dusk. The pavement was an absolute mess. The buildings were crammed together, bright lights spurting from them here and there. Some areas with bakeries and cakes lit up to the darkening streets. Some neon signs. I walked through a crowded market where all the fruit stands were being taken down to put away for the night. Chaos reigned in Jutiapa. Junk was everywhere. The city was lively and filled with people within the broken streets of makeshift architecture. I was really enjoying the place as I walked along, though as always, I was wary and tense. Alone and foreign.

I found an area which was not lit well for the evening, where people were cooking in the streets and small crowds were milling here and there. I walked up to one lady, she sat at a bench in the street besides a deep fryer and I asked what she was making. Basically pupusas, meat and cheese wrapped in corn flour dough, only deep fried! One quetzale for one. 8 quetzales make 1 US dollar. I ordered three pupusas. They were each huge and incredibly satisfying/crunchy. She dressed them with coleslaw, pickled vegetables, and a thin red sauce on a plate for me. The best meal of my life! After I ate, standing and wandering in the street, I continued to wander. I found another food vendor, frying things on a flat top. Oh, I suppose I could keep eating for 25 cents more! I asked what she had, she made me a different style of pupusa. Still delicious but not as good or as big as the other lady’s. However, this lady had a family who took an interest in me. They pulled up a table and chair and had me sit down as the guest of honor. The curious group bombarded me with questions, which I tried to answer as I was eating, or just say the phrases I know to explain myself. “Estoy viajando!” I was having fun. The father of the family clasped his large hand over my shoulder, welcoming me. The mother served me another pupusa free of charge. Then the father presents me with his daughter asking me to marry her. The small family parts to give center stage to the girl who smiles so shyly at me, yet curious. Oh this night is just getting better and funnier. I’m at a loss for words and just say to her, “Tu es muy hermosa,” (you are very beautiful.) The whole family erupts into laughter, the girl blushes crimson and giggles. I am not embarrassed at all and I laugh too at myself.

“Si? Su esposa?” the father asks me.

“Lo siento,” I finally say, “tengo mi esposa en Estados Unidos.” I lie, but they understand. I laughed with them a little longer before abruptly saying goodbye.

Now I’m walking back and its dark. The place just feels so different, so charged, so crazy. There’s so much trash everywhere and you can smell it. After I finished my pupusas with the family, the father had taken my paper plate and tossed it casually into the wind. That’s why this place is like this, they don’t have any systems. They have nowhere organized to put the trash. I walked the beaten streets of Jutiapa at a quick clip, feeling the chilly mountain wind. Plastic cups and napkins sailed passed me as I walked. I felt like I did not blend in, I was obvious, an outsider walking around quickly… just for fun. Under the collar of my black rain jacket, with my American hair uncontrolled and windblown, I felt as though I had a lot of money in this place and everyone could tell. None of my family and friends know I’m here, or know where this place is. I hardly know either. But I’m definitely learning something, even if I’m not sure what.

I found Charlie outside an ice cream place. Charlie! So happy to see you. I bought him an ice cream, we stood eating it in the dim lights of the shops. Then we went back to our room.

It felt like it had been another big and traumatizing day. I seemed to be incapacitated to do more than just survive the day and take it all in. Navigating my way through these countries by some magic. I was too exhausted to do anything more than just lay and watch crap TV shows with Charlie in Spanish. We talked a lot and taught each other Spanish/English. Charlie is full of dreams, and full of plans for all the possibilities of his life in the US. He has zest in his eyes and he is positive tonight. He’s going and not looking back He’s farther from home now than ever before and on the biggest adventure of his life. I help him dream by telling him the things I know about the US, the challenges he will face and any possible advice how to deal with them. He surprised me with a big piece of cake he bought from that bakery today, to thank me for helping him.

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2/12

I woke up in my stupid hotel room which didn’t have wifi. I knew going this long without contact and my mother would be worried sick, so I went to search for internet. I found a more luxury hotel, and simply asked them for the wifi password. They just assumed I was staying there (because I’m white) and gave it to me. My mom made me realize it’s possible Charlie will just ditch me and steal all my stuff which I had left in the room. Oh yeah, I guess that is possible! Better get back there. I had two cell phones, my old one which works and this new one my mom had given me which had broken. Charlie had been admiring the fancy broken phone… and now it was missing. He did steal it… Well, as I was packing up, I wondered if I should ask for it back… or just let him have it. I don’t need it, but it could really benefit him. I decided to let it pass, when he confessed to me, (using the special way we can somehow communicate), “I have your phone in my backpack.”

“Okay, well, can I have it back?” I said. He pulled it out sheepishly and gave it to me. I felt like I should just give it to him, but I didn’t. “I need a map,” he said. That was true. I had shown him google maps and he had never seen that program before. I felt bad about it, but I had learned over time it is really important to take care of myself. I can only help Charlie so much.

The two of us went to a bakery where we got coffee and I bought copious amounts of fantastic and unique pastries for pennies. We shared enjoying those. “You’re on vacation!” I said to Charlie mockingly. How’s it feel eh? To be on “vacation,” only permanent vacation. Everyone’s always telling me I’m on vacation, well what about when you don’t want to be anymore? This is just a different life I’ve chosen here… Charlie too… both of us searching for something but we don’t know what. He’s on the immigrant journey, and I kind of am too. “Thank God I’m from the US,” is a thought which would often flick through my mind. It makes all the difference in this fucked up world where you’re from. But I told Charlie, “You will miss Esteli.” The only thing for us two free vagabond wanderers to do, is Carry On.

We went to the dirt shoulder of the chaotic Guatemalan road and stuck out our thumbs. We were going to Guatemala City. It was 3-4 hours of riding away. A truck pulled up, an older couple, headed where else, but Guatemala City! We got in the truck bed! YESSS! Now we ride, riding in style in the back of a truck with a spectacular view. Today was good. I told Charlie we were happy!

I saw the mountains pass, still dusty and western looking. I saw trash piled high on the roadsides. I saw little towns. Then the road climbed and the air became colder for us in the truck bed. Soon we were driving through lush forests. A volcano stood imposingly in the view at times when the road would drop away in cliffs and show us the sweeping countryside. We passed through no towns for a long way and were in the wilderness. Finally we reached the top of a mountain pass where the air was icy and we dropped down the other side. The mountains surrounded us, and they were densely forested with pines. I was reminded of Colorado, except I saw trees of the rainforest mixed in, completely covered with bright orange flowers. The Malinche tree. This place was fantastic and unique. Soon the road became a highway with multiple lanes. The first real highway Charlie had ever seen in his life. We were flying along now, 70mph in the truck bed through the peaceful road lined with Malinche trees. At one point in the drive we were pulled over by the cops. Not for any reason we could tell. They checked us all out, took our passports. I hoped I’d get it back. I hoped we’d be allowed to drive away. Just a security check, they let us go.

At some point the people we were travelling with stopped. They were hungry and would get something to eat. We realized yeah, we’re hungry too! So we went in and sat at a table with the two of them to eat. It was a middle aged couple, very nice people. We shared stories, Charlie translated what he could. Charlie explained my story for me. The restaurant was just a shack, light filtering in between the makeshift stick walls. The floor was dirt. The two women cooking asked if we want chicken or beef. Chicken for me. She walked over to her grill, which was a large metal grate over cinderblocks above a wood fed fire. They grilled the beef and tortillas, then quickly served us. For 12 quetzales I was given a huge wing and breast of fried chicken, Charlie got the leg. It was served with rice, beans and sour cream. It was all rather cold but the tortillas they brought were hot and they just kept them coming! I thought the beef looked better, then I realized how succulent and fantastic the chicken was. Raised in someone’s yard. I made myself wraps with the hot sauce, I was in love with this restaurant. It’s so cheap, I mentioned, “muy barato!” (cheap). I said we don’t have stuff like this in the USA, restaurants are mas caro (expensive). Charlie told me, es just “comida rapida.” Fast food. Oh. Well, yeah, we have that in the US, it’s just not GOOD! Maybe if we did NOT have Taco Bell we’d have little Mexican ladies cooking food on the sides of our city streets instead. That’s what happens when the corporations take over. This food was healthy, and these people I saw and ate with were not overweight.

A man walked in begging for money. The lady I sat with gave him some. So I gave him some too. In the Caribbean I had gotten really sick and tired of people always begging. But now after seeing so much crap of the third world… I don’t know, I want to set an example for myself and for all the successful people living in the first world. Give what you have when you have the chance. I figured, I could die this afternoon, why not be generous while I’m here. Today, Charlie insisted on paying for my lunch.

We continued driving and passed through a bad town, a city. From my view as it surrounded us, I thought it made Jutiapa look calm. Here was wild. Billboards and signs crowded the busy narrow streets, people and cars driving erratically were everywhere. Food and merchandise and trash. The concrete was crumbling, bars on the windows, and the dirt floor shacks were mixed in between the buildings. “Is this Guatemala City?” I asked Charlie. “No, no,” he answered right away. They have little convenience stores here called tiendas which are everywhere- tiny buildings where the front street facing sides are just bars and a countertop. Often the bars are colorful, like blue or green. Behind the bars lives the tienda owner, you tell him what you want and he gets it from this small, partially open air, convenience store.

We left the town and saw a gorgeous panorama of a massive volcano, Volcan de Agua. In the distance further were two more volcanoes, and one was smoking… Volcan de Fuego. We pressed on and as we descended from the high country, we saw Guatemala City. Gleaming skyscrapers and white urban sprawl on the rugged landscape beneath Volcan de Agua. Wow. Charlie was impressed, he pulled out his phone to take pictures for the first time. The capital of Nicaragua is Managua, and it is a small city. The part of it I saw was not much more than slums, but I believe there is a downtown area. He had never seen a big city like this one before. We dropped down from the mountains and the highway rolled along hills. It became more modern, three lanes appeared, traffic appeared. Suddenly there were normal looking (to me) buildings. There was a Subway, a McDonalds, a Walmart! “Look!” I pointed, “Walmart!!! Estamos en Estados Unidos!” Guatemala City had clean, modern architecture and Mediterranean looking pines.

Charlie was noticeably excited to be in this place. One big difference though, between here and the USA is that you would never be viewing the city from this vantage point – the back of a truck. The truck drove among the skyscrapers, and at Charlie’s que, we spontaneously stopped and got out of the truck. Okay well, we’re here, we’ll definitely need a bus out.

We walked down the sidewalk. We didn’t know where to go. Charlie asked directions. Unfortunately, all he got were bad directions, because he was asking how to get to a place called San Marcos, the Guatemalan/Mexican border. That’s like six hours of driving away, people did not know how to get there… it would become a problem later, we got all different advice. Then we got to wifi at Taco Bell. I would teach Charlie, this is how you do it in the city. Go to the fast food place and use the wifi. Charlie had never seen a Taco Bell, in Nicaragua they just got their first McDonalds in Managua. I tried to find bus directions. Looking at the map, we’d need to go to Antigua, then continue to the city of Chimaltenango. From there maybe we can hitchhike some? We probably can’t make it to the Mexican border today, at least not before dark.

We tried to follow the map, but got lost. We asked more directions. We were pointed through an alley. In the modern city there were statues and glass high rises… we left that behind. Then we were in the real Guatemala City. The buildings were tall but ruinous. The streets were packed with chaos. It was grungy, there was trash, stray dogs, people pushing carts of watermelons, trucks backing out through crowds of people and into oncoming traffic, sometimes they’re old cars from the 1950s clambering through. There were noisy people in front of the makeshift shops, then there was the biggest marketplace I had ever seen. So much food, so much stuff. Fish and fruit and watches and smells, but mostly fruit for miles. The streets were wide but crowded with people who often stared at me, children pointed at me, people tried to talk to me and id just say, “no hablo Espagnol,” and Charlie and I kept walking with purpose. We found a bus, wasn’t the one we needed. We found more after a long way through the joyous and sad, overstimulating quadrant of the city. I asked directions for Antigua and they told me this was the right bus. I started hopping on when Charlie told me they were misinforming me, this other bus was the right one. I ditched the bus and went with him, for 25 cents quetzales we were on the city bus.

Before long with Charlie asking people, we realized this bus was wrong too. We got off it. Then we walked through an even more desperate marketplace. I saw lots of extra wretched homeless people, including one girl passed out on the side of an overcrowded staircase walkway. She was big and fat and just barely not being trampled by the hundreds of people coming down the stairs. Dead from overdose? Could you pick a worse spot for a nap!? The marketplace was so crowded with tarps over the narrow streets that it was practically dark as we navigated the enclosed, maze corridors of it. We eventually exited it into suburb slums where we were really lost now! More directions, we found more busses, but they weren’t going where we were going. Or maybe they were, and Charlie was still asking bad directions. I could understand fine what he was asking them. We crossed the highway back and forth a few times, once in a glass pedestrian overpass leading to bus terminal. It wasn’t right. He was getting seriously stressed, asking many people, I followed his charged energy at a fast clip. Then I had to explain to Charlie, look. We’re not going to get a bus to San Marcos. We just need to take it one step at a time. We just need to get to Antigua first, get out of this complicated city. We can figure it out from there, we can possibly hitchhike from there. We just need a bus out of the city. Then he got it. He started asking direction for Antigua. We got them. We walked a ways, crossed the highway again, and got on the right bus.

The bus carried along, the bus conductor man (not the driver) was leaning out the open door yelling to pesdestrians, “Antigua, Antigua!” Lots of people got on the bus until it was totally full. Then the bus left the city for the mountains.

The drive was beautiful on a winding highway, through forests of the dark, tropical pine tree. Sweeping views gazed out to Guatemala City and the volcanoes. I sat next to someone who spoke English and lived in Antigua. Antigua is a tourist town near the base of Volcan de Agua. It rests in the stunning valley between Volcan de Agua and Volcan de Fuego. The highway climbed and descended mountains to bring us there. I had realized it would be a more direct route to just find a bus to Chimaltenango, Antigua was out of the way. I wanted to go to Antigua though, and I don’t think Charlie noticed. The man I sat next to on the bus told me Chimaltenango is a dangerous city, in fact he thought my whole journey was dangerous. Well, maybe it is, maybe it’s not. I asked him how dangerous Chimaltenango is compared to Jutiapa where I stayed last night. “Life is slow in Jutiapa,” he said, “Chimaltenango is more city, and much worse.” Antigua wasn’t dangerous, soon we arrived.

The architecture was antique and ornate. The village had cobblestone streets and flowers blooming from the simple, colorful houses. There were coffee plantation outside of town, there were views up to the volcanoes. Now we’re here, where to next?

Charlie and I left the bus in a terminal and started to walk. I showed him the map and we checked our options. Then someone talked to us in Spanish and English, telling us our options. We could go north to Chimaltenango, and head north-west to the border, or we could go directly west to the city of Escuintla, and head north to a different border from there. That was faster he said. Okay, let’s do that. It was not long in Antigua at all, and I regretted that a bit. I wish I could have stayed exploring this beautiful place on a bicycle or something. Lake Antitlan was sad to miss… Volcan de Agua has a trail to the top… so much to do, so much to see. The bus to Escuintla rode off, picking up lots of people on the way.

I was squished into the seat watching marvelous scenery pass. The towns were built on hillsides and some hills were like a patchwork quilt of farms. The way it had been done, Charlie and I agreed, was enchantingly beautiful. Volcan Fuego towered high. Through the alleys the bus drove past, you could see down the climbing streets to frame Fuego behind the buildings. It stood there with a twin volcano, Acatenango, flanked by dark clouds on the sunlit day. The smoke had billowed out of it to create the clouds, today the volcano was erupting.

The rest of the dive had awesome scenery, the road travelled all the way around Fuego and passed massive boulders. There were strangely placed rock ridges of volcanic origin. Views looked up to old lava flows where the mountain had been torn apart. Smoke emitted from the top cone.

We came to Escuintla suddenly, the day was starting to get late. The bus driver knew we were going to the frontera, and abruptly stopped the bus. He said, “that bus is going to the frontera!!!” pointing us to a bus. Okay, we got off and ran over to the other bus. The bus attendant was trying to help us board it, then I asked quick like I always do, “Tu va a la frontera?”

“Si, la frontera.” …Then I thought about it.

“Wait, la frontera Mexico?”

“La frontera El Salvador.” Oh hold on Charlie! This is wrong! We reversed off the bus and it drove away through the chaos of this town. Now we get to walk through Escuintla, and a more crazy place I may have never been. It was hot here. People sat in piles on the sidewalks, as if the city was one big open air house where everybody lived as roommates. The shop fronts were cluttered, everything was cluttered, shining golden in the slant afternoon light. The streets were septic and all eyes stared as we passed. There was much traffic and the narrow city was crowded. Everything was falling apart, the cars, the buildings, the road, the people. I wouldn’t want to live here… but it didn’t seem like such a bad place overall. I could feel the charged energy in the air, there’s an unconcerned freedom in Central America where it feels like no laws guide the people and towns. It’s a truly American freedom. We stopped at a tienda and through the bars I bought a light dinner of an apple, a banana and a tomato. We hiked on and passed the busses, we could take the bus but, nah! Let’s hitchhike.

We stood there in a funny spot, on a corner, some garbage around, some old man randomly sitting there. Chickens wandering around. Just outside of town, sort of, with a large shoulder where people could easily pull over. And for some reason no one picked us up. We didn’t try to hitchhike on the really beat up looking cars and trucks, there were some trucks you would see in a desperate and abominable condition. If it looked like I was worth much more than their truck, maybe I shouldn’t get in…

We stood there for an hour to no avail. Lots of busses drove past though, yelling at us, confused why we weren;t getting on. The bus could only take us to some little town called Cocales, if we hitched a ride perhaps we could get much farther. If we can’t hitch a ride, we go to Cocales. More cars drove by and no one stopped for us. “What’s going on with this place?” I asked Charlie, “Es… cuint- la.” What a weird town. It felt like a grungy and grimy town. Someone stopped but was going the wrong direction for us. That happened again. Finally as the sun was low, we just took the bus.

The ride was wild. The highway was beyond beaten up. The bus would fly along and crash mercilessly through huge potholes. The bus had windows out and was drafty, there was lots of garbage. Out the window, Volcan de Fuego was framed, smoke billowing out from it into the sunset. Along the highway were farms, we passed by small dwellings in the tropical dirt. I started to try and photograph randomly out the windows, how can I possibly capture this place? The bus kept going for a long time, hours. The sun went down, and when it became dark I gazed up to a light on Fuego. It was red, bright red, from the very apex of the cone fire was spouting out and dancing with the night. It was a small, far away light, but it was bright and you could clearly see it was happening in small red explosions. I was in awe of that, and someone told me they had heard on the radio, that yes, the volcano is in fact erupting today.

The bus drove crazy through the night. The driver had no concern for safety, or for the condition of the bus whatsoever. It would charge right through the potholes, probably travelling 80mph, and when it crashed into them I would be sent flying upwards out of my seat. One time my head banged the luggage racks above me. Ow! I would sit and brace myself and then BAM! Everything went airborn. It was pretty fun for a while… but then at some point it was really nighttime, and the bus was still playing this blasting Spanish trumpet music. It was like the driver was extremely high on cocaine, driving as fast and as recklessly crazy as possible, listening to this loud, hilarious and fast paced music just flying along. As if we were trying to drive fast enough to outrun any bandits we would meet on this lost and lawless highway in the night. But at some point I realized I was very high strung. It had been another really long day and I felt like for days and days now I had just been in a state of constant motion. Unable to rest, unable to stop, or stop trying, always focused, always in pursuit of something even if it seems like I’m just sitting here (relaxing?) on the bus. But it’s nighttime now, can we play some quieter music??? All evening it was Spanish trumpets and being flung in the air as the bus charged insanely through the countryside.

Soon the bus pulled into the “town” of Cocales. It was a four way intersection in the highway where there were some shambled shacks with light pouring out on the street. On the sidewalks here sat dozens of people, the people crowded around the bus as it stopped. It did not look like a good place to get off this bus at all. Fortunately, the bus was continuing on, and was taking us to the larger city of Mazatenango. Charlie thought that he wanted to get off the bus in Cocales, why, I have no clue. There definitely would be nowhere to stay at a hotel here, there’s nothing here but shambled shacks and not even many of those! Mostly this place is the jungle and farms. Still, there were lots of people everywhere to harass us, no, it looks definitely like a dangerous place to be getting off the bus this night. But Charlie was ready to get off. I had to tell him, look Charlie, “No!” I started letting my high strung stress get to me and angrily made myself perfectly clear. “No aqui! Vamos a Mazatenango. I’m not getting off this bus, not yet, not now, not here.” He understood and agreed with me eventually. The bus kept moving.

I was pretty stressed as I looked out to the beaten night highway with the crazy cars passing us, the volcano erupting in the background. Who knows if any of these cars will try to hold up the bus? I didn’t like Escuintla, I didn’t like this area, let’s see about Mazatenango, the bigger city… Oh, the bus ride has to end at some point, we arrived. The streets were like alleys and the bus navigated through them. I could feel the energy of this place, it was hectic, it was wild. It was dark. I told the man I had been talking to “Mazatenango… Oh, me gusta aqui…” Then we came to the center of town and there were people. We were dropped off at a gas station.

The first thing I noticed was homeless people. There was a collection of them up against a barrier between the gas station and the road. Someone was raving at us, one of them had lost a foot, bottles were strewn around an incredibly dirty man, women were wrapped in blankets. We walked onto the streets a bit excited to be in a city. The streets were filled with paper, some blue raffle tickets by the thousands plastered to the street in the sludge of refuse. The place was decrepit, crumbling, but they had a McDonalds glowing out from the tragic concrete street fronts. Signs were everywhere, signs for stores, the feeding frenzy, most not lit to the night. The sidewalks before the barred windows and doors were lined with the homeless, all laid up resting against the piles of litter and garbage. “…Donde estamos?…What is this place? “ I saw another person laying there with just one arm, as though we walk among the living dead. “Es triste aqui… La vida horrible!” At first when I saw this chaos, I thought, wow, this is cool I like this place. Then upon closer inspection I was thinking, this is very bizarre. This is the most frightful place I’ve ever seen, as if I’m in some quadrent of hell, somewhere that is not… at all… okay. How can people live here? I asked Charlie. He was laughing with me, he also saw this as extremely strange and crazy. People slept on the city sidewalks as though that is their normal life, never really sleeping, never really waking… there were children among them, whole families wrapped in blankets among the rotting food and fearsome odors. Sometimes they were gathered around a cart selling fried chicken. But the food from the street vendors did not look delicious like the other food I’ve had in places like Jutiapa. It looked apprehensible, and there was just so much filth and garbage around I was not too excited. But I was hungry.

First things first, we must find a hotel. We found one which was full, we found one which was boarded up. We stopped at a tienda for Charlie to buy food, and roused the woman who was sleeping with her children on the ground. Finally we were directed to hotel “Blanquita” (blanket). The people running the place were also sitting around on the sidewalk outside the hotel in the dark. We approached them, they got up and sold us a room. They kindly accepted US currency, it seems like everyone accepts US currency (just try paying for something in the US with a Guatemalan quetzale). The room was high up on the 5^th floor, the stairs winded through the old building until for the last two stories they were open air, exposed to all the views of the cluttered ghetto surroundings. The room was really hot! Only one fan in the room pointed at only one bed. Okay Charlie, who wants THAT bed? We flipped a coin for it and I won. It was a pretty wretched hotel room, but surely better than staying on the streets.

After we settled our things in, we went to find some food. We walked around trying to decide where to eat. There was a fried chicken place… looked lousy! Eventually we saw a small, open air restaurant and decided to eat there. I saw these sandwiches people were eating, called tortas, they were huge and looked good! But then I sat down and noticed… actually those don’t look good. I ordered the same thing Charlie ordered, too exhausted to try and understand Spanish. What did you order?” I asked him. He just shrugged, “I don’t know.” I hoped they weren’t those scary, giant tortas. I saw the greasy fat man cooking them, he whacked them as hard as he could with the spatula. I saw the waiter collecting cash behind the counter. He only had one arm, and he draped the cash over his stub. He looked at me with dead eyes through the crowd of people. An American. He longed for escape. These people get mutilated trying to escape… the only way to cross Mexico illegally is to hop trains, and they move fast. If the illegal immigrants travel on the roads the cops will find them. To get to the USA is their only fleeting hope, because they’ll never crawl out of poverty here in Mazatenango.

Our food came, no! It was the torta! It was a big, gigantic, loaf of fluffy white bread, fried up and filled with… half chicken with onions and some kind of tomato sauce, the other half was ham lunch meat that was simply saturated with ketchup and mayonnaise. We ate it and… it was disgusting… well Charlie only took a few bites and then wouldn’t eat it. I ate most of mine, after a few moments completely avoided the ham part. Got about 75% through the sandwich before stopping and finding my stomach felt quite bloated and horrible. It was overpriced, the waiter shot me a malicious glare as we paid, and we went on our way. We went and sat at McDonalds to use the wifi. When we were ready, we went back to our infernally hot room and relaxed. We talked for a long time, Charlie decided to abandon most of his extra clothes there (most of his possessions.) We joked about Mazatenango and the hotel… I took a shower, “Agua de Basura!” I exclaimed, Charlie saw rat poop around his bed, “Hotel de Muerte!” he said. We watched TV and enjoyed each other’s company. We went to sleep.

…The middle of the night, 3AM, and I woke up. My stomach, what’s going on? I shifted my body, stabbing pain. I took a breath. Ow. What? Oh god. I laid there clutching my stomach for a long time, my breathing staggered and the pain slowly escalating until becoming unbearable. Something is inside me chewing its way out. I stood up, hunched, and went to the bathroom. I was pale in the mirror. I stuck my finger down my throat to make myself puke. Something was very wrong with me and I needed to get it out. Charlie turned the lights on and looked at me concerned and scared. I tried to tell him what was going on but couldn’t talk. I was in such serious pain I could only get one word out at a time. “I’m… in… pain…” I had never felt a pain like this before in my life, I could hardly breathe. He didn’t know what to do, neither did I. I had heard of sicknesses like this before, one account of someone having to go to the hospital because of stabbing pains in their stomach and needed surgery. Well this is really it this time. I’m going to die now, here in Central America. I should have just taken that plane home when I had the chance. Too late now, I’m going to need to go to the Mazatenango hospital tonight and that surely doesn’t sound fun. I’m so fucked, I’m done. I decided to just lay down, we left the lights on.

I laid there crunched up in the fetal position, breathing heavy and feeling like death wasn’t too far away. I was very scared. All I did was pray. Over and over, asking God to save me from this curse, to just make it go away. That’s all I could do, was just pray that it would go away. An hour passed while I laid there in pain. Then during the second hour it began to lessen. My breathing became more even, and then, I drifted off to sleep. I woke up at dawn with the lights still on in the room and felt completely fine.

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2/12

Charlie woke up when I did and looked at me concerned. “Estoy Okay…” I said. I felt a little sensitive but felt beautifully fine. I walked outside to photograph the sunrise from the balcony. It rose over the sorry town. In the distance, Volcan de Fuego was still smoking. BANGBANGBANGBANG! I got down behind the hotel concrete. Gunshots. Good morning Mazatenango.

We went out to the streets. We walked passed the homeless. We went to the city center. We got into a cab sitting on those streets plastered with the blue paper. It was a van with no door. People piled in, there were 8 people in that 6 passanger van. But the woman next to me had a wilting bouquet of flowers which smelled good. Something was good if only that. The cab cost pennies and brought us to the bus terminal. A la frontera Mexico, another guy with one arm showed us to the bus. We went and sat in the back, the bus was full. Crammed next to me was Charlie and another young man my age. He looked scared and alone. Was he also going to the United States?

The bus started to move. I don’t know why they have to drive so scary, passing cars while semis come right for us head on, driving as fast as possible. Just narrowly making it over and over. The bus had windows boarded up with plywood. The bus had a hole in the ceiling. It was a breezy ride! The bathroom we sat next to was boarded shut, clearly stuffed full of stuff. In the aisle right in front of us was a bucket, and we hoped no one would have to use it! I held my pee like I always have to on those bus rides…

I saw the volcano out the window. I also saw the jungle. It looked ferocious, it looked unmanageable. And now we come to Mexico. Charlie was not going to be able to cross the border here legally. He wouldn’t be allowed in to Mexico. Being from the US, I have racial privilege. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I can just walk across that border. Not Charlie. He was going to have to cross illegally. We didn’t know what that would be like for him, all we knew, was that there was a river. Charlie looked out the window at the jungle and he was scared. I saw he was crying. He didn’t know what would happen to him. He didn’t know if he would be shot by border patrol. He felt less prepared than ever on this daunting and seemingly impossible quest. And here the fuck I am. What the fuck am I doing here? Taking on this absolutely perilous journey of his, the journey of an illegal immigrant running away from poverty, and here I am taking it voluntarily. Am I stupid? I should just go home while I still can. It’s a shame the world is so fucked up. It’s a shame I had to learn this all first hand, to experience this and feel this empathy for these good, hard working people. A man was standing at the front of the bus reading from the bible in Spanish and I cried. I cried for Charlie.