Hitchhiking To Guatamala Part 10
Windy and Loyal ride on top of the bus, like Teenwolf, buy baggies of Coke, a German comes to their rescue again, and money troubles start to show up
We woke up and braved the cold showers once more. Bing made our instant coffee to go and we hurried off to catch the bus.
“Any hangover?” Windy asked.
“Nah, man. I’m feeling like I could take on the world.”
“What is it? Are there no hangovers in the tropics?”
“I don’t know man. Maybe we’re actually just allergic to America and alcohol lowers our defenses.”
“Hey there’s Freddy. Hey Freddy!” Windy greeted the handsome black man in the wide brimmed hat.
“Hey, the American backpackers! You are leaving us today?”
“Yes. We are catching the bus to Tikal. But we have a gift for you.” Windy smiled, but then having a thought to caution he leaned forward, “You smoke weed?”
“Yeah man, I do, most certainly.”
“Well here you go.” Windy handed Freddy the ridiculous giant joint.
Freddy threw his head back and unleashed a loud and hearty laugh. “Now that is one serious joint.” he said. “Is this how you smoke ‘em in America?”
“Ha! No, man, we wanted to use up all our weed. It seemed a bad idea to cross into Guatemala with it.” Windy explained, also laughing.
“You are right; that is not a good idea at all. This is marvelous. My mom is coming to town for a visit and I promised her I would have some smoke. You saved my ass.” Freddy said, giving us each a hug. “Come back again, friends.”
“I hope we do.” I said, and we made our way to the bus.
“So, I’ve read in multiple guides that they will try to separate us from our packs, but we should insist on keeping them on us.” Windy explained. Windy did the reading, the research and the planning. While I butted heads with him a little on his approach to planning, insisting on leaving things open and flexible, ready to go with the flow, an approach that I was relieved to see continuing to work out well for us, Windy’s research had led us to San Ignacio and now Tikal, and the information about not being separated from our bags sounded legitimate. I was appreciative.
“Okay. Keep the bags with us. I’m good with that.”
This was not the tourist type of bus we’d taken from Belize city. The bus was crowded and our fellow passengers did not seem to include any American or European tourists. We were guessing they were mostly local commuters. A boy who looked to be in his early teens asked us for our packs.
“We’re going to keep them with us.” Windy told him, politely but firmly.
“No. There is no room. The bags go up top.”
“I’m sorry, we’re going to stay with our bags.” I replied, trying to sound friendly. “We have to stay with them.”
“You want to go up top?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, what now?” I asked, not understanding.
“You want to ride on top with your bags.”
“We can ride on top of the bus?” Windy asked.
“Yes. Come.” and he led us to a ladder at the back of the bus. There were a dozen or so bags up there, tied down by a rope stretched between rails that ran the length of the bus. We set our bags down against the other bags and sat leaning against them with our backs to the front of the bus. As we laughed with disbelieve, the bus started up and we were off.
The bus bounced its way down a rough narrow highway. The young man who’d led us to the roof climbed through the windows of the bus, swinging more bags up on top and then climbing up behind them and tying them down, all while the bus sped along. It was amazing us to watch him work.
As the trees around us grew more dense we took turns facing the front of the bus to watch out for low hanging branches. “Duck!” whoever was facing forward would yell, as the branches dragged across the pile of bags and hopefully less so across our backs. We laughed hysterically each time. The whole experience was becoming increasingly surreal. At a rest stop a group of kids climbed up with us and offered us bottles of Coke.
“Si, por favor.” Our Spanish felt like it had come a long way in the week we’d spent in Mexico and Belize but in Guatemala the dialect was different enough that we again struggled to communicate. One boy worked the bottle opener while another prepared a baggie. As they poured the Coke into the baggie, I tried to stop them, “No, no. Por favor, yo quiero bottle. Can we have the bottle? We’ll pay. Dinero para bottle.”
They laughed like we were just making noises and handed us each a baggie of room temperature Coca-cola and a straw. “Ha. When we get home I’m telling everyone we bought bags of coke from kids in Guatemala and just letting them picture what they picture.” I said to Windy. The kids were speaking Spanish rapidly. “American”, “Coca-Cola” were the only words I managed to catch. They were laughing, presumably at our inability to understand. We waved them off when they tried to give us change. “Propina.” we said, hoping we were saying “Tip” correctly.
We were invited to come into the bus now. There was room for our bags. The inside of the bus was still fairly crowded with people and livestock. There were chickens and goats riding alongside us. We were as happy as kids in a petting zoo.
We reached the border, a border we’d been warned could be dangerous which is why we got up early to avoid crossing at night. Two young men in military uniforms entered the bus carrying machine guns. They asked some passengers for papers. They did not seem to notice us, but were having a heated conversation with the man sitting across the aisle from us. One of the men was waving his gun around absentmindedly. I found myself looking down the barrel, trying to stay out of the line of fire should it accidently discharge. They were both younger than us and I was very relieved when at last the teenagers with automatic weapons and authority exited the bus.
When we finally reached our destination we hopped off the bus and found ourselves in a huge outdoor market Windy had read about. It was a miserable experience. It was unbearably hot and humid. There were food carts but with no refrigeration to be seen and all the ingredients sitting out in the swamp-like conditions. We had no appetite for it. Again a drunk attached themself to me, putting their hand out and demanding money.
“How do you always attract these guys?” Windy asked.
“I don’t know. I bought the last guy a few beers, but you’re here with me. I didn’t even look at this dude.” Windy’s Spanish was better than mine but neither of us could communicate with this man. He was several days unshaven with a gray bunch of messy hair on his head and face. His button up shirt and blue slacks were stained and worn. He wore sandals on his feet. He was covered in dust and smelled of stale alcohol.
A man with a German accent came to assist us. “You do not speak Spanish?” he asked, sounding surprised and a bit judgemental.
“Well, we thought we did until we got to Guatemala.” I replied.
“Guatemalan Spanish can take a little bit to adjust to.” he said, now sounding more understanding. “Do you speak French?”
“No. I’m American. You know we only speak English.” I said, being self deprecating. He did not smile.
“Parles-tu français?” he asked the disheveled man.
“Oui.” and the two then began speaking in French.
“He says that you took his picture and you have to pay him.”
“Tell him, please, that I did not take his picture. I don’t even have a camera.”
They spoke some more in French, their voices growing louder. Then the local man left and the German explained that he had said he would fight me if I didn’t pay him.
“Oh wow. What did you say?”
“I told him he would not fight you, or else he would have to answer to me.”
“Well, thank you.” I said, wondering why he was afraid of this very slight, older German man and not of me while also recognizing that for the second time in less than a week a German stranger had come to my rescue. “Can I tell you a joke?”
“You want to tell me a joke?” he asked, confused.
“Yeah, I mean you Germans are known for your sense of humor, right.”
“No. I don’t think we are.”
“Yeah, I know I was joking.”
“This was the joke?” At this point I really should have said yes and been done with this awkward exchange but I stubbornly pressed on.
“No. Here’s the joke. What do you call someone who speaks two languages?”
“I speak five languages.”
“Okay, but what is the word, the English word for someone who speaks two languages.”
“Do you mean bilingual?”
“Yes, exactly right. And what do you call someone who speaks three languages?”
“This is trilingual.”
“Perfect and what do you call someone who speaks one language?”
“Perhaps, monolingual?” he guessed.
“No. American.” I said with a smile. He stared at me. “You call them American.”
“Yes, Americans tend to only speak English even though there are so many Spanish speakers in America. It has always seemed very odd to me. Oh, was this the joke/ Okay, yes, I get the joke.”
“Yes. This was the joke.” I said, defeated.
“Oh. Okay. Thank you. It is a funny joke.” he said without smiling.
“Yeah. Adios.”
“Very good. Adios.”
I turned to Windy. “Dude, I need air conditioning, or shade at least, as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, me too. Let’s go to the hotel where we get the shuttle to Tikal and maybe they have A/C.”
The hotel was such a sharp contrast to the market with green planters and a spacious open lobby that included a restaurant. The shuttle to Tikal would be leaving in 45 minutes. “Let’s grab a couple of beers.” I suggested.
“How are you doing on money?” Windy asked. He’d been carefully checking his budget daily and, while this was the first time he mentioned it, I knew he’d noticed that I had not been keeping track of mine and had been spending rather freely. We both knew that I had less money than Windy in general and certainly on this trip. I pulled out my paper money and did the conversion math in my head.
“I have about $40.” I think.
Windy had watched me count. “Um, Loyal, that’s about $4.”
“Ah, well that will get us a couple of beers, yeah?”
“I don’t know. Places like this usually have American prices.”
“Okay, I’ll get some money out.” I found an ATM and put in my card. I tried to pull out $100 and found I had insufficient funds. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. I checked my balance. I had $23 left in the bank. With a sour feeling in my stomach I returned to Windy. “Well… I’m out of money.”
“What?” Windy stared at me in disbelief. A growing frustration had been creeping up as I ran out of film, as I passed up every chance to add up expenses before grabbing another round of beers, as I tipped generously.”
“Yeah, man. I’m broke.” I felt the panic ringing in my ears and tightening my shoulders. Windy was good with money but it seemed to me it was a challenge, a game. I knew he had money. People with money are good with money, or was it that people who were good with money had money. Either way, I was not good with money, though I excelled at living cheaply, but here on vacation I’d let myself not think about it. I’d let the growing headache in the part of my brain that knew I should stop and do some calculations continue to be ignored as it grew and hardened. I buried it and pushed forward and now I arrived at this place, broke in Guatemala. I had a ticket home from Cancun. We’d been here seven days. It was time to start back in the other direction. How cheap could I live until then? “I’m sorry, man. I did some math wrong somewhere.”
“Can someone put some money in your account for you? Can you get a hundred bucks? If we keep sleeping outdoors, hitchhiking, and we go to grocery stores instead of restaurants you can make it back up to Cancun with a hundred bucks, easy.”
“Yeah. Um, I don’t think I have anyone that I can hit up… except, well, can you loan me a hundred bucks?” Our server arrived with impeccable timing.
“What can I get you today?”
“Actually, I think we’re leaving.” Windy answered.
“Can we get two beers.” I countered.
“Two beers. Anything else?” he asked, sounding very bored with us.
“Yeah, a bowl your black bean soup.” I added. Windy’s eyes grew huge.
“Dude, what are you doing?”
“Look, I got $23 on my card, and $4 in my pocket and that will pay for a couple of beers and some soup and this air conditioning, and it ain’t gonna get me to Cancun, so lets just have this time to eat and cool down, and figure things out.”
Windy didn’t answer. He stared at me. I knew he was choosing not to share his thoughts, and I was choosing not to push, happy to allow them to stay in his head. His silence said plenty. The beers came and they were ice cold. The soup was warm but a bit bland. It was the first thing I’d eaten since arriving in Cancun that didn’t taste delicious.
We finished the soup and beers. I was tempted to ask Windy if he wanted to buy another round since I got this one. His continued silence told me I should not. We caught our shuttle, a modern, air conditioned, comfortable long van. We were dropped off in a parking lot surrounded by jungle. Windy hadn’t said a word the whole ride.
“Okay.” he said as we walked from the shuttle toward a group of tourists. “I’ll lend you a hundred dollars, one hundred dollars, but we need to check and adjust our budget every night, figure out how much we’re spending and how much we have left to spend per day.”
“Dude, thanks.” I said, the weight lifting from me. “We can go cheap, man. Once we get out of this tourist area things will go back to costing nothing.”
“Things don’t cost nothing. Even cheap things add up.”
“Oh don’t be like that, man. A hundred bucks, we’ll be good. Let’s get back to having a fun trip.” He didn’t reply. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I put you in this position. But we’re here. Let’s make the most of it and I’ll catch you back as soon as we get home.”
“How. You have money at home?”
“No, but I’ll be back at work and I’ll pay you back within a month.”
“Alright.” and I could hear in his voice that he was letting this go. We were ready to move on with our trip. I was embarrassed but the relief was stronger than the embarrassment and I was able to focus on the ancient ruins in front of us and the amazing place I found myself.