February 1, 2005
Panajachel, Guatemala
After spending a couple of comfortable weeks in Quetzaltenango, hanging out with my godchildren (and way too many visits to McDonalds) I decided it was time to go to some parts of Guatemala I’ve never been to before. There aren’t many, but I had never been up to the mountain village of Todos Santos, or the city of Cobán, a former center of coffee and cardamom production, which is now becoming a hub of eco-tourism. On a map the two places aren’t that far apart—a little more than a hundred miles—but the mostly unpaved road that links them winds up, down and through the Cuchumatanes Mountains. It sounded just like what I was looking for.
One reason I had put off going to Todos Santos was the climate. Todos Santos is in a high mountain valley at about 7000 feet. Much of the time it is blanketed in a thick, drizzly fog, which is so common that it has a name— chipi-chipi. It is a cute name for a miserable phenomenon. But I vowed that a little fog wouldn’t stop me this time.
From Quetzaltenango, one has to change buses in the fairly large city of Huehuetenango, which has virtually nothing of interest to travelers except some mediocre Mayan ruins nearby. The bus I boarded to Todos Santos was battered and dusty. The door was broken, and some of the windows wouldn’t close. I thought that looked promising.
From Huehue the road climbed steeply into misty mountains. Mist quickly turned into fog so thick that I could see it drifting in through the open door and windows. A roadside sign pointed to a vista point overlooking the valley below, but the sign itself vanished quickly in the fog as we passed it. As I grew colder I began wishing for a bus that wasn’t quite so battered.
As we neared the mountaintop we abruptly broke out of the clouds into bright sunlight. Grassy, rock-strewn fields with small flocks of sheep gave way to rugged, pine-covered hillsides. But as we began descending into the valley on the dirt road that leads to Todos Santos we sank back into the fog as quickly as we had left it a few miles earlier. Mountains and valleys disappeared, and Mayan villagers standing beside the road took on an air of mystery.
When we reached Todos Santos the first thing I did, after finding a place to stay, was put on nearly all the clothes I had, which I had packed in anticipation of warm weather. It would be three days before I was warm enough to take any layers off.
In addition to the traditional dress of its inhabitants, Todos Santos is known for a wild horse race, held on November 1 at the end of a week of festivities. The night before the race the riders traditionally drink themselves silly on aguardiente, a potent beverage made from sugar cane. The drunkenness of the contestants is an integral part of the race and just staying on the horse is considered a real feat. There really isn’t any other point to it. It is not uncommon for fallen riders to be trampled to death. I’m sure there is a perfectly good rationale for this race, but I have no idea what it is.
The Singing Dog
My first night in Todos Santos I was huddled in my tiny, cold room, reading. Outside my window a dog was barking. Down the street I could hear a man shuffling along, singing to himself. He evidently had been practicing for the pre-race party next November.
As the man passed by the dog barked at him. The man stopped, then began singing loudly to the dog. The dog stopped barking, and began howling along with the drunken man. Both had pretty good voices. I don’t know whether the man was harmonizing with the dog, or the dog with the man. But they were, indeed, harmonizing. It was pure magic. As miserable as I was, hearing man and man’s best friend singing in harmony made me feel like my trip to Todos Santos was worth it.
The Road to Cobán
I left town a day later, well before dawn, on a 5:30 a.m. bus, already the second bus of the day. If there is anything I like less than being cold it is getting up early. But I had been cold and half awake most of the night. There were two more buses leaving later, but I thought maybe an earlier bus might be less crowded. Not so. It was loaded to capacity and beyond, just like all the other buses here. I squeezed in among the sleepy passengers, thankful at least for their body heat.
I had expected the trip to Cobán to take three days, with overnight stops in Sacapulas and Uspantán. But thanks to good connection karma I made it in a day and a half, stopping in Sacapulas only long enough to catch a bus leaving immediately for Uspantán. (I wouldn’t have minded staying a little longer, but the next bus left about 4 a.m. the next morning.)
Near the beginning of the trip, after I had changed buses in Huehue, we came to a stretch of paved road and I was afraid I had delayed this trip too long. But the pavement quickly ran out and most of the remaining road was dirt, very rough in spots and in some places little more than a path hacked out of the mountainside. One place we had to detour off the dirt road, and drove down a riverbed for a ways. The water was axle deep and steam from the hot muffler boiled up around the bus. I don’t think there will be tour buses on that route anytime soon.
The road climbed up into the clouds, and down into fertile valleys, past villages and towns. In some places I felt like we were stepping into the past; houses were still made of adobe with tile roofs, rather than the concrete block and corrugated tin that has become so pervasive in Central America. Women knelt in front of dark doorways weaving on backstrap looms, as women here have done for centuries.
We went down more than we went up, and the road gradually descended toward semi-tropical Cobán. We began seeing banana and palm trees and I started feeling more optimistic about ever being warm again.
Cobán is a nice enough city, but for travelers it is more of a base to explore the surrounding area, which offers jungle hikes and white-water rafting for the adventurous, inner-tube floating and hammock dozing for the weary. But the only exploring I did was of restaurants and shops. Faye, my partner, is coming down pretty soon and we plan to come back and explore some of the more interesting places together that neither of us has been to.
Next Stop, Somewhere Warm
I wasn’t quite ready to go back to familiar territory, so my dilemma was where to go next. My one criterion was that it be warm. I decided to go further eastward, towards the Caribbean coast. The most direct route would take me over some more dirt roads and past more small towns, including El Estor, on the shore of Lake Izabel. The guidebook said it was a dangerous route because of numerous hold ups and did not recommend it. I figured such a warning would keep casual travelers away, which was fine with me.
As I walked down a side street in Cobán I saw a Cobán-Estor bus with bullet holes in the windshield, one ominously right in front of the driver’s seat. But still, I was ready to do it. I was a little disappointed with the lack of adventure on the road getting to Cobán, and riding in a bus with bullet holes in it sounded adventurous. What finally made me decide against it was learning that the bus left at 3:00 a.m. I’ve already mentioned how little I like getting up early. It would be really annoying to get up that early, and then be shot at.
But there was a longer route, paved and well traveled, which, instead of going due east, went down, around, and back up. Longer, but faster. So, with that I abandoned any expectations of adventure.
I got off the bus at a long bridge that crosses the Rio Dulce (“Sweet River”) where a town of the same name has developed. Actually, it is not so much a town as it is a cluster of stores, marginal hotels and other services. To the west of the bridge is Lake Izabal; to the right, the wide, slow river flows down to the Caribbean.
After a few nice warm nights, I took a boat down the river through the jungle to the village of Livingston.
The Caribbean
Guatemala has relatively little exposure on the Caribbean. There are only two towns; one is a rather seedy port. The other is Livingston, surrounded by ocean and jungle, and accessible only by boat. It is so unlike the rest of Guatemala it feels like a different country.
For most of its history the majority of residents were the black Garifuna, who have a complex and fascinating genetic heritage. (Thumbnail history: The Garifuna are descended from Africans destined for the slave trade, shipwrecked near the island of St. Vincent, and Amazonian Indians who had migrated into the Caribbean basin earlier. The Garifuna were forcibly relocated by the British to an island off the coast of Honduras in the late 1700s, and spread out along the coast of Central America from Belize to Nicaragua.) In Livingston during the last several years more and more Mayas have moved in and appear to be gaining the majority.
A beach buzzard, trying to impress his
mate, succumbs to exageration.
But in spite of the growing Mayan influence the flavor of Livingston is still distinctly Caribbean. On the streets one hears a blend of Garifuna, Spanish, English, and these days, Q’ekchi’, the Mayan dialect of the region. In the street-side bars and cafés the music is likely to be reggae or punta, an infectious rhythm pounded out on drums and turtle shells. And there is more conch soup and coconut bread than rice, beans and tortillas.
Often in the evenings, after the lethargy of a hot steamy day, a roaming punta band will get a street party rolling. However, when I was there this time the party was rained out, so I got to bed early, and the next day I returned to the Guatemalan heartland, back to familiar territory.
With this trip I’ve started to feel like I’ve been just about everywhere in Guatemala worth going to. There are just a couple other places I’d like to see, and Faye and I intend to check them out when she comes down.
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