Catching the boat early out of Livingston as it makes its daily supply run into Puerto Barrios.
November 8, 2009. Now in Antigua, Guatemala.
Exercising my itinerant prerogative, I decided to leave the tropics and find some highland chill. Left Livingston on the 5AM supply boat for the highway at Puerto Barrios, then buses via Guatemala City to the old colonial capital, Antigua, where, I'm told, life is tranquil and enchanting.
Stevedores catching zees as dawn breaks.
It was a gritty Guatemalan day, first piling aboard in the dark to claim some deck space. A fairly pleasant one-hour cruise, actually. A domestic dispute was in progress at the Barrios bus station: a couple fighting over a backpack, a guard with a shotgun slung over his shoulder trying to separate them. It was a fascinating ten minutes. I tried to keep a concrete pillar between me and the action in case the drunken husband decided to escalate.
Safely landed, ready to load.
The bus was a colossus on wheels - a two-story Mercedes-Benz affair: A/C, TVs, a steward. Things get pretty rocky on the top floor going over Guatemalan roads. I had better sea legs on the boat. We were treated to a double-bill. First, a Steven Seagal effort. It was in English with Spanish subtitles so I could keep count of the sensitive tough-guy cliches. Not many missed. Then a giant radioactive anaconda movie, but a poor example of the genre. The bus kept going up, up, up.
Guatemala City. Large, menacing, with pollution you can taste.
I had a notion of staying a night or two in the capital, as part of my traveler's duty. I looked around the brutal lack of adornment in the Zone 1 streets as we made our way to the bus drop and revised that to staying in Antigua and busing in here for a photo day. Now that I've walked ten or twelve blocks, taking pictures, trying to find the ever-shifting Antigua pick-up point, I'm going to revise that again to never. My lungs insist.
Did I mention the smog?
If there's a leafy plaza somewhere in town, or a café district, or stunning architecture, I won't come looking. My guide book said it's possible to find a decent budget hotel downtown, but don't go out after dark. The guide books say lots of things, but I will believe this advice. I stood on one corner composing a picture and a lady rushed over and told me to get the hell out of the area. Behind me hookers were banging on a window, pointing and laughing.
Near the end of my walk, I crossed one broad concrete plaza. Pacing furiously, a middle-aged man in an old-fashioned business suit was preaching to no one and everyone, pointing at the sky and punctuating his rant frequently with a loud "Ah-haa!" Well, I thought, there's at least one sane man in Guatemala City.
After swelter and lassitude on the coast and the capital's sensory assault, I will welcome the cool, mountain air and cobbled roadways of Antigua. First though, sleep and recovery. Under the weather these last two days - head cold, tropical stomach yips and now a raw throat from the murderous smog, all exacerbated by short sleeps and Latin American bus travel. Need rest.
