Guatamala / Honduras 1998: THE TRIP REPORT

By Ervin Ashford

Guatemala City is very easy to get to, only a little over two hours from Houston on Continental. That's where the easy part ends. Travel mostly consists of riding overloaded chicken buses over mountain roads, although we were able to get a first class bus from Guatemala City to Quetzeltenango. Bandits sometimes stop buses and we were warned to never ride the buses at night. Our objective was to experience Guatemala and learn Spanish. Our first destination was the second largest city, Quetzeltenango, which is always referred to as Xela (pronounced Shela). Xela is at 8,000 feet elevation surrounded by mountain peaks and volcanoes. It's a good base for adventure travelers to trek to the top of the volcanoes and experience the indigenous people. We knew from the guidebooks that Xela was cold, sometimes, as cold as the low 40's, but we were not prepared for how uncomfortable it would be since the houses and the Spanish schools have no heat. We were further disappointed because we expected a quaint mountain town and we found a congested, generally ugly city. People warned us so much to be careful at night and on any treks to the country, that we had difficulty relaxing and enjoying the city and surrounding countryside. But, we checked in with our family and found them to be wonderful. The house, which might be called a mini hotel, was built around a courtyard, behind a gated wall. The family, of course, spoke no English, which would have been a good Spanish immersion, except for the three Germans, one Swiss, and an American living there who preferred to communicate in English. (There was also a French archeologist who wouldn't speak to anyone in any language.) The interaction with the other folks was a good experience since they were travelling several months (or in the case of the Swiss and American, not months but years) throughout Central America. Except for the cold, shared bathroom across the court yard, days in which the water was off for hours, and two days without electricity, the homestay was great --good food and family.

The Spanish school was top notch. The teachers were well organized, knew no English, and were masters at teaching Gringos Spanish. There were lots of afternoon and weekend activities: pot luck dinner, dance, trip to the hot springs pool in the mountains, eating out, and a strange Mayan religious ceremony. The school is very involved in social issues: legal justice, poverty, and teaching Indian women to be like American women. Since we did not care to get involved in social problems, we did not volunteer for those projects.

After eight days in Xela, we went with two other people, Lillia (the 19 year old director of the school) and Loretta (an Australian), to Lake Atitlan. Because she was on a tight budget, Lillia decided we should walk the three miles to the bus terminal to save a dollar (of course, she was not carrying a 30-pound backpack). The few hours on the chicken bus were a great chance to mix with the people and see the countryside. The buses, old American school buses, were colorfully painted, generally over loaded, and slow since they stopped to pick up anyone along the road. They can crowd more people into a seat, designed for three school kids, than you can imagine.

Lake Atitlan is generally accepted as the most beautiful lake in the world. It's about twelve miles long by eight miles across, surrounded by three active volcanoes. The major town on the lake is on the Gringo trail, so much so, it's sometimes called Gringo­tenango. Our group took a boat across the lake to a small town called San Pedro. This was wonderful town with the usual plaza and white church. It seemed to attract many European budget travelers and young hippies, sometimes called Eurotrash. We stayed in the best hotel, with hot water and private bath, for a total of $5 per night. (It was a $5 hotel room.) The town was the site of a horrible event several years ago when the army rounded up all the young men and slaughtered them. To make amends, the government removed all forces, including the national police, from the town. Our second stop on the lake was at Panajachel (Gringotenango) where we again stayed in the best hotel for $120 per night. We thoroughly enjoyed the lake. Every sight was a photo opportunity. There is even a scuba operator there. The only downside to the lake was the weekend street vendors in Panajachel who pestered us. Gina did have a very interesting conversation, in Spanish, with one Mayan woman, but she may not share it with you.

From the lake, we grabbed a shuttle van to Antigua. Antigua is also on the Gringo trail with over 100 Spanish schools. We were told that in the summer, their high season, as many as 1,000 Gringo students arrive and leave each week. Anyway, Antigua was clean, had a very nice plaza, excellent restaurants and hotels, and was safe. The odd thing about the town is there is a church or earthquake ruined church on nearly every other block. Why they built so many churches, back in the 1500's, is a mystery. The other odd thing is that they left the earthquake ruins, mostly just huge walls without roofs, standing as tourist attractions. The last earthquake, in 1976, killed 30,000 people and left everyone else homeless.

We planned to leave Antigua and go to Copan, Honduras via four chicken bus rides (12 hours), but fortunately a travel agent was sending a van load of people to Copan to see the ruins, so we hitched on. That closed out Guatemala for us. Some reflections on Guatemala are:

GOOD STUFF. It's cheap. The entire week in Xela including homestay, three meals a day, and 25 hours of one on one Spanish instruction totaled $100 per person. The people are wonderful. They are mostly full-blooded Mayan Indians. The mountain scenery is worth the trip.

BAD STUFF. With one of the fastest growing populations (now over 10 million people) Guatemala will soon be unable to provide for its people. Already, people are entering the job market faster than the country can create jobs. Family planning, like in all Latin countries, is, "Let God decide how many children I will have". Even though the civil war has ended, there is no real peace due to the high crime rate.

Getting to Honduras was interesting. Of the nine passengers (all Gringos) in the van, we were the only Americans. A teenage girl from Holland was such a spoiled brat; she threw a temper tantrum so the driver kicked someone else out of the front seat so the girl and her mother could have the better seat. This was in sharp contrast with seeing local people carry heavy burdens on their backs to sell at the local markets. Anyway, we proceeded to one the two border crossings with Honduras. The last two hours in Guatemala were on the dustiest road ever. So bad, I used my sweater to breathe through. We finally wound through low mountains into a hot, dry valley where two rough wooden buildings stood about 300 yards apart along the road. We got out and walked. In the first building, we cleared out of Guatemala. This was very involved, with the clerk typing each of our names and passport numbers on an antique typewriter. Down the road we enter Honduras with a similar procedure and off we went twelve kilometers to Copan.

Copan was such a delight to see. There had been some changes since we were there last year: new hotel, new faces on some stores and the church, and some new cars-real signs of prosperity to the tiny town. The cobble stone streets and steep hills were the same. The Spanish school was the same except for the faces. We checked in with the same family we stayed with last year. They treated us like family members coming home. They were genuinely glad to see us and planned outings to the countryside for the weekend. Theses outing, plus the ones the school had, gave me the opportunity to go into the country houses (mud huts) and see how the Camposinos live. We, of course, spent some time climbing the Mayan ruins with eleven year old Daniella, from the family, acting as our guide. Since her father is a famous sculptor, she got into the park free. Copan was great because of the excellent restaurants and safe atmosphere that allowed us to walk home after dark without watching over our shoulders. The afternoons were hot, but we didn't complain after being cold in Xela.

Our next destination was Trujillo on the Caribbean coast. We couldn't get there in one day. We left Copan early in the morning via first class bus to the San Pedro Sula airport and then a local plane to La Ceiba where we had to stay the night. The next day we arrived at Trujillo to find it exactly as I had left it last year. Around town, I met lots of Gringo friends that live in Trujillo. Being an expatriate may seem romantic, but I felt sorry for them. Their days consist mostly of hanging out at one of the beach bars and looking for things to occupy their time. After three days of going to the beach and beach bars, we (no I) decided to go to Utila Island to go scuba diving. I had not planned to dive on this trip and had no dive gear with me. Anyway, this was a very interesting day. In the morning, we went to the hotel that acts as the Islana Airline ticket agent, and bought tickets to La Ceiba on the 12:30 flight. She also made us reservations on Sosa for the seven-minute flight to Utila. Well, 12:30 came and went as we stood around the runway (there's no terminal building, just a landing strip) and the lobby of the nearest hotel. Finally, one of the lobby clerks called La Ceiba to find that the airplane had overflown us since it was full coming out of the Mosquitia area. Not to worry, the plane would be back after it made yet another trip to Mosquitia (four hours later). This, of course, put us into La Ceiba too late for our flight to Utila Island. Since we didn't relish the thought of spending the night in La Ceiba, I asked the clerk at Islana if there was a flight to Roatan Island and was sold tickets on a flight leaving in ten minutes.

Without a reservation, we took a cab across the island to the Inn of Last Resort, where I had stayed last year. I found it to be just as wonderful as I remembered. When I walked into the bar/dining room, they even called me by name. Well, the diving was better than I remembered. The boats left at 8:30, 10:30, and 2:30 and one night there was a night boat. The dives included the best wreck dive ever, lots of "swim throughs" (tunnels), and wall dives. The sites were all less than ten minutes from the dock. The only disappointment was the lack of marine life. The resort owners, Andy and Donna, had taken in a young, Hispanic boy, Moses. Moses was 15 years old, but appeared to be 12 or 13. He never knew his father and after his mother died, he ran away from the mainland. The boat crew found him sleeping on one of the boats. They fed him and asked Donna what she wanted them to do with him. Well, when I saw him, he was all smiles, going to school, living with the crew, and at times he was wearing brand new dive gear. He was a real rags to riches story and he knew it.