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The Chicken Bus To AntiguaIn Guatemala sometimes the journey is more important than the arrivalBy Brendan Sainsbury"Amigo....." rasps the man in the Panama hat, breathing the strong aroma of Cuban tobacco into my face, "Y'know.....there's an old Guatemalan joke." I grimace, as the bus lists dangerously to the right, throws me off balance momentarily and delivers me rather unapologetically into the lap of a heavily-wrinkled old woman - eyes closed and lips muttering, a rosary clasped between her fingertips. "Yes?" I reply breathlessly without too much interest. He tilts the brim of his hat, glances behind him at a sea of bored work-bound faces and then leans forward and speaks in an almost conspiratorial whisper "How many people can you fit into a chicken bus?" The mouth is flat and serious, but the smiling eyes don't lie. "I dunno", I say half-enthusiastically, playing along with him, extending the agony a little longer as we screech to a halt at some nameless road intersection somewhere in between Guatemala City and Antigua. The bus stops and the engine splutters. One person gets off and at least another five climb on board. We all take a collective breath inwards and shunt back into the private space of the person behind us.
You have to psyche yourself up for Guatemala City. You have to move yourself into a higher state of consciousness, prepare yourself for the noise and the appalling traffic, the hot and crazy disorder of the congested downtown core. I had arrived one muggy morning in February on a mission: three weeks to help build a small, compact gymnasium for a US-funded orphanage in a place called San Lucas. My old friend Pablo was my inspiration and self-appointed local contact. Like an over-zealous tour guide he had waxed lyrically about spectacular volcanic landscapes, hard altruistic endeavour and calmly contested games of football with well-behaved street children. It wasn't his only exaggeration. Quite understandably, he never mentioned anything about the chicken buses either. I e-mailed ahead early and arranged to meet Pablo at the airport. He told me he had managed to fix us up with some accommodation in a quiet cobbled part of old Antigua situated 50km to the north-west. It was a blessing in disguise, as it turned out. Guatemala City didn't look like my kind of place. It didn't really look like anybody's kind of place. One hour "in the smoke" they said, was the equivalent to puffing through an excess of about twenty medium tar cigarettes a day. I took it on trust. After all, I wasn't going to be hanging around for long. The bus stop was by the side of a marketplace on the Pan-American Highway. I couldn't see a sign as such, just a ramshackle stall where a mean-looking chef in old army trousers conjured up chicken tortillas and beans amidst a cloud of belching exhaust fumes. "This is it", said Pablo as a convoy of old requisitioned US school buses bore down on us. There was no identifiable queue to speak of, no public address system announcement to the tune of "PLEASE LET THE PASSENGERS OFF THE BUS FIRST", just lots of elbows and arms and desperate jostling and the sight of Pablo's sun burnt neck getting carried along with the surge of people in front of me. In Guatemala a ride on a chicken bus is a veritable, if painful glimpse into the essence of life itself - a harsh and uncomfortable cultural treat, but a treat worth tasting all the same. Incorporated into the reality of everyday life, chicken buses have become like spontaneous meeting halls and marketplaces, forums where self-proclaimed zealots can launch their dogmatic ideals to a passive audience of temporarily-imprisoned listeners. To miss the ride is to miss the true shades and colors of the country at its authentic best - a country of humid coffee plantations and smoking volcanoes, a land of Mayan legends and proud indigenous people.
It was thus that I arrived at our destination, Antigua, the former Spanish colonial capital that nestles rather precariously in the shadow of three imposing volcanic peaks. Fortuitously Pablo appeared to have come up trumps on the accommodation deal. From the window of my private roof-top terrace I could gaze wistfully upon Volcan Aqua to the left - blue, still and deceptively peaceful - and Volcan Fuego to the right, steaming like a smoking gun above me.
For me, there was still a tiny fragment missing. "Tourists…." - the travel writer Paul Theroux once said - "never know where they've been. Travelers never know where they are going." And there's a certain rationale in the resonance of these wise words. You sally forth, you journey, you experience, but do you ever really arrive? My mission beckoned but, as I stood mesmerized in the colonial jewel of Antigua surrounded by gap year university students, tour groups and friendly voices shouting out excitedly in my own native language, I remembered momentarily the man in the Panama hat. There was just a small part of me that wanted to get back on the chicken bus. For volunteering opportunities in Antigua and Guatemala check out Global Vision www.gvi.co.uk Chicken buses run the length and breadth of Guatemala. Fares start at about $0.20cents For ethical treks and tours in Guatemala, check out Quetzal Trekkers, www.quetzaltrekkers.com. Profits from their trips go to help local street children. For excellent accommodation in true Spanish colonial
splendour, try Casa de los Canteros, in Antigua:
http://www.travellog.com/guatemala/casa/cantaros.html |
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TM
"It's
simple......." chuckles my new-found friend employing that rather hysterical
form of Guatemalan logic, "Always one more."
The buses are particularly boisterous first thing in
the morning. Colorfully attired Indian women battle it out in the aisles
with screaming children, a variety of domesticated animals and the
ever-present conductors who burrow through the crowds like contortionists
waving fistfuls of quetzal banknotes. While climbing aboard you quickly find
that you are stuffed inside in a way that even the death-defying Houdini
would have found intolerable. Getting off at your chosen stop thus becomes a
skilled and well-practiced art of escapology. Gradually, as the destination
approaches, you edge your way forward down the aisle over a period of about
ten minutes or so until you are within shouting distance of the door when
the bus stops. The difficulty is, chicken buses don't actually stop - or so
it seems - they just kind of slow down to allow the over-eager conductor to
boot a few more bodies out of the open door and abduct a couple of
passers-by to fill up the empty spaces. 
Placed beside it’s more urbanized and brash rival,
Antigua is an engaging respite, as beguilingly beautiful as the modern
capital is ugly. When the Spanish upped and departed with their money, trade
and commerce in the late eighteenth century, after a catastrophic earthquake
rendered the valley temporarily uninhabitable, they clearly left most of
their artistic imagination behind in the haunting, if abandoned air of the
old city - not that you need to use much imagination to conjure up the
legacy of centuries past in Antigua. That first night I ventured out early
to find that I had arrived during Semana Santa, the Catholic interpretation
of Holy Week. It's a festival of sorts when the cobbled streets are covered
in flowers laid out in intricate patterns and the grid of roads around the
main square is traversed nightly by processions of hooded sinners waving
sweet-smelling incense. I stood by the side of the road outside an internet
cafe advertising European football matches and watched the swaying crowds
pass by carrying effigies of the crucified Christ.