Palabra of the day: tumulo. It means “speed bump.”
At 8:00 a.m. I went to stand on the road to Ciudad Vieja where a million chicken buses blasted by as I awaited my ride to Cobí¡n. Forty-five minutes later I’d just about given up and my shoulders had nearly pulled from their sockets on account of my backpack when Cesí¡r pulled up. The van was packed and the only remaining spot was on a ridge in the front seat between Cesí¡r and a mother-son combo. Luckily, the latter disembarked 10 minutes later, and I rode in luxury the rest of the day.
I alternately nodded off and talked to Cesí¡r, a divorced young father whose joy is his two-year-old son, Daniel. While driving, Cesí¡r showed me pictures on his cellphone. His Spanish was relatively easy for me to understand so we covered a lot of topics over the next seven hours. At one point a German couple asked him a question in English. To my utter amazement, he turned to me and asked for a translation. That’s a first, and probably a last.
Dropping a couple thousand feet, I think, from Antigua’s 5000-foot elevation, we entered an uncomfortably hot valley beyond Guatemala City, and then started to climb again, through lots of pretty and poor towns including San Pedro Carchí¡ and Cojaj. A significant number of the locals speak only their native Q’eqchi’.
I wish I could find the words to describe the topography: steep folds in random patterns, sort of like sheets after a sleepless night “¦ except — you know — much bigger. If you stripped all the flora off, it would lay out much like southeastern West Virginia, with its precipitous hollows. In fact, there are subterranean similarities as well: limestone and watery caves. Here are a few pictures that are blurry because they’re from the window of a fast-moving vehicle.
I had no idea where I’d stay that night and had no reservations. But as we approached Lanquín I overheard other passengers talking about lodging being full. Sure enough, the hotel I wanted was lleno. Cesí¡r suggested I jump on the back of a pickup and spend the night half an hour down the road at the remote Las Marías, which I’d heard about from a guy in Costa Rica. They were reputed to have no room as well. It was a leap of faith that things would work out and that I wouldn’t have to sleep in a cave or something, but I climbed into the back of the truck, someone threw backpacks in on top of me, and we took off. At top speed we bounded along the four-wheel-drive road through even more spectacular and varied country, as the sun sunk behind the hills.
Here is Las Marías, which sure enough had room for me, and for only Q70 (less than $10). It’s set in lush forest only yards from the River Cahabón (the one I’ve been trying to raft).
At first glance the place seemed pretty funky, but it turns out they clean constantly and the stuff is just old-looking. My room was humble but adequate — a bed and a table and enough room to walk past them — and its window looks fondly out at the bathroom three feet away. When the men pee it’s deafening.
But I love it here and the staff is great. Paco, the guy in the front, has been particularly patient with my endless questions, including one about cardamom chocolate that’s made by a local women’s co-op. I don’t know from cardamom, so Paco reached under the counter and held out a tiny square that was all he had left of his bar. I tried to break off a piece but it was too hard. He motioned me to take a bite. He’s never even met me and he’s letting my mouth go on his food? I was impressed.
After dumping my stuff in my room I took a quick walk upriver.
I could see the waterfalls and pools of Semuc Champey up ahead, but it was getting dusky in the woods and figured I should return in case there were creepy people around. I checked out the mouth of the Las Marías cave, and climbed several hundred feet up to two miradores where I looked out on this and other views:
Exhausted, I ate dinner and M&Ms, pulled my bed away from all walls, and hopped in at 9:00, wishing I’d brought bug lotion. Despite light and chatter seeping through multitudinous spaces in the slapdash, clapboard walls, I fell soundly asleep.
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