Bus Ride in Guatemala: A Young Girl’s Journey

by Lisa Bannach

Written for Engl 3040 Literary Nonfiction, ETSU Fall 2004

Travel up the treacherous mountain terrain of Guatemala, deep within the rainforest,

as a young girl travels alone in a third world country.

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Contributor’s Note

The author is currently a student at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN. She will graduate in May of 2005, with a Bachelor’s of Arts in English and a minor in Psychology. She is a student worker at the Center for Physical Activity and an employee at Jersey Mike’s Restaurant. After graduation, she plans to attend graduate school and earn her Master’s in Teaching. She would like to teach elementary school.

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I knew it was going to be one of the scariest things I had ever done in my life; but if I had known exactly how scary it really would be, I probably would not have gone. After landing at the airport in Guatemala City, Guatemala, I went through customs and then proceeded to wait with the other passengers from my flight around the only baggage claim conveyer belt in the small, third-world-country airport. It was muggy in the small baggage claim area. There was no air conditioning and through the fish flaps that separated our luggage from the outside, it looked as though it had recently finished raining.

As I waited anxiously for my luggage to appear on the belt, I could hear the security dogs barking as they sniffed our luggage for smuggled drugs. I was grateful when I finally spotted my tan suitcase because I had heard that your luggage doesn’t always make it and you have to come back to the airport the next day to pick it up. I grabbed my suitcase off the revolving belt and approached the guards at the gate to go outside, where my ride was supposed to be waiting. The guard glanced at my passport and took the customs papers I had filled out on the plane ride, then waved me on through. Waiting outside of the doors were at least one hundred people, held back from the airport exit doors with a hanging rope. The people were shouting and holding signs with names on them. I glanced around for my name. A short, dark-skinned Guatemalan man appearing to be about forty years old was holding a white sign that said “Lisa Bannach.” I walked over to him and introduce myself as best as I could with the little Spanish I knew.

“Hola, me llamo Lisa Bannach.” I smiled and pointed to the sign he was holding. I had taken Spanish classes for the last four years, but was nowhere near being prepared to use it and understand it. The man smiled and quickly took my suitcase from my hand. He put it in his old hatchback car and slammed the trunk, then motioned for me to get in. As I waited for him to get in the car, I suddenly became aware of all the noise around me. This noise would be nonstop for the remainder of my stay in Guatemala. Right now, it was traffic noises. Later, when I would lie in my bed at night in my host family’s house, I would hear our many roosters crowing in the backyard, firecrackers exploding at all hours, shouting, music, and traffic. I listened as people repeatedly honked on their horns. I later learned that people honked for multiple reasons; to say hi, to alert pedestrians that a car is speeding through, if they see something they like, and so on. There was so much commotion all around. I got in the car and fumbled with my seatbelt for a few minutes. I realized I had to tie it only after I watched the man tie his across his chest. This man was supposed to take me to the bus station and then I would take a bus for four hours to get to Quetzaltenango, where I was to go to Spanish school for the next two weeks. As he drove me through the chaotic streets of Guatemala City, narrowly avoiding being hit every couple of minutes, he spoke to me in Spanish.

“Te gusta los Estados Unidos? De donde eres?” I did my best to tell him a little bit about the States, and that I was from Tennessee. As he proceeded to tell me about my bus ride, I looked out the window at the sights. It was very different from the United States. I had been to Mexico, but this was the center of Guatemala. The roads hadn’t been repaved in decades and the few, sporadic street signs went unnoticed by most of the drivers. The only means of communication seemed to be honking the horn. I hadn’t realized it would be so much like a third world country, and there was no English anywhere. All of the billboards and signs resembled those of the United States, except they were more run down and the words were in Spanish. I noticed many advertisements for Crush, the orange soda. I realized I had never even had one. I got the impression that it was the unofficial drink of Guatemala. Every store advertised for it, even in the very rural areas I visited. However, I never did see a Guatemalan drinking one.

The complete chaos of transportation in Guatemala stunned me. There were no neatly painted yellow and white lines on the streets. There were no arrows or convenient turning lanes. Sometimes the road was narrow and gravel, sometimes it was roughly paved and wider. I looked around at all the shops and markets. The buildings were small and run-down, the remnants of what once was brightly colored paint clung to the rough walls. Tiny, square shops were placed one right next to another. Through one particular open window that lacked a screen, I saw two Guatemalan woman making homemade tortillas. They repeated the action of tossing the small, round, tortilla from on palm to their other, then pressing it down on the table in front of them. My Guatemalan host mom would serve these homemade tortillas with every meal I was to have over the next two weeks. Being thick and unsweetened, they were very different from the tortillas I bought in grocery stores in the States.

My heart raced as my driver dropped me off at the bus station and before driving off, purchased my ticket and handed it to me. I looked down at the flimsy green paper in my hand; completely in Spanish. All I could understand was where I was leaving from and where I was headed, but I already knew that. I didn’t know how to ask how I was supposed to know when I had to get off. All I could understand was that I would be on the bus for about four hours.

“No te preocupado,” he said slowly, “no te preocupado.” I thought about how I was supposed to not worry as I looked around, standing on the side of the rode with my suitcase. I had never even been to a bus station in the United States. If it was anything like they were in Guatemala, I understood why I had avoided this place. The people around me were unfriendly-looking, their solemn, bored faces, eyeing the scared white girl with a lump in her throat. Although there were about ten people sitting in that small room, it was silent. No one spoke; they just waited. The only sound was the humming that came from a small, rusted metal fan sitting on the faded green ticket counter.

Finally, the bus pulled up and the people around me started handing their luggage to the bus driver to load underneath the bus. The bus looked just like an Alamo bus would in the United States, but it was so old and rundown it would have been considered unsafe. The dull, aluminum-colored paint was rusted and peeling. As I walked up to the bus, I noticed my distorted reflection mirrored on the dented bus. The poorly tinted windows were scratched and the tint was peeling off in large sections. I gave my luggage to the short Guatemalan man loading the bus, and then got on. Inside the bus smelled musty and the seats looked as though they had been recovered a long time ago, none of them matched. As I waited for the bus to leave, I looked out of the window, through the dingy yellow tint. The bus started up and I looked at my watch, hoping that in four hours there would be some sort of sign to let me know when to get off. At least I knew from the bus driver that Quetzaltenango was more commonly referred to as Xela. I took my bus ticket out of my pocket and looked down at it. I sure hoped Xela and Quetzaltenango were the same place, because I was heading to Xela.

Aside from marveling at the differences of being in a foreign country, the bus ride started out to be uneventful. Sitting across from me was a young Guatemalan couple that took turns falling asleep throughout the long bus ride. She glanced at me occasionally, smiled sweetly and looked away. I had chosen a seat up front, and the bus driver kept looking at me in his review mirror more than he was looking at the road. Guatemalans don’t see very many white people, let alone twenty-year-old white girls with blond hair and blue eyes. I had been told to expect this. Guatemalan woman are less than 5 feet tall with dark skin, eyes and hair. Although I’m only 5’3, I was a tall blond goddess compared to the majority here. I was stared at more in those two weeks than I have even been looked at in my whole life. I wished the bus driver would look more at the road. I even tried to slouch down in my seat, so as not be in his review mirror. The road was curvy and narrow, heading up a mountain with a steep valley on one side. The same chaos that was in the city streets followed us up the mountain. The bus driver would go around sharp curves without ever slowing down. I watched all the passengers sway from side to side as we navigated our way along the curvy road up the side of a mountain. I regretted sitting on the side of the bus that overlooked the steep drop-off into the valley. I made a mental note to sit on the same side of the bus on my return ride down the mountain, so as not to have to stare down at the huge abyss that began only a few feet from the side of the road. Of course, there were no guardrails or painted lines. Other cars would pass our bus while going uphill and around a curve. Somewhere along the ride I finally gave up fearing for my life and came to peace with that if I was meant to die in a bus that rolled down the side of the mountain in Guatemala, there was nothing I could do about it.

As the bus continued on its route, we picked up more people, and some people got off. However, the bus never actually came to a complete stop. It slowed down just enough to where if you had been running along side the bus you could grab on and there was a guy standing in the door that helped pull you up. The bus came to a quick stop for the woman and children to get on, but the men had to start running. Vendors would also get on the bus. They would walk up and down the aisle selling fruit, chicken tortillas, and sodas. The next time the bus slowed down for a passenger, the vendor would hop off. We didn’t come to a complete stop until about two hours into the ride. I braced myself with the seat in front of me as the driver slammed on his breaks and then reversed the bus.

As we came to a complete stop, the other passengers peered out the windows. Everyone looked straight ahead as three armed guards entered the bus. Large, black guns were strapped across their chests and their uniforms were crisp. Each guard kept one finger on the trigger of his gun at all times. The first guard walked straight to the back of the bus while the other one stayed in the front.

My heart pounded as I looked at the threatening look on their faces and thought about how Guatemala had only recently ended a thirty-five year civil war between the government and the guerillas. The Guatemalan government, rumored to have been funded by the United States, began to massacre the indigenous people living in the cities. The people, fearing for their lives, packed up their families and escaped to the rural mountain country, which my bus had been traveling through the last two hours. A group of communist men formed and called themselves guerillas, using guerilla warfare and military tactics in an attempt to fight against the government. Thus began an active political war of terror. The guerillas would hide out in the lush forests of the mountains and when they came upon a house, they raided it. They would demand food and threaten to kill if the families didn’t comply. They would also take any men and boys eligible to fight and train them in their warfare. If the indigenous man or boy resisted, the guerillas killed him or his family or both. From 1961-1996, the indigenous people lived in fear of the government military and the guerillas. A peace treaty was signed in 1996, but not before over 150,000 were killed and another 50,000 went missing; the majority of which were Mayan civilians.

One by one, the guards checked our ID’s. Their voices had a quiet sternness; the solemn look on their faces caused a silence to fall over the entire bus. I looked around and noticed I was the only foreigner on the bus. The guard that had gone to the back of the bus was taking some of the passengers off the bus and had them lined up outside. I could hardly breathe as I handed the guard my passport. I felt the color rush from my face as the guard examined my passport for what seemed like minutes, then mumbled something in Spanish and looked at my face. I didn’t respond because I didn’t understand what he said. All I could think was that I wouldn’t know what to do if I got kicked off this bus. He finally closed my passport and handed it back to me. I realized I had been holding my breath and finally let out a sigh of relief as the guard proceeded to inspect the next passenger’s ID.

The guards exited the bus and the passengers they had kicked off never got back on. I had no idea what that event was all about, but I was glad it was over with and the bus driver started the engine up and we resumed our dangerous ascent up the mountain. I wondered what was going to happen to the passengers that didn’t get back on. As I glanced at the other passengers, I saw the nervous but relieved look on their faces. I looked at my watch and concluded that I had about another two hours before I had to start worrying about getting off. I leaned back in my seat and looked straight ahead. The bus driver was staring at me again in his review mirror. If I had known how scary traveling to a third-world country was going to be, I probably wouldn’t have come. It was nothing like living in the United States. The following two weeks were full of many other eventful surprises. None as shocking as those first few hours in Guatemala, and I was grateful that the return bus ride remained uneventful.