Tapachula to Antigua

I'm in Antigua, after a 24-hour, two-bus, one-taxi trip.

You read the story of part one in yesterday's post from Tapachula. It took 7 hours to travel the 119 miles from Tapachula to Guatemala City in the giant, two-story luxury TransGalgosInter bus. Just 15 minutes after leaving Tapachula, we arrived at the border and had to get off the bus. I've been in 33 countries, if you count changing airplanes in Bolivia (where they did stamp my passport) and Norway, and 35, if you throw in Vatican City and the handful of blocks in Italy that make up the Republic of San Marino, but yesterday was the first time I ever walked across a border.

First we lined up at the Mexican immigration office to have our passports stamped for the exit. Then we walked the gantlet of money changers holding fists of quetzals and pesos. Having no idea of the exchange rate, I was ripped off immediately. It's tough to beat a bunch of guys shouting and waving bills and calculators in your face. My 170 pesos should have gotten me about 80 quetzales, but I only got 65. I lost about $4, but felt foolish.

But there were hundreds of people along the road, changing money, selling things. At this point, since I looked a little lost--and the only blonde there--a family on its way from St. Louis to Honduras took charge of me. We walked through the crowds, across a bridge, and into the Guatemalan immigration office, and then past more vendors and money changers and over to where our bus was parked. It was a relief to get back on. My seatmate, a young college student from Mexico city visiting Guatemala with her family, said that they had decided to take the bus instead of drive because it was a "more secure" way to cross the border. And for me, she said, this was definitely more dangerous. (Later, my taxi driver said "yes, the border is puro ladrones, pure thieves.) I was so shaken that I forgot to take pictures of the chaos!

Just a note on the nice family that took care of me: this family of 4 was traveling on 3 different kinds of passports. The husband's was Honduran, the wife's was Mexican, and the children's were American. It's pretty typical for members of the same Hispanic family living in the U.S. to have different immigration statuses--some citizens, some green cards, some not legal at all. Which is why so many families are vulnerable to deportation, and why so many families in Mexico also have mixed immigration status. In Oaxaca, an American told me that the U.S. embassy has NO IDEA how many children in Mexico--children in families that have chosen to come back, children in families that were deported--have U.S. passports and are officially their concern. The Mexican census takes place this spring. I wonder if one of the questions is, "does anyone in your household have a U.S. passport?"

The next 6 hours were spent very, very slowly driving the last 100 miles or so to Guatemala City. Since this was a "luxury" bus, we got ham and cheese sandwiches and soda for lunch, and much later in the day, coffee or juice and cookies. We stopped a few times to let people off. At one intersection, the driver flagged down one of those beautifully painted chicken buses, and put two people on it. Their luggage was thrown to the top, where a man sat with it. All of those attractive buses were thronged with people who looked a little longingly at our amazing bus--the tallest bus I have ever been on, I am sure. Later, we pulled into a Texaco station to wait for another blue TransGalgosInter bus on its way to San Salvador, El Salvador. More people got off there.

Besides buses, I saw sugar cane fields, a volcano, women washing clothes in rivers, a boy sleepign on top of a truckload of melons, and dozens of pentecostal churches--the fruit of a U.S. strategy of the 1980s, when to combat the increasingly liberal liberation-theology-influenced Catholic church, the CIA and various Central America bad guys called on Pat Robertson and others on the Christian right to help start small, conservative, pentecostal churches that would undercut the Catholic church's authority. It worked. I didn't see one Catholic chruch until we got to Guatemala City--only a parade of storefronts called "Iglesia de Dios Fuente de Milagros" (Church of God Font of Miracles), "Iglesia de Dios Lluvia de Bendiciones" (Church of God Rain of Blessings", Mision Evangelica Luz y Verdad" (Evangelical Mission Light and Truth). (Because of this experience, Cuban party officials see these kinds of churches as CIA fronts, and they probably are!)

The last 45 minutes took us through Guatemala City, which has about 14 million residents, and it was 6:30 when we got there. To get to Antigua, I would have to change bus stations and buses, so the azafata or stewardess recommended I get a taxi. From the ranks of taxis at the station she chose Hugo, a man she knew, to get me the rest of the way. We had a good hour ride to Antigua, where he took me to the ATM, and then we prowled the streets asking people how to find the Calle Candelaria, where Alex's friend's Luis's grandmother Dona Ruth lived. I got out my flashlight so we could see the numbers and signs on the buildings. After many inquiries we found her, and she got in the taxi with us to get me to the home where I am staying, the family of Tomas Ixtamalic, at about 9:00 pm, 24 hours after I left Oaxaca.

When I leave, I think I'll fly!