Hitching the Petén
by
Randy Johnson
1979
Unpublished
Copyright © 1979, 1996-2008, Randy R. Johnson, all rights reserved
Whatever else you do, do not take the Petén Bus.
I have seen them arrive in Flores, the intrepid few, enveloped in a clattering swirl of dust. Drooping one by one into the warm dawn, they fell against the peeling white paint of the Casa Blanca Hotel, among the rest of the baggage, and cast empty stares out across Lake Petén-Itza. And they confirmed, the sorry few, what we had all been told, "Do not take the Petén Bus." I was convinced.
It is well over 300 miles between Guatemala City and Flores, in Guatemala's northern Petén region. Flores is but a little island in lake Petén-Itza, a tiny oasis of relative civilization, the sleepy capital of this huge swath of the Central American Jungle called El Petén.
Planes make the trip easy most every day and the bus ride is so notorious that few travelers take it. Eighteen to twenty-four hours packed in like... well, I will not repeat the Universal Bus Story; you have heard it from many places. I've had my fill of bus stories (and will again), but this one is not mine to tell.
The plane is an easy escape for a surprising number of seasoned Road folk. The excuses vary, but they all only add to the notoriety of the bus trip... "I've been four weeks in the bush now; just this once I'm going to do myself a favor and take the plane."... "You're foolish not to fly. Anyway, I haven't been feeling so good and..."
One by two they vacated the Casa Blanca, the dollar-a-night Spartans, to catch the plane to 'Guat City'. The excuses were all so good, I couldn't decide which one to use. Yet, how could I rationalize not suffering through another 300 miles of blessed wilderness?
It really wasn't my idea. I was ready to take the plane -- or was it the bus? -- I can't recall now. "Why don't you just hitch?" one of my room mates at the Casa Blanca suggested.
Of course, why not? I hitched through the Yucatan, didn't I? I hitched the Lacandon Jungle. It's only 300 miles of wilderness. So I got up one morning and started walking.
"Just hitching" is too agreeable, too carefree. It sounds easy. Hitch-hiking is a long walk, with occasional automotive portages. To hitch, you must hike, and hikes in the bush can be all-day affairs.
It was a good start. Two hours of hitching melted into two hours of hiking, as a candle melts into a puddle of hot wax. Nine kilometers east to the southern turnoff, and I was literally drained -- a walking steambath. In the days to come I did some walking, some talking, and some riding, but my main occupation was sweating. I devoted myself to it.
There was no sign at the crossroads, and the local farmer had no idea where the road led. I shaded myself under a great ceiba tree. I wiped myself off, wrung myself out, and I waited. ...One hour.
The first ride was a Land Cruiser, piloted by an officer of the Agricultural Bank of Guatemala. He was fascinated when I told him I was Australian. I must fill him with information about Australia; cattle, agriculture, economy, people. Was I up to the challenge? My Spanish is fine, but I had never been to Australia. (Just get tired of being an American every time.) Foundering after half an hour, I changed tactics: he must tell me all about the Petén.
This northern jungle area of the country is fostering "the tired, the poor, the huddled masses" of Guatemala -- at government request. Homesteaders buy their parcels for $25 and many more are coming to this vast, unexploited resource of land; little matter that it's all jungle. Indians make up most of Guatemala's population, but they are concentrated in the central highlands. Most of the Petén immigrants are of mixed blood, with little indigenous culture.
After two hours, the banker turned off in the village of San Something-or-Other and we parted company. (Probably San Juan -- most of them are.) The southbound bus would pass through soon, he assured me before he drove off. He had a lot to tell his buddies back at the bank.
It was already past midday. I eyed the few passengers waiting patiently in the shade. Why should they be concerned? They only have a few miles to ride. Experience tells me not to hitch in town. I don't like it anyway; I feel more at home out on the open road -- not an oddity, just another traveler. After two winding kilometers I found my spot.
Did I mention that it was hot? I hid from the sun in the jungle, laboring for breath, emerging only for the rare pickup truck, going nowhere.
I store up a lot of pleasant memories just for times like these. A vision now crept into my feverish thoughts -- of hitching down the east coast of Malaysia. Dig this: the palms rustle, the ocean breeze floats through my shirt, and the cool waves lap across my mind. I turn my back on Toyotas and old freight trucks, holding out for the inevitable, the friendly air-conditioned Mercedes.
Two and a half hours passed before my truck arrived. (And that bus never did come by.) I carry a pocket watch to keep track of endurance records; should I perish from sunstroke, I could leave a note telling exactly how long it took. It was a ten-wheel Hino diesel stake-side rig, loaded with corn and headed for Poptún, the only other real town in the Petén.
Relieved to be actually moving on the road again, even at this snail's pace, I lounged into my Mexican truck driver talk. But these were not your typical Mexican truckies; just reverent campesinos, soft spoken and shy. A different breed, these Guatemalans, from the aggressive Mexicans I learned my slang from. They never once asked how I liked the girls, but we talked a lot about Jesus. El Petén is a hot-bed of evangelism. Here, the isolated natives flock to the folds of countless foreign missionaries.
Topping out at 30 kph, we crawled up into the mountains; never out of second gear. There was the mandatory flat tire, but even that became tiresome and I tried hitching again. For over an hour they changed that tire. I now suspect that they were stalling in hopes I would get another ride. But no one came by.
At the end of the day, Poptún crept up the road and we parted company, the only rider and the only ride to Poptún that day. But here was civilization (of sorts), food, shelter, and time to rest. I slept in a real bed that night (hard as it was), and whiled away the evening with a couple of Salvadorean truckers at the only truck stop in town. They were headed North.
Early the next morning I walked out to find my spot, a few miles south of town. It was an excellent spot and I did some of my best hitching there. I looked tired, I looked hot, I feigned lameness, I had great stories to tell. But no one came by. No matter how hard I glared at that hill towards town, I could not materialize one lousy bicycle! I scribbled in my notebook, I scratched graffiti on the road, I recited poetry and reviewed my resumé.
After two and a half hours I thought I saw something coming over the rise: but no, it wasn't moving. A few minutes later I checked again. Whatever it was had gotten bigger, but it still wasn't moving. As I pondered the cause of this optical illusion, it finally changed gears, belched black smoke, and a diesel rig peaked up over the hill, dwarfed by its staggering payload of lumber.
We had plenty of time to size each other up. But hell, a ride is a ride, is a Ride. I hung out my thumb. It was a needless gesture; we had a conversation on his way by. The cab was packed; the driver had brought along the wife, two kids, and a dog. "No room," he shrugged.
I pointed up to the lumber and shouted "I'll ride on top". They briefly discussed this among themselves, then pulled over in front of me. I climbed up to the summit, four feet above the top of the cab, and settled into the spare tire, strapped on top.
It was an elephant ride. We didn't hit bumps, we simply eased on through them, sidling up one side and down the other. It was eight hours of bucking in slow motion.
There are many times on the Road when I have to stop and ask myself, "What the hell am I doing here?" (Many times.) This was not one of them. The morning mist hung still over the Petén Jungle as I slowly approached the top of a forested ridge, seated atop a ten-foot high load of lumber on an 18-foot flat-bed. The sun sifted through the mist and the whole world unfolded below: lush mountains and valleys, a few fields in corn, others just slashed and still smoldering. The occasional thatched hut squatted beneath the trees, the lumber creaked, and poor farmers were planting in the ashen soil with sharp sticks.
Yes it was dusty, bone-jarring, hot and tedious. But I could see forever! Singing old train songs to the gnarl of the diesel, I was king of this big broad world. No traffic and no gringos. The warm breeze stroked my face and I no longer asked myself what I'm doing here. This is exactly where I want to be.
Gears gnashed to a halt at a great bend in the jungle. The driver climbed up to loosen the chains on the lumber, then told me to get down and help. What now? There I stood, behind the truck, shouting "Dále, dále!" until the overhanging lumber crashed into a great zapóte tree beside the road. Then the driver pulled forward for another go, until the payload had been rammed snug again against the front of the truck bed. Back on top, we cinched the chains again and continued down into the jungle. What a way to travel.
We passed through a few settlements, but nothing you could call a town -- a few shops and a church. "The Store of the Good Faith", "The Cafe of the Sacred Blood of Christ". One village had an electric generator; my face was pressed against the green planks to keep from being low-bridged by the wires.
And then it came. In a flurry of dust out of the hills, the Petén Bus to Flores bore down on us, lurching precariously on its axles -- the Hell to my Heaven. The rusty old school bus was packed to the rafters with sweating humanity, indistinguishable as individual people. Two backpacks strapped on top testified that somewhere in that quagmire swam a couple of gringos. Lucky for them they couldn't see me on my perch. I doubt if they could see past each other. It's a long way to Flores, folks.
Three open huts crouched under the afternoon sun on a scrubby plain -- the lunch wagon for road workers and wayward travelers. We ducked into the shade of an eatery to puruse the steaming pots of soups and stew.
"Are you a missionary?" the driver queried.
Out here, any white man is bound to be a missionary.
"No? Just a lost sheep then?"
"Yes," I chuckled, "I'm just a lost sheep."
There followed a low-keyed but serious attempt to salvage my immortal soul. The driver and his wife were quoting familiar scriptures as the young woman arrived with the food. And I'll be damned (whoops) if she didn't start in too. Right there over my chicken foot stew she asked me to accept the Savior and beg forgiveness. They were all very friendly, but it's quite a shock when the truck drivers and the waitresses try to save your soul instead of stealing it.
In the late afternoon we halted at the ferry crossing of the broad Río
Dulce and I finally crawled down from my splintery perch. The driver
assured me that I owed him nothing, and we said our good-byes. I hiked down
to the shore and hired a launch to take me up river to the mouth of
expansive Lake Izabal. There on a small peninsula stands Castillo San
Felipe, an interesting 17th century Spanish fortress
(photo left,
click). It was deserted except for the day guard, and I
slung my hammock there for a cool night by the river.
The next morning I cruised back to the opposite river bank to wait for the southbound traffic, borne by the morning river ferry. I spotted a small lean-to cafe and stopped in for breakfast.
"There's no food. No meals yet," the toothy young woman protested.
But I wasn't about to pass up the last food for hours.
"Do you have any beans?" I asked. Well, yes, she had some beans but...
"Eggs?" ...Yes.
"How about tortillas?" Affirmative.
"Have you got any coffee?"
"Sí, sí, hay cafe."
"Okay, I'll take it."
I sat in the shade and ate the standard Guatemalan 50-cent meal, washing it down with that famous Guatemalan coffee. Some of the world's finest coffee is exported from Guatemala. Some of the worst is served in the country.
One ride in the back of a pickup, and by mid-morning my thumb lolled above the CA-9, the first paved road I had seen in two weeks. On the hem of the Petén and finished with the southern leg, I aimed west. By evening I arrived at the ruins of Quiriguá in a Coca-Cola truck, but in the front this time. The village itself was still in ruins from the great earthquake, but I found a room in a recently built plank hut.
Up early the next morning, I walked down the railroad tracks for a few hours at the quiet and fascinating Mayan ruins. (See Qiriguá, a Mayan Legacy in Stone on my Travel Articles page). Still 220 kilometers east of Guat City, I decided on a mountainous detour to visit the ancient Mayan city at Copán, Honduras, to the south.
A pickup delivered me to the southern turn-off at Rio Hondo, and the great hot wait resumed. I baked slowly for two hours. Cars passed, but no one stopped. Then a battered pickup came by, loaded with brown young soldier boys. They were desperate for entertainment -- and I was it. They pounded on the roof until the driver pulled over, and they hoisted me up in the back.
Not one kilometer down the gravel road, the truck lurched to a stop and a big glass jug appeared from behind the front seat. "Contrabando, from the mountains." They had liberated some moonshine liquor and needed to get rid of it before returning to their base at Zacapa.
As the jug went around, I verified that it was the genuine stuff. The soldiers refused a third round, preferring to enter their barracks standing up; but they prodded me to do my best before they tossed it out.
"Come on, Gringo, take a good one."
"Finish it off!"
All right, I'll be a good sport, I'm out for adventure, aren't I? I may never come back. Commending myself to Saint Christopher, I hoisted the jug across my arm and swallowed slowly, the murky fluid roaring down into my empty stomach. I pulled on the jug, and I kept on pulling -- it doesn't hurt, you know, until you stop. When I saw that they were suitably impressed, I lowered my arm and tried to see out through my tears. My mouth watered profusely and the fireball screamed up my throat, engulfing my head in a rich warm flame.
Ten minutes down the road, the truck turned off to Zacapa. The folklore had been enriched. The soldiers slapped my back and shouted hearty farewells, and I stood alone once again beside the Road, in a strange new world. Few short encounters leave such lasting impressions.
Five minutes later I sat between two teenagers in a GMC pickup, smoking up through the mountains with rock 'n' roll blasting from an old tape deck. I was cruising, and the wind was definitely fine. We had barely gotten acquainted when they dropped me off at the crossroads outside of Chiquimula.
I propped myself against an embankment and tried to focus on my situation. It was a brand new trip! In mid-afternoon, I was a mile or two outside of the last Guatemalan town, 45 kilometers of bad road from a frontier that no one crosses. I couldn't wait to see how I got out of this one.
A few local cars passed, but I ignored them. I squatted in the ravine and chatted with the kids on their way home from school. I watched the world go by, and waved it on its way.
"Copán? Copán?"
Through a swirl of dust I slowly focused on a small pickup truck, stopped directly in front of me.
"Va a Copán?" they asked. My chariot awaited. It was the weekly supply truck for El Florído, the Guatemalan border station. They knew a Roadie when they saw one, on the road or in the ditch.
"You pay two quetzals to the border." I had figured to take at least two days from Quiriguá, but why stop now?
I jumped in the back on a carpet of pop bottle tops, and the whirlwind continued -- carrying civilization to the wilderness. A few kilometers south we turned off at the crossroads called Vado Hondo and said good-bye to real roads. For two and a half hours we heaved down washboard tracks at breakneck speeds approaching 25 kph, careening up into the mountains.
With all bridges out from the earthquake, we bounced up river beds, wet and dry; a bucking bronco with Coke bottle caps for a saddle. Oh, for my pachydermous lumber truck! Like a monstrous blue salmon we struggled upstream, axle deep for half a kilometer, passing women doing their laundry on the rocks.
I was in serious danger of sobering up when we finally hit the crest at El Florído, a sleepy border outpost 14 kilometers from Copán, Honduras. I tried to remember how many days ago I had left Quiriguá; how many countries?
The frontier was officially closed for the day, but the guard showed me where I could hang my hammock on the other side. "No need to check through until tomorrow". As I shouldered my rucksack and stepped onto the road, a dirty yellow Renault chugged up to the gate, heading my way.
It was a Mexican couple I had met near Castillo San Felipe. They were making the crossing tonight and I persuaded them to squeeze me into their car for the last leg. We paid an after-hours 'surcharge' to get our exit stamps, and then wound slowly down the mountain into the dusk of Honduras.
Copán was as far south as I would make it on this trip. I still had to hitch back the way I'd come, and then east to Guatemala City. But this was not the time for such thoughts. Copán village is a wonderful little town; clean, quiet, and picturesque. In the middle of nowhere, it loomed as a dream, the fulfillment of another forgotten promise: The end of the journey. For today.
