Sea to sea in a day

First of all, thank you beautiful Kori for your words. Yes, let us dance, dance in life.

The boat ruide across some vast gulf to Guatamala is wonderful. Beautiful flat azul sea. Tide rips. Huge mountians laying a black ragged shadow in the sky. One of the engines craps out midway. the captian kills the other so he can hammer on the agrived motor. Adrift in the Carribean. Sorta romantic. I`m the only one with a bottel of water, so I get the first pick of who to eat. Eventually he fires them both up, and just to show who`s boss, opens tham both wide and blasts across the water. The top speed of this displacement nightmare is about 30 with 400 HP.

Soon we hove into punta Barrios. Well named. The shore is a hozontal garbage pile. A hustler directs me to immagration 2 blocks away for a stamp. These guys could give a shit. i could have 20 kilos of white powder in my pack. I could have walked in without bothering their perpetual siestia. Then through a dozen blocks of destitute slum to the bus station. Open fetid sewers, crumbling one story rathole houses, starved sore covered dogs cowering along with us. This is a hungry place. I give Antonio 10 Quetzels, about a buck 25. He did me right. Hope I did him similar.

20th, I think. Maybe Friday. On the bus through Guatamala. Buss stopped at a cafertiera, 15 min. I havent eaten in a day or so. I get 3 somethings with sauce. Most delisioush shit I can remember. About 50 other things I`d like to eat there too. Parinoid that the bus will leave without me. Just rained, now warm and muggy. Nice, really. Along the way, people living in holes carved into road cuts here. A 4x4 back in 5 feet, part of a tarp for a veranda, three kids and a male, sitting, staring .. idle. I see this eveywhere. Poverty. Stupor. Everyone just lazing around doing nothing. Waiting. For what? It reminds me of jail. But at least there, a relief could be coming.

A huge beautiful river in this wide valley. The side creeks we cross are full of quartzite and quartz. There is a rounded bolder of quartz half the size of a car in one village. I know there is gold in the hills. Apparently they do not. Sitting on one of the most geologically turbulent places in the world, the crushing zone between 3 tectonic plates, rotating, grinding, and upwelling. Where worlds collide. All the treasure of the deep squezzing to the surface. I am blowing past the blue jade zone. I can communicate no better than an ape. People people everywhere, but not a word to speak. Rolling again. The mountians are magnicifiant. I would love to be in them, teasing out their secrets. But on to Curiad de guatamala. To what fate there I do not know. This is suposedly the most thug infested place in central americia. I am basically terrified.

Cactus now outside. Must be around 2000 feet elevation. Stuccato spanish all around me. I don`t have a clue. Guatamala city. 30 miles in every direction. Sprawling one story bungaloes, many made of scrap trash with smoke billiowing out of rotten board and sheet metal overlaps. Cooking some perro inside a haze, if they are lucky. Mobbed by hustlers at the final stop after weaving through endless lefts and rights of barred stucco. I pause to put together a few phrases. The bus to where I want to go is across town. Helpful bus ticket people connect me to a reputable cabby. I struggle with words with him as he tears up one street and down another, zigzagging apparently at random. He works the stick shift like an icecream churn, accererating madly at every chance. Miles and miles of endless city, crammed with teeming people. 10 near pedistrian murders, as they wrench back in horror from the speeding auto. 20 hairs breath collisions avoided with a prayer, lunging out into traffic, cutting in front of anything, blatent lane changes. For 50 Qetzels, about 8 bucks, I couldnt ask for a wilder thrill ride. I am laughing my ass off out loud, which gives him greater courage, it seems.

We enter a rough looking area of dismanteled busses, repairs ongoing on the street. Then into a jam of 10 busses, hundreds of people, cars wedged in the cracks. "Ahh, Pacificio" he utters in relief. "Su buss, Su Buss". Apparently he has been trying to beat the clock and get me here before it leaves. He blocks the bus with his cab. I am disgourged. My pack handed between scoundral types till I grab it back and climb into the conveyance.

I get a seat. barely fits me and the pack, no room for knees, shredded vinyl all around. They load as many people as are seated again. Totally mashed. I am admonished to share my tiny space, so I crush in more adjusting the pack ontop of me, enough to give a nice young fellow a square foot of butt cling seat. About 5 dozen standing, three to most seats. The horn is blaring. A pull chain for this. The bus inches forward, the knot of busses and cars slowly parts as more people climb on. Then in release from the crush, madcap through the streets, accelerating and tramping the brakes. Another many hours of insane driving, winding through this and that barrio, endlessly. Stopping every quarter mile to let people on and off. I particurally like passing into an oncoming fuel truck. Lots of these combinations for some reason. I can`t care. Must imagine my self as one of Calvins toys in the fated sandbox.

As we desend from the highlands, a massive volcano looms to our right. A 5000 foot perfect cone. Red lava glowing in the now night, smoke and ash dribbling down one side. Very awesom. Must be a lot of earthquakes here. On and on into the night. At one town we are hurridly off loaded and re-loaded through the emergency exit of another bus. Chinese fire drill sort of thing.

Now on the flats again. Palms trees all around. Sprawling civilization and heaps of trash. I am used to coming into a western town, there you are, main street. Here you go on and on through miles of packed miscallanious dwellings and gawdy businesses. After the usual 30 right and left turns through nameless streets, the bus stops. Here you are. This is it. People are nice though. One asks if I`ll be all right. I think so ... let`s see, dark, have no idea where I am, where anything is, how to get anywhere if I knew where to go, and can`t understand jack shit. Yeah .. I`m OK. With my lumbering pack, I trudge away. Make a note .. next to the ICE beer sign .. in case the bus will take me back from here.

Main street. A continious swarm of motercycles, scooters, bicycles, cars and pedistrains. Hundreds and hundreds teeming by. A fiesta in progress. A stage and a band a few blocks down blasting away. I stop at a food stand. loaded tacos for 12 bucks.. 1.50 US. With relish I sit on a stool and consume. Wonderful. No hustlers here. Everyone smiling. Nice. Accepting my weirdness, my ailen-ness. A little loath to face the melee. Coulden`t I just sit here and eat these tacos. Smile at everyone. But I get up and begin asking for a hotel or such. Donda hey casa de, in shitty spanish. Everyone can only understand hotel. My words incomprehensible. Every one directs me in a differnt direction. All indicate like it`s just a few inches this way or that. For 2 hours I walk in circles around various blocks, finding nothing. I gaze down another main street. ICE signs are every quarter block, as far as I can see. I am lost. Sometimes I am part of a Jesus suffering march, a huge idol on a cross, wailing music. Other times I think I suddenly hear gunshots, but find to everyones joy, it is exploding fireworks overhead, randomly shot, stars in the sky to the cheers of us all. Through all, constantly dodging motercycles and cars with the occasional fuel truck deciding to stampede. the only traffic control is to be in control.

A freindly motercycle guy with a kid on his lap directs me more than once in a specific direction. At last I find a big fancy hotel. 4 star. Not my way, but sure as hell going to stop here. 490 quetzels. shit. 60 bucks. Visa pulls through for me. Hell yeah. slam the card. AC .. spanish TV, light, water, bed. I lived .. and like Dan and Kori say ... with a story.

I have no idea where the sea is or how to get out of here. But that`s why they make tomorrows.