Gettin’ Gutsy in Guatemala

By Rob Wick

Guatemala is about 2,000 square miles smaller than my home state of Ohio. According to the GPS, to drive from one side of the country to the other, a distance of about 500 km (310 miles), takes about 12 hours. This means the cross-country drive was supposed to average about 26 mph. This seems slow, and it is, but keep in mind the conditions of the roads. They pretty much just cut a path and pave it, leaving the hills and especially sharp curves in place. The “freeways” have 90 degree turns in them and run up and down the sides of mountains, with few guardrails, if any. Most of the time, the posted speed limit is 50 kph (31 mph) and occasionally on a freeway you’ll see an 80 kph limit (50 mph). Much of the time, road conditions and traffic don’t permit driving even that fast.

My wife, Amy, had participated in an archaeological dig in Belize and Guatemala when she was in college, and had been wanting to visit again for years. This was why we were there with our two boys, Neal (12 years old) and Ray (10) for a nine day vacation. We flew into Guatemala City, rented a four door Toyota Hilux 4x4 pickup (six speed manual transmission behind a small, four cylinder turbo diesel with a clogged air filter I ended up replacing myself), and then set out on a driving journey that took us to all corners of the small country.

The first couple days went without incident, and we enjoyed a hotel built from logs and reeds. We had to ride a boat across a lake to get over to it. After that, we traveled to Flores and toured Tikal, an ancient Mayan temple site. It was awesome.

We set off around 8 am from Flores toward Panajachel, on the opposite side of the country. The 12 hour drive to Panajachel ended up taking over 16 hours, non-stop. The navigation app we were using took us off the main roads and onto more than 2 hours worth of single lane dirt roads through the backcountry and jungle of Guatemala (the most direct route?). This was nerve-racking, but cool at the same time because we were able to drive through some small villages and countrysides that we wouldn’t have otherwise seen. We encountered no less than 3 toppled tractor-trailers along the way, most likely due to the speed around curves going downhill. At that point it was still daytime, the scenery was spectacular, and the people were friendly.

Once night fell, we got lost. Very lost. Two scary events happened that night: First, we went up a road and encountered several armed men. They looked like a cartel, or possibly military, but without uniforms. I pulled around a corner at twilight and there they stood, watching us as I quickly reversed and backtracked out of there. Amy and I were briefly scared out of our wits. The boys were too young to recognize the potential danger, but noticed the “cool guns”. Next, we attempted to bypass a traffic jam around 10 pm by taking a small road that seemed like it could get us around the obstacle. This road quickly petered to a single lane on the side of a hill, with adobe buildings on the right and a sheer drop on the left. I came up to a rise in the road where I couldn’t see past the end of the hood of the truck (a common occurrence there), and something told me to stop and check the road ahead. When I got out, I found that the entire left side of the road had washed away about 20 feet in front of the truck. If I had continued driving, we would have rolled sideways down an embankment, one I was unable to see the bottom of in the dark. This event was the first time in my adult life that I recognized I had a panic attack. I began hyperventilating and had a bit of a freakout moment. Amy and the boys didn’t see the danger, but knew by my reaction that the situation was bad. After composing myself, I put the truck in 4WD low range and idled more than a mile in reverse, back down the narrow dirt lane, in the dark, until I came to a spot where I could turn around. Amy and the boys by this time were silent.

We returned to the traffic jam to find its cause: a fatal motorcycle accident. Traffic was moving (slowly), but we got to our destination about 1 am. Again, a boat was summoned to take us to our hotel across Lake Atitlan. We spent two nights there, saw a volcano, and rode a “Chicken Bus” to a market where I became the main attraction, as I was able to stick my ear against the ceiling of the bus, much to the amusement of the many people I stood head and shoulders over. Besides the obvious height difference, I noticed other things about the Guatemalans we met. They were very friendly to us. I did not feel discriminated against at all. They ate way better food than I on a daily basis, and lived very modest lives. In many areas away from town, they lived a life more like camping full-time than I had ever seen. Everywhere we went, people seemed very content, although I did notice one thing that greatly bothered me: many women and girls had bruises that looked like they’d been inflicted upon them. I saw several black eyes and hand-print shaped marks on their arms.

After leaving our hotel, we headed east toward our next stop, Antigua. On the way there, I caused a car accident.

The Toyota Hilux has a manual transmission where reverse is “up and to the left”. Then it’s the normal “H pattern” with first gear up and to the left. You’d think there would be a trigger or button to push or pull in order to get reverse, but no. Toyota put reverse and first gear right next to each other and made them very easy to mix up. I was making a legal u-turn on a freeway near Guatemala City, and bogged down in second gear, so I went for first. Instead, I got reverse. I ended up screeching around a curb and felt a bump. At first, I was unaware I hit a vehicle until the guy chased me down in his car and we pulled over (on the left berm of the freeway). The driver got out and stormed back toward me, motioning with his hands that he wanted to fight. Along with him came one of his passengers, an older man who understood a little English (the driver did not). I rolled down my window and talked to them both, in English and what little Spanish I knew. We agreed I would pay 300 quetzales (about $38.50) to the driver to cover the damage to his Hyundai’s bumper. When I was sitting in the truck, we were eye-to-eye. When I got out to check the damage and hand over cash, you should have seen the look on the driver’s face! His attitude changed immediately and he shook my hand. I then got us the hell out of there.

Antigua was our last stop before heading to the airport, which leads to my final story. We got up and left for the airport in plenty of time to get through customs and board early (so we thought). We ended up in another traffic jam, sitting in one spot without moving for 45 minutes, while we watched our flight time approach quickly. Amy and I resigned ourselves to the idea of buying four new tickets home, since it seemed inevitable that we were going to miss our flight. We eventually learned that in Guatemala, they manage traffic very differently. They will take a 5 lane main road (2 lanes in either direction plus a turn lane) and use police to turn it into 5 lanes one direction, switch, then 5 lanes the other direction. I use the term “lanes” very loosely, as it’s literally a free-forall of speed and swerving. I couldn’t believe it when we finally were allowed to go. I drove Mario-Kart-style through 5 lanes of mishmash, going the wrong way on one way streets, over curbs and grass, to get us to the rental car return minutes before our plane was to board.

We ran into the airport, stumbled through customs, and got in line as the last boarders on our plane from Guatemala City to Atlanta. At that point I literally burst into tears out of relief that we’d made it and we were going home. Amy was relieved, and the boys were overtired and indifferent to our near-miss.

It was a great trip, and the biggest test of my nerves I’ve ever endured. It was my first time experiencing being a minority, and my first experience in a country where I wasn’t fluent in the native language. I was impressed how patient and helpful people were as I drew upon my two years of high school Spanish. It was refreshing to see how happy they seemed, living so simply. When we landed in Atlanta, it was a stark comparison. I was disgusted by how rude people were. It made me wonder why we, as a society, work as much as we do to buy so many things we don’t really need. I also gained a new-found respect for immigrants to our country, and my worldview broadened greatly. I’d recommend everyone try to travel out of your comfort zone, even if it takes you down some frightening roads.