A Ride on the Camioneta

I hail down a bus and jump on board, laden down with produce I just bought in the market. Excusing myself as I squish past other passengers, I squeeze up the narrow aisle of the ancient school bus. Long ago deemed unsafe to transport North American school children, it found a new life in Guatemala as a chariot of the masses. Here, we call them camionetas. I look for a spot to shove my purchases into the overhead rack; nada. I push back to the front and ask if I can leave my stuff there. “Where are you going?” the driver’s helper asks me. “Alaska,” I respond. “Alaska? No, no, we’re not stopping there. Get off.”

The bus screeches to a halt and I trundle off, cursing the bus crew loud enough for them to hear. They will be driving right past my town, but for some reason that I can’t understand some of the drivers don’t like to stop at the top of the mountain pass where Nueva Ixtahuacán is located. The driver has put me off at the bottom of a valley where no other buses will stop, so I lug my bags 2 km up a hill to the next stop. I arrive sweating, and keep a sharp eye out for a bus headed my way. Every company has its own distinct exterior design, so that from the wild and colorful paintjob one can discern the bus’ route. From a distance I see a red and green Sinaloa tearing around the corner. I consider not waving it down; the Sinaloa is known for high speed and reckless passes, and last month a good friend of mine watched in horror as a Sinaloa tried to take a mountain curve to fast and flipped off the roadway, killing four passengers. But never knowing when the next one will come, I give a lazy flick of my wrist and hop aboard the still rolling bus.

Once we get out on the highway the driver’s helper comes around collecting fares. I put a bill in his hand and tell him my stop, expecting a few coins back as change. But he tries to push past me to the next row without giving me anything. “How much are you charging me?” “Ten.” “But the fare is seven.” “No, it’s ten.” The exchange continues for a few more moments, and I purposefully raise my voice a bit so that the other passengers will hear what is going on. After the helper makes it clear that he won’t be giving me my change, I call him a thief and thank him kindly for robbing me. All around me I notice that the passengers look very uncomfortable. While they all know the fares as well as I do and realize that he overcharged me, bearing witness to someone speaking out against injustice really makes them squirm. This culture of silence, perhaps largely a product of the repressive 36 year civil war, is part of why killers are convicted in only 2% of the murders that happen on a daily basis. So to some extent I think it is good for a busload of people to see some weirdo demand his change. Besides, at this point, I’m mad as hell. No matter how many times I get overcharged on a bus, it still makes my blood boil.

But I accept the loss and look at the window as the bus speeds past bare corn fields and adobe houses. In the city the day was warm, but a chilly breeze cycles through the bus as we climb higher and higher into the mountains. Finally pine forests give way to steppe-like grasslands and the road tops out in the highlands of Alaska. I grab my baggage and bumble to the door, futilely ask for my change one last time, and hop down onto the gravel shoulder. When the thick black diesel smoke from the Sinaloa dissipates I carefully scurry across the highway and start the 1km march to Ixtahuacán. The fog blows around me, thick and luxurious, leaving tiny droplets in my beard and eyebrows. I gulp at the thin mountain air, fresh and cold. For a moment the clouds part and I see a golden arc of late-afternoon sunlight cut across the valley below. Suddenly I am again enveloped, and I walk blindly on the familiar path towards the village. I am home.

The cone of a nearby volcano as seen from Alaska.