Panic in Guatemala

I made it to Guatemala. I'm here in a cold, mostly friendly hostel in downtown Quetzaltenango (aka Xela/ pr: Chella). I don't think I'll be staying long. I'm replanning the whole itinerary.

The goal was to reach Lake Atitlan by 2:30 yesterday afternoon. Things got complicated. I met up with three Irish guys at the Tapachula station who had been travelling by bus all the way from New York. A stuffed collectivo van took us to the border on a rather wild ride. A conductor collected cash and customers, flinging the side door open, waving people on before the van came to a complete stop, closing the door again with one hand on a strap and the door handle in the other as we were already speeding away.

My new Spanish word for the day is "frontera". Very useful. On the Mexican side of the border, an official brought us into an office, closed the door and asked for 287 pesos a piece from the three other guys, all of whom had stamped passports but no visa card. I waited outside until eventually they walked out without paying and we all crossed the border without interference. No one made a move to stop us. Strange.

Three bucks for a Guatemelan border stamp and we were on our way.

A friend in Zipolite had given me basic instructions to change some cash and find a bus and the Irish guys had some info as well. It should have been simple. We jumped on the wrong bus. He was going our way. He collected our money. Then everyone else got off. It was the end of the line and we had to wait while they changed the oil, filled up with diesel at a lot and finally went to the back of the line of buses leaving from the station. Two unnecessary hours later, off we roared.




The conductor was amazing, loading backpacks and cargo on the roof, removing bus seats. I didn't realize what he was up to at first. He passed my seat from the back of the bus but I hadn't noticed him pass from the front in the first place. Yep. With the bus rolling down the road, he was climbing on to the roof from the front, checking and rearranging the luggage and re-entering from the back. Quite a job.

In downtown Xela, I split up with the Irish guys and then it seemed my luck came to an abrupt grinding halt. There were only three bank machines in the center of town and my card didn't work in any of them. Dang. I got bad directions to nowhere from a few people. Night was coming quickly and the situation didn't look good. I had enough quetzals from the border exchange to grab another chicken bus in the morning to the border and straight back to Mexico where my card works and maybe buy beverages on the way. I was tired, hungry and grubby. I was unhappy. I wanted a meal and a warm safe place to stay with a bathroom. I had the cold streets of an unfamiliar city and alleys to pee in after dark. It sucked. I felt like an orphan.


An American by the name of Kirk came to the rescue. He took me into a bank to explain the situation in Spanish and a man gave me an address to a distant bank location that might accept my card. Knowing that I only had 61Q and 5 American dollars plus a few worthless pesos, Kirk called a taxi driver friend of his he swore would not rip me off. If the worst case case scenario happened, I'd get to that bank, a safe cheap hostel and have enough left for the chicken bus as long as I didn't squander any money on luxuries like bread or water. Well, we made it to the bank. It was a matter of intense suspense until that money popped out of the machine. I felt so much better.

Bartolo ripped me off big time. Nothing I couldn't afford but I resented it. If the machine hadn't delivered, I wouldn't have had near enough to cover his fare let alone a room. 250Q. To put that in perspective, I made it there and back to that same machine today for 2.5 Q, about 30 cents.

I ran into Kirk at the park yesterday and thanked him for stepping in at my hour of need and told him what happened. He started giving me all these lame excuses. "Well, this guy is really poor. He's lucky if he makes 400Q in a week" Then he was especially lucky the night before, wasn't he? I assured him I wasn't angry.



The other excuse was very revealing. "The way he sees it, you were paying him for his time as well as the gas." That explained so much, the way he kept dragging everything out. His methods seemed odd at the time but now I understood the purpose. It wasn't until we got back to the car that he suggested going back to change the big bills for smaller ones. Inexplicably (at the time) he guided me past the first bank to a more distant one in the big mall`with a longer line.

Next he wanted to help me buy a cellphone. "They're very cheap! Only 20 dollars!"

"Wow. That's a good deal. But who am I going to call in Guatemela?"

He persuaded me I needed dinner before a hotel so, what the hell, we drove to a distant McDonald's when I knew there was a closer one and I treated him to dinner for being so helpful. He ate very slowly.

There were a few more stalls. "Do you want to see where Kirk lives? It's right up this street." Not realizing I was paying for all this time, careful chewing and all, I humored him. Finally he dropped me at Casa Argentina but not before offering to call up some prostitutes. Presumably these women wouldn't mind that I hadn't showered or shaved in over 36 hours. It was one of those little warnings that I might be in for a sting, that and all the trouble he he had gone through to tell me how hard his life was and how his life was dedicated to helping people in trouble. It wasn't so bad but in the end he lifted 25% of the amount I was able to get from the machine right out of my wallet plus dinner. He was no saint.


I smelled another rat talking to Kirk. "Well, he's my friend. He's helped me out in the past and I don't mind helping him out when I can." Like hooking him up with victims? Hmmm. I really shouldn't hold a grudge. I don't really. Bartolo stung me for an exorbitant bill but, if what he and Kirk told me is true, and it probably is, his life sucks and mine doesn't so I'll just take my satisfaction from that. As mean as that might sound, my simple understanding is that anyone who hurts me or even tries to is my enemy.

So, whatever. This Kirk character was probably not so cool as I originally thought. In the big picture, who cares? He was bragging me to me about his achievements yesterday. "It's really hard to get a job in this city unless you know someone." That is absolutely not true. They want English teachers everywhere in this town. A free tourist zine has five ads looking for teachers. At this hostel, I've met a young guy from England teaching English on the side while he learns Spanish. He has no university degree or teaching certification and he just fell into it. I'd say it's harder not to find work here.

Bus to Busan Part III: Pretty Pictures and Tales of International Scum

I think what this blog really needs is more pictures and this entry is jam-packed with images of Busan.

It was a nice crowd on the bus for the most part, except for a gang at the back who, not content to just ignore the rest of us and keep to their elite little clique, had to make a show of snapping their necks to the side with pursed lips and squinted eyes whenever someone made the fatal mistake of speaking to them or anyone in their vicinity. While this kind of behavior would be considered freakish most places you go, you get used to it amongst English teachers in Korea, especially in my town of Icheon. Seoul is considerably better but what can you do with these snotty brats? We're all better off facing their cold shoulders than their vacuous hostile faces.

They were six of them: four sloppy young women, an effeminate boy and a big contender for a Tor Johnson look-a-like contest who seemed rather eager to straighten out anyone who disturbed his peace, like a small town bully in the local bar who works harder every year to maintain his reputation as a man to be feared while his gut continues to spread, picking his battles more carefully and putting on a big show. He hunched forward to glare openly at Edgar and Ariel like he was ready to straighten them out if they thought they could just waltz on to the bus and.... Well, they hadn't done anything remotely offensive. Yet. But he was ready, damn it. Just try something. Ariel and Edgar didn't seem to notice him. They were sleeping long before the bus pulled out of Itaewon.



By the second night, this crew relaxed enough to talk to other people and they were excited to tell us all about their previous night's adventure when they harrassed some local on the beach. One of the girls insisted I was there when I knew I'd been hanging at Haeundae.

"Don't you remember? We strangled Superman."

Superman was a local man, not very big, who walked the beach in a costume selling fireworks. They thought his product was substandard and they had a picture to show everyone of Tor Johnson himself pretending to strangle the poor guy. I would have remembered that. It was gross. Whether Tor just grabbed the unsuspecting hero by the neck while one of his nasty girl friends snapped the shot or they coerced him
into posing, there seemed to have been real intimidation involved. Either way, the big joke was that he could still walk all over a smaller man.

Have I mentioned that I'm not always a nice guy? I try. I really do. But I didn't laugh politely as expected. I said, "Oh yeah, and look, you're Lex Luthor." an easy obvious reference to his completely bald head and villainous behavior. I didn't add "a gluttonous lardass Lex Luthor." but this meathead looked so offended, stupefied by such harsh words, as if I'd said "#@*%^@, you *&#@*%y, *&@#%*&88y *#@*head, and walked away like it was all he could do in the situation. He might have liked to strangle me too but somehow that wouldn't be as much fun as tormenting a hard working class peddler. Such a sensitive man. It was back to business as usual with him and the other charmers, at least for me. I overheard one of the girls muttering "That guy's an asshole." I felt warm inside.





Now the time has come to spill the beans on Adventure Korea, the tour company that caters to the foreign clientele. The problem with a lot of package tours is they keep to a schedule. Sometimes you'll see something very cool but it's already time to get back in the bus. Adventure Korea had a special trick of telling everyone to be back by the bus half an hour before it was actually time to leave, ensuring they were never inconvenienced by their guests. A bunch of us finally caught on after the visit to a lighthouse and some dramatic cliffs. It was one of those situations where you barely get there in time to take a picture before spinning on your heels to go back. Nice place too. I could have enjoyed it for hours. People were settled in for a day of dramatic coastal beauty. There was live music on the rocks.




From there we stopped in downtown Busan for dinner. They set an unrealistic time frame to get back to the bus but according to them it would simply be assumed that people chose to stay behind and find their own way back later if they were late. A few were left behind. This was one occasion when return time was exactly what they said. Ariel and I returned on time but they were already revving up the bus and we had to run. It was Saturday night and our guides had no intentions of allowing their jobs or responsibility to their guests interfere with their personal lives.



It gets much worse. We were all supposed to meet outside the hotel at 9 pm to check out a bar they'd recommended. I'd been told it wasn't another trendy club so this time I came along. They kept us waiting for an hour and a half, blaming it on the taxi company. They were busy on their cell phones the whole time arranging their own social lives. When the taxi van arrived, everyone except for our guides and the two women they'd picked up, dropped in 2 bucks. It was pretty cramped. I ended up on the floor, squished behind the driver.

My math skills are poor but there were a lot of us in there and, for the short drive, I hope the taxi driver got a nice tip out of it. Sure, it was a van but my own ride home was 5 bucks and more than 20 had been collected.

It gets worse. We stopped at a bar where some of the guide's friends had been waiting for them and then we (the guests) were given directions to the bar intended for us about a mile back the exact way we had come. These guys wouldn't even stop the cab to let us out, likely because the fare wasn't collected until the end of the trip and they wanted their evening's entertainment subsidized. We'd walked a good ways before I understood how we'd been used. I was furious and frustrated that no one else felt the same. I didn't understand these people at all.

"Oh, come on now, don't be negative."

"Are you *&@@*&&@* serious? We waited an hour and a half for no reason. We paid for the cab and they let us walk a mile instead of letting us out on the way. Their behavior is negative. They're scum."

"Aw, I'm just happy that somebody's getting laid tonight."

I was astounded. There is such a thing as being too nice and understanding. To my mind, if you smile and say "No problem. Have a nice day." to everyone who screws you over, that's bad karma. All you achieve with that kind of complacency is empowering them to abuse the next person.

"Yeah, like I care. Do you seriously think those muscled pretty boys have a hard time getting laid?" Well, maybe they do. Somebody was laughing at a bunch of glossy prostitute flyers he came home with that night. Turns out they were given to him by one of the guide's dates.

We walked on. I kept getting madder with every step. "I will tell everyone I know about these people and how they treat their guests."

"Aw, don't do that. Just let it go. Let's have a nice evening."

Well, there's the story in my world famous blog and now both people who read this know all about it. Take that, Adventure Korea.

"I'll be damned if I go to any bar where those guys get a kickback." I grabbed a cab and called it a night. The rest were glad to see me go since I was being such a Mr. Negative. Whatever.


It was a good choice. The reviews the next morning were not good. No wonder our guides didn't come along. It was touted as a one price all-you-can-drink place, sort of like an alcohol buffet. That wasn't quite true. The place was so understaffed it was more of an all-the-drinks-you-can-manage-to-get-at-the-ridiculously-crowded-bar type of place. It was just a trough and not even a good one. Anyone who thought they were in for a cheap drunk had their dreams crushed.



It must be said. Adventure Korea sucks. If you manage to learn Korean, do yourself a favor and go to other tour companies or do some research and go on your own at your own pace. Busan is an interesting city.

Check out the pictures. I'll go back another day and make my own tour.