Chiquen Bus!

That's my phonetic spelling for 'Chicken Bus,' a 1950's-era US school bus that has 'Jehovah es amor' or something like that emblazened on the front, is painted in bright reds and yellows, and functions as inter (or intra) city transport. The name comes from the livestock that rides along with the people, and for some reason is in English pronounced with a thick Spanish accent (Chee-can boos. Don't drag the s). Alongside chicken buses are the same micros that run inside town, and picops (pick-ups, pronounced peek-ops), which are just that - maybe they have people in the bed, maybe sacks of frijoles (beans), maybe both. We got a seat on our bus, because we got on at its departure point (the Xela bus terminal), but damn it filled fast. After 20 minutes or so, each seat had 3 or 4 people on it, and the aisle was packed to capacity, including 2 people in the stairwell and the money-taker hanging out the side door (which is for looking at, not closing). Keep in mind, these buses were designed for kids 12 and under. Actually, I'm apparently pretty used to rides like this, and didn't really mind. I mean, I had a window. I was sitting PRETTY with that spring in my ass!

The worst thing about bus rides like this is that you're expected to know where to get off, and it may really surprise you that I can't really tell one pueblo from the next. But the scenery was nice, I really liked the cemetaries, all filled with mini crypts in a rainbow of pastel colors. Roberto and I took a chicken bus to San Martin Sacatepequez, where you start the hike to Laguna Chicabal. Chicabal is a volcanic lake, sacred to the K'iche and Mam Mayan people (basically all I can say at this point about the different Mayan groups is that they fought each other lost of the time, and all ate a lot of corn. Hopefully I'll have something more intelligent to add before I leave). The hike is about 1.5 hours/3 miles each way, up a steep hill through town, where women in traditional Mayan clothing washed clothes in the communal wash bins and kids fought with the firewood they were supposed to be stacking. Then we went up an even steeper dirt road, where fathers and sons were coming down with firewood or crops, and lone pre-teens wielded machetes with an overtone of boredom. The road had an inch or two of fine red dust on it, and some of the pick-ups coming down were going fast enough to bring a tsunami of dirt down on us. As we climbed, town became fields, and as we approached the reserva natural (na-tour-al), forest.

The climb wasn't over, but eventually we reached the lake. It was socked in by clouds by the time we approached, so the miradors (lookouts) weren't much fun, but the lake itself was beautiful and serene. Armies of clouds would bear down on us from the surrounding hills, covering the lake in a matter of seconds, until the sun drove them off a few minutes later. We saw flocks of bright blue birds with a cucoo's call, and yellow songbirds picking at the pink flowers on the trees. There are 24 Mayan altars around the lake, each dedicated to a different Mayan god. The altars are still in use by the Mam Mayan people, and the lake is closed to visitors at the beginning of May so the area can be used for Mayan rituals. Behind many of the altars are clearings in the trees used as toilets, with bits of used TP hanging about.

It was getting late by the time we circumnavigated the lake, so we trekked back to San Martin, hoping to catch a bus (it was Sunday, after all, and there's less of everything going on when it's Sunday. Except church). While we waited for a bus that wasn't packed to the gills, a young Mayan woman in traditional clothes get out her cell phone (cell technology has spread faster in the poorest countries on earth than land-line technology spread in the richest countries 100 years ago). I also noticed a sign explaining a road development project in the village. At the bottom, it declared "A Time of Solidarity," and had a graphic with several different colored hands gettting along just fine. I imagine this had something to do with the government spending the majority of the last 3 generations slaughtering people in villages like San Martin (more on this at some point). Hey, it's never too late to turn a new leaf, I guess.