Getting Around Guatemala

One of my favorite things about the Guatemalan culture is their “carpooling.”  I rarely saw a car, truck or bus with only one or two people in it.  Some of that is the dismal economic conitions, but a bigger piece is their strong sense of community and generous spirit. On Christmas morning in Antigua, we saw a family of 5 riding a motorcycle into town!  The concept of personal space is different in Guatemala than it is in the U.S. or at least not in Minnesota.  People just don’t mind squishing 5 people in a seat meant for 2 or up to 20 people standing in the back of a pick-up truck.  And many are riding for several hours this way!

People stand by the side of the road waiting for buses or trucks to pick them up. Once when we were in a pick-up truck on the way to one of the aldeas (rural villages) supported by the monastery, Fr. Pedro our driver, kept stopping every so often to pick up someone on the road and they just climbed up and stood in the bed of the truck.  We did eventually find out he knew them and that they were helping him at mass and it was the only way they were going to get there.

 Our primary modes of transportation while at the monastery were a 30 year old Land Rover and a "vintage" Suzuki with no back seats.  Driving to see some schools with Fr. Bernie in the Land Rover over mountain trails full of rocks and mud was so ludicrous for Sarah and I bouncing in the back seats that we several times burst out laughing, even when we almost tipped over.  There was no other appropriate response!

Earlier that same day, we put gas in the Land Rover at a gas station in town.  All the stations are “full service”, something we haven’t seen in the U.S. for years.  One of the main jobs for the gas attendants is to stand on the vehicle being filled with gas and rock it back and forth so that the gas gets in smoothly and the tank can get filled up!

Our most (read LEAST) favorite aspects of getting around Guatemala were the “tumulos” or speed bumps.  In Guatemala, everyone drives as fast as they want to and the police don’t seem to enforce any traffic laws – if there are any.   So the towns out in the country that the main roads go through put in “tumulos” to get people to slow down.  However, there is rarely a sign, nor do they paint or stripe the bumps.  You could be going 100 kph and not see the bump right in front of you until the last minute.  We were traveling at night to get to Coban from Guatemala City in a stick shift rental car and one of the times it decided to just die halfway through one of the 40 or so tumulos on that road.  Luckily, two nice police officers with machine guns pulled us over to make sure the gringos were okay!  Sorry, no photos of tumulos due to their "invisibility "  :)