Fowl transport...

Well with less than two and half weeks to go our slow travel odyssey is almost coming to an end...but we still have two weeks at sea and the small body of salty water known as 'The Atlantic' to cross before we hit Blighty and the White Cliffs of Dover on March 20th (if there ain't bluebirds above I am going to be severly disappointed). We've just arrived in Granada, Nicaragua after some adventures that I'll share shortly in transit through the somewhat less than salubrious cities of San Salvador and Managua. Suffice to say we are relieved to have them behind us. Anyway, latest Observer missive was published yesterday, about the joys of Guatemalan chicken buses, and as usual the unexpurgated version is pasted below, or for those of a shorter attention span or more sensitive demeanour the formal edit is on the Guardian website here.

25th Observer column

Slow travel in Guatemala is all about ‘chicken’ buses. Whether this name comes from the typical driver’s proclivity for playing ‘dare’ with oncoming traffic, their coop-like nature or the practice of simultaneously carrying both livestock and locals is unclear. Etymological ruminations aside we certainly experienced kamikaze driving behaviours and the rickety roost spaces within firsthand, though fowl had so far been conspicuous by their absence.

Our buoyantly bouncing bus to the shores of Lago de Izabal, Guatemala’s biggest lake was more ‘fish’ than ‘chicken’. A huge tub of frozen fish and crabs was defrosting behind us and a cool slick of fragrant melt-water lapped gently at our feet. The same triumvirate of rigid seat, corrugated road and venerable suspension that was giving our bums a deep tissue pummelling, was also shaking the catch out of it’s tightly netted vat. When the owner disembarked he lacked a bag for the slippery escapees so resourcefully removed his shirt and wrapped them in that. We left him half naked at the roadside with his thawing haul.

As we trundled through lakeside banana plantations the mood was lifted by a woman in proud possession of what was possibly the most monumental bosom in all of Central America. Her laugh was almost as captivating and the infectious whooping and shrieking of her and her cronies was impossible to resist as it accompanied us all the way to El Estor. An easier place to arrive than to leave we enjoyed an extended game of ‘What time does the bus go?’ with a broad cross-section of locals. Each supplied us with a range of contradictory or equally unattractive answers. So at 2.35am we awaited a ‘collectivo’ in the dark, eerie quiet of a town that if slumbering by day was so lifeless by night it was laying itself open to premature burial. Even the half-dozing street dogs were giving us pitying looks when the mini-van finally arrived and we piled in.

‘Don’t travel at night as there’s a higher risk of robbery’ a girl working at a local orphanage advised, as the Central Highlands are (allegedly) bandit country. I recalled these wise words ironically as we lurched through the dark, remote landscape. Somehow I nodded off as the next I knew dawn was breaking over the mountains and the bus was full of people. So packed in fact the conductor was now hanging on the outside of the van in order to jam in a couple more fares. A huge grey spider then attempted to occupy the seat next to me, and I certainly wasn’t arguing, but was deftly palmed off by a boarding schoolboy. We heard it hit the floor.

After a nerve-settling night in cool, coffee growing Coban our bus odyssey continued west. An hour into the journey we hit a backlog of assorted vehicles awaiting the reopening of the next section of ‘highway’. It was closed due to road works, presumably following a major collapse, and only open to traffic for specific time-windows during the day. Building roads in the precipitously steep, narrow and winding valleys of Guatemala is an impressive engineering feat. Awe swiftly becomes dread however when you’re teetering above a yawning abyss on a rough single lane scar of dirt track.

When the road-opened engines roared, exhausts billowed black smoke and the waiting vehicles jostled precariously for position on the dusty sliver. A clenched-jaw, white-knuckle descent of the mountain followed, made worse at the mid-point when we met the held-up traffic coming the other way. We edged gingerly past a convoy of rock-laden trucks on the crumbling trail, and shortly after rediscovered with relief the relative transport decadence of two lanes, tarmac and traction.

From Uspantan another crammed collectivo took us to Quiché. I counted 35 people in (or on) the 20-seat mini-van, including two blokes clinging grim-faced to the roof rack. On arrival we checked into the ‘Hotel Las Vegas’ where, judging by the unsurprised reaction when I appeared in reception with the dirty bed linen from our room, they only changed the sheets when someone complained.

Next day on the market we were intrigued by a stall of large lumps of dark, sticky resin wrapped in leaves. A small boy popped up beside us. ‘Que es?’ (`What is it?`) we asked pointing at the bowl-shaped hunks. ‘Panela’ he replied looking at us like we were from another planet when clearly any fool knows what panela is. None the wiser we had a guess as to its provenance, ‘Es como azucar?’ ('Is it like sugar?'). ‘Si’ came the weary reply; the boy now convinced we weren’t aliens at all just really, really slow. And in a way, we are.