On the Road to San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta, Guatemala

June 2017

I’m on the road to San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta, a one-hotel town to which even local Guatemalans respond with a blank or quizzical look, when I mention it’s my destination; most have never heard of it.

I’m in the back seat of a small pick-up truck, with the my suitcase (recently returned to me after having been lost for 2 days somewhere in the Panama baggage terminal) is now propped up against the left back seat window - tied with a tie, yes a neck tie (my idea), through the hand support above the door in order to stop it tumbling onto me as the driver makes S – turns in the windy, pot-holed road - to the left, and then to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right as we wind our way. The suitcase blocks the view of the lush misty mountains that fly by I as sit, computer on lap, and type this blog.

I do have my right window though, slightly darkened for security reasons as is the custom, providing a mono-view that more or less makes up for the loss of the left one.

I feel quite elevated. Clouds curl into the rich-green patterned deep-brown patterned earth. Rows of, could it be coffee? Oh lord, I love these overcast pale purpled hills on the horizon, moody mountains. The whizzing-by foreground is alive with third world daily life: browned men with straw

cowboy-type hats, bare-blocked structures- unfinished in my view, with the metal rod supports exposed and waiting, stairs that go nowhere, tiendas for this and for that, iglesias, fists of political propaganda, workers doing what workers do in colorful old shirts. And we continue to wind, this way and that through the hills passing puffing collectivos - colorful buses to delight the eye, or being passed by them, those proud metallic tigers of the road. They are the old and useless yellow school buses that come all the way from China (Leonard Cohen in my head) - actually the USA.

Writing while driving is like photographing while looking. It sharpens the uniqueness. It focuses the focus.

Drizzling now. Wipers wishing away the water every minute or two. Now it is raining. Windscreen wipers going back and forth – squeaking as they go. The distance has been muted by fog. Background is lost. Driver seems to have slowed down. Tiger eyes of oncoming cars appear out of the fog, arriving from nowhere, like the fade in animation feature in PowerPoint. It’s coming down now. Rain while driving is a drag. Gone is the magic. But, I write, if rain be here, sun and light can’t be far behind. All will be all-the-better for it, glowing greeny- yellow, sparkling, fresh and luscious - a carpet of light against the dark of the of the trees.

But the rain and fog and the road and bumps and the turns right and then left and then right keep on and on and on. The fun is gone. Journey is never ending. Seat is uncomfortable. Knee is beginning to hurt. Old mood out, new mood in.

I fall into a light uncomfortable sleep for a while and then awake to sharp post-rain clarity – which I excitedly and foolishly try to capture out the window on cell phone camera as we make our way down to San Rafael Pie del Cuesto.

Teacher-training begins tomorrow in a newly constructed concrete classroom in what seems to be in the middle of the jungle. Go figure!

Photos by Jack Pillemer

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