Just had my first real sleep ever since the night before I went away. Probably slept for around ten hours straight, going to bed relatively early since I'm going to have to change my schedule a bit to fit this village's routines.
Did I say village? Yep. I arrived here yesterday, after only a bit more than a three hours' travelling by car. During the whole trip from Huehuetenango to Yalambojoch I stayed awake, asking questions to the driver, named Per, who is also sort of the leader of this centre where I'm staying. There was so much to learn about this place that I didn't even once feel like reading the book I had in my hand, and so many things to look at from the window that I always kept my camera trigger ready to snap some photos whenever something popped up.
I guess the reason for that is because up until the villages, I had felt at least remotely familiar – in the capital with all its western luxuries, and Huehuetenango with its similar Cusco-feeling. But now, when I'm here in the village, everything is so very new and stunning that I feel like just lying on my bed and dissolving myself in my Harry Potter-book and letting all things in my head settle.
Per started off with some fascinating facts that I've read about in school about agriculture. It seems like the coffee plantations here are grown together with trees, in a mixed fashion, instead of the mono-cultural ways they do it in for example Brazil. This, I believe, is much better since it makes for a stronger ecosystem, although they might just be doing it to prevent the earth on the mountains from eroding and falling off the cliff.
Then I was told about a few traffic accidents while we were driving around on the road right next to a steep cliff. There was one bus accident, he told me and pointed his finger to the spot where it had happened, where the driver just forgot to turn and went straight down killing over forty passengers. Luckily it didn't really frighten me much as I had experienced the “roads” in the Andes in Peru. What was quite shocking, however, was his open way of talking about deaths in the area around there. You'll notice when I get to the later part of Per's stories.
We passed a little gun shop around halfway, and there I was told that with my tourist visa I was allowed to buy three guns at a time (with the exception of no automatics). The shop was also selling booze. I figured it made the perfect macho mix – guns and alcohol in one! Quite frightening morals, though.
In the same village, also, he pointed towards these people selling petrol on the road, scattered around everywhere for around one quarter of the way to our destination. Apparently they were selling smuggled fuel from Mexico, and three times when we passed certain roads he told me they were used as smuggling roads. The first one was full of policemen, who indeed weren't there to stop anyone from smuggling but were there to take bribes from everyone passing through. And this was just one example of how corrupt this country is. The second and third roads I believe were blockaded by the villagers themselves, demanding a very small fee (I think around 50-100 Quetzales*), making it cheaper than the policemen so that some might choose to take that road instead.
Yes, now in the beginning of my trip Guatemala certainly seems to be a country that lacks control over its systems. But I'll tell more of that later, since I figure it will probably be too much to write, both for you readers and for my poor European head. So I'll wait with the even more shocking things for later. For now, I think I'll enjoy my safe little haven here in this beautiful, calm village, and try to cook some black beans for myself. Hopefully they'll taste better this time..
¡Hasta luego!
*1 Quetzal is around 0.8 SEK or about 0.2 USD
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