A friendly welcome to Guatemala

On arriving in Guatemala, our wallets breathed a collective sigh of relief. Belize and Cuba were far more expensive than we had bargained for! Our first meal Guatemala’s seedy port town of Puerto Barrios cost just over $1 per person, our accommodation a little under $10 (although admittedly at an establishment where most paid by the hour) and long distance bus tickets were also a steal.

But there’s more to Guatemala than great-value everything. When we crossed the border was like flicking a switch – everyone was suddenly in friendly mode, smiling at us, saying hello, joking around, asking if we needed directions when we looked lost.

At once Guatemalans proved themselves to be forward and friendly. Where many Mexicans had acted aloof, it is surprisingly easy to strike up a conversation in a shop here.

Unlike Belize or Cuba, there were no apparent strings attached. People weren’t trying to prise money out of you (unless they happened to be selling something), they were just being…helpful. It was weird!

It was like I had shed the giant dollar sign I’d been carrying above my head, and also the sign that said “beware gringo” that had plagued me in Mexico. Sure, in Guatemala I am a tourist and look different, but its cause for curiosity, rather than alarm.

In many ways Guatemalans have little to smile about. Officially there is a government, but it doesn’t do much to improved the fractured lives of families who have lived through a bitter 40-year civil war that only officially ended a decade ago.

Living standards are far lower than the other countries I’ve visited. True, there is a sizeable urban middle class and a few wealthy families, but life is a struggle for the majority of people. This was apparent driving through Guatemala City, where we alternated between big, tarmac avenues lined with US burger and retail chains and ominous grey hillsides stacked with concrete shoebox lean-tos and littered with rubbish.

Guatemala City wasn’t a place where we were keen to linger due to its safety record. We arrived at one bus station, jumped in a taxi to another bus station and were in and out in half an hour. Our first bus was a super-plush double decker with fantastically comfortable seats; the second was one of Guatemala’s notorious “chicken buses,” so-called because locals are famed for strapping all manner of cargo to the roof, including chickens and other livestock.

These are second-hand American school buses, as in Belize, but here chicken buses are seriously pimped out. They are painted in bright colours and patterns, and bear religious slogans or names of saints along with the department or towns that they serve.

Our journey in the chicken bus to the Guatemalan highlands was hair-raising to say the least. The surly driver had constant competitions to outpace the many other fume-belching buses and trucks on the roads, and took the wide curves at unimaginable speeds. Passengers were thrown left to right as they gripped the handrails with white knuckles. The journey on the narrow vinyl seats (originally built for children) seemed to last forever as we stopped every few minutes to pick up and set down passengers and their cargo.