Guateswella

Despite having read Lonely Planet’s Central America guidebook (albeit from 2004) that "explains" different routes from Mexico to Guatemala, I couldn’t make sense of what one actually does when you get to the border. I was a little murky on how to find transportation once you're actually inside Guatemala as well. I got out of a bus at, oh fudge, what was the name of the Mexican border town?.. Ciudad Chahtemoc? I’m calling it Ciudad WTF. When I got out of the bus, I was in miserable pain because I got dust (and probably bus cooties) in my eyes. I walked half-blind to the baño in the bus station where I was stopped by a woman hosing down the walls and sidewalk outside the bathroom stalls. If my Spanish was good enough, I would have told her to just spray my face down. While in mid-spray (of the walls, not my face) I gave her 5 lousy pesos so I could hopefully clean my eyeball. The stall I found had no seat and I could barely fit my pack through the door and close it behind me. When I turned the corner to find the freestanding sink, I realized that there was no soap and touching the faucet would have probably made me dirtier than cleaner. I opted for just pouring bottled water over my hands and using the reflection in my phone to fix my contact lens. I hated the world for 7 minutes.
When I emerged from the bathroom area behind the bus station lounge, with my eyesight slightly better, I only saw a few Dutch people huddled together under a canopy who had gotten off the same bus as me. There was a taxi stand with about 3 taxis waiting and half a dozen people crossing the road to another building. I must have looked pretty distressed with my bloodshot eyes because one of the Dutch folks, who happened to be the group’s guide, approached me with a "Are you lost, little girl?" -look. He told me that everyone had to walk across the street to another building to stamp our passports. So there I went with bloodshot eyes, and stray dogs at my heels to the other side. Traveling alone across the border might be impressive to some, but if it were not for the Dutch, I might still be in that town fighting over food scraps with the stray dogs. I'm convinced the Dutch know everything. After my passport was stamped,  I found a taxi for the 3 kilometer ride to the Guatemalan border. I proceeded to walk across the border -a yellow dotted line painted on the road- and, by luck, found the unassuming Guatemalan immigration office to stamp my passport again. Ta-da!

Now what do I do? I couldn't make sense of my feelings of doom: was it that I had no Guatemalan cash and no ticket out of the border town? Was it because I was severely dehydrated? I started walking up the road ignoring aggressive money changers on the street. I found what looked like a bank and slipped inside the tiny ATM lobby and jammed my pack in front of the door. I think I may have hugged the ATM machine when it dispensed cash. (Every new country is a new banking adventure.) I then went and had the best fried bananas and beans and cafe con leche of my life. Now that I had cash and fluids in my system, my next task was um... right, go to Antigua or somewhere closer to my friend I was meeting. But how? Surely, a gringa has done this before. I walked back towards the yellow dotted lines (the border) where I heard a few Australians talking...Australians are almost as loud as USAers...almost. Apparently they were just switching shuttles at the border to get to Antigua as well. I made a deal with a 10 year old (in Spanish) to get on the shuttle with them. 200 Quetzales later, with my pack roped onto the hood, I was on my way to Antigua. The next day I found another shuttle to meet my traveler friend in San Pedro for her birthday. It turned out I was the only person to book a shuttle that day to San Pedro. We rode for many hours, taking routes the driver wasn't even sure of because so many landslides (thank you hurricanes) had closed down major roads. I'm proud to report that I did NOT puke at all in Guatemala. (I have a reputation.) Dramamine not only made me feel less seasick, it made me drowsy enough to start up all sorts of Spanish con confidencia with the driver and the hitchhikers we picked up on the side of the road. It is a common practice for drivers to pick up locals on the road to make more money when their tourist shuttles are not full.
After telling half of Guatemala that I would love to dance salsa with them on the bus, I finally arrived at the hippie dippie backpacker town, San Pedro, next to the amazing Lake Atitlan and a few volcanoes, I think. I didn't care, I just let a man on the road lead me to his hostel overlooking the lake. It cost the equivalent of 3 US dollars to stay there, so my sea legs and I agreed.

[Insert dramatic Law & Order theme music here.]

Jump to the next morning in the hostel where I wake to blood on my hands and face and intense itching everywhere. I remember waking up once in the middle of the night, thinking there was a mosquito after me, but just writing it off in my head as paranoia. The pictures of my face, of course, suggest this was more than a hungry mosquito. After showing my swollen, weeping (my pours were literally weeping) face to my fellow traveler friends at breakfast, it was concluded that perhaps I had a severe allergic reaction to a bedbug. It was also suggested that I hightail it out of this dodgy hostel. Despite my shape-shifting face, I could still hear my inner-bargain-ista voice saying, "But, it's such a good price for a night's stay!" But I came to my swollen senses and made the accommodations upgrade of the century... oh, and disinfected everything I owned! I did find what looked to be a bedbug...in my hair!... walking down the street to the laundromat.
My next job was to try and treat my face. I'm not sure I would have trusted myself if I happened upon myself in the road. I was plain scary-looking.  I walked into a few "farmacias" in the small town.  I soon discovered my options for treatment lay under a glass counter among scattered blister packs of unidentifiable pills. The women behind the counter sent a small boy crawling under the counter to retrieve various pills for me to inspect. I may have fared better with ecstasy from a well-organized rave. I instead only agreed to purchase calomine lotion (never before opened) and continued feeding myself antihistamine pills that I had stashed from the U.S. I can't tell you how difficult it was to do all of this with fluids dripping out of my forehead...not to mention my lack of depth perception since my right eye was not opening at this point. I stumbled back to the hotel to watch episodes of The Daily Show on my computer and impulsively research bug bites on the internet for 9 hours straight. At some point, a botfly rumor started on Facebook. Unless it has already hatched and flown away (the rumor and the botfly), I don't believe I ever had a botfly in my system. I'm happy to report that my face has returned to its original form save for a little redness! But I'm still a bit haunted by the unsettling comments made by an English guy at my hotel: "I would hate if that happened to me. What if your face stays like that forever?"
Friggin English.

May I conclude this rant with a sincere appreciation for the absolute beauty and warm kindness I experienced in Guatemala. I'd like to think that my blog's readership can influence the tourist economies of small Latin American countries. If that is actually the case, please please visit beautiful Guatemala. It's "swell". But really, the people are amazing. Just be careful of its healthy eco-system!
As I write this post, I have made it back across the border. Despite (or perhaps because of) my monstrous appearance, I could still talk a bus operator down in price in Spanish with one eye and a swollen face to get out of Guatemala. I'm particularly entertained to know that the New Zealand girls I was traveling with thought I was winking at them to play along with me while I was bargaining...when in fact, my eye was just not opening. These past couples days I have traveled back through Chiapas, and am now enjoying the wonders and colors of Oaxaca. I may or may not still be dehydrated.