In Through the Back Door

After an exciting day of travel by various methods, I am in Flores, Guatemala. Most of the transportation consisted of travel in vans on paved roads with stunningly beautiful scenery in Mexico and brutal, brain-jarring gravel roads with nice scenery in Guatemala. The trip on Rio Usumacinta, however, was more exciting. We took a launch from a middle of nowhere town in Mexico to a middle of nowhere town in Guatemala. I particularly enjoyed telling my companions who were all wearing bright red lifejackets* that the bright red lifejackets help the crocodiles to find them if we sink (* old habits die hard - I never wore lifejackets on the SALTS boats). Scott the Australian seemed to be the only one other than myself who truly enjoyed the (scant?) humour of this comment.


Some observations:

In Mexico they have a habit of holding up a rope to stop vehicles on the road (one person on either side). I have even seen children doing it when they want to sell some mandarin oranges to people in cars. It seems to me if anyone decided not to stop, this method would quickly backfire.

There are white heron-like birds that seem to have a symbiotic relationship with the cows. I have often seen them standing next to or even right on the heads of cows. Sometimes they seem to be doing something such as removing bugs, but it is hard to be sure from the window of a speeding van. It may not be symbiotic, but I can´t think of the other word (not parasitic, the other one), so we´re going with symbiotic.

The guys in the Guatemalan immigration office were having two very serious air conditioners installed. The very expensive kind. This is strange because there was a huge space open between the walls and the roof. Any attempt at air conditioning would have as much effect on the temperature outside as it would inside.

Having left Mexico from a tiny town in the Lacondan territory, traveled down the river on a thin launch and entered Guatemala in another tiny town with more dogs than houses, I commented to one of my traveling companions that it seemed an odd way to enter a country. He remarked that it felt as if we entered through the back door. Indeed we did.

Guatemala is my 47th country (more of a fact than an observation).