Guatemala: casa de Del Boy

6.45am. Church bells and firecrackers to wake the faithful, cockerels to stir the heathens.

Bundled up against the cold we boarded a van to our next country, Guatemala.


The only other traffic seemed to be the gas van, dragging heavy chains to behind it to make a loud clanking sound on the tarmac and advertise its presence into the neighbourhood.

The Carretera Interamericana - the Pan-America Highway which runs all the way from Alaska to the far south of Argentina and Chile.

Though a grand name, this was no sweeping expressway, instead another small single road, winding through lonely pine-clad mountains and tinder-dry fields of tall, thin maize, past kennel-sized roadside shrines and bright bougainvilleas.

Our little van plunged through endless chicanes, our progress slowed by crawling lorries, many of them heaving Coke, Pepsi and other American-derived sugary pop - an endless conveyor belt of sugared water to slate the thirst of the masses, enslave their taste buds and expand their waistlines.

More soldiers and check points, ‘military zones’ to encircle the Zapatistas and guard Mexico’s borders against her unpredictable neighbours to the south.

Beyond Comitan, the Guatemalan flag appeared alongside the Mexican tricolore, a resplendent Quetzal jammed between two slices of light blue. A nation which puts a bird on its flag - I was beginning to get a good feeling about what lay ahead.

Huge purple mountains loomed up head, their peaks in the clouds. In front of them turkey vultures circled, airborne dustmen. Others congregated in roadside trees and chewed at the roadkill.

Further up the road, we checked out of Mexico, a gaggle of gringo vans crowded round a small office, where a miserable little bloke processed Israeli hippies and a sensibly-clad older German couple, a party of young blonde Americans in Converse and leggings and a Spanish motorbiker all equipped for the drive to Cape Horn.

The van soon entered a small settlement, clinging onto the side of a steep mountain. and parked up on a muddy slope, the driver wedging it between overloaded vans and gaggles of equally overburdened men, stooping under the weight of the sacks they were heaving uphill.

Quickly decanted, the gringos were shepherded after them.

Scruffy souvenir stalls closed in our us either side as we puffed up the hill; from the shadows I could feel many pairs of beady little eyes sizing us up.

We pushed on, squeezing between muddy vans and scrawny men wheeling teetering sack trucks, and crossed under a rusting hoarding - the border itself.

The Guatemalan flag hung limply outside a small office. We entered, ready for the notorious officials with their fondness for charging an ‘entrance fee’. On the other side of the counter a young lad in an old t-shirt ignored us, his head buried in the paper.

An older man lounged behind him at a desk, methodically chomping through a bag of sweets. No-one seemed in the slightest hurry to process the long queue at their doorway; no-one seemed in the slightest bit official.

Finally a small woman in a dirty old coat shuffled up and took my passport, wandering into a back room where, through a crack in the door, I saw an equally sanguine fellow lazily stamp it.

He hardly need bother with this stamp of official entry; it lay half-imprinted on the page of my passport, its words unintelligible. I made better stamps with rubbers and inkpots as a ten-year old.

While the officials didn’t seem interested in who was entering their country, the unofficials certainly did.

Latino Arthur Daleys cruised amongst the hubbub, seeking out the tourist dollar - the money changers.

These fine fellows stood around fingering large wads like Guatemalan Frank Butchers, lovingly flicking three inches of Quetzales and Pesos between their fingers, stroking their dollars and their other day’s takings.

They struck relaxed, rather louche poses, reclined against pillars in the shade, drawing on cigarettes which dangled from loose lips buried deep beneath bushy moustaches.

Their tight shirts bulged over their jeans, the shirt buttons undone to allow forests of chest hair to spill out like cress on a paper towel, the thick dark hairs intertwined with innumerable gold chains.

Other Terry Tibbs took a more proactive approach, sauntering in cowboy boots amongst the backpacks, touting for business from under cream plastic cowboy hats or hawking fake gold watches hanging from a board like notices in a school staff room.

As we stood in the sun, waiting for our ride, our senses were assaulted by the tumult of the border, where music blasted out from rickety shacks and skinny kids hawked fruit and sweets, a straggly tide of humanity constantly drifted past and trucks and cars, carts and tuk tuks vied for space on the pitted tarmac.


Tuk tuks in Guatemala; they seemed out of place at first, but soon blended in to the scene, coated in Jesus bling and American football stickers.

An hour and a half of confused chaos later and our transport finally arrived, another gleaming modern minibus to transport the tourist from A to B, safely cosseted against the vagaries of independent travel in a developing nation and the hazards of mixing with locals.

The chicken buses - old US school buses which have been plucked from the scrap yard and repainted in the most incredibly gaudy livery - will have to wait for another day.

Echoes of tourist soap again.

Incessant noise and frenzy, Del Boys and the entrepreneurial spirit, tuk tuks and tourist buses. It was like being back in Vietnam again…