November 5, 2008

I jumped on a plane at 12:35 am, just hours after hearing that Obama had won the presidential election. People were celebrating in the streets of San Francisco, and I was trying to keep security from running my film through the x-ray at the airport.

I was leaving San Francisco International Airport on a redeye for San Salvador and then continuing on to Guatemala City. I was a little scared. I both anticipated and dreaded this night for a week or so prior to the trip. It's frightening to imagine stepping foot on a plane bound for a dangerous foreign country in the middle of the night.

I arrived in Guatemala City at 9:30 am and Luke was there to meet me. I was relieved to see him. Luke was down here working on a story to submit to Adbusters in Canada, and I was to help him with the photography.  In the month since I had seen him his beard had grown scruffy, he was wearing sandals, old jeans and a Vietnam era green Army jacket, he was an american journalist covering life in a foreign country and he had embraced the lifestyle head-on.

"Want a smoke?" he said, pulling the crumpled soft-pack from his shirt pocket.
"No man, I'm good. Let's get out of here."

Luke and I waited by the highway for a bus to San Pedro

We headed up into the mountains on a "chicken bus," a retired United States Blue Bird school bus with luggage racks welded to the roof and a bright, colorful paint job. Immediately I noticed the "every man for himself" lifestyle in Guatemala. The bus driver would haul ass around twisty mountain roads, refusing to use unnecessary braking, drivers on the road would pass on narrow roads even if there was a vehicle coming the other way. If a traffic jam occurred, drivers would pass through any space available, but this would soon tie up traffic into a knot that would take hours to unravel.

"watch out for your possessions, people will steal things if you're not careful," said the luggage man in Spanish. Then he climbed out the backdoor of the moving bus and hauled our bags up onto the roof rack.

Four-and-a-half hours later, we arrived at lake Atitlan. Truly a sacred location. I was struck the same way that I was when I first drove into Yosemite Valley in California. Lush and Jagged mountains and volcanoes surrounding a bright blue lake; white, puffy clouds just caressing the mountaintops. Mayan villagers in traditional dress were carrying bundles of firewood and corn, just like in National Geographic. We jumped off the bus and the luggage man passed us our bags from the roof. I took a piss in a grove of coffee trees, I was content.

a view of Lake Atitlan, San Pedro is the grey spot in the center of the photo