Crossing a border my first impression of a country often has a lot to do with the street art.
What is a border? An arbitrary line on the earth’s surface, drawn by human eyes, by human minds, by human power struggles. Drawn by the hands of humans often in a far away land, regardless of geography and landscape, dividing lands, communities, peoples and hearts.
A line in the sand to be swept away by the incoming tide?
Crossing a border, especially a land border, I often expect little to change. Landscape continues regardless of a human line. And at the point where two countries meet I expect convergence, a mingling of traditions, of peoples, of ways of life.
But crossing the Mexico–Guatemala border I realise that I am wrong in my assumptions. A political border may very well just be a line in the sand. But it is a line that has been there for hundreds of years. It is a line that separates traditions, that separates peoples, that separates the land and even the geography.
We made it to the border early in the morning, after a night bus all the way down the Oaxaca coast line followed by a collectivo to ‘la frontier, la frontier’, as shouted loudly by the men hanging out the mini bus doors touting for passengers. And so after getting our passports stamped out of Mexico, haggling over an exchange rate to change our Pesos to Quetzals, and accidentally trying to re-enter Mexico instead of heading into Guatemala, we crossed over that arbitrary line. We paid the equivalent of £1 to get stamped into Guatemala and stumbled, under the weight of packs full of things we probably don’t need, into a new country.
As we struggled to walk even this small distance, beneath the bridge that acts as the border crossing women also bent double under the weights of their loads, though theirs of stuff for market carried in material strung from their head, also crossed the line in the sand.
They waded through the river unchecked by security measures, unchecked for papers or documentation. And as they waded freely, in full sight of all, I was reminded that a border, however dividing, is a line invisible to human eyes.
So they made it to Mexico and we entered Guatemala, and everything changed.
As soon as we came through the border we were swept up in an overwhelming hubbub of people, grabbing at out bags, pulling us towards their taxi, shoving things to buy in our face, or holding out empty hands in the universal gesture of ‘please’. A first reminder perhaps, that Guatemala, though next door, is a world away from Mexico, which though also steeped in poverty holds the title of the worlds 12th biggest economy.
But after finally negotiating our way onto a collectivo heading for the bus I had a chance to breathe, to relax a little, and to look out the window at the country we had found ourselves in.
The collectivo climbed into mountains covered in forests. The road winding precariously, was shared by people walking the route, by donkeys and carts loaded to overflowing and by quite a few rather large potholes. As we bumped along more and more people piled in, until we found ourselves continuing our discussion on how to change the world with a traveller we picked up at the border, over the head, and the cowboy hat, of a tiny, wrinkled, old Guatamalan man who squished his way into the 6 inches of seat between me and Hannah. In my heart of hearts I’m hoping he could understand every word we said and without indicating was smiling inside at the naïve, idiolistic, but well meaning kids he found himself sharing his journey home with.
But finally the collectivo pulled up in a town, and again before we had time to breathe, to take in where we were and find our bearings, our bags were grabbed, carried off and thrown on top of what was to be our first chicken bus experience in Guatemala.
The chicken buses in Guatemala are so called, because everyone, and their chickens travel round on them. The are brightly painted buses like the ones American kids go to school on, in fact they are old buses that American kids went to school in. And our first trip on one did not disappoint, as me, Hannah, a rather large, sweaty Guatemalan guy and his kid all squeezed on to one seat.
The bus bumped and banged up the winding roads, the only brakes applied being the sheer weight of the bus and its load. At times is was best just to not look out of the window as we took the bends. After a couple of hours we pulled up and everyone piled off. We had arrived. Oh wait, no we hadn’t. We had broken down. But with no nod to this apart from the two legs sticking out from under the back of the bus, we were thrown down our rucksacks from the roof and left to our own devices.
We had definately arrived in Guatemala!
But as chaotic as our arrival had been, and as crazy and overwhelming as the country seemed at first. As a Guatemalan man showed us the way to walk into town (1km with all our packs, but in his own words well it’s 5 Quetzals (50p) to take a taxi and why would you waste the money). As cows and donkeys pulling impossible weights ambled past us and the mountains covered in mist rose on every side. As the craziness gave way to calm, and the country started to seep into my consciousness. As I breathed in the cool mountain air. I knew that everything had changed. That we had left Mexico behind.
That Guatemala is another country I am going to love to get to know.
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