Esta vida es puro camote...

So we made it! On Sunday, July 1, we landed in Guatemla City at around 12.35 p.m. and immeditely claimed our bagage and found a taxi. After driving through trucks of soldiers (who Domingo, our taxi driver, told us were permeated throughout the city because presidents of different nations -- including Gorbachev, whose death apparently proves no handicap -- were coming to visit...), some McDonald´s, a Burger King, a Wendy's, a Chucky Cheese and some Kia and Volkswagen dealerships, we arrived at the Greyhound bus station -- no exaggeration -- and put our names on the roster for the 2.30 bus to Xela. The bus terminal was across from a few government centers and larger banks, all of which were built in architecture or decorated by edifaces more suggestive of the country´s own culture, and were surrounded by soaring Guatemalan flags. It sounds corny, but seeing those flags was like seeing a celebrity -- before, I had only seen the flag in pictures on the internet when I was setting up my blog, and now here they were in the flesh.

As we sat in the bus station, we met about five other Americans who were headed to Xela to study at two other schools in the area. We had been told that the bus ride to Xela should take about six hours. Normally, our school director had told us when we were still states-side, the ride was four hours, but the road had been under repair for years. At 2.30 p.m., we climbed aboard an old Greyhound and proceeded to get stuck in traffic for about half an hour. Vendors took advantage of our pauses to board the bus at random, selling cookies, wafers, ice cream and packaged peanuts.

Once out of the city, escorted all the way by deserted open-air markets and pedestrian overpasses, we started going through small towns and villages. Men, women, children and more vendors (this time selling ice cream, chicken and chiles) stepped on and off our bus as our journey continued. What was expected to be a somewhat manageable ride turned into a harrowing NASCAR-paced game of "chicken" up mountain roads. Had anything resembling speed limits existed or been enforced, the drive may have taken us an extra two hours, at least, but chances are my heart rate and blood pressure would have also remained in acceptable ranges -- passing 18-wheelers on two-lane roads rounding hilly corners at what felt like 80 mph on something with the center of gravity of a disproportionately huge Twinkie on wheels is an adventure I can always pass up.

As afternoon slipped into evening, and evening to dusk, towns slid into only memories of the beginning of our journey. The country side opened up into some of the most gorgeous rises of earth I have ever seen. If you like Ruidoso -- which, don´t get me wrong, I do -- the Guatemalan country side comparatively makes it seem like the sulking child that came in last place in a beauty contest.

We saw hill after hill slopingly decorated in a patchwork of cultivated fields; forrests verged on jungles. As evening and dusk progressed and as the sun set, mists gathered from the rainy season´s air nestled themselves in valleys beneath one of the most imaginary sunsets I´ve ever seen.

But the trip wasn´t all enchantment. The road repairs ended up stalling us for about an hour under the hot sun, dust and exhaust fumes of other busses and cars; starvation drew Tony towards a cold yet cooked sweet potato on a tray whose wrapper was enthusiastically animated by a crawling spider (a delectable treat that may actually still be hovering in the vacinity of our bus seat with 1.5 bites missing); we felt like we were going to pencil roll off a cliff at every turn and the latter condition only worsened and became more Evil-Kenevilesque for the last darkeness-drenched hour or two of our journey. Sweet lord, if Tony and I lacked religion before, every corner turned that night got its own prayer.

Finally, we arrived completely wiped out at around 8.30 p.m., which, after our trip from Miami that same day, felt like hour 47 of a 24-hour day. We were met by the school director's wife, Nora, and the day finally ended at our host family's adoreable labrynth of a house. We met our papa, Reymundo; one of our sisters, Sandra; our dog, Droopy and our mama, Lulu, who also led us to our bedroom upstairs where we bid the world a long-awaited adieu for eight hours of ridiculously anticipated sleep.

Today, July 2, was our first day of classes. Tony and my friend Stephanie emerged from the one-on-one five-hour sessions glowing. I was almost in tears. I learned nine groups of irregular verbs today, alongside about 30 regular verbs and yet still I'm rendered a bumbling mute when I have to form a sentence... See you tomorrow.