Touring Guatemala by tow truck and other conveyances

[kerouac2]

As I’m sure everybody knows, unplanned incidents are excellent for making a trip both more interesting and more complicated. Personally, I didn’t have any unplanned incidents on my recent trip, because I planned absolutely nothing, so things just happened.

Everything started out fine. I was picked up by friends at the airport in the evening, and we left the following morning. The car was a Mazda CX-9 SUV whose size I found rather alarming. My friend who is currently living in Guatemala is not a fan of such cars either. However, when he was transferred to Guatemala, he had the option of buying both of his predecessor’s cars – an SUV and an ordinary small Kia. He bought only the Kia and learned to regret it during his first year when it proved to be no match for the Guatemalan country roads and finally broke down on a trip to Belize, where it was stranded for a month awaiting repair.

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So the Mazda (a used model from 2009) was bought and is apparently necessary. I suspect that the friend who usually drives it is responsible for much of the wear and tear, but it would be unkind of me to say that I think he drives like a maniac, so I won’t. My friend avoids driving himself as much as possible since he has actually had a license for only two years and got it just before leaving Brazil after multiple failures. He’ll exchange it for a French license when he returns to France for a couple of months this summer.

We left like bats out of hell for Chichicastenango which meant 1) morning Guatemala City commuter traffic jam, 2) 150 kilometres on pot-holed and earthquake damaged roads, 3) twisty mountain roads. One can hope to accomplish the distance in just under 3 hours with a bit of optimism. Having taken 8 hours to cover a comparable distance in Cambodia once, I didn’t really worry about this. The continuous yellow line down the middle of the road in curvy or hilly areas which means “no passing” in most countries just means “pass as fast as you can” in Guatemala. It must be admitted that it would take forever if one really stayed behind all of the tuktuks and yellow American school buses all the time. On the other hand, one thing that is taken very seriously are all of the speed bumps in every village and town along the way. Most of these were improvised by the local population, so they are of varying thickness and height, and they almost never have stripes or white paint on them to make them visible. All of the vehicles creep across them as slowly as possible.

Contrary to what one might think, I did not see any donkey carts or things like that on the road. This was just as well, because the pedestrians were enough to worry about. They don’t understand the basics of crossing a busy road and jump out unexpectedly at any time, even on expressways. Or else they are testing the reflexes of the drivers on purpose. Also, I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that Guatemala has a “dog problem” but it sure has a shitload of dogs, and they have clearly learned to cross the road from the humans. I saw quite a few dead ones. I think they pick up the dead people but not the dead dogs.

Chichicastenango was a driver’s nightmare, except that they do have some police directing traffic on market day. There are plenty of one way streets where “one way” is clearly just a mild suggestion, plus lots of red octagonal “Alto” signs where are just for decoration. Since it had been decided (without really consulting me) that I would be doing the driving after the first couple days since the driving friend had other things on his agenda, I asked if all of the destinations would be as nightmarish as Chichcastenango. I was told that, no, one of the reasons that we came here this first day was because it was the most difficult drive. Everything else would be a snap. Sure.

The car already experienced a few minor difficulties on that day. A couple of times the automatic transmission got stuck in the wrong gear, and the only solution that had been found was to pull over, stop the car and then start it again. Very reassuring.

Anyway, after visiting the market, we drove to our next destination, Antigua. We hit a number of traffic nightmares, which allowed me to notice that absolutely huge number of garages and tow services everywhere, clearly a major part of the economy. Antigua, on the other hand, did not bother me at all – the streets were a perfectly laid out flat grid, and the Alto signs were taken into consideration by most drivers. However, the special historical paving was so incredibly rough that there was no chance of any car speeding.

I only got nervous when we parked the car in the hotel lot. The side view mirrors had to be folded in and we only just squeezed through the entrance. I would be the person purportedly squeezing out two days later. Yikes.

[kerouac2]

Flash forward to departure day from Antigua. We loaded our bags into the car and I sat behind the wheel. My friend stayed outside because he knew he had to try to guide me through the tiny slot to get the car out of the lot.

Unfortunately, the ignition was blocked. It works with a card system rather than a key, but there is still a tab to grab and turn in traditional key style. It would not turn. Okay, no big deal, I know I’m an idiot, so my friend got behind the wheel to show me. But it wouldn’t turn for him either.

Over the next two hours, we read the online manual, available in English and Canadian French. No help except to extract the real physical emergency key from the card device and try to use that instead. It did not start the car but it was excellent for setting off the alarm, which would sound for 30 seconds. This brought the lot attendant who wanted to see who was stealing a car. Discussion was very limited due to my almost total lack of Spanish and the very limited Spanish of my friend. The man made a few useless suggestions. I think we listened to the alarm at least 20 times. I’m surprised that more people did not gather around.

We decided that a cooling off period was in order so we went and had breakfast at the place next door at the Hostal Antigua, a youth hostel which is extremely well rated on the travel sites and which seemed much nicer than the hotel where we had stayed, which cost about double. We had hated the breakfast at our hotel the first morning so we didn’t even bother with it the morning we checked out. After breakfast, we went to the market and bought a new battery for the electronic key, you never know… No, it wasn’t the battery. And of course it wasn’t the car battery either, since it was possible to light up the dashboard, set off the alarm, work the electric windows with no problem.

The only authorized garage was the Mazda dealer in Guatemala City. The only solution was to get someone to drive a tow truck from Guatemala City to Antigua and back again. Just for the record, the price of this is 900 Q, which is quite reasonable. I have to admire my friend, because he could have said that the tourism part of the trip was finished and I certainly would not have protested if we went back to Guatemala City. But he was determined to take me to Lake Atitlan, nestled in its ring of volcanoes. And anyway, he is kind of a cheapskate like me and had locked in hotel reservations for the next two nights there. Out of the question to lose that!

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So he informed the hotel in Antigua that we would pick up the car in a few days. Could we leave it there? (not that we had a choice) Yes, for 20 Q a night – you may have noticed in the photo how much that car lot is used. Okay, no big deal.

Then we walked up the street into the first travel agency to buy minibus tickets to Panajachel. 60 Q for two tickets, not bad. Unfortunately when the lady called, the noon bus was already completely booked, we would have to leave at 14:30. Don’t bother trying other agencies, it will all be the same. So we went to the next agency and got tickets for noon, except the price for two tickets was 90 Q this time. Just for the record, that’s 5.17 euros per ticket, so the high fare was perfectly acceptable. All of the agencies seem to use 12 seat minibuses, quite comfortable actually. At least we didn’t have to take an American school bus. I think I was about 35 years older than the next oldest passenger except for my friend who is nevertheless 15 years younger than me. Do mature people not travel to Panajachel? What was the deal with this place?

[bixaorellana]

I am enjoying reading this because it is well written and has a great deal of "what will happen next?" built in, not because I'm enjoying your woes. Gad, at least the prices are cheap enough.

Very interested to hear about Panajachel. In the past, grown-up friends of mine have traveled there, but maybe it's become a backpacker haven. (not that people of mature years don't backpack, but that's something I neither understand nor care to understand)

Jun 1, 2018 15:44:29 GMT kerouac2 said:

I have to admire my friend, because he could have said that the tourism part of the trip was finished

A good friend! And, having traveled with you, I have to say that you absolutely deserve that good treatment.

[bjd]

But just think -- this is the stuff that makes for funny travelling tales. How boring to say, "We arrived and visited the market then went on to another town. Absolutely no problems."

By the way, your friend should check whether Brazilian licences can simply be converted into French ones. I know Argentinian ones can't.

[kerouac2]

Already checked. No problem.

[kerouac2]

The driver was – how should I describe it? – very fast. Actually, I never felt unsafe during the trip because it was evident that he could run anybody off the road rather than being run off the road himself. Actually, quite a bit of the trip was on the same road as to Chichicastenango with a fork near the end. A whole new town has sprung up at the fork just because so many vehicles are going to both places. Lots of speed bumps. Tumulos. That is what they are called when there are signs to warn you.

We were really high up in the mountains when the lake became visible. The road was quite good but there were tons of hairpin turns. That’s when you want a good driver. At one point there was a sign for Panajachel with another sign which basically said “Panajachel – alternate route.” He took the alternate route and oh boy, it was a white knuckle ride. Rather than the 8% slope that we had been using, this road had to have been a least 15%. I think it was only used for going down, because I could not imagine any vehicle climbing that incline.

Well, we certainly got down the mountainside fast, I’ll have to give him credit for that. We were in a small town which I thought might be our destination, but it wasn’t. We still had a certain amount of way to go, but all of a sudden we arrived. The minibus stopped in the backpacker street. It could have been Bangkok, Saigon, Cape Town – it’s amazing how all of these streets look alike in the end. Actually, there is basically only one street in Panajachel – Calle Santander. 95% of the hotels and restaurants and bars are on this street. Our hotel was at the far end by the lake, so it was a very interesting walk to see all of the places and people along the way.

The hotel was very nice. We dropped off our stuff and went to see the lake. Stunning with the volcanoes all around it. There are plenty of peaks, but only three of them have the perfect volcanic shapes and are referred to by their names: Atitlan, Toliman, and San Pedro. Unfortunately (?), none has erupted since the 19th century.

There are tourist boats to take people to a series of villages around the lake over most of the day, but we didn’t use them. Even though my friend has been there several times, he was unable to convince me that the villages were all different and worth seeing. I did not see the point of leaving Panajachel to see other places that looked the same even if they gave different views of the volcanoes. Before our discussion became tedious, my friend had the good fortune of receiving a phone call from a colleague who had rented a cottage on the lake with his wife during this week of vacation from the school where they both work. “Would you like to come for lunch?” I said that I certainly did, so our next step was to take a public transport boat.

This required a tuktuk ride (5 Q per person) to the public dock at the edge of town. A variety of boats were loading passengers, but we had the name of the stop we needed and found the appropriate boat. Some Scandinavian women boarded the same boat and one of them said to me “I don’t know where this is going, but sometimes you just have to go anywhere.” The boat ride was really quite lovely and made various stops where people needed to go. It was officially going to the various lake towns, but there were piers everywhere where the boat could stop. My friend showed me some photos on his telephone. “This pink house is the landmark before our stop, and this other house is where we’re going. Tell me when you see it.” He then proceeded to read his book. He does things like that.

After about six stops, I saw the pink house, followed by the other house and gave the alert. The boat stopped and we got off (20 Q) and tried to figure out how to get to the house. Luckily, the colleague had spotted us and quickly met us as we pushed through the vegetation on the wrong path.

Jesus, the house was wonderful.

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[bixaorellana]

So after that wild ride on the mountain, you leave us with a cliff-hanger?!

[kerouac2]

I was kind of hoping to have lunch on their spectacular terrace, but actually we just had drinks as the murder of the son of one of the teachers was discussed. He was at a party with friends when there was suddenly an asalto (home invasion). He was killed but the other people at the party survived. Both my friend and his colleague were very pleased to be on holiday that week with other people to send flowers, attend the funeral, etc. The teacher was the Spanish teacher and was Guatemalan as required by law, so I assume that she lives in a normal area of Guatemala City rather than the secure expat compounds where most of the teachers live – and her son probably went to parties in “normal” areas as well. Guatemala is a quite dangerous country.

On that downer, it was decided that it was time to go to lunch, which meant a three kilometre hike to the nearest town after climbing the cliff above the bungalow. Yes, it was sunny and warm by then, so it was just the sort of activity that was needed as the sun reached its zenith. The village was San Marcos la Laguna, and now I know where all of the 21st century New Age hippies go. It was wall-to-wall yoga institutes, sophralogues and vegan eateries, barefoot non-Mayans with beads in their braids. Actually it was quite amusing. It was really quite different from Panajachel (also known as Panagringo according to the Lonely Planet guidebook) and you could tell that the visitors stayed much longer.

We went to a French restaurant owned by a madman, confirming that certain loonies can find happiness by going into exile. There was not much that was actually French on the menu, except for the page of croque-monsieur and crêpes. I had spaghetti carbonara.

Actually, much of the time was spent with the other guy making quite a few phone calls since he is bilingual to set up the towing, find out where the Mazda place was, etc. My friend is actually his boss, so it ensures excellent cooperation. The village boat dock was right next to the restaurant, so it was easy to get back to our town although the wind had picked up considerably and those big lakes can get really choppy!

The next morning it was time to get back on a minibus and return to Antigua. This bus was slightly nicer than the first one and had a reasonable driver, so that was a plus. We were scheduled to arrive in Antigua at 14:30 and the tow truck driver was supposed to meet us at 15:00. We got dropped off at Parque Central at 15:05, but the tow truck guy had not yet arrived either, although he was not far away.

Meanwhile, I had been fast-forwarding to what was going to happen next. I visualised the car park, the size of the SUV and – more importantly – the size and height of a tow truck. If the SUV could barely squeeze into the passage to the car park, there was absolutely no way that a tow truck could come anywhere close. Sometimes it is good to be in a country where people have to improvise solutions every day. They can always figure something out – or can they?

[bjd]

Waiting with bated breath for the next chapter.

[kerouac2]

Our former hotel allowed us to drop our bags at the reception while we handled the towing problem. The tow truck arrived at the designated address (about a block from the hotel), and dismay literally dripped off the driver’s face when he saw the problem.

We had to do exactly what I imagined – somehow push the car out into the street. Have you ever tried to push an SUV? Be my guest. Two of the hotel clerks, impeccably dressed in their uniforms, arrived as reinforcements. The third clerk, the smiling dwarf who had insisted on carrying our bags when we first arrived even though they were bigger than he was, was exempted. I never stopped expecting him to suddenly yell out “Call for Philip Morris!” at any moment – older people with knowledge of American culture will probably understand.

These two young men were quite enthusiastic since pushing a car is a lot more interesting than sitting around an empty hotel, but they were perhaps a little bit too enthusiastic. The tow truck driver was sitting at the wheel of the Mazda with the door open when they started pulling it backwards. I saw what was happening and yelled “stop stop stop!” but maybe it should have been “alto alto alto!” because the car door was immediately caught in one of the pillars holding up the shed. The shed was about to come down on the car as it began to rip the pillar loose (it was only a 4x4). They finally realised what was happening and managed to stop the car before the shed collapsed.

Unfortunately, the car was on a slight incline which made it twice as difficult to push forward to a position where the door could be closed. One try, two tries, three tries rocking back and forth with the pillar weakening each time. This was not doing any good to the top corner of the door either, but that was just collateral damage. Finally we managed to push the car enough to get the door closed, and the next phase could begin. Due to the incline, the car rolled out quite easily to the middle of the lot, but it was quickly determined that we needed to turn the car in the other direction, facing outward.

Duh, I knew that from the start. Why didn’t the person behind the steering wheel turn it while it was rolling? So lots more pushing was done while the car was turned around. Sweat was rolling down my face, but at least I wasn’t wearing an immaculate hotel uniform. We managed to ease the car through the tiny passage. The dwarf jumped into the middle of the street (which I must describe as being “the busiest street in Antigua”) to stop the traffic, and we rolled the car out into the street across two lanes and then pushed it into a position behind the tow truck which had managed to miraculously park along the kerb.

The rest was so incredibly easy. The tow truck driver attached his cable, pulled the car up onto the flatbed, secured the wheels with his various devices. My friend went to get our baggage and gave the normal-sized hotel workers 50 Q each (nothing for the dwarf, sorry) for their efforts. The hotel demanded 100 Q for the extra parking privileges (bastards!) but they sent their employees back carrying our bags to show how nice they were. They still seemed so happy to be outside rather than stuck in the hotel. Then it was adios and time to pile into the tow truck for the wonderful drive to Guatemala City at evening rush hour.

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[kerouac2]

Frankly, the tow truck had seen better days, as evidenced by its cracked windshield. Frankly, we were happy to be able to ride in the tow truck, since it was not a given. We had envisaged having to take a bus to Guatemala separately. Nevertheless, tow truck drivers everywhere in the world are quite used to transporting the victims of a breakdown. It would be hard to imagine that they would strand people in the middle of nowhere, but it was not a given that we could get a “free” ride when we were already right next to the bus station.

I at least just sat back and relaxed for the ride. I cannot say the same for my friend who was undoubtedly thinking about all of the money being spent, how long the car would be immobilised, and also I have not mentioned yet that he fell quite ill just as we left Antigua the first time, he got even worse in Panajachel, and he was still going downhill as we progressed. It was only a “bad cold” or perhaps the flu, but I think we all can think of times when we just wanted to roll up into a ball and die when we had to face certain situations.

The traffic was as bad as expected. For the second time, I was able to admire (?) the huge Israeli and Guatemalan flags on a hillside in the city, celebrating the friendship of the two countries. I’m sure you have read that Guatemala was the second country after the United States to move its embassy to Jerusalem, but have you noticed that the two flags are the same colour?

Once in Guatemala City, we still had to find the Mazda dealership. The tow truck driver’s GPS was in (slight) disagreement with my friend’s GPS. We never went in the wrong direction, but we never seemed to arrive there either. A call to Mazda informed us that they were closing for the day, but they at least said that a guard was on duty and we could at least drop off the car. Night had fallen when we finally arrived. The guard opened the gate to let us in. There was a little discussion of the problem with a salesman who had not yet left, and he said that we could just return the next morning.

My friend lives in a suburb more than 20km from Guatemala City, so what next? We were standing in front of Mazda. Some taxis were driving by, all white. “White taxis are bad,” I was informed. “Why is that?” I asked. “Do they rob you or cut your throat?” “Both.” Yellow taxis were more reliable, but there were none to be seen. So he booked an Uber on his telephone, and it arrived promptly.

We went through the first gate of his compound. The guard looked in the car and said, “Oh, el Frances,” and let us through. A few streets later, we went through the special security gate for his street (a dead end) and finally we were back safe and sound. I forget if we ate rice or pasta for dinner, but it was something as simple as possible.

[bixaorellana]

I have to ask: was there no way to just move the car part way -- enough for the tow truck guy to attach his cable & haul it out of the parking lot?

Jun 2, 2018 14:35:51 GMT kerouac2 said:

Sometimes it is good to be in a country where people have to improvise solutions every day.

Yep. Why "Sí se puede!" is built into the vocabulary of Mexico. It must be said, though, that the solution in a given situation is not necessarily the wisest or most straightforward.

Even though this wasn't your funnest idea of how to spend a vacation, it must have been hell for your friend. I felt misery and nausea on his behalf just reading about the trip back in the tow truck. Betcha he was retroactively thrilled that you held your ground about not seeing duplicate villages around Panajachel.

Really shocking story about the home invasion!

[kerouac2]

The guy's steel cable was not very long at all -- just long enough to hook it up to a vehicle parked behind it, maybe 8 metres at most. I can't get a clear picture on Google Street View, but the parking lot entrance was just behind the tree to the left of the barber shop with the 'E' on the door. The parqueo on the left isn't much wider but it seems like it would have been a bit easier.

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[kerouac2]

The next morning, guess who got to drive the Kia to the Mazda dealership? So I now have driving experience in Guatemala and survived. I didn’t do particularly well, but it is not my fault due to certain peculiarities of what they have done with the streets. For example, there are a number of wide 4-lane avenues with a grassy neutral zone in the middle. Some of them have been converted to one way streets, so when the GPS suddenly tells you “you have arrived at your destination” and you are in the right hand lanes when the damned Mazda dealership is on the left, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it except keep driving straight ahead.

I turned right to go back a few blocks and get back to the avenue on the correct side, and this sent me right into the heart of the MOST HORRIBLE NEIGHBOURHOOD in Guatemala City. If it were not already a reflex to lock all doors when driving in such a country, just seeing this street would make anybody slam all of the locks shut. Even better, traffic was at a complete standstill. Shady-looking people were swarming everywhere and what at first appeared to be parked cars on both sides, turned out to be abandoned cars with tyres that went flat years ago. Some of them were sitting on their rims with just a few black flakes of tyre left.

This is not the sort of abandoned vehicle that reassures you in this part of town.

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Why aren’t these things hauled away at least once a year? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe anybody who has tried was never seen again...

We spent about half an hour admiring this environment and finally traffic began to move again. I was happy to be in a rather ratty looking Kia. We got back to the main avenue, this time on the left side, and I finally managed to pull into the Mazda lot. Whew.

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The SUV “might” be ready by the following Wednesday with an approximate cost of around 1200 Q to fix the electronics. With a little luck, the insurance should cover at least part of that and the towing, too. Actually if you convert the quetzals to your preferred currency, the amount is not outrageous. 1 GTQ = EUR 0.12, USD 0.14, GBP 0.10.

The drive back to the house was uneventful. The next morning I had to leave early, and since my friend was at death’s door by then, he was not capable of driving me to the airport at 5:30 a.m. Luckily, he was capable of driving the Kia through the two gates to the main road (called “the road to El Salvador”) where an Uber picked me up. The driver was a deaf mute and even though he looked like he might be skilled with machetes, I arrived safely at the airport. My friend had asked me to confirm my arrival by text when I got there, and then he told me later that he had followed my transport by GPS all the way to the airport, which is apparently the wise thing to do, especially at that time of day.

So, that is my report on transportation in Guatemala. If I garnered any wisdom from this trip, it would be to advise people to take the quite nice minibuses from place to place, especially since they are quite cheap. While self-driving seems like it would be all right in most places, the invisible speed bumps and the insane pedestrians are real hazards.

Signing out...

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[bixaorellana]

Whew! Glad you made it back home in one piece for a much-needed respite from stress.

Jun 3, 2018 10:28:48 GMT kerouac2 said:

self-driving seems like it would be all right in most places

Being driven by a relaxed, confident driver on decent roads and non-threatening environments is fine, particularly if the passengers are sure that the driver is getting to enjoy the trip also. On a trip to Michoacán years ago involving narrow winding mountain roads, my companion suggested we rent a car. I was so startled at the very idea that I accidentally expressed my feelings in Spanish format rather than English: "I have fear!"

After hearing about the terrifying home invasion, you must have been exceptionally nervous in that area of abandoned cars. That wasn't a very long trip. Percentage-wise, how much of it was spent pleasurably and how much dealing with stressful or annoying issues?

[mossie]

My comment in the Panajachel thread also apply here.