From Guatemala City to Antigua Guatemala

I landed on La Aurora, with certain fatigue. Between the memories of the recent travels, the excitement of sharing the space again with the oldest friends, and the energy that requires to serve as the bridge of communication. Something about an internal conflict between my expectations and the natural flow of occurrences. Something about being a disruptive force in the context, an element that changes the dynamics, a mechanism that has not being adjusted to correspond the rest of the apparatus. There’s that. And at the same time, there’s something essential in the environment that swallows you like a wave, and makes you behave accordingly. I’m thinking that at least in my case it’s a wave that attracts my internal flow into her rhythm, as if there’s something to remember, as if I already know the steps.

In my system, there’s the constant excitement of going away, somewhere new, to have adventures, to discover knowledge, to experience other souls and live in the moment; and the constant desire to stay and root and build a space, a community, a family of my own, with a past that reminds me who I am, with a future that I project in solidarity with others.

Sometimes I feel like these are my fight or flight responses.

I landed on La Aurora, with a bit of a clouded heart, and a bit of hope, because hope should die last, and because I was attending a wedding, and because it was one of those matches that make you believe in love.

Our bags were not coming out, so I went and changed exactly 19USD, 25CAD, 10EUR, 1000HUF, 5000JPY, and 10 000KRW, from my recent trips, to which the lady in the counter smiled, and I smiled. It was a mixed feeling of an amusement for all the countries where those bills had been used, and the ridiculous amount of quetzales that I was going to get in exchange, which quantity I don’t remember exactly, but let’s say I could pay my shuttle to Antigua, and three or four meals.

La Aurora doesn’t have an arrival lobby. People wait for travelers on the street, where you would expect a pick up area for cars. Something surprising is that women are dressed in their traditional clothes, a two-piece set of blouse and skirt colorfully woven on a treadle loom. It communicates pride about their traditional culture, and to me it’s telling me that they probably maintain their language. Men, on the other hand, wear western clothes, and that makes me think that they are closer to the urban context in laboral and cultural terms, probably even shifting to the dominant language. The analysis runs in the background.

I’m talking with the shuttle driver, who tells me to wait inside while he lifts my suitcase on the trunk. There’s a blonde girl inside. Hola, qué tal. Oh. Hi. I keep doing that for the rest of the trip, I mean, assuming that everyone speaks Spanish, and then realizing that Antigua is full of foreigners and that almost every white person is a foreigner. Not only that, but the fact that this town is really a town for outsiders. It became so. This one is French and she’s planning on staying for three weeks to explore the surroundings. The driver comes in to tell us that he wants to wait for two more people from the United flight arriving in twenty minutes. The alternative is paying an extra 50Q to make it a private service, but that’s ok. We don’t mind waiting. I’m actually relieved because I will be on time for my check in.

The blonde French and I try to engage in a conversation without success, so I open my Kindle. I’m reading a fascinating documentation of cases about the history of endocrinology and how hormones basically control our everything.

Two more gringos get in.

It takes approximately 40 minutes to 1 hour from Guatemala City, the present capital, to Antigua, the old capital.