Chuckling Post from a Chicken Bus Ride – Pan American Highway, Guatemala

By: Lito Galvan

Chuckling Post from a Chicken Bus Ride: An Amusing Account of a Ride on Guatemala’s Folkloric Public Bus
Pan American Highway, Guatemala

Sharing ride with Guatemalans in their folksy public transport device called a chicken bus tickled my funny bones.

It quenched my National Geographic craving for local flavors. Along a tight aisle, a front-row seat to a parade of anthropological specimens loaded with candid idiosyncrasies makes up for the humbling discomfort.

Fellow tourists while in Mexico sentimentally pitched this legendary bus, a no-stranger third world concoction to me.

A beacon to the world embodying freedom and democracy, this individually operated enterprise, paragon of grassroots capitalism, will never fly in pontifical America.

Ironically, US cities engage socialist-style bus monopolies with its notoriously obdurate and arrogant corporate attitude. Buses are equipped with high-tech surveillance cameras – poking realities of a litigious society. Fierce Greyhound drivers exhibit a stereotypical misconception that only poor, ex-convicts, DUI’s, and illegal immigrants ride buses, sanitize themselves up their allergic seats, condescendingly recite a litany of crappy don’ts much like cops reading a suspect’s Miranda rights during each trip’s commencement.

Chicken buses offer no paranoid but familial atmosphere instead.

Riding long haul, I clambered aboard, readied my fare and pulled-out a tatty Quetzal triggering flashbacks. In my Philippine hometown, notes are similarly soggy and sewer smelly. Worse, they’re folded lengthwise, inserted around fare collectors’ and traffic lights’ ambush-vendors’ sweaty fingers, or disrespectfully rolled-up and arrayed like palisades on dashboards after passing from fishmongers’ hands. Bills’ condition reflects a country’s standard of living. In cashless societies, they maintain their fresh crispness for years, relieved of changeover bruises.

Back to the bus; call it the guacamaya with raging testosterone, basically a Blue Bird American school bus resurrected phoenix-like into a third world hand-me-down, given a makeover spectrum of colors, brilliant as the feathers of Central America’s boisterous parrot. Mysteriously christened, it’s driven on dizzying Guatemalan highway in daredevil defiance. The designated two bottoms per seat are now maxed-out for three.

Early bird special means entertaining diversions while waiting.

I sat two rows behind the driver, slumped my knapsack in front instead of hauling it over the roof, less comfortable in exchange for peace of mind.

On my right is a teenager with her mother, both snack aficionados. This chewy jabber-teen has her mango in her right hand and ice cream in her left.

Two women with kids sat on my seat. Miraculously, it covered all five of us.

A slovenly man hopped aboard seemingly out from a binge hangover, waxed an impassioned speech and panned his baseball cap.

Surreptitiously, a stern woman appeared, briskly dropping “freebie” candies in every lap. No explanation of goodwill or eye contact, she zippity zigzagged her head from seat to seat like an attentive flight attendant. On her return, she quashed my joy demanding payment.

A respectful looking middle-aged man that could well pass for a school principal stood in front of the aisle lectured and pitched on children’s books then faded out.

Borrowing from Barnum & Bailey’s page, the circus continued with the appearance of a lad I must’ve bumped in the Latino barrios of Los Angeles. Sporting super sized American frame, he stuck-out for his chubby and clean appearance – and a swollen hand twice the size of the other, a genetic haywire the size of a baseball mitt. Sobbing for mercy with a round of impassioned speech, he made the run soliciting.

Things got nasty as people squeezed through each other like infants delivered out of the birth canal, vociferously shouting on top of their lungs. Heavy traffic took a toll; my neck twisted, face pressed, torso poked, feet stepped-on, and balls squeezed beyond pain – my scream went unregistered in the decibel scale.

Gymnastically astute vendor-contortionists went up and down against the current of passengers without crashing their precious goods.

Suddenly, a panicked man caught everybody’s attention. Looking for his wallet in seats’ nooks and crannies, down the floor, up the baggage rack, he grimaced. Finally, the driver revved the engine. Grimly, he and his brood exited down.

My tortured ears found relief until one more vendor jumped-in. He latched at the driver, handed tokens of gratitude for airtime. The front aisle is again, converted into a people’s podium.

As wheels rolled, he presided over a captive audience an animated quiz show, not after extolling the benefits of speaking English. The reward for answering a matched Spanish word is a ballpoint pen. He hurled words like “Monday”, “Good Morning”…while passengers fired back. “See how easy!” he uttered. Game over, the passengers snapped his merchandise – a translation pamphlet; chicken feed for this tie-and-shirt Class-D marketing-executive.

The driver drove through a station for gas fill-up. Water jet streams hit the roof. Splashes penetrated us. Instead of howlers, laughter filled the air. The bus took a run to the showers. A quick shampoo and rinse, it looked groomed like a fighting cock.

Along the way, it picked a suckling mother who managed to wedge a teeny-weeny spot.

A last pick-up was a grandma carrying a tall plant; she stood beside it at my back, leaves brushing against my ear. In an era when men shed off their Spanish chivalry for a seat and highways host beer billboards featuring string bikini-clad hot Latinas, Mayan women are still very traditional, hesitant to exchange their aprons and bundles for jeans and cell phones.

Calm prevailed but the road twisted and turned. The bus proved a good pelvic exercise machine.

The over-packed bus suddenly bogged down. Its sidekick crawled to the hood and opened it as mightily as a dental vet opens a hippo’s mouth. After quick adjustments, it was up and running. Stickier than a house lizard, he did stunts like climbing the roof while the bus rampaged at 70 mph and windsurfing using the doorstep as surfboard.

Guatemalan music blared while I fiddled and browsed. My eyes focused at the center of the windshield noticing the big pom-pom horn pull dangling like a giant pendulum almost to the floor. The driver pulled it once, twice in graceful fluid showmanship, its muffled honk was more like a choo-choo train’s.

The bus offered limited outside view but inside, there is free entertainment, ride fare not inclusive.