#19: Coban, Guatemala - A Year and a Day

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Arrived in the city of Coban, four hours north of Guatemala City and really enjoying it. I seemed to be the only traveller that felt this way about Coban — everyone else I've met found the constant rain too much of a turnoff. I don't know, I understand that rain is depressing, but I find Coban one of the most appealing places in Guatemala, and as I still had the three dollar umbrella I'd bought back in New York...

Coban is an interesting mix of dingy and refined. A beating, gritty feel sticks to the bus terminal and town market, but not the oppressive, threatening gritty of Guatemala City (which was not a fun place, even to pass through). Simple cafeterias full of regulars sell snacks and cakes, young guys shelter from the night-time rain under old colonial style central buildings, nodding at me as I pass. But Coban's refined side is also immense fun, with Café Tirol's 52 coffee-type drinks, and the best food I've eaten in Guatemala at Hotel d'Acuna's "El Bistro". I felt an actual traveller again, after the clammy nanny-travel of Antigua.

There is something accessible about Coban. Everywhere in a country is, of course, "The Real Guatemala", whether it is town or country, ladino or indigenous — but areas differ on how vibrant local culture is and how likely you are going to be able to get to know local people. Antigua and also Xela felt like local culture was harder to be absorbed into, I suspect I would end up hanging out entirely with foreigners in those places, but Coban gave me the feeling that you would fairly quickly meet a lot of interesting Guatemalans. There are very few tourists staying here for any longer than it takes to travel on to Lanquin, so the Cobaners seem unjaded and quite welcoming - a good place to learn Spanish. Though, it does indeed rain pretty much every day here — hence the surrounding area is one of the great coffee growing areas in the world.

Travelling on the Gringo Trail

Tourists/travellers/whatever are kind of funny in Guatemala. It sometimes feels that there are vast numbers of us around, then in other places there seem only a few other non-Guatemalan faces around. On the Guatemalan "chicken buses", I am typically the only apparent tourist. There seem to be six or seven spots that vistors are concentrated in... one of the most depressing conversations to have in Antigua is the "where have you been?" comparison — the same names come up endlessly and exclusively. Xela, "The Lake (Atitlan)", Chichi, Antigua, Lanquin/Semuc Champey, Tikal and the Rio Dulce area; listening to many travellers speak, you might think there were different types of oxygen in other parts of the country, impossible for us to survive there. I always devour any traveller who has been somewhere in the country even slightly off track, demanding details of what it was like and how they made their way there.

Despite this, we all seem perpetually shocked and disgusted that other travellers have also decided to come to the very same must-see spots — shocked that when everyone relies on the same recommendations and information, we all end up doing the same thing. In an Antigua café, an Australian language student says she needs to leave, there are too many English speakers; maybe she'll go to San Pedro. Hmmm, there were quite a lot of English speakers there too, I say, it's a very popular place for people to learn Spanish. "Oh," mildly devastated, she muses, "perhaps Xela would be better." (Xela has one of the largest collection of language students in Guatemala). I sometimes wonder at what an odd thing this turn of the century conception of "travel" is — we head to the most exotic countries and then don't really "travel" at all when we get there — we stick to a tiny selection of recommended spots that are alleged to offer a higher degree of entertainment, comfort or uniqueness.

Go Chicken!

While on the subject of travel in Guatemala, one special topic that must be talked about are the Guatemalan "chicken buses". A lot of travellers don't like them, but I adore the "caminetas" — and will defend their name in conversation, maybe to the point of violence, whenever the subject comes up.

Chicken buses are gaudily painted ex-US school buses, they race all over Guatemala, are fantastically cheap, pretty reliable (at least to someone accustomed to British public transport) and extraordinarily uncomfortable. I am perpetually thankfully that at five foot eleven I can just fit my legs in, but these buses are certainly designed for smaller people. The wide communal seats can fit two adults in comfort, but generally squeeze in three or more — the attendant roams the bus, collecting fares, scaling to the roof securing and unloading bags, shouting the destination to anyone who might potentially want to get on. If you are a tourist, they will inevitably assume you want Panajachel, but just say where you want to go and you will be brought to the right bus and your rucksack will be hoisted to the roof rack.

Fancy Mexican buses are all very well, but are sealed from the rest of the country with their air-conditioning, silent fellow passengers and American movies. Chicken buses are porous. Vendors selling chips, ice creams and ginseng tablets ascend — this smiling country comes to you. Who can talk of "loneliness" when sardined in with fifty-plus brightly dressed Guatemalans? Who can talk of "getting to know the locals?" until you've had a sleeping Mayan grandfather pushing his elbow into your crotch for over an hour?

Happy to acknowledge that a journey of over four hours gets a bit much, but I look forward to new chicken bus trips, knowing that I will always cheer up once the bus is flying and happy Latin tunes are singing to me.

Four months alone

In the next day or two, my friend Gari will be joining me from England. Very looking forward to traveling with him, but this will mark the end of traveling solo for a while, the end of four and a half months by myself. This has been such a strange, powerful experience it is almost beyond description. I keep coming back to thinking of it as a meditation, a discipline, it is a process of becoming accustomed to first surviving on, then relishing, one's own company and thoughts.

I count myself as a pretty gregarious solo traveller, but still have been spending vast amounts of time actually alone, and when I have met people, it has been often for casual short periods, rarely spirit sustaining. First the hunger for conversation, which hit me early on this trip, the angst of trying to find someone to talk to and be able to go for a drink with — the physical need to open one's mouth and utter words to another person. But that need started to fade a little while ago, both as I've felt myself become more self sustaining, and as I start to get tired of the inevitably identical start to each new conversation, "I'm from London, travelling around the world for a year and a half, used to work in a bank..."

One starts to value the quality not the quantity of conversations with others — valuing the feeling of making a connection with a person, even if the dialogue was short. Some people I meet, we talk and I feel they have understood me, not just the words I have spoken; that they laugh because they appreciate being in my company, not just because my joke is funny. This is the kind of conversation I long for now, this food for the heart, it brings a feeling of enrichment, a feeling of friendship and respect created. I find that in a new place full of other backpackers, such as the Lanquin hostel El Retiro where I'm staying now, I prefer to spend a lot of my time alone, reading or writing, talking to people as situations present themselves, rather than trying to meet lots of new people. Paradoxically or not, I find, however, that as I travel by myself more, I find myself more able to develop friendships and ease in a place from the start, more able to present myself as I am, without worrying so much about what people will think of that. But like everything, this kind of thing is a journey rather than some destination to reach — much more travelling to do.

Another thing that travelling solo is bringing is increasing familiarity with my personality and how I react to things. I frequently feel like I have a long time travelling companion called Daniel, and watching him react in pretty similar ways over and over again is almost becoming amusing — wherever you go you bring yourself with you. When events conspire against me, and I watch my mood start to blacken, like a close friend, I try to smile tolerantly and make suggestions — "we both know you'll cheer up a lot if you go and read a book in a coffee shop and try to start a conversation with a stranger".

My appreciation of what a fricking weirdo I am has increased immeasurably from all this time alone. Away from many of the obligations of an established life, I am increasingly aware of the kind of things I enjoy and the kind of things I don't — because I am endless having to make choices about what I will fill my time with. Away from so many "have to's" that working in a steady job in London implied, it is harder for me to ignore that many "standard" things on the backpacker circuit actually don't interest me very much. I suspect everyone is like this, everyone is equally far away from the supposed norm, but we stick to the same things because it is sometimes really hard to work out in what ways one is genuinely unique. I find that recognising one's own weirdness makes the travelling experience far more enjoyable — it leads to spending one's time on enriching, personally rewarding activities — rather than feeling one "has to" go to place X because everyone goes there.

After all this individuality and self reliance, it will be an interesting experience to learn to make travelling decisions in concert with someone else for the next month. Looking forward to a very different travelling experience for a while.

Questions? If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our Central America Insiders page.

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