Above: Clipped palm trees and volcano spotted in Guatemala before I crossed into El Salvador
12/24/07 About 20 miles from the Guatemala border, El Salvador
For the first time in my life, I am spending the Christmas holiday away from my family. Instead of Christmas music, family banter around a feast that took all day to prepare, and the flood of brilliant dialogue that gushes from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation like water from a city hydrant in mid-summer, my Christmas Eve is spinning out to an eclectic soundtrack, one punctuated by firework blasts and whistles, gun shots, rooster crows, cricket chirps, and dog barks. No stockings hang from my tent. No snow is falling on the palm trees by my side. Things just don’t feel festive down here without all of the Christmas markers and symbols I grew up seeing.
OK, enough about missing a Jersey Christmas.
An hour or two before I crossed into El Salvador, I spotted an old van parked on the shoulder of the road off in the distance. As I got closer, I could see that a white man was leaning against the back door of the van with his arms crossed and staring at me as I approached.
Uh-oh. Kidnap time, I thought. Note to self: I really have to figure out a way to stop my brain’s kidnap reflex. It kicks in too often, taints the beginnings of conversations with strangers, and puts unnecessary stress on my heart.
The man waved and smiled as I pulled up to the van.
“I just had to stop and say hello, man. I mean look at this thing you got here. It’s crazy! Where’d you ride from?” The man took a wide stance and put his hands on his hips as he stared and smiled at me, waiting for my answer. For a split second, all he wanted in the whole world was to know where I was from; I had his complete attention.
“New Jersey. I started about three months ago,” I said.
“Man! That is awesome! Just awesome!” The man had a long thin pony tail and a five-o-clock shadow that had been allowed to live a few weeks past sunset. He was lanky and tall and barely filled the gray faded T-shirt that hung on his shoulders like a shirt on a clothing rack. His teeth were jagged and chipped like the top edge of a neglected picket fence.
“So where are you from?” I asked.
“Oh me? Key West. Just headin’ down to Costa Rica to help a buddy build houses for the winter. Some’in to do, you know. Make a few bucks. How bout you, I see this teacher sign here…”
I told him about the trip, about me being an English teacher.
“Man, you are one crazy bastard, you know that? I mean I knew you’d be one when I spotted you cause you’re on the bike an all, but now that I’m talkin to you—man, you’re crazy!” Pause. “You know how many murderers drive up and down this road?”
“No idea,” I answered.
“Tons!” the man yelled in my face. I wondered how he knew this. It was safe to assume he had never had an intimate run-in with one.
“And,” he continued, “there’s even more now that Christmas is here, you know that right? Everyone’s desperate, tryin to get gifts for the kids an all. People who might not normally kill or steal do crazy stuff at Christmas to get gifts for their kids. Man! You never heard of all this?!” The man was smiling but only because he was amused by my naivety. To him, murderers were as much a part of his concrete reality as, say, car tires…or…pencils.
“Kinda. I just haven’t had any reason yet to be worried. People have been friendly and far from murderer-ish.”
“Well that’s good, man. The people been good. That’s really good to hear. Hows things been goin otherwise?”
“Pretty good. I got real sick a few days ago and had to take some medicine, but I’m feeling a little better today. Some sort of stomach thing.”
“Oh yeah? Yeah, you gotta watch it down here, lots a stuff we don’t have up in the states. You ever heard about the Kissing Beatle?”
“No, what is it?”
“I aint no scientist so I don’t know the Latin name for it, just know it as the Kissing Beatle. This thing bites your lip at night. When it does, it poops in your mouth a little bit. Just a little. In the poop is a larvae that finds its way down into your gut. Takes about 20 years before it kills you. I figure I probably got it with all the time I’ve been down in Central America, but me makin it 20 more years aint all too likely!” The man laughed. “But you, you should sleep with a cloth or a bag over your—”
“Yeah, I sleep in a tent every night. That sounds horrible though.”
“Good, yeah sleep in a tent whenever you can. You ever had Malaria?”
“Nope.”
“Had it five times. Watch out for it. When your piss turns brown like a stream a Pepsi you best get to a doctor quick. That’s all your red blood cells that you’re peein out when your pee is dark. See that’s what Malaria does—attacks the red blood cells. When people die of Malaria, they really die of asphyxiation because it’s the red blood cells that carry oxygen to the brain.”
“Wow, I never heard that before about the red blood cells. And the Pepsi thing. I’ll look out for that. So you just took medicine each time you got it and it went away, no issues?”
“Yeah, just pop a bunch of Mefloquine. Two at a time works best. They say you should space em out, but double up. Works better.” Pause. “But hell, them doctors always tell ya one thing and then experience tells ya somethin else, you know?”
“Yep, I hear ya.”
“Hey, speaking of doctors and getting sick and all, I got this sticker on the back a ma van here to help educate people,” the man said as he pointed to a sticker on his bumper. “This website is all about how HIV aint nothing but a tool that governments have been using for years. You know that no reputable doctors have been able to figure out how it started and why we have been unable to get rid of it. None. They say it should be gone by now with all the drugs we got. But it keeps spreading, keeps getting stronger. As if someone or something is helping it to grow.”
“Wow man, I haven’t heard too much about that before. I’ll check out the website though, it sounds interesting.” I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t know enough about his claim to comment much on it.
“Yeah check it out. It’ll change your whole view on medicine and doctors and whatnot.”
“Alright, will do.”
When we parted ways, the man asked if I wanted a soda or any antibiotics. He had both in the car. I told him no thanks. We waved good-bye and the man sped off.
Posted in Bike trip: Guatemala
