Above: One of many sets of braces at Kamuk School

I’m in the Land of Braces now.

Before, while riding through the other Central American countries, I rarely saw young people sporting braces. Their parents just couldn’t afford them. Here, just outside San Jose, however, seeing kids with braces isn’t all that shocking.

Also, I have noticed that adults of poorer countries in both Central America and Southeast Asia have more gold fillings and dental caps in their mouths than people of wealthier countries do.

Irony wedges its way into the strangest of places.

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.

Just as I finished my ginger ale in the food court of a modern shopping center, I felt my stomach start to tighten up. I went from feeling completely normal to feeling nauseous and clammy in two minutes. When I got that sour taste in my mouth, the one you get right before you are about to get sick, I stood up and scurried toward the bathroom.

Five stalls.

No doors or toilet seats.

I picked the stall furthest from the janitor mopping the bathroom floor and knelt down. The second my knees hit the floor, I got violently ill. Blaaaaaaaaagghhhhhh. Ugghhhh blaaaaaaaaaghhhhhh. Ahhh blaaaaaaaaaghhhh. In between heaves, I felt the janitor’s mop brush up against the backs of my sandals. When you are puking your brains out, all you want is privacy and a clean toilet to lean on. I had neither.

Once I finished donating my lunch (and its precious protein that my body hadn’t yet digested) to the shopping mall’s septic system, I washed my face and wobbled over to a bench outside. With my head leaned up against a wall and sweat dripping in a steady trickle from my face, I tried to figure out what made me sick. I have been cleaning all my water, trying to avoid dodgy food vendors, washing my hands. I couldn’t figure out what caused the nausea. Luckily, I was close to a pharmacy and once I felt well enough to stand, I made my way up to the pharmacist.

“I have a horrible stomach pain,” I said. “And my head hurts, too. Do you have some sort of antibiotic?”

The pharmacist spread out four different medicines before me (all would have required prescriptions in the U.S.) and told me how much they cost, how to take them, and what they were for. I bought a five day cycle of Cipro for the equivalent of $5 U.S.

I had been planning on staying in my first motel of the trip that night, but the guesthouse/motel district in town was too far away for me to cycle or walk to in my condition. I felt dizzy when I stood and needed to lean on the bike to walk. I realized I had to find a safe place close by to set up the tent so I could sleep off whatever was twisting my insides.

One hundred yards from the pharmacy I spotted a Catholic missions building. I pushed my bike up to the gate, leaned on it, and rang the doorbell. A short, pudgy man with a groomed mustache and a cowboy hat came to the gate to greet me.

“Sir, I’m very sick and I need a safe place to rest for a little while. I have a tent. Can I set it up on the grass there?” I asked and pointed to the manicured lawn just beyond the gate.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m the only one working right now. My boss isn’t here. When he gets back, you can come in, but not until then.” Pause. Smile. “Sorry.”

“Oh.”

“But there is a church close by. It’s called Molema Church and it’s just at the end of this street on the right. Try there.”

I thanked the man and made my way to the other church. When I walked into the church office, a tall man with a thick head of dark brown hair and a pleasant smile greeted me. His name was Wily. He told me to relax and showed me a nice grassy area in the church courtyard where I could lay out my tent and rest.

“You can rest here until 9:00 p.m. We are having a dance party at the church tonight and it will end at nine. After that, I’ll take you back to my neighbor’s house—she has a small yard and you can set your tent up there. Sorry, you can’t stay at the church alone tonight though.”

I thanked Wily a million times and set up my tent.

Just as the sun was going down, just as I was about to drift off to the restless yet somewhat satisfying sleep that comes with sickness, I felt my bones rattle. Booooom. Ba boooom ba booooooom. Ba booooom ba boooooooooooom. Some of the loudest, deepest bass notes I have ever heard in my life rung out through the air in quick succession and literally shook me wide awake.

Reggaeton.

For four straight hours, the church DJ played nothing but reggaeton. I couldn’t believe it. What were the odds that the one night of the entire trip in which I most needed rest I set up camp next to a reggaeton dance party, one being held at a church, no less. I put in my ear plugs and tossed and turned for hours.

The nausea returned twice during my rest. Because I was too weak to even sit up properly (trying to make it to a bathroom didn’t even cross my mind—it just wasn’t an option), I simply unzipped the door of the tent and watered the courtyard grass with a gray, warm, murky fertilizer, the likes of which the lawn had probably never seen before. At 9:00 p.m., Wily came out to my tent.

“Everyone is having a good time. The DJ agreed to stay for one more hour. At 10:00 p.m. I will come and get you?”

“OK,” I moaned.

When the party ended and Wily cleaned up, I followed him and his family back to their house. Dodging trash and potholes, I rode through down town Escuintla past packed bars, street vendors closing up shop for the night, couples holding hands, and drunks passed out on the sidewalk. I fought to avoid getting sick as the bike vibrated over sections of washboard asphalt.

After 15 minutes, we pulled into the gated community where Wily and his family lived. Three guards at the gate, all sporting sawed off shotguns, greeted Wily by name.

Above:  My tent in Wily’s neighbor’s front yard

I slept long and hard. When I awoke, the nausea had dissipated enough for me to pack my things, eat breakfast with Wily, and hit the road.

Above:  Wily, his neighbor, his family, me, the bike.  Morning after.

Above: Sugar cane field at dusk

Guatemala. It already feels so different from Mexico.

In the early mornings, when the insects pass off singing duties to the birds, women walk down dirt paths next to the roads with enormous plastic tubs balanced on their heads, tubs containing everything from coconuts to dirty clothes to rocks to peanuts.

Men with cowboy hats, shirts half-buttoned, and enormous machetes at their sides sit at outdoor food stalls along the highway and gossip over breakfast.

The sun falls on the dust in the air in a way that makes it beautiful and less like dust.

Pick-up trucks over loaded with people race down the highways as their passengers stare off bleary-eyed into the blur of tropical green that surrounds them on all sides like a tunnel of spraying paint.

A mother breast feeds her baby openly and waves at me with her free hand when I pass.

Dogs seem skinnier and dirtier than those in Mexico.

As the sun floats like a fresh balloon, everyone races around in the cool of the morning before heat-induced lethargy settles over them like the thick smoke that clouds around the outdoor barbeque pits.

Above: Central street market in Mazatenango, Guatemala

*****

At lunch time people still buzz about, but they wear the heat on their faces as a type of flatness. Tired eyes. Straight lips. Sweat that refuses to stay wiped away. A smile really must be earned when the sun is high.

Shoe shine boys with blackened fingers, some as young as seven or eight, pace the central plazas of the cities like jittery junkies and look down at the shoes of passerbys before deciding whether or not to speak to them. I wear sandals so rarely do their eyes ever make it past my ankles. When they spot a set of boots, they perk up and get chatty.

Ice cream vendors ring bells as they push their carts, bells with rings that almost sound cool in the heavy midday heat.

People lounge in any spot that is comfortable and don’t feel the need to explain themselves. We all understand. Doing nothing for 20 minutes or two hours is a way to avoid conceding defeat to the sun. A man spots me flopped on a concrete park bench in the shade and nods. Not a Hello nod. An It’s OK nod. A Wait It Out nod.

*****

In the late afternoon the truckers get impatient with the traffic and start making roads out of tiny shoulders. One cuts too close and tips into a ravine. No one stops or seems to care.

Tractors stir up blooms of dust in the afternoon fields.

Sugar cane burns and seeps into everyone’s nostrils. Its aroma is foul but faintly sweet and contains just enough sugar to make the fruit that the teenage girls are selling at the speed bumps and stop signs seem sweet enough to buy.

Trucks full of day laborers in dirty shirts blast reggaeton for all to hear as the traffic crawls along.

Men on bicycles with wobbly wheels and rusted fenders smile and wish me luck as I pass them.

The hired security guards that stand in front of almost every store with electricity hold their shotguns at their sides like heavy purses. Another day without a shot.

*****

Despite all the newness that surrounds me, the iguana road kill, the fruit I have never seen before, there’s a familiarity here that makes me feel comfortable. People are still people. Their smiles are the same ones I grew up seeing. The water is still wet. The sun is still hot.

There is just enough sameness to draw on to find the legs to stand and run (or ride, rather) yet not so much that I’m left feeling like I know what will greet me when I round the next turn.

Because of this mixture of sameness and newness, a subtle confidence and a wild curiosity can co-exist within me when I travel, a co-existence of mindsets that leaves the world aglow and my legs itching to move.

Above: Relief from the gnats in the sugar cane field.