Zunil

On the Thursday, I had been up to Zunil, a nearby village in the mountains. The journey was much more exciting than the destination, even though it was a cute village nestled in between verdant mountains. On the way there, the chicken bus decided to break down on a hill. The motor was revving but the wheels just wouldn’t turn.

We all got booted off and the local Mayan ladies indicated to me that I should join the rest of them in the back of a pickup that miraculously appeared. Okay. So we bumped our way along the dirt road, trying not to fall out the back, until we got to a small town where we were yet again marched off. I paid my one and a quarter quetzals for the pleasure, wondered where the hell I was and what was going to happen next.

As luck would have it, another pickup appeared and my (now) friends smiled knowingly with a slight backwards tilt of the head, followed by a gentle nod. This was an instruction I should jump on this pickup too. So I did. Me and twelve colourfully decked out Mayan ladies, standing up on the back of a pickup (or ute as we like to say in Australia), speeding our way along winding mountain roads in the glorious sunshine. If only I could figure out the right soundtrack for this moment... The memory will have to remain in my mind as it would have been entirely inappropriate (as well as difficult) to pull out my camera and start recording.

One by one, they each got out at their various destinations until it was just me and Dolores, and she guided me across the river to Zunil.