As much as I hated leaving Lanquín, the further I ventured south, the stronger became its magnetic pull.  I had also begun to trust in the road.  There would be more.  It might be difficult, but it would be beautiful.  The earth was revealing itself in surprising ways.  To see these places separated only by time and distance was something inexpressible.  I knew that this beautiful picture would slowly, imperceptibly blend into the next.  There would be a next one.  And the next one.  Always.  Here.  Now.

    This time, I took an hour to travel the first 11 km (7 mi) out of Lanquín.  After a stop in Cobán for groceries, I would only make it another 22 km (14 mi) to a restaurant/hotel called Hotel Liquidambar, located atop a hill overlooking a valley just outside of the Biotopo Quetzal (cloud forest).  I was lucky there as I had been lucky most the roadtrip – there had always “been room at the inn”.  That luck ran out in Antigua Guatemala.

    After Progreso and 45 minutes working my way through the capital of Guatemala City, I entered Antigua Guatemala on Sunday, April 9 – the first day of Semana Santa (Holy Week).  It was bad planning and a severe underestimation of what was a huge event.  The city of less than 50,000 inhabitants was inundated with 500,000 visitors there to express their faith, pray, party, and either behold and/or take part in some of the world’s most elaborate parades.  The devout and the artistic alike adorn the cobblestone streets with alfombras (“carpets,” in this case, colored sawdust) which are soon scattered and ground into the earth by the feet of the faithful during what could be a 12-hour parade.  It is all something to behold, but nothing to trifle with as far as lodging.

    The failsafe site for overlander parking was normally just outside the police headquarters.  If all other places were full, then that one would do.  And that one was full.  I should have known from the traffic leading into the town, the mass of vehicles and people and activity in the streets, that this was going to be rough.  It was already too late – I had missed the reservation window by months.

    The best place I could find was the worst place I stayed during my entire roadtrip.  It also happened to be nearby one of the best markets of my entire journey.

    The central market of Antigua Guatemala is a sprawling labyrinth of paths and booths, some indoors, some outdoors, offering for sale everything under the sun.  The myriad of items and colors and sizes and sights and sounds and smells is almost too much and should be broken up into chunks.  I made a few audio recordings of the sweet melee.  I also found a great place for a delicious gringa (think quesadilla) and also a nice little hot dog stand.

    Just to the west of this great market is a huge parking lot filled with mostly buses.  These buses were huge, clean, shiny public transportation canvases, meticulously decorated, painted, and cared for.  I shot rows and rows of them, gleaming in the sun, waiting to strut, some with 3976 m (13,045 ft) Mt. Acatenango in the background.  Just a bit further north and west of the bus parking lot, on the edges of some sort of park, is another parking lot – a public parking lot.  The parking lot.

    At its entrance there was a gate, next to which was a small office/living quarters for the employees.  Customers would pay the workers at the entrance, and come and go as they pleased, tossing garbage wherever, relieving themselves of anything and everything whenever, wherever they pleased.

    Although I surely risked contracting any number of diseases, I also believe that I forever strengthened numerous immune systems here – health-wise, requirement-wise, living standards-wise.  The roadtrip itself was a great ongoing lesson on how little one really needs and what one can live without.  This place was one of its best teachers.

    One of the employees, Luis, wandered by one night as I was cooking pasta.  I ended up feeding him dinner.  He mentioned that they “clean up” the park on Mondays.  The next morning, I found out what that meant: rake all garbage, etc. in the parking area into 5-6 piles and light those piles on fire.  That was my cue to check out a cemetery in Ciudad Vieja, a 20-minute bus ride away.  I arrived just in time for a closed road, and the procession of the 50-100 mourners that had closed it as they followed six people carrying a casket into the entrance of the old cemetery.  One of the last women in the procession noticed me walking slowly behind them.  She turned and smiled at me.

    It was both strange and not, in the morning, rolling out of bed, out of the van, eating a granola bar and a banana from the market – people parking, leaving, walking by, looking at me.

    But at night, she shined – dusty as she might have been, having patiently waited – did la Bestia.  I still miss sliding open her door and climbing in.  Such a cave, a refuge, a cocoon.  This feeling was never so strong as in the cities.

    I was dying for a shower – can’t recall how long it had been.  Days?  Weeks?  It had been long enough for me to ask to use the shower at the employees’ quarters of a filthy parking lot in Antigua Guatemala.

    I got naked there, in the middle of the day and the dust, cars and buses driving by and parking, their drivers and passengers walking to and from, all close nearby.  My head and shoulders towered above the makeshift structure that comparatively concealed my Guatemalan friends.  It’s a strange sensation, sharing a glance with a stranger in public while you’re taking a shower where you maybe shouldn’t be.  My bathroom was their parking lot.  And their bathroom.  It was complicated.  And weird.  And perfect.