Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
war, and it has been smashed by such natural disasters as erupting
volcanoes, hurricanes—such as 2005's Hurricane Stan, which killed
1500 people—and earthquakes, including a 7.5 quake in 1976 that
killed 25,000 Guatemalans. Incredibly, having gone through all this,
and despite the poverty that I'm seeing everywhere, the people smile
a lot and are very tactile, throwing their arms around me and grasp-
ing my hand as I run past. In some villages, they had obviously heard
of my run and emerged from their homes to line the streets and wel-
come me.
Guatemala City was built near and unfortunately in places right
on top of the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Kaminaljuyu, which
was occupied until around 1200
bc
. When I reached the city, the Gua-
temalan Red Cross said g'day and gave me T-shirts, and a medallion
honouring my run was placed around my neck.
A far bigger danger to me than the volcanoes and occasional
earthquakes that jolt Guatemala City is the traffic. I have
never
seen
worse drivers. Whoever hands out licences to the blokes who drive
the buses, usually multicoloured old rattlers like the one the Partridge
Family used to ride around in, needs to have a look at their set-up. I
ran past a big red Partridge Family bus and was transported back to
when I was young and would watch that show on TV with my brothers
and sisters. I always liked Danny Bonaduce, the red-headed kid, the
best. Or maybe the bus drivers get their licences out of their cereal
packets in the morning. Utes careened by us, weaving crazily all over
the road, crammed with workers in the back who were hanging on for
dear life. Exacerbating the chaos and danger are the roads themselves,
which are all badly potholed, with pits so big I swear you'd have trou-
ble climbing out if you fell in.
An official from the Guatemalan tourism office has joined the
crew. In Mexico I needed help with security, but in Guatemala I'm
being assisted with traffic management. A major cause of the motor-
ised mayhem is that after six in the evening trucks are not allowed into
the metropolis, so it's absolute madness as the laden vehicles rush to
reach their destinations and unload. I narrowly missed being hit by
trucks travelling at what must have been more than 120 kilometres
per hour, sometimes screaming on two wheels around blind corners.
Consequently, we have shortened our days in Guatemala, starting
early but packing it in at five. Disappointingly, each day's run has had
