"Guardanos Señor"

Back in Guatemala, I'm being much smarter for round two. For example, I don't let them charge me the foreigners price for transportation nor market food. However, I would almost rather not ride on the public transportation here. The "chicken buses" (in the photo), supposedly called such for the chick cargo, though I'm starting to think that it originates from the fact that they play chicken with every passing vehicle and pedestrian at a minimal speed of 70 mph. They are even branded with religious phrases like "Dios te Bendiga", "Jesus es amor", and "Guardanos Señor", so that when your bus loses the fatal game of chicken; the last thing to go through our minds is El Señor. Most of my time so far has been spent coffee finca-hopping but I did throw in a macademia nut farm in which I got a macademia oil massage and facial. ¡Es la vida! May is rainy season in Guatemala and we get very predictable soaking at 4:00 every afternoon, which makes not having a watch rather simple. It is also planting season for any new coffee plants that are ready to be grounded for the next fifteen years. Harvest is still months away but the preparation, cleaning, and fertilizing takes place year round. I've sparked quite an interest in the Mayan population who traditionally come down from the high peaks to pick coffee during harvest and have been oppressed the last 500 years by governments, land owners, and even coffee plantation employers (overseers). The coffee economy of Guatemala, above all, relied on the forced labor and misery of the indigenous population.