On the right road, I HOPE!

I am driving to Oventik! Finally. As I could not see anything along side of the road yesterday when I drove back to San Cristobal because of the rain and thick fog, the only way I know I’m on the right road is the potholes and places where I have to stop to figure out how to pass.

The road seems too good to be true. I remember many broken spots in the road, but I wasn’t driving yesterday with the thought that returning would be so difficult. When I came down the hill to San Cristobal, it seemed like a straight shot.

But turn-offs and splits in the road were not visible then in the fog.

Today, it is sunny and bright and visibility is as far as I can see. But I have gone many, many miles without finding Oventik or even Bochil – finding only beautiful countryside and sleepy villages.

There are two taxis on the side of the road, one broken down with the lid open. The guys who are driving the taxis appear to be 13 years old maybe.

They tell me this is not the road to Bochil. They gesture to the other side of the mountain, that we can see over the valley, and I think they tell me, that’s the road to Bochil.

I have to make a u-turn on a very narrow, two lane road with no shoulders. As I am turning a womon materializes as if it was foggy and suddenly she’s there. She has on a colorful top and black skirt, traditional clothes of the indigenous womyn here.

She rapidly approaches me, thrusting out her arm, as her shawl falls away, revealing a wrist the size of a skinny 3 year old. Her feet are bare, swollen, and mud cakes her legs until they disappear under her long skirt.

Her long hair is tied back in a loose ponytail and a drunk old man weaves behind her. He appears to be decades older and does not follow her into the street.

Her eyes, black, wide, boring into my, she asks me for two pesos; and then one peso. I am in gauntlet mode and shake my head no. She says 50 cents.

I think about the change I have in my ashtray and want to stick my arm out and snake it around her thin waste, holding her up to my window and dashing off as her long hair whips around us, pulling her into the truck and race her towards Oventik and a new life there perhaps.

But I don’t do anything but give her my codepink hat. In my rear-view mirror, I see her jam it on her head and stroll as jauntily off as any codepink womon heading to protest, in her same direction.

I DREAD going one more time thru the gauntlet. The whole time I’m driving back, I’m praying to the road goddess that these men will have left or I can turn off before reaching them.

I stop at a couple of simple tiendas that have a handful of fruit and lots of cocacola products for sale and ask if they know where Bochil of Oventik is.

In one shop, a young man is a woodworker and making furniture. He doesn’t seem at all surprised to see me and he regrets not know where I am going to.

I continue back down the road, dreading the juncture where the gauntlet might be. A pick-up truck taxi starts to pull around me to pass and I wave it down.

Three men jump out and approach me as I approach them. I ask them if they know where the road to Bochil and Oventik is.

They laugh good-naturedly and tell me I’m so on the wrong road. In rapid Spanish, the fire off directions. I am lost before they say the first word.

I must have looked forlorn, cause they laugh again and tell me to follow them! I am thrilled and relieved. At least I will be able to try to hide behind them if we reach the gauntlet again.

And we do. I am so molded and the men show their surprise to see me again. I duck behind my hands and arms to express my embarrassment. They seem to realize I am following the taxi in front of me, and this time, they wave me through.

And this time, I can see they are working on the road, working hard, laying on rock by hand after another, to make a smooth surface. I am sorry I cannot give them some money and I vow to return there if Oventik denies me entrance.

The men in the pickup pull over very shortly after we pass the working men, and show me a road that branches off and heads of the hill – an unmarked road with no lines painted on it, a road that looks primitive.

I shake each of their hands, thanking them profusely, and we go off in our separate directions. I hope I haven’t made them late for anything, as they had to go very slow, waiting for me to make it up mountains and around curves.

I travel the road again, heading up, and this time I notice other turnoffs. I THINK I am staying on the main road, I HOPE I am staying on the main road.

I am now late for the first class, which I don’t think will act in my favor. But I can’t help it. I focus on getting there and getting in.