Wanderlove

by Kirsten Hubbard

  I figure they’re backpackers because of the backpacks.

  No one’s there to meet me. No signs proclaiming BIENVENIDA, BRIA! I want to sit down, but I can’t find a seat. When I settle on the metal lip of the baggage conveyor belt, a security guard scurries over and orders me off in Spanish. So I stand there with my purple suitcase wedged between my legs, my hands in my pockets to safeguard my money belt. I try to ignore the huddle of middle-aged tourists across the room, along with the sinking feeling in my stomach.

  At last, a woman excuses herself from the group and approaches me. She’s got knobby knuckles and pearly, lacquered nails. She reminds me of a velociraptor.

  “Are you Bria Sandoval?”

  Dumbly, I nod.

  “You’re with us.” She calls to the others: “I’ve found her!”

  “I’m with you?”

  “Yep. I’m Marcy, the guide with Global Vagabonds. I thought I recognized you from your photo, but you had such long hair.… Anyway. Glad we found you! You’re the last one. Now we can jump on the shuttle to Antigua.”

  I give the group of tourists a hard stare, as if my eyes have the power to transform them. I see mustaches, baseball caps, doughy calves marbled with varicose veins. Where’s my caravan of beautiful people from the Global Vagabonds propaganda? “But—but the people in your flyers were so much younger.…”

  “Unless you want to camp out in this airport for three weeks, what you see is what you get. They’re not so bad. You should have seen the last group—the highlight of their trip was the McDonald’s in Chimaltenango. They couldn’t get over the home-delivery service.”

  There’s nothing left for me to say. I pop out the telescoping handle of my suitcase and follow Marcy to the Vagabonds, who frown at me with varying levels of irritation.

  Great. They hate me already.

  Just when I think my night can’t get any worse, the blond girl and her boyfriends choose that precise moment to walk our way.

  On the squeaky-clean airplane, she looked out of place. But now that we’ve landed, I realize she’s perfect. All three of them are. Perfectly disheveled, perfectly irreverent. Real-life vagabonds with mismatched clothes and jewelry, scuffed leather sandals, and too much sun. The kind of traveler I didn’t know I longed to be until right this very second, as Marcy and her husband, Dan, whose comb-over is flipped the wrong way, attempt to herd me outside.

  The blond girl passes me without a word. But somehow, her silence is worse than any criticism. Suddenly, my Windbreaker feels even crispier. My haircut is too trendy. My new shoes feel like blocks of lead. I’ve only been in Guatemala half an hour, and already I’ve gotten everything wrong.

  The freakishly tall guy in the stocking cap passes next, whistling. But I don’t get a good look at him, because the guy with the black ponytail has stopped beside me.

  “Tough luck,” he says. He nods at my tour group, which is filing outside.

  I shrug, duck my head, and follow my people into the night.

  The Global Vagabonds logo of a crazed giraffe beams from the side of our shuttle van. Beside it, drivers lean against dilapidated cabs, watching us with distaste. I crawl into the backseat and scoot to the farthest corner. Too soon, I sense the mass of another person sitting beside me. And just because my life is like that, it’s tent-garbed woman from the plane.

  “Hi! I’m Glenna Heron, professional beadworker,” she says, handing me a card with a tiny Ziploc bag of seed beads attached. “And you’re a liar.”

  So much for reinvention.

  2

  Day 3, Morning

  The Mayans

  My Dad’s Maps

  Maybe it was Toby Kelsey who inspired this trip. But I have to blame my dad’s maps for infecting me with the travel bug in the first place.

  My dad has three maps in his home office—what my mom calls his hermit cave, since he pretty much lives there when he’s not at work. One is a world map. The second is a map of ancient Greece and Italy. The third, hanging right above his desk, is a map of North America.

  He seems to think his maps evoke the impression of a world traveler, landlocked by responsibility. But really, he’s only taken one trip his entire life: a train journey across Canada, at age thirty-three, to fetch an engagement ring from his great aunt in Ottawa. It was the holidays, and he could only afford a flight as far as Vancouver.

  In the days when I spent entire afternoons drawing beneath his desk, sometimes he would beckon me out to share. With an ink-stained finger, he’d trace his itinerary on the map of North America. “Saskatoon,” he’d say, pointing. “That’s where an elk wandered on the tracks while the conductor was out smoking cigarettes. A big mangy buck. It took six men to scare him off.”

  Then he would slide his finger down the track marked in blue ink. “Here there was a forest. I remember the trees were all the same height, like a mowed lawn.”

  Once I asked him if he ever climbed off during the stops and walked around.

  “No need,” he said. “My view from the car was perfect.”

  As I got older and hung out in his office less and less, I started to see the maps differently. The idea of my dad on that train—sitting alone on a bench in coach, maybe with a blanket over his knees, watching the landscape blur by—might seem romantic to some people. Sappy people. He was retrieving a ring for my mom, after all.

  But hadn’t he wanted to walk around under the evergreens? Sift his hands through the pine needles? Touch the ice-blue lakes?

  What’s the point of travel if you never get off the train?

  ~ July 14, somewhere in Guatemala

  I close my sketchbook. It always startles me when words come out of my pen instead of pictures. I never did much journaling before this trip, but it’s never too late to start.

  I glance up. I can hear the Mayan market before Dan shuts off the engine. It sounds like the low bellow of a far-off ocean, or a hive of bees. The hum of humanity. Kind of exciting, but after yesterday, I’d rather hide out in the van. Possibly for the remaining nineteen days of this trip.

  We spent all day in Antigua, an ancient city that was adored by everyone but reminded me of a dishrag. Clouds slumped in the sky. Water the color of my Windbreaker pooled in the cracks of the cobblestone streets. The buildings were constructed in endless pastel-colored strips, without any gaps between the storefronts. Because most lacked signs, I never knew what one held until I peered inside.

  Usually, backpackers.

  I should have expected them, after the girl from the plane and her airport boyfriends. But they never stopped astonishing me.

  The beautiful, beautiful backpacker girls, dressed in clothes that fit exactly wrong: baggy drawstring pants with muddy threads around the ankles, skirts with patches and stripes, droopy shirts displaying wing bones and the ribs on top of their chests. Careless hair and faces so tanned the whites of their eyes looked shocking.

  And the backpacker boys. They wore tattered shorts beneath embroidered shirts open at the neck or plaid button-down work shirts, so perfect out of context. Shadowy chins and shaved heads, or hair gone feral. Hiking shoes, crusty Chuck Taylors, or leather sandals flaunting unabashedly manly toes.

  My fingers ached to sketch them. Their straps and patterns. Their creases and tatters, beards and bra straps. The way they stood, posed, leaned. Sometimes with galaxy-sized backpacks and smaller daypacks, multiple Mayan totes slung over their shoulders. Everything they needed fastened to their bodies while they explored remarkable places.

  Unlike me, they’ve learned the right way to travel. But where? How?

  Who are these people?

  Even though I attended a liberal Southern California high school, I’ve never seen anyone like the backpackers. Closest were the surf kids who slouched into class late with salt-crusted hair. But the surfers I know care only for waves. These backpackers strolled down Antigua’s streets with Pulitzer prize–winning novels and Spanish textbooks under their arms. At cafés, I overheard them discussing foreig
n film and politics while sipping espressos—or, considering what we’d been served at breakfast, Nescafé served in espresso cups. They danced among the crowds of tiny Guatemalans, giving coins to children, buying fruit from carts and using pocket knives to peel it.

  But when they passed my tour group, they didn’t glance our way.

  Not at Marcy, not at Dan, not at my personal barnacle, Glenna Heron, who loves beads a little too much, and definitely not at me. I’ve never been the most gorgeous girl, and certainly not the most captivating. But until yesterday, I’d never felt completely overlooked.

  It was probably a good thing, though. Because even if the backpackers could forgive my quick-dry khaki capris (oh God, they were pink this time) and clompy horseshoes, I don’t doubt they could see right inside my brain.

  Which still resents my parents.

  Which is still filled with thoughts of Toby Kelsey.

  And, in all likelihood, is still shaped like a square.

  Dan swivels in front of me, paging through a guidebook. “Let me tell you about Chichicastenango.”

  Marcy hushes us, even though no one’s talking.

  “The native market takes place twice a week. It’s one of the largest outdoor bazaars in the Americas. The town’s name means ‘place of nettles’—”

  “Why nettles?” I ask.

  He glances at his guidebook, looking befuddled. “I don’t see …”

  “Never mind.”

  “Among the popular sights in Chichicastenango is the Church of Santo Tomás, built atop the remains of a Mayan ruin. The church reflects a spiritual marriage of Catholic and Mayan religions …”

  I tune him out. He’s like every history teacher I’ve ever had—reducing the colors of the past to a series of bullet points.

  At long last, Marcy and Dan slide open the door to the van. I slip my straw bag over my shoulder, wedge my sketchbook into the back pocket of my shorts, and climb out. As soon as I round the corner, the market comes into view.

  And—wow.

  From the hill where we stand, it unfolds like a Mayan blanket: a chaos of market stalls stretching as far as I can see. People flow along the tilted streets, dressed in indigenous clothing of clashing prints and patterns. An old man in a cowboy hat staggers past, bent double, carrying a pile of quilts. Cooking smoke distorts the air. Stray dogs bark; babies squall. I smell incense, hot grease, the smoke of firecrackers.

  It’s claustrophobic. Overwhelming.

  And I want nothing more in the entire universe than to dive headfirst into the kaleidoscope of colors, to let them whirl around me until I become a fractal of light. This will be an experience worth writing home about. Worth my biggest canvas, if I was still painting. I pull my camera from my bag and take a picture, then a second, a third.

  “Seems kind of crowded,” Glenna remarks.

  She looks traumatized. In fact, the entire Tourist Brigade looks traumatized, and they haven’t even entered the market yet. To my left, Dan’s violating a map with his index finger. Poke, poke. Marcy’s talking about the dangers of pickpockets, stray cats, and leprosy. Forget being a fractal of light—I’m already part of a gaggle of ducklings. This is going to be worse than our tour of Antigua. How can I touch the ice-blue lakes if Marcy’s dragging me along by the hand?

  “I’m going off on my own!”

  The other Vagabonds stare at me, as shocked by my declaration as I am. I didn’t mean to yell, but there you go. Marcy peers at me with her reptilian eyes. “That’s not safe, and you know it.”

  I turn to Dan. “What time did you say we’re leaving? Three?”

  Scandalized, he nods.

  “I’ll see you back at the bus at three, then.” And I’m off.

  I feel like a fugitive as I dart through the aisles of the marketplace, clutching my bag against my chest, hopping, reeling, gritting my teeth to protect my brain from the noise. The market’s filled with angles, which means I’m probably running in hexagons, but I don’t slow until both my sides feel speared. Finally, I stop and glance around, panting.

  I’ve done it. I’m beautifully lost.

  In that exact moment, my eyes lock on a retreating back. It’s undeniably familiar—the bouncy gait, the rough white shirt. The black ponytail.

  I stand on my toes, attempting to peer over the crowd.

  But it’s too massive. The vendors surge around me, shouting, parading their wares, which include everything imaginable: splintery barrels of beans, live birds in handmade cages, lacy panties and bras, creepy animal masks, handcrafted Mayan souvenirs made of jade, yarn, mahogany. I spy disoriented tourists, Central American sightseers, and the ever-present twentysomething backpackers, though the Mayans outnumber the visitors ten or twenty to one.

  I’m so drunk with the pandemonium I forget about the ponytail guy. My face begins to ache. I realize I’m grinning. How long has it been? I can’t remember.

  I hold out my camera at arm’s length, aim it at myself, and snap a photo.

  When I turn around, I see Dan’s church. It rises above the marketplace like a hulking angel, perched on a set of ancient steps covered in flowers. Incense smoke billows from smoldering sticks. I intend to approach it, but every few steps I’m distracted.

  Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to browse without buying. Anything I touch—or even glance at too long—is seized by the shopkeeper and shaken out, displayed.

  “You like?”

  Even when I say no, lo siento, the vendors override me with a price. Sensing my reluctance, they drop it by half, two-thirds. When I finally pull myself away, they keep calling to me, plaintively, shaving the prices until I feel so besieged and guilty I go back and make some silly purchase, and we both feel swindled.

  Crap I Am Shamed Into Buying

  Terra-cotta bird whistle

  Orange apron

  Sticky tamarind candy I can’t get off my fingers

  Wooden flute

  Chicken-shaped pot holder with pinto bean for eye

  At one point, I come across a row of butcher stalls, where raw chickens, hams, and unidentifiable hunks of meat dangle from hooks. The air dances with flies. A few vendors unenthusiastically wave newspapers at them. I pass what looks like a pile of pink masks and step closer. They’re faces.

  Deflated pig faces.

  I snap a photo.

  When I emerge from the meat market, I nearly bump into Dan. He’s haggling with a shopkeeper who looks about ten years old. “No, I said less grand,” I hear him bark, as if it’s the volume of his words that prevents understanding.

  I hurry around the corner, where I notice a tiny old man standing apart from the fray. His table is stacked with paintings.

  I drift over and pick up the first one I see: a lake, surrounded by volcanoes. It looks amateur, like a child painted it. The volcanoes are flat blue cones. Hairline waves upset the surface of the water, probably scratched in with a toothpick. A bright white boat hovers in the very center. Bad composition. Plus, the perspective is way off. I flip through the other paintings, but I keep coming back to the lake. Finally, I hold it up to the old man, who’s missing all his teeth.

  “Where is this? Donde?”

  “Atitlán.”

  I run my finger along the frayed canvas. “Cuánto cuesta?”

  Pathetically, it’s one of the few Spanish phrases I remember. Even though my grandfather on my dad’s side is from Spain, I thought being twice removed from my heritage released me from linguistic obligations. Already I’ve forgotten most of what I learned during my two required years of high school Spanish.

  “Five dollar U.S.,” the old man says.

  All I have left is quetzales, the Guatemalan currency, which is something like six or eight to a dollar. I try to calculate the exchange rate as I reach for my straw bag.

  It’s gone.

  I clap my hands to my face. “Oh, shit,” I say, my voice muffled by my fingers. I turn to the old man. “My bag! It was right here. Did you see anyone take it?”

&
nbsp; The old man shrugs. Does he not understand? I point at my shoulder, miming the strap of a bag. He shakes his head. Thank God my sketchbook’s in my back pocket—I pat it just to check. What do I do now? Call the police? Damn these people! I was actually starting to like this country.

  “It’s gone.”

  I whirl around.

  It’s the ponytailed backpacker boy. He’s wearing a white work shirt with the top few buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, revealing an elaborate dragon tattoo on his super-tanned right forearm. His pants are cut off below the knee, and he’s got forty or fifty string bracelets stacked partway up his left calf. His eyes are dark blue. He’s not smiling, but the threat is there. In fact, he looks almost amused.

  I try not to feel offended by his expression, because I need his help. “I set it down just thirty seconds ago. Whoever took it has got to be nearby. If we hurry, we can—”

  I shut up as he grabs my shoulder. Is he trying to abduct me? He leads me around the corner, where the jumble of stalls opens into a courtyard teeming with people. “So who was it?”

  My shoulders sag. “What … what about the police?”

  “Was your passport in your bag?”

  “Of course not—I have a money belt.”

  “What about your credit cards? Anything like that?”

  “Money belt.”

  “Then what’s in your bag that’s so important?”

  “My camera! And some snacks and things.” I know better than to mention the terra-cotta bird whistle. “But it was a really nice camera.…”

  He shakes his head. “The police won’t be interested. They might file a report, if you beg. But come on. They’ve got more important things to deal with than a tourist who lost her camera.”

  I gape at him for a second. Then I turn and walk away.

  “Hey, wait up.” He falls into step beside me.

  “That was mean,” I say.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”