2 Long and Winding Road

The cassocks and beards make it easy for Orthodox priests to to spot each other in a crowd so we were soon introducing ourselves to Fr. John Chakos who had come to pick us up.  He was accompanied by Charlie, a Guatemalan who works for Fr. Andres Giron.  Archimandrite Andres is the leader of the Guatemalan Orthodox Church.  We settled into the double cab pick-up and headed out of the city.

There was a heavy stench in the air which did not begin to dissipate even after 20 minutes or so of driving. This was not just the usual smell of exhaust smoke, or even the sulfuric air associated with some factories.  It was the smell of rotting flesh.  I asked Charlie about it and he gave me an explanation which I have now forgotten. I was really glad to be leaving that city.

Lunch was at Fr. John's favorite, "Pollo Campero"  which is a Guatemalan fast food chain.  Like at the Colombian "Kokorico" there are waitresses.  We sat where Charlie could keep an eye on the suitcases in the open back of the pick-up.  I noticed Charlie had a pistol on his belt and I thought, "Apparently, this is a dangerous country, but I'm glad we have Charlie to look after us."

The drive to Nueva Concepcion was typically hair-raising with a lot of big trucks which are hard to get around on the two-lane highway, but Charlie proved to be an expert driver.  Some of the scenery was truly spectacular as mountain drives in the tropics tend to be.

After a few hours we were glad to put up the windows and turn on the air conditioning as we reached the lowlands where the heat was oppressive.  As we neared our destination we turned onto an unpaved road amid clouds of dust.  There were tobacco farms on both sides of the road, replacing the earlier sugar cane.

I was happy to be approaching the end of our journey.  It was hard to imagine we had started the day at our comfortable rectory home in Buffalo.