sábado, 23 de abril de 2011

"Antigua-Los Llanos-Jocotes'


The morning fog had taken over the steep streets of San Francisco. It was 7:05 am. Like any other monday morning my eyes, burning from lack of sleep, ate the weak light of the first hours. This, however, was not like any other monday morning. I had left sunny Orange looking for the beauty of the bay area just two days ago, and now it was right in my face, under my feet, behind my back... everywhere. Old wooden houses build right next to each other, slowly faded away as I approached the heart of the city, riding a public bus. As time went by, I realized that I was lost, despite having detailed instructions provided by google: it is funny how things work out when you skip a letter.
Geary transformed into Point Lobos... I was going in the opposite direction. "Great," I though, "in less than an hour I'll be at Fisherman's Wharf." Poor idiot. I got off the bus in the middle of a hospital and walk a few blocks back to Geary, took another bus (the right one) and finally got off where I should have gotten off, at Van Ness avenue. One more bus and I ended up... nowhere near I wanted to. Coming from a small town, for me there was only one bus I needed to take to be where all the turists were, one simple route with a catchy name: "Antigua-Los Llanos-Jocotes." But the flag with the fifty stars reminded me that I was not in my town (and so did the multicolor flag that appeared to be very popular in SF). Moving around was going to be a little more complicated than "Antigua-Los Llanos-Jocotes."
King Street. How did I end up there? No idea, bus?
After a few minutes of anxiety, my hunger lead me to the nearest Starbucks. Free wifi and overprice late helped with the orientation and stuff... but those guatemalan bananas made me feel at home. Memories of waking up late wearing those old green pants and some equally old shirt, eating cereal with warm (not cold) milk and a lot of sugar accompanied by six sweet breads, walking through "el sitio", with my grandfather, both carrying machetes in our hands looking for "las pencas", trying to find yellow in a sea of green leaves. The sound of a banana tree falling down in my head was interrupted by the voice of the cashier: "eight dollars and fifty cents. Cash? Here's your banana bread." "Mierda, sesenta y cuatro quetzales... me escupen las..."
I walked out and headed towards 2nd street. It was almost 10 am. The daylight had prevailed over the morning fog. I new (kind of) where I was standing.