David Monnery - Guatemala – Journey into Evil

‘Most of the guidebooks tell tourists not to waste any time here,’ Hajrija said, as if sharing his thoughts.

The hotel, though, was as good as Chris claimed. A small corridor led into a covered courtyard, whose walls were lined with samples of the woven designs of different Mayan tribes. Razor and Hajrija sat down at one of the tables and looked at them while Manley and Chris checked them in.

Having done his job, the embassy man left, and a hotel employee showed them to their rooms. The doors were numbered, and on the wall beside each one there was a small painting of a Mayan god. ‘That’s Ixchel, the Goddess of Medicine,’ Hajrija said, looking at the one by their door.

Razor was impressed.

‘Some people sleep on planes, some read,’ she told him.

‘I’m going to have a stroll around the main square,’ Chris announced. ‘You two probably want to get some rest.’

‘Yeah…’ Razor began.

‘We’ll come,’ Hajrija said. ‘I need to stretch my legs after all that sitting.’

‘How far is it?’ Razor asked hopefully.

‘Just round the corner,’ Chris said.

Five minutes later they were crossing the road which surrounded the square, and entering an expanse the size of two football pitches. At the end away to their right a large, twin-towered, cream-coloured church seemed to glow against the darkening sky, while directly ahead of them a much larger building of similar vintage was already brooding in the twilight shadows. More noteworthy than either, the square itself was packed with people, some selling a variety of wares but most simply taking the early-evening air. The majority were in Western dress, but there was also a significant number of people wearing traditional Indian costume. After the half-empty streets of their drive from the airport this much life seemed almost intoxicating.

The three of them wandered through the throng in the general direction of the church, past women cooking corn-cobs on small charcoal braziers, men hawking bursts of candyfloss that were displayed like trophies on large wooden crosses, and more women sitting with little piles of herbs arranged on cotton sheets. Children sucked lollipops, chewed on tortillas and drank from the elegant glass Coca-Cola bottles which Razor remembered from his childhood. A tide of noise, of conversation and laughter and children crying, rolled over them. A series of overlapping smells rose and faded in their nostrils.

A rapid-fire succession of deafening explosions almost made them jump out of their skins, but there was only excitement on the faces all around, and the clouds of smoke billowing into the air above the western end of the square came from nothing more threatening than fireworks. The threesome grinned sheepishly at each other, and joined the crowd in its drift towards the scene of the action.

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