| She was old enough to be his mom. But she wasn’t. I didn’t hear ‘madre’or ´mama´, but ‘esposa’…wife. She was easily over 50, probably pushing 55. He was a hair over 30. He was white with a long, blonde messy mop on his head and had a bit of an attitude with the male “stewardess” who roamed the aisles of the bus from San Pedro Sula, Honduras to Guatamala City. She was slightly overweight with a wrinkled belly that only 50 years can put on someone. Her face was shaggy, but there was a slight hint of ‘hippie’ in her, but by no means fully- fledged. She was probably at Woodstock though, because she was American. They sat directly in front of Julie and me. And it was not a good thing. We were on a bit of a budget for this trip, but the only bus from San Pedro to Guat City was a luxury bus of the Hedman Alas line. The negative is the price, the positive is the movie and comfort, and also the security of the guys in the white car that tailed us each carrying a Remington 870- 12 gauge in case someone tried to rob us. But today I wish there had been a cheap chicken bus because shortly after half way the bus broke down….and that’s when we smelled it. It was rank, disgusting, vile, inexplicable. The inside of a Johnny-on-the-Spot was like the sweet scent of a rose compared to this atrocity. It was a mixture of vomit and feces with a hint of stale urine combined with a liter of armpit sweat from a Japanese Sumo wrestler. The formula apparently had been mixed in a bottle, left out to rot and rubbed all over the lady in front of us. It was so pungent, so concentrated, so DISGUSTING. The bus was broke down in East Bumble-Bee. The AC was off, the movie was off and the windows opened about 5 inches. I leaned my seat back and pushed my head as close to the seat as possible. It wouldn’t go away. We were trapped. I was breathing through my shirt which wasn’t quite clean but a heck of a lit better than smelling her. I pushed my nose out the window straining to see. I saw a small dog. “Come here little doggy…come here boy”, I called. He came a little closer to investigate. It was right under the window looking up. I tried as hard as I could with me limited mind control to will the dog io poop right under my window so that I could suck in the smell and be relieved of the odor in front of us. Eventually the bus went on and then broke down again. A new bus came and we switched into it. Luckily they weren’t in front of us, but a couple seats over. Unfortunately for Gotti, she was right behind him. When she walked down the aisle of the bus, person after person covered his or her nose as she walked by. I pictured the green, smoky trail that signifies a bad odor on a Ren and Stimpy cartoon. It was all around her. Gotti had caught a smell of it earlier, but not as close as she was at his point. Then she took her shoes off and leaned back and put them right behind Gotti’s head. I couldn’t help but giggle with Julie as we looked over at him and the Guatemalan next to her both covering their nosing wondering how this American behind them could smell so foul. He asked Julie for gum and he gave him a piece. He took it and rolled it in four little pieces. He put on ball of gum in each nostril and gave the other two to the lady next to him who did the same. It was really funny, but our laughing would cease immediately when the scent drifted our way. As the scent would catch others on the bus they would instinctively hold here nose and stare wide-eyed behind them trying to determine the source of the smell. Obviously their eyes would rest on the only two people who weren’t holding their noses. Finally the bus arrived in Guatamala City. I stepped out of the bus into a city that Lonely Planet describes as, “Dirty, smelly, dangerous and utterly forgettable,” and took a whiff of the air…ahhhhh, heaven couldn’t smell better. |
