By Mark Kendall
lacamionetafilm.wordpress.com 

The weekend was calm.

On Monday we swung through the shop for a bit in Ciudad Vieja and hung out, getting a few other pickup shots when possible.

Things picked up again on Tuesday...

First stop – Ciudad Vieja.

The interview with the shop owner, Rudolfo, held a few surprises. First off, I was surprised to learn that he began working on buses when he was only 9 years old, and has been in some way involved in the bus industry ever since.

But I was just as surprised that, in the middle of the interview, he picked up the phone and called Geronimo and a few other friends of his and held the phone up to the camera, as if to allow his friends to say good things about him and his business.   

Next stop – Chimaltenango.

We spent a solid 90 minutes sitting down and talking with Ermelindo out in front of the corn field beside Geronimo's junkyard. It was our first opportunity to get to know the man who now held our bus in his hands. We learned that having his own bus was a childhood dream, and it's now something he's pursuing and living. His face lights up when he talks about it. Now, his new dream is to have two more buses and to have a coffee farm on his land out near San Martin Jilotepeque. Right now he has 200 plants and he's invited us over to spend a day or two sometime and take a look at his latest dream.

Last stop – Lunch with Federico and Oscar.

Ezekiel gives us a ride from Geronimo's junkyard in his truck and when we pull up Oscar is over at Pinchazo's shop, leaning against a stack of bus tires and reading the newspaper. Sitting in front of him is his freshly-painted pickup truck – “polychromatic cafe” with a red, tribal design along the sides. He's super excited about it and it's awesome to share the excitement with him. It sounds like having his truck fixed up was a big event for the whole family, too.

Over the weekend, his whole family of twelve (parents, brothers, and sisters) all piled in the bed of the truck and made the six-hour drive to Esquipulas. The town is famous because its Basilica houses the Shrine of the Cristo Negro (Black Christ). Thousands of pilgrims from all over Latin America flock here each year, and it has become such an important spiritual destination that, in 1995, Pope John Paul II declared Esquipulas “the spiritual center of Central America.” Oscar and his family rode out in order to have the new truck blessed by the priest there before it reenters its life on the road. They spent the night there and made the trip back the next morning.

Oscar said he saw at least 12-15 buses there being blessed in the few hours he and his family spent outside the Basilica...