Before pleasure comes pain. We had to push
our
clapped-out bus, wrote Bill, up
steep hills at
ten
thousand feet en route to Antigua.
The group
is tense and near to mutiny.
 |
| Bill Barrie, in brown trousers at centre back, and Ann Barrie, in blue blouse at front, help push their tour bus uphill at 10,000 feet |
 |
| En route to Antigua. We had just pushed the mini-bus most of the way up this hill. |
Bill’s words again:
When
finally we reached our hotel, I
had
forty winks and then with Annie wandered
streets
like seventeenth century Spain.
Poseda
Rodrigo is exquisite:
alcoves,
high studs, carved wood, four-poster beds;
it
looks out on gardens where fountains play.
Pre-dinner
Aquadiente spirit while
a
seven-man band played marimba in
the
courtyard, then good food with fine red wine
from
Chile and mellow conversation.
Next day, unwell, I slept until Bill
fetched
me: “Come my darling, I have special
treats for you.”
He led me to a Jade shop where we chose
a choker and earrings for my
birthday.
Across the road at Tassa Caff we sat
on stools of cowhide and drank mugs
of fresh
roasted Antiguan coffee with cookies
(they let us keep the mugs – I have
them still).
“Now aren’t you pleased with my
surprise?” Bill said.
“Oh yes, so sweet an afternoon; it’s
like a honeymoon.”
At Rio Dulce it rained constantly.
We caught a launch to our hotel;
rooms sat
on stilts in jungle at the water’s
edge;
I thought Malaya and Somerset
Maughan.
Bill rose early and brewed us tea
then off we went across the new
bridge to the Flores road:
eighteen-inch holes,
bottomless mud, huge trucks held up;
seven hours’ snail pace, drivers
patient.
At Rio Gracias a choice between the
rotting
old bridge (no thanks) and a pontoon
winched
by hand, two vehicles each trip.
At Flores most hotels beneath water
because of floods four days before;
at last
we found beds (slightly damp) at
Sabana.
The manager, true gentleman, warmed
us
with fried chicken and rum-soaked
cake.
He said he’d send one hundred pounds
of coffee
from his plantation to Bill. (It
never came).
Our three days here restored and
rested us;
we hired boatmen and took gentle
walks.
In Flores Square, Bill, most amused,
captured
me with my admirer. The photo shows
me towering over Bernado Gautel.
His sky-blue kettledrum hangs at his
hip.
His pants, white shirt, sports coat
are neatly pressed.
Fifty at least, he’d followed me
around
the Square, devotion in his sad,
dark eyes
but never saying a word.
Also frozen in time, facing the
Square
the prison. If you put your eyes
half out of focus, its veranda,
columns, neat
white fence could be a gracious
home. The men
hung out the windows and relied on
friends
to bring them food; they’d get no
trial unless
they paid for it.
The six we’d left behind in Antigua
at their request rejoined us, and
our band
drove to Tikal in good humour – the
break
had helped relieve tensions. We
spent four hours
in temples, plazas buried in jungle
for centuries.
And here’s Bill’s hand again; the
flowing
script shows he was fascinated by
Belize:
New
state created from former British
Honduras;
has asked Britain to send troops
to
police Guatemalan claims. Belize
City
has dirty stinking canals and
is
overcrowded. Our hotel was dear
but dinner
a gourmet’s delight: beef-rice
soup
(slightly curried), Lobster Thermador,
fresh
vegetables, lemon meringue pie.
My soldier husband, Scottish-born,
trained chef,
of course he favoured this more than
cracked plates
and lukewarm food from Mexico. But
now
was time to go back there again.
A genial chap in golfing cap ran our
motel in Tulum. And the cliff-top ruins
they
enchanted us. Romance and majesty –
a rocky setting by a turquoise sea,
iguanas, birds, strange flowers and
plants.
 |
| Ann Barrie at Tulum, January 1981 |
By ferry to Isla Mujeres where we
slept,
lethargic, stirring only to hire
bikes.
Bill’s fell apart and I am shamed to
say that I
stayed at the beach to snorkel,
while he hitched
back into town nursing a wounded
knee.
If he resented me he did not say.
Through Chichen Itza, on to Merida.
Our tour was ending, last group meal
two days
before; so now we did our own thing
– bought
a hammock, tried out eating spots,
and strolled
through tree-lined plazas hand in
hand.
“For you, my love, there were too many rules
and ruins, and insufficient music.”
“Yes,” Bill said. “I always like it
best with just us two.
But there were highlights.”
 |
| Bill and Ann Barrie at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, January 1981 |
Blog by Ann Barrie
