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No no no no no. We are not going to travel by chicken bus. Even though they’re the cheapest and fastest form of transport in all Guatemala (the whole country for less than the price of lunch back home). Even though they’re as bright as a box of paints. Even though there’s not a chicken in sight. And even though everyone says you have to do it once.

Bugger that, said my photographer friend, with his antique 5 by 4 camera, his tripod, changing bag, backpack and daypack. Have you seen how dangerous those things are? The way they overtake on corners and push everyone else on the road into the ditch? And look inside! It’s so full people are practically reproducing in there. No way.

So we taxi four hours to the beautiful Lake Atitlan where we base ourselves for a fortnight. Afterwards fly to see the Mayan temples and nature reserve in Tikal. Then hire a private driver and his van and drive a day down the back roads to the tiered pools of Semuc Champey billed as the “eighth wonder of the world”. Raved about by English tourists. Poor things. It’s pretty but not that pretty.

Capitulating a little, the photographer agrees we might try a series of rides using public vans across the mountains to the village of Nebaj, famous for its traditional culture and aid projects.

Toyota should see the amazing things Guatemalans do with their 12-seater vans. Take them on roads bumpy as dry river beds, fill them with two dozen people (more if you count babies) and ride ém hard.

The vans cope amazingly well. Bags do fall off the roof though. Fortunately not the photographer’s gear. Of course not because he’s forgotten two of his five bags. Left behind two van rides back. He blames the speed of getting off the van to catch the next one for the loss and throws me an accusing glare as he hops on another van to retrace our route.

Which is why I’m in Nebaj alone, taking Spanish language classes and befriending two former Peace Corp workers, one of whom worked here 30 years ago.

By the time the photographer returns victorious, having found his gear, he is full of new foreboding – a young Peace Corp worker he befriended told him we’d just travelled the most dangerous roads in the country. Only three months ago her van had been ambushed by bandits and everyone robbed at gunpoint. She was surprised she wasn’t raped.

So he’s thrilled when I have a better idea. My new friends have a hire car – a Mitsubishi two cab ute – and they’ve asked us to join them on a trip to Chajul. Chajul? Never heard of it. So small it’s not even in Lonely Planet. So insignificant tourists almost never make it there which is why there’s only one place to stay. A posada (hostel). Who cares, says the photographer. You’re talking about a car.

Now it’s us picking up people who sit happily amongst our bags. Us stopping whenever we want to take images of bucolic bliss. Shepherd women guiding chocolate-coloured sheep, fields of corn, blue-grey mountains in the distance, villages with tiled rooves, not corrugated iron. Sunshine, clear sky, lovely.

The posada is a picture too. Like a big long Lockwood on top of a hill overlooking the countryside. We have the place to ourselves and resolve to cook that evening. A chicken dish. But first it’s a walk into Chajul to get the ingredients.

One look at Chajul and we realize this is pushing the envelope just a little. Chajul is closed. Permanently, it seems, for Chajul is a village in recovery. During the civil war its citizens went into hiding or left the country. Many were massacred. The war ended less than 10 years ago and although people have returned home there’s an unmistakable air of sorrow here. Or is it just the dark clouds and mud everywhere because this is the rainy reason and when you live in a hut with an earth floor, it’s a devil of a job keeping clean? Perhaps. But the combination of sombre weather and sad stories spook us both.

Not so our friends who remember digging their own latrines, getting water from the river and building their own house when they lived in a Guatemalan village 30 years ago. Given the history, they believe Chajul to be doing well. There’s laughter and children and no one is hungry though god knows where the food comes from.

My friends have the can-do optimism of people who have overcome much greater hardships in worse places. We’ll get a chicken. They ask a local woman to kill one of her roosters and at three times the going rate she’s delighted. She offers us the clothes off her back. Literally. We can either buy that embroidered top (huipil) or the others she has at home. The optimism is infectious. The photographer buys a child’s huipil even though he has no children.

Optimism reaches dangerously high levels however when my friends start organizing an evening of traditional music. Given that the only traditional music I’ve heard is the monotonous marimba am I the only person who is not optimistic? The answer is yes.

Nevertheless six musicians appear in an office that night. They have with them a giant hollow log which is said to be exactly 818 years old, a tortoise shell painted milky green, a square leather drum, a trumpet that looks like it’s been made by welding two sick trumpets together and a violin with thick strings. We sit in a semi-circle, expectant.

Afterwards the photographer and the former Peace Corp workers talk about a haunting beauty. I daren’t say that it sounded like a group of clinically depressed patients who’d been given a musical instrument for the first time. I hiss it later that night to the photographer after we’d endured the predictable confusion about money (of course they thought we were loaded and why not charge the earth), after a meal of watery soup which may have had an emaciated rooster passed over it and just before the influx of 40 women and their babies from a neighbouring village.

We have our first real argument. I’m being culturally insensitive. He’s being a PC sap. We’re probably both right. Then we find something which unites us. We hate being kept awake and with the crèche next door there’s barely a moment all night when a baby isn’t crying. Also we discover what those baskets next to the toilets are for. Everything.

Night flows into morning since the women are up before daybreak washing themselves, their clothes and making breakfast. They operate as a single organism. By the time I get up they’re gone for the day to Chajul. My friends resolve to stay another night. Their Peace Corp experience has clearly given them the tolerance of saints.

Sadly it’s not infectious. I can hardly wait to leave. Nebaj looks better than ever. Nice hotel, colourful people, good places to hang out, great Spanish teachers, plenty to do and it’s not Chajul.

All it takes is one chicken bus ride, I say. Eventually the photographer agrees. Just the one then. Catching a chicken bus is easier than we thought. Just a matter of being on the right street corner at the right time. There’s no manana in Guatemala. The transport is always punctual. Nor is it crowded. We find a seat at the back. It’s not that uncomfortable with only the faintest whiff of urine. Costs nothing too. I turn triumphantly to the photographer.

Then the driver fiddles with a knob and over the loudspeaker erupts the haunting beauty of the marimba. Off-station. Very loud. I spend the rest of the trip determinedly looking out the window. The last thing I want to do is catch the photographer’s gloating eye.

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