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the hell do they do behind those fringed plastic curtains? I pass the sunny patio of a café, where six or seven grizzled men in dark fedoras sit at tables with glasses of aguardiente , arguing. It sounds as if they are about to rip each other apart, but it’s just an animated conversation. No women in the bars. They stay inside. In their kerchiefs and hats, covered in black from top to toe, they could be wearing hijab. It’s a perfect place for a middle-aged woman to feel comfortably invisible.
    The café overlooks a broad, lush valley covered in orange groves. Fresh from the sparrow greys of Toronto in March, the oranges look unnatural to me, almost digital. Someone has Photoshopped them in.
    The walk back to my street of the two horses is steep, and on the way I glimpse secretive, alluring lanes that curve up, crest, and then disappear out of sight. Everything here seems to happen offstage. The donkey I never see begins to bray, a sound like a strangled sob. It is a hillier version of the landscape I remember from my months with Chris, in Alportel; I take out my maps and see that it’s not so far away, to my old haunts. But it feels too soon to go there.
    When I get online the next morning, I check the Canadian Embassy website again. I see that new warnings have been posted about bandits and growing political unrest in Guatemala. “Visitors are advised to stay on the main highways and travel during daylight.”
    I email Casey, in pleading caps:
    MI HIJO,
IT IS FOOLISH TO BICYCLE ALONE IN THOSE MOUNTAINS RIGHT NOW. TRUST ME, I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT HERE . . .
    Then I log off and force myself to go hiking through the countryside, along the footpaths that once joined the villages. German tourists like to come to this area to “tramp,” and so I follow an insanely detailed German walking guide. You will reach a discarded washing machine beside a wall of bougainvillea; turn left and go 235 metres to a pile of red rocks . . .
    Total physical exhaustion, I find, is helpful. I eat a large plate of grilled sardines and hundreds of green peas then fall into a stupor on my puffy bed. The following day,my very best girlfriend at the Alte hotel smiles and waves me toward the computer,where a fresh email is waiting. Casey has now bought the bike and the touring gear, he reports, and has set off on his trip.
    . . . I biked my first day in the direction of Mexico out of Panajachel (they call it gringo town). This happened to be up a mountain that is the rim of the former crater. I wanted to cry, and puke and die. It was a bad first day, accompanied by increasing stomach problems. Around noon, I took a siesta under a tree.
    He went on to describe a lone farmer who came along, commiserated with him, and made him an offer; for a few quetzals, he would pray for Casey.
    I didn’t have small change, and I didn’t really want him to pray for me (although it may have helped, in retrospect).
    The next day, he was too sick to ride. A pastor in a truck eventually stopped by the side of the road to give him and his bike a lift. Once he had recovered, there was a beautiful three-hour downhill ride from San Marcos, he wrote. Then came the gratifying part:
    Biking alone in the mountains of Guatemala was great, but way too hard! Do not try to bike out of Lake Atitlan. It is stupid. The border town of Tapachula is really damn hot too. I felt like my body was going to explode.
    In Santa Margarita, there’s not much to do in the evenings except read and write in my journal.
    A cool twilight, with a blustery wind and dark clouds coming. I feel more settled, now that it’s almost time to go home. I have my pictures of Casey and Brian, both looking so handsome, propped up in front of me, against my bowl of oranges—the market man gave them to me for free. They’re all over the ground here, like rubbish. My gas-fire heater splutters and flutters behind me.
    I read a few more of Chris’s