I’d thought Central America would be hot and tropical, but Guatemala was not like that at all.  It was cool and almost alpine, with fir trees and grassy meadows, high cliffs, hemp bridges swinging across deep gorges, and fields of maize planted six or seven thousand feet up steep green mountains.  Most of the people were indigenous, the most primitive I’d ever seen.  Everyone went barefoot, and there appeared to have been no change in their lives since before the arrival of Columbus, except for the machetes — made in Chicago — that the men all wore at their waists. One day I was hitchhiking in the Guatemalan highlands, when up drove a tall, rangy, middle-aged American couple in a camper truck.  They were the Schmidts, they said, from North Platte, Nebraska, headed for Guatemala City, and they would be delighted for my company.  I hopped in, and we crawled…