Pan American Flight 501 enters Guatemala from the Yucatan across terrain that is simultaneously among the most spectacular and sinister in the world. The first flatlands become foothills, ripples growing to swells, cresting in great, jagged peaks.
Foliage covers the mountains like green fur over the bones of a deadly beast.
You can see where the beast had shifted not quite a month ago. The sharp scars of the fault lines are visible even from 39,000 feet, and as the plane descends, you can also see, squashed like anthills underfoot, the homes in which 28,000 people had died. I share a cab with Nathan Gray, a field director from the Oxfam America headquarters in Boston. Gray has been sent to help organize Oxfam's disaster relief program. Oxfam has been in the country for some years.