The jungles of southern Mexico and the Petén of northern Guatemala hide many things that we may see – or never will. In the thick brush and swift river waters snakes coil, jaguars prowl and crocodiles wait. Still many ruins of ancient Maya cities lie buried, their stones scattered by the roots of dense trees. In this region, the descendants of those who once inhabited those mighty cities flee into the selva to hide from the persecution by government forces – military and “civilian patrols.” In this January of 1992, the news of the persecution of those refugee settlements is hidden from most of the outside world. Their bones lie buried in these forests, the aftermath of unseen, untold massacres.
We are heading deeper into that region. Early morning, we hitch out of Palenque, famed for its Maya ruins, departing for our next adventure: traveling by river from Mexico to Guatemala, then on to the ancient Maya city of Tikal. In a series of mismatched rides – in a VW bug of young dudes who work as exterminators, and in the back of the pickup belonging to a cattle rancher – we spend the day traveling to Tenosique and Emiliano Zapata, finally to La Palma, the port from which lanchas (boats) journey up the Río San Pedro to El Naranjo, Guatemala.
When Susan (from the UK), Mariana (from Australia) and I arrive mid-afternoon in that riverside village, we discover we had missed the daily launch. In fact, we are told, it had left early. This twist of fate is not surprising. There is little information about this route – just bits and pieces passing along the backpackers bamboo radio (that is, grapevine).
So, we must spend the night in this miniscule, dirt-road river village. A family invites us to sling our hammocks in their home. At sunset, we stroll around town. A metal-tube bridge spans the Río San Pedro. Trees lining the banks are blacker than the river’s water. Stars reflect in its slow current. Noise layer one upon another: screaming and teasing children, a clopping horse on the road, howling monkeys.
At the hamlet’s edge, where civilization ends and the thick jungle begins, Mariana stoops over the roadside brush to relieve herself – and jumps with a screech. A tarantula scurries away.
We then blissfully nestle into our hammocks. The night is chillier than I would expect in these tropics. I dream of tomorrow’s adventure, of travelling by river through the jungle.
The next day, we board the long wooden boat. It rocks with our unsteady steps. It soon pulls away, going upstream, with its bow high in the water, its body open to the sun. Light glistens off the silty waters, at times still and others swift. Trees reflect like a green pixeled image.
We pass through a narrow channel. The jungle growth closes around us, shades us from the heat. Then we emerge out into the river’s width, back into the strong sun. To our right – first distant, then nearer – mountains edge the horizon. To our left, for as far as the Earth spreads, the selva stretches flat.
About two hours into the trip, the launch pulls alongside a boardwalk that leads to the Mexican border post. The wood hollowly clunks beneath our feet. On either side, lily pads with lavender-spike flowers carpet the marshland. While waiting my turn to officially check out of this country, I spot some Mimosa pudica plants. Do they really live up to their common name, the “sensitive plant”? I reach down and run my finger along its leaves. They close at my touch.
We continue our upstream journey to Guatemala. The boat slowly fights the river’s deceptively still flow. The lancha’sancient outboard motor strains. We have to stop midstream to rest the engine before starting again. The current carries us closer to the jungle brush. Our eyes strain for crocodiles.
Thrice we see them. One time, a lone Crocodylus moreletii lies still in the water. A second time, we spot another’s tell-tale trail of foam. It opens its mouth wide to the afternoon. The third time, one quietly warms itself in the sun and river.
Twice we watch the bare limbs of solitary trees fill with snow-white birds.
Once, while dead in the water, we hear the crash of a monkey through the tree tops, we hear its howl flow through the warm air.
Tinges of rose-violet-apricot fill the sunset sky behind us. Blood streaks the edge of the Earth. Cirrus clouds wisp across the mountain crags. Then dusk darkens towards us. A silver crescent moon, its points upward, rises before us. The first star appears and I make a wish, believing in the magic of this World. Slowly the constellations fill out, star by star. We share their legends, word by word.
At last, the long wooden boat pulls up through the now-inky water and leaves us in the night, in the jungle.
We line up at the immigration office to get our passports stamped. Susan worries about her UK passport (tensions still exist between Guatemala and former British colony Belize), but a small “on-the-spot fine” gets her through.
The bus to Santa Elena-Flores, on the south shore of Lago Petén Itzá, will not be leaving until 3 a.m. To pass the time, we nap on the general store’s front porch.
At that appointed hour, the old chicken bus fills. We settle in for the more-than-eight-hour ride to Santa Elena. On one side of the bus, passengers sit three per bench-seat. On my side, we are four per seat. The bench seat in the back is packed with a band with all its instruments (including a stand-up bass and a tuba).
Whenever we hit a pothole on this unpaved road, we all go up as one, we all come down as one. Sometime after dawn, one of those potholes swallows the bus. All of the local women and children stay aboard while the men (and us three foreign women) help rock and push our ride out.
And during this gut-jolting, tail-bone-bruising adventure, more and more passengers emerge from out of the dense brush and appear at the side of the road. They huddle together in the damp, swirling pre-dawn mist to await this rattling bus. Brakes hiss as it pulls to the side of the muddy road. The door opens, the people crush in.
Where do all these passenger come from, in the middle of this nowhere, at this dark hour? Are they from some nearby finca (plantation)? Or perhaps they are refugees fleeing from Guatemala’s civil war, hiding from the violence in scattered settlements deep in the selva? They are definitely not tourists plodding towards Tikal, like us.
But whatever our legends, wherever we come from, we are together, navigating this rough jungle road, in the golden-rose light of a new-born morn.
