“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”
Gabriel García Márquez
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My final day in Guatemala was fun. It was raining from the start, which meant I didn’t need to worry about rushing out for sunrise photos (photography has taught me patience; you must adapt to the conditions and simply get the shots you can get, not necessarily the ones you were hoping for – it’s a very zen thing).
The rain also meant I could put on clothes which turned out to be ideally suited to the conditions: the Indiana Jones hat, shirt and increasingly tatty jacket I’d previously worn on a US road trip… when I was planning out what I wanted from the trip, I fully intended to get some costume photos in the authentic environment.
Today they could actually serve a purpose (beyond the purpose of cosplay!). Our tour leader Jessica was quite tickled by this and threatened to refer to me a “Indy” for the rest of the day…
The rain meant our bus would rendezvous with one better suited to the muddy, potholed track leading to the ancient ruins of Yaxha (“yash-HA”).
The previous day we’d been to Iximche which was post-Classical (from 900AD until the Spanish invasion), and Tikal which came from the Classical period (200-900AD). Yaxha was the oldest Mayan site we visited, becoming a city in the latter centuries of the pre-Classical age (before 200AD). Most of it was still buried under soil and trees, giving it the feeling of a genuinely lost world.
The view from the top of the temple showed me a – literally – steaming jungle all around us. I always thought the phrase just meant it was swelteringly hot; I didn’t expect to see clouds of vapour rising up from the greenery.
Wilson, our guide from Tikal, generously did the honours with our group’s cameras and took photos of us all in turn, with the lake and jungle in the background. (Attempts to get photos of monkeys in the trees were a bit more hit-and-miss.)
In the jungle itself, Wilson pointed out things the untrained eye would miss: pottery fragments; animals up in the trees; edible and medicinal plants (and their scented leaves).
One of the guys shared his snack food with us, which kicked off one of my endless pun medleys: “When Harry puts his nuts in the palm of your hand you can tell he’s going to be a firm friend”; “When I woke up this morning, I never expected I’d end up with Harry’s nuts in my mouth”; “We’re all looking forward to Harry whipping his nuts out for us again” (and so on).
“I’ll never understand why boys always find this so amusing,” one of the women in the group said.
“Because it is funny,” her husband replied.
The others in the group were bemused by my intention to get the Indiana Jones themed photos. I mean, I’d already mucked about with a Slinky spring on the steps of Tikal, and had my nostalgia trip; but this was commitment (leaving aside the question of whether or not I should be committed…). Wilson did the honours with my camera and suggested places to stand while I struck my “adventure pose”.
Then the other guys wanted to get involved too, and I instructed them on how to do the adventure pose and look of trepidation: “Feet placed like you’re fencing, then crouch down a bit and lean forward; now look behind you like you’ve been caught skulking in the kitchen after bedtime… make your facial expression like you’ve just seen a truckload of Nazis, and you’re going to punch them all in their faces…”
Suffice to say, the results were mixed. But the boys got to be boyish for a bit!
Imagine: you’re a tourist in Guatemala, you’re in the jungle, it’s raining, and you’re tramping around the mud and greenery. You’ve been half an hour down a bumpy, muddy track in a bus that won’t stop bouncing around. You have to put on your waterproof poncho and rain hat to get to the Mayan ruins. You’re tramping through a muddy jungle in your sandals.
And then you see Indiana Jones clambering down those steps.
You’re damn right they all took photos of me!
(What can I say? It was a big moment… for them.)
It’s a damn good thing I have no problem being the centre of attention.
After lunch we drove through the last stretch of Guatemala to the border. We said goodbye to Wilson and our driver, and walked over the bridge to passport control into Belize. I have to say that for all the speed and convenience of electronic passports, there’s something more satisfying about having proper stamps.
In Belize, even just on the other side of the border, the feeling was of a very different country: the landscape (no longer a jungle, more open farmland); the culture (English-speaking, and more diverse with Chinese, Indian, Mayan, African and Creole); and the scenery (I’d say the colours weren’t as vibrant as Guatemala).
My trip finished in the kind of resort people like me aren’t supposed to be able to afford.
I spent my time walking around the surrounding jungle and taking photos of the wildlife; and finished the following day by spending a tranquil birthday paddling up and down the River Macal (my first time in a canoe since my school days).
What the hell do you make of a place like Guatemala? Once I left the calm, tourist-friendly colonial charm of Antigua, I found myself feeling like a child again: when you’re young everything is brand new and you hyper-focus on everything. You never know what’s around the next corner, and your senses are sharper – this is the feeling I got from the sights, sounds, and smells of the market in Chichicastenango.
When you’re young you don’t always understand the big words on the signage around you, and you don’t really follow what the grown-ups are saying. I got that feeling again with my lack of Spanish when I pottered around town in Lake Atitlan. Even so, the fact that people who don’t share a language will make the effort to communicate with each other – purely for the sake of being sociable, not for anything important – reaffirmed my faith in humanity.
I also felt young in other ways too: visiting Tikal and being transported to a real location from Star Wars; and finishing by dressing up like Indiana Jones in a real jungle ruin. I’ve wanted to do this for decades and my inner six-year-old was fairly geeking out.
So: Guatemala was my very own fountain of youth!
(The day after my birthday, I was ID’d for booze at the airport… maybe there’s something to it after all?)
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