Like Tonina, Bonampak ascends a hillside… meets with a crown of temples at the top. Everything was grey and black with damp mould… orange here and there with moss… blue and green also. The facades were like leaky watercolours… dripping and washed in various hues… crumbling underneath it all. We climbed to the top… observed the carvings in the doorways… the interiors set with cylinders… burned charcoal on top. Hach Winik would get up to things here… not too long ago.
We began our hellish return trip to Lacanja… the pain was already immense… shooting misery through the calves… impossible bruising at the toes and ankles… each step stabbed horror. The light in the forest grew darker… the shades much deeper… the green was rich and brooding and thick. The pain, the exhaustion… it got to our brains. The vegetation came alive… rippled out with peals and silver light… deep silver, knife silver… licking away from the leaves, the branches, the vines. My vision was hung… head suspended on strings… the flora would be fixed there amid flashes of purple and white… arcing overhead through the fizz… mental static. It all began unfurling, unfolding, opening apart between steps that were numb and endless. Giant ferns shivered out… then palms… they flowered like wet umbrellas. The trees twisted out under themselves… some giant and solid buttresses… others thin and delicate stalks. The barks were grey and brown and green and red… smooth and rough and tender and wrinkled and cracked and blistered and peeled… creeping with vines, impossible vines consuming and strangling and starving. Vines upon vines and vines upon them… treetops and no treetops… everything impassably dense, ready to swallow. And green leaves and purple leaves and yellow leaves… long and short and wide and slender… protruding and spurting and sprouting. Flowers and tentacles and grasses. Everything so thick, so hot and shooting daggers of misery… my feet, my legs, my brain… swaying and flashing with impossible plant life. The greenery was like walls around us… some reaching corridor…
We arrived back at the campsite and rested… a harsh metallic ‘zzziiing’ in my head… quivering electric jabs in my calves. Martin’s wife wouldn’t cook for us. So we had to suffice with a box of cereal. It would turn on me later… those treacherous cornflakes, that temperamental stomach… send me screaming into the bushes. We slept well for our final night in Lacanja… rose early and packed… then exited at dawn for one final excursion.
Yaxchilan is one of the less frequented Mayan ruins and this is mainly due to its geographic isolation… it lies in the rainforest, an hour upstream on the Usumacinta river (which incidentally serves as the Mexican-Guatemalan border). Yaxchilan can be reached with a tour group from Palenque town… but what’s the fun in that?
On the road from Lacanja we caught a collectivo (public minibus) to San Javier… that military checkpoint that poses for a town. From San Javier we caught a second collectivo to Crucero Corozal… from there a taxi to Frontera Corozal. The driver was very helpful… took us right up to the motorboat launch… his friend was waiting.
“Yaxchilan? Fifty dollars… maybe… Forty two…”
We turned down his good, good offer and went walking. We couldn’t have afforded it even if we wanted. We were down to our last… a little nervous… the nearest bank was over a hundred kilometers away in Palenque. We had to change the last of our emergency stash… they gave us an awful rate… we wondered if we’d get to Yaxchilan at all.
Frontera Corozal was not very big on good vibrations. Spread out, muddy, tropical… slanted metal roofs, absence of character… all the charm of a border town… complete with bored soldiers and aggressive salesmen. We drifted over to a hotel… a booking desk… enquired as to prices for a boat.
“Fifty dollars for two people,” they told us.
“And will there be any tour groups later?”
“Oh no.” She said. “No tours. Its very, very quiet.”
The bitch lied. No matter. We organized a group of our own… within half an hour… there were seven of us; two English, two Germans, two Australians, a French man. The magnificent seven. The French man, Jules, he haggled aggressively and got us a boat for forty-five the seven… thirty dollars than the booking desk’s quoted price. It upset a few people… twenty of them gathered around… they told the Germans.
“You can get it cheaper over there, then you can park your car over there. This place is for customers…”
And so they moved their vehicle from outside the booking office… a few feet backwards onto the hotel grounds… parked and exited. I liked all the drama with the money… I felt like a son of a bitch… despite my non-involvement… we did it the right way.
We all headed over to the launch… three soldiers accosted Katriona, the Germans and I.
“You come with us,” they growled. “You come to the Colonel…”
And so we all marched over there. The Colonel was sat at a desk under a palapa. He took our passports and wrote down our names. Then they had a rifle through our bags.
“Go,” he said… satisfied we were sneaking no drugs or illegal immigrants onto the archeological site.
We all finally got moving down the river. It was wide and brown and flanked by jungle… rogue treetops broke through the foliage… clawing for sunshine. This Aussie… the old man… he talked and he talked and he talked and he talked. There was the hum of the motor… spray from the river… the old Aussie prattling in my ear;
“… and this croc went straight over the boat… the tourists feed ‘em chooks y’know!”
After an hour, the boat pulled up at a little flight of concrete steps. We all filed out… the first visitors there… gave in our tickets and began our ramble.