They are climbing the pyramid in the sun, crab walking up and down those steep stone step
step step step steps.
They are climbing the pyramid in the sun, crab walking up and down those steep stone step
step step step steps.
They are laughing at the howler monkeys growling in the trees, ha ha ha ha howwwwllllrrrrr howrrrrrr until silence, and then a stream of yellow water, followed by fresh plop plop... plop.
The are listening to the guide explain his pet theories about a Pharoah's tombstone, Hebrew writing, Arabic arches, Egyptian clothing, and, most important, Chinese dragons everywhere... but all this is nothing compared to the rich American woman who took all that art away, some sixty years ago go go gone.
So they are beginning to doubt everything they ever heard or read in travel brochures or saw in other visitors' photos, and at last they must stop, open their eyes, and simply drink drink drink the treasured view....
After a weird caterpillar, green and red feathery tendrils, climbs down a tree, crawls onto my back and stings me, I will sit under another tree, waiting to see if I am going to die from the poison. Or have fantastic visions. No. But two archeogists wander by and stop to talk with me, I think because they see me reading the Schele and Freidel book. Yes. I know it is, because now they are telling me that she died last year. Sigh. I had already heard from a guy who works here. It is sad. She was a giant in the field.
"Are you going to go to Campeche?" the man asks me in Spanish.
I shake my head. "I don't have much time and want to spend several days at each place I visit."
"Ai, companero, Campeche es obligatorio!" He laughs. Then explains that he is working at Edzna.
I silently curse my not having a car to drive wherever I want to. To visit a ruin in the company of a man who works there? It would be fantastic.
Now they begin to tell me wild tales of the stories that guides tell the tourists. The young woman says, "There was one guide, at Uxmal, I think it was, who told the people that the Maya all died because they Drank the WATER!"
We laugh. I tell them the story the Argentines told me. About the guide here with his pet pharoah theory.
"Ah, but that is really rather tame, you know, compared to what some people believe. At least Egypt was a real place, and perhaps could have sent some people here, who knows? But Atlantis and outer space?"
We laugh again, and finally agree that tourists want to be entertained. If a guide can make them
laugh by saying the Maya died from drinking the water, welllll... it's all in good fun.
I watch wistfully as the couple wanders away to climb up into the palace. In a few moments they are ducking in and out of the cement piers. Then they are gone, around the corner....
And I write this. I feel alone. Backwards. Reversed. What is wrong with this picture?
No. I am not homesick. Just lonely.
Tonight, after I spend a hundred pesos on a wonderful dinner (huge salad, main course, two beers, coffee) at some restaurant in La Canada, I will wait at the bus station, for my overnight transport to Merida, nine hours away through the night, across the jungle swamplands, over the mighty Usumacinta River. Before we leave, I will eavesdrop on two hippies arguing with five cops. "But," they say, struggling to communicate in Spanish, "el disco volante esta viniendo..." -- the flying saucer is coming....
THE flying saucer IS COMING TO THE BUS STATION??!!
I wonder if I should help them communicate, volunteer my services as translator... no. Remember what my father always said -- Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, Daniel. Heh. Especially when they are wide awake and barking nonsense about flying saucers!
Somebody's been eating those mushrooms, I fear.
I am going on a more ordinary trip. Tomorrow I will awaken in Merida.