On Maya trails, getting a little lost in the hills

The next morning at about 8:30 Golan, the owner, who moved from Israel to the US and sold his business there before building this hostel, called us over: time to leave. We climbed into the back of his pickup, fitted with the same metal benches facing each other as the bigger four-wheel drive truck we had arrived in; this way we had a good view. His neighbour, a carpenter, sat with Golan in the front, and the carpenter's young son in the back with us. Up we went into the hills on the curvy, bumpy road, hanging on to the metal braces. When we passed people walking Golan stopped, and we gained a few more passengers: men going to work, women with small children, one with a baby knotted into a sheet, only a tuft of black hair showing. We were all piled into the small space, looking at each other, smiling, the kids eyeing us curiously. Whoever needed to get off called out, and Golan stopped for a moment. I can only imagine what it means to save a kilometre or two or three when you're walking everywhere with a load or a small child at your side.

After about half an hour we reached our destination: a kind of community centre beside a church. We were greeted by a group of men from the community, the mayor and another official – this one more important because of his status in the Maya hierarchy – among them who were working together with Golan on the project, a new funeral hall. 
 

The old funeral hall

We walked over to the cemetery, which I would not have recognized as such since no graves were visible. What struck me first were rows of tall, dark, gnarled trees, looking like they could have been the models for Caspar David Friedrich's painting 'Two Men Looking at the Moon'. For every person who dies, Golan explained, a tree is planted, and these ones are los viejos, the old ones. Who knows how old, really? Smaller trees filled the spaces between and around them, but I only saw a single cement box, the usual kind of grave. 'This one must have had money,' Golan remarked. I like the idea of a tree instead of a marker, and it felt good to walk among those trees with the men high on that hill overlooking the many hills around and below us.

When we returned to the buildings near the church the bigger four-wheel drive truck from the hostel had arrived with a load of cement bags. Quickly a line was formed, and the fifteen or so men unloaded the truck: the cement was needed for the floor of the new hall. Meanwhile Golan's neighbour, the carpenter, and his son were busy working on boards and beams, sawing and planing; a few were already laid out to dry after being varnished. It wouldn't take long for the building to be completed, now that the planning and preliminary work had been done.

Next, we drove over to another church and big community hall where a meeting of what seemed to be the whole surrounding area was taking place. Hundreds of men, women and children were gathered, many crowded around the hall, looking in through windows and doors, listening, the hall filled with people standing – no benches or chairs here - their attention focused on a speaker at the front who alternated between Spanish and Q'eqchi', the local Mayan language which is spoken by Q'eqchi' people in northern Guatemala and Belize. Many of the people assembled could not speak any Spanish, we were told. Nobody seemed to mind that we were there; we were greeted with a nod or a smile and stood like the others, but understanding far less. Outside people were talking, kids running around playing; in the older part of the church soft drinks and snacks were for sale and a few men were working to repair a generator. 

The bigger, newer part of the church was locked, but we could look in through the door. No pomp here like in the huge churches in cities all over Latin America; here, there were only wooden benches on a flagged floor, a wooden altar with an eternal light at the front. Sadly, one of the two bells had been stolen - hard to imagine in this so very religious country. 'It's worth a lot of money,' Golan said.

 Golan had more business to attend to with the community, and we wanted to walk instead of drive back. We asked if it was safe for us to do so, and he immediately said yes. To be sure he conferred with the men, and they confirmed: yes, it would be totally safe. We didn't have anything really valuable with us, did we? No, we didn't; we don't ever when we're travelling. One needs so little, really. We thought we'd just walk back on the way we had come, but Golan showed us the trail that's used for walking: a narrow but well defined path. 'There are many trails branching off, but if you're in doubt just ask – everybody will be pleased to point you where you need to go. Just say 'GreenGo's'.' Our objection that we don't speak a lot of Spanish was dismissed quickly: 'neither do they. No problem, you'll communicate anyway.' I hadn't really thought of this as an obstacle either. Where there's a will there's a way.

Thus we took off. It was drizzling a bit and not as hot, which was fine with us. The trail, narrow and a bit muddy after the rain of the day and the night before, led along the ridge of the hill, with many more hills all around us. The landscape is beautiful. Small, irregular fields of corn, the plants mostly somewhere between ten and forty centimetres high, hugged the steep slopes, adapting to the contours. They were planted by hand, one kernel after the other, with the help of a stick with a small metal blade. 

We passed a couple of houses, were asked where we wanted to go - 'GreenGo's'? Aquí.' - fingers pointed out the direction we were to take. So far so good. But the trail narrowed even more, and more and more often some branched off, with no house close by where we could ask. We had a rough idea which direction to take – thought we did, anyway, and we kept going. At some point we turned left onto what looked like the more likely direction, but soon were starting to wonder: we seemed to be in the fields now, the trail less travelled and even narrower, corn alternating with achiote trees, partly with the crimson seed pods, partly still displaying pink blossoms. 

Here and there were cocoa and coffee bushes, but for quite a while no house right on the trail. When we finally passed by one and then another we found nobody at home. Was everybody at the meeting? It seemed more than likely. Another house that looked totally deserted, only a couple of pigs tied up a few steps down the hill. 

I took a picture and saw movement near the house from the corner of my eye: a little boy, maybe two years old. There had to be someone else. When I turned around and started walking uphill again the boy started screaming at the top of his lungs. The door opened, an old woman reached out, pulled the screaming kid back inside and slammed the door. So much for the friendliness and openness we had encountered so far. The look on the woman's face was one almost of rage, I thought. Strange. The explanation came much later when we were back at the hostel: people were afraid that foreigners came to steal their kids after an incident of that kind not far from here. I realized that it hadn't been rage but fear I saw in the face of the woman. The whole thing left me sad and ashamed.

Since we couldn't get any help we just kept going downhill; that seemed like a safe bet at least, and so did the creek at the bottom: something to follow until we got somewhere. We had seen a couple of bigger buildings with metal roofs from higher up, decided it could possibly be another hostel, though certainly not ours. Finally we reached the bottom of the hill and arrived at the creek, turned left and followed it in the hopes of arriving somewhere we could either ask or get our bearings again. All these little trails must eventually lead to a road, no?

What we found was indeed another hostel. People were hanging out in hammocks, a few were around the reception area. 'Where did you come from?' we were asked. Hmmm ... from somewhere above, was all we could reply. We had no clear idea anymore. 'Where are we?', was our question. The reply left us none the wiser: the name of this hostel hadn't been one called out when the hostel vehicles had picked up their visitors in Lanquin a couple of nights ago. 'How do we get back to our hostel?' was the next question – but nobody there seemed to have a clear idea where our hostel was either, or that it even existed, in fact they didn't even know how to get to the road. 'But Mike, the owner, is working on that building over there, I'm sure he can help you out,' a guy at the reception suggested. Indeed, Mike could. We found out that Mike, originally from Texas, had bought two acres of land here and built the Ch'i Bocól hostel. It had been finished only the year before. Mike at least knew where we were headed and told us if we didn't mind walking we'd get there without a problem. He drew us a map: follow along the river until you come to the bridge, cross it and loop back underneath, then turn up the hill and walk until you hit the intersection with the road, a 45-minute walk. 'How do people get here,' we wondered. 'Hiking in,' was the reply. They're dropped off at the road, and there is a small tienda (store) from where they can be guided to the hostel.

Armed with the map we now felt confident that we'd get back to where we needed to be. The walk along the river running to our right, cocoa, coffee, corn and avocado fields to our left, was beautiful. 

 

Cocoa plant

We met only one man coming out of the fields; other than that only birds and – still a thrill for me although I saw it several times in the jungle – a blue morpho, the huge blue-metallic butterfly that's called morpho azul in Spanish. To walk here with a big backpack, especially when it's muddy and you haven't ever been anywhere like it, would be quite the experience, I imagine. 

In due time we reached the bridge, found the tienda and finally were at the 'cruce', the intersection with the road. Mike had suggested that we could catch a ride with any of the passing vehicles for five or ten quetzales; we still had about three kilometres left to walk. We were okay with that, however. Now that we knew where we were we had no problem walking the rest of the way.

Tired but very happy with the way the day had turned out we reached the hostel in the early afternoon.

I was a bit concerned that Golan might be worried about us: we should have been back at the hostel way before. There was nothing we could do about that, however, so I just hoped he hadn't started a search. He hadn't, at least nothing big, but Dani, the Dutch receptionist, told us he had been wondering already where we were. It was a bit unnerving to realize how far we had really gone astray, how completely our sense of direction had abandoned us in this extensive network of hills. We also gained an even more deep appreciation for the hard work the people living here do, the many miles they walk to get just anywhere. Apart from the jungle hike to El Mirador this day was our favourite, and we were very grateful for Golan that he had made it possible for us to see all this.

He has big plans for GreenGo's, is about to add on to the hostel and build a hotel, a couple of swimming pools – one with a water slide using the natural lay of the land – and even a helicopter pad eventually. Already he employs a lot of locals for the maintenance and building, and we could see that he was well respected. The hostel, while a bit of a 'party hostel' and thus in some ways better suited for the younger backpacker crowd, is very well run, the rooms beautiful, everything clean and well thought-out, the food plentiful, tasty and cheap.Our cabin by the creek was far enough away from the public space that the loud music in the evening didn't bother us if we wanted peace and quiet, and the staff was great, making sure that everybody felt welcome and had what they wanted. 

 The next morning at seven we were ferried back to Lanquín with the four-wheel drive truck, squeezed in tightly, most of the young people visibly hung over after an evening of 'beer pong', hardly awake: all of us needed to catch a bus somewhere. One by one the mini-buses left for their destinations: Antigua, Flores, finally ours to Río Dulce. It was time for the next chapter.