Chapter 25: 100 years of no solitude--escape to Tikal

Chapter 25: 100 years of no solitude--escape to Tikal

Guatemala’s Carraterra Atlantico highway follows an ancient trading route that cuts through the Motagua valley from the Caribbean to Guatemala City. Where mule trains once trod, Javier and I now followed. As we drove, the volcanic mountains eroded until they became rolling green hills dotted with grazing black and white horses as motionless as pieces on a felt chessboard. Hand-painted signs advertised the services of toros, the breeding bulls the area was famous for.

Javier and I were alone for the first time in weeks. He had lobbied hard to invite Lorena and her two daughters, his other sister Alba and her six year-old twins, and even Mama Tayo, but I’d burst into tears at the prospect of another group trip nd he’d veered off the road to San Vicente and back to the highway, agreeing we’d go alone. I had an assignment to write a story about La Lancha, Francis Ford Coppola’s luxury jungle lodge and was worn out from socializing. We’d already attended two birthday celebrations, an engagement party and a wedding that week and earlier in the day I’d spotted the carnicero hauling a pig to the butchering patio -- a sure sign that more festivities were on the way.

I also doubted the lodge had a room that would fit so many people. Although in Guatemala it’s quite typical to request a room for a ten people, this lodge was geared to luxury travelers so I was sceptical they’d want to encourage the type of group travel Javier's family enjoyed. With them, everyone piled into a pick-up truck-- seated on lawn chairs or sprawled in the back -- with no seat belts, child restraints or other safety precautions. Babies bounced around as though in a Jolly Jumper.

Almost worse from my perspective, was that when travelling with the family, everyone slept in one room. In Canada, my parents booked a room at the Howard Johnson rather than give up their privacy when they visited us in Toronto.

“There’s traffic on the 401 even at 3 a.m. You sure don’t see that in Winnipeg.” my Dad would report of their hotel room’s view of 12 lanes of freeway traffic, implying he was staying there for research rather than privacy purposes.

The Latino love of togetherness wasn’t entirely new to me. An assignment in Honduras with the Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO) a few years earlier, had first introduced me to the never-be-lonely travel philosophy. The women in our delegation couldn’t believe I wanted to have a single hotel room and were determined to find space for me in theirs.

“Too sad to be alone,” they said shaking their heads in sorrow. Their own five beds were lined up like dominos - an ironing board at the ready and bags of too ripe mangoes, cans of frjoles negroes (black beans) and a jumbo bag of chicharrones (fried pork rinds) stacked by the door. A few nights later as our funds ran out, I joined them but never really had a full nights sleep.

Back in Canada this pyjama-party style of travel was the source of an ongoing disagreement between Javier and me. I was baffled why grown adults would want sleepovers.

“Don’t your friends have homes to go to?” I’d whine. “I don’t feel like getting dressed up to entertain all evening.”

“Um, you mean like putting on a bra?” smirked my youngest daughter.

It's true that when guests arrived I wasn’t required to actually do anything. The guys usually headed straight into the kitchen for a marathon session of making ceviche, a seafood cocktail of finely chopped tomatoes, onions, celery, cilantro and limejuice scooped onto saltines and topped with a dash of hot sauce. They even cleaned up after themselves.

I just didn’t understand why they had to stay overnight.

“It’s just not Canadian,” I sputtered.

My own father had exactly one friend his entire adult life. He valued privacy so much he refused to answer the phone if home alone. If we needed to reach him, we used a code -- let the phone ring three times, hang up and dial again -- to alert him it was a member of the family calling and to pick up. There was a winter boot in the front hall closet for the specific purpose of muffling off-the-hook receivers.

The persuasiveness of my “Canadians need privacy” argument was weakened by the practices of his friend Victor from the Dominican Republic and Marissa his Canadian-born wife. She, to my dismay, also ascribed to the more-the-merrier philosophy and often invited dozens of people to sleep over at their home near Kingston on the shores of Lake Ontario. I’m not talking about guest bedrooms at a Martha’s Vineyard weekend sojourn, these sleepovers involved sleeping under your coat flopped on a leather sectional in front of a big screen TV.

“Why do we have to leave so soon?” Javier would ask at 3 a.m. just when Marissa was popping a 20 pound turkey in the oven. His friends would share looks of commiseration as we headed out, following in my parents footsteps, to the local Howard Johnson.

On this trip, I won out on the privacy argument and we were headed off alone. Out first planned stopover was Puerto Barrios on Lago de Izabel. Situated on Rio Dulce which led into the Bay of Honduras on the Atlantic Coast, it was a tropical outpost. Although the region’s biggest natural attraction was Los Siete Altares, a series of seven river waterfalls, for me the draw was that no matter whether we dined at a waterfront seafood shack or a streetside terrace we’d be guaranteed a unique Caribbean dish served with a reggae tropical vibe. I was looking forward to sampling the cuisine of the Garifuna, a culture drawn from African, Indian and Spanish influences.

Javier estimated it would take us around 10 hours to get to Tikal so we stopped to fuel up just past San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán, where the faded white baroque façade of the 1654 cathedral rose from the green valley like a ghostly wedding cake. Silhouetted against the violet mountains it stood as a symbol of the rise and fall of Guatemala’s Spanish colonial period.

As we pulled off the highway at a comedor in the town of San Juan de Paz, several men with holstered pistols stepped out of shiny pickup trucks.

“Are you sure it’s safe to eat here?” I whispered.

“Yes, those guys are ranchers not narcos. You can tell because their truck windows aren’t blackened out,” he said.”Just don’t stare.”

We followed them inside. Unlike many other roadside stops where scrawny cats mewl beneath your sticky table for food scraps, the interior of this restaurant was immaculate. An aproned young girl was sweeping the tile floor while another vigorously spray-washed the plastic tablecloths. There was a curious absence of music -- no marimba or frenetic merengue -- but many of the 20 tables were occupied, signifying it was a popular stop for those attending the local evangelical churches. Garlands of artificial flowers and palm leaves festooned the doorway leading to the washrooms as though Jesus himself might enter to hosannas at any moment.

The lunch menu had one item a plato tipico consisting of carne asado (beef sliced teriyaki thin and barbecued on charcoal), rice, frijoles (beans) and tortillas. The test of a comedor’s merit is in the sides. This one came with beet salad and a salsa of avocado, lime juice and green chile. It ranked right up there in with the best I’d had. The only shortcoming was the absence of beer. San Juan de Paz was a dry -- meaning no alcohol -- community.

“Makes for a safer lunch if tempers flare,” said Javier, as another guy with a gun arrived.

I was reminded of how Guatemala was so full of contrasts. Just when you’d be marvelling over a simple lunch or a scen of natural beauty there’d be news of an assassination or slaying. I later discovered that the US Embassy Reports on Crimes involving Foreigners cited the following incidents along our route that day included two American Citizens attacked by four assailants with machetes on their sailboat in Rio Dulce, Izabal, a minivan of tourists assaulted by gunmen with automatic weapons and a slaying.

I kept my eyes on my plate until we finished eating. Back in the SUV, we drove past women in rainbow-hued traditional Maya clothing hanging laundry on barbed wire fences. Burros laden with pineapples dodged cantaloupe that bounced like pinballs off trucks. I laughed as a melon barely missed us.

"Not so funny," cautioned Javier. "One of Guatemala’s most famous photographers was killed when someone tossed an empty coconut out a bus window. It hit his windshield and killed him instantly."

After that I worried whenever I saw flapping styrofoam containers, fruit peels and garbage flying out of bus windows. I also watched for signs of trouble and had already seen a truck with its windows blown out from machine gun fire, a casualty of the drug wars.

In order to distract myself from worrying, I took to recording the names of “love hotels” along the highway. These hideaways offered rooms by the hour to those seeking privacy. It was especially entertaining because one of the Ecojustice lawyers from work -- legendary for his parsimony as well as his judicial skills -- had found love hotels to be an economical way to travel through the country when he served on the United Nations Truth Commission in Guatemala. I imagined him checking into Fantasy Autohotel, Kama Sutra or Momentos Especiales – with his briefcase.

After crossing the long bridge on Highway 13 at Puerto Barrios we forged through a busy market lining the streets with a jumble of plastic pails, lengths of rope, bins of beans and bootleg DVDs. Choking dust and exhaust mingled with the splattering grease of chicken and chorizo sausage grilling on empty oil drums. Coconut bread, a local specialty was being sold from straw baskets by street vendors. Round clouds of buzzing flies followed as though speech balloons from a cartoon character. The hotels looked seedy with pastel paint, steamed off by humidity, falling off the stucco in large chunks. Swamp water pooled by the side of the buildings.

The harbourfront hadn’t changed much over the centuries. John Lloyd Stephens, the American diplomat and archaeologist, who in 1840 explored and mapped the mostly inaccessible route from Belize to Copan, described Rio Dulce as a disease-filled outpost. “The harbour of Lake Izabel was noted as a sickly place…it was running the gauntlet of life even to pass through it.”

According to Stephens’ diary he had performed his “sacred duty of visiting, in this distant place, the grave of an American” and stopped in Rio Dulce at the gravesite of an American charge d’affaires who had died of tropical disease and been buried outside town. With few indications as to where the grave might be -- Stephens simply reported it as an outcropping surrounded by gloomy forest -- I couldn’t persuade Javier to make a foray into the forest. He didn’t share my fascination with graveyards and wasn’t keen on drawing the attention of the men hanging around town. Port town revelry of pool halls and strip bars can quickly turn ugly.

He asked a stooped fellow in a cowboy hat for a suggestion on where to overnight and soon we were at a one- story hotel where an inflatable Santa anchored the front lawn. Beside it was a mini-zoo with a few forlorn looking animals inside. The rooms were spartan but clean, the running water hot and the TV suspended from the ceiling worked. We were the hotel’s only guests.

That night we floated on the lake in a dugout canoe and dined on tapado, a sumptuous seafood soup featuring fish, shellfish, banana and plantain cooked in rich coconut milk. Mosquitos hounded me, even biting through my jeans and socks, but I enjoyed being outdoors listening to the crick-crick, peeps and howls of the night animals.

The next morning, we decided to forgo a visit to the nearby hot springs. Although their beauty was legendary, the general consensus on safety was bad.

“if you go to the springs take an armed guard,” said a wiry fisherman, who had spent most of his sixty years near or on the water at Puerto Barrios. The surrounding jungle and water made the region ideal for drug smuggling and there were new tensions.

“Many people blame gringos for the rising cost of land,” said the fisherman, nodding his head my way. “Women are often targets.”

Back on Highway 13 heading north to Tikal, we left the marshy swamps and entered a dark forest canopy punctuated by swathes of deforestation where the jungle had been ripped out to make way for plantations.

“This is where Papa owned 500 acres,” said Javier. “We rode three days by horseback into the jungle once to see it.”

“Wow, what happened to it?” I asked, already envisioning myself as the duena of a jungle eco-lodge decorating it in a chic minimalist style and designing menus.

“Papa forgot to pay the taxes. So we lost it.”

My shoulders slumped at the unspoken reminder of Papa Challo’s failing health. Far from being the family patriarch whose astute business sense had been an inspiration, he’d borrow money and never make a payment. Single-mindedly uninterested in his kid’s education, he didn’t hold much stock in education and skipped Javier’s graduation completely. Two of Javier’s siblings hadn’t progressed beyond Grade 3.

“How old were you when you started working on the ranch?” I asked.

“I was taking cows to pasture when I was six. We had so much fun.”

He didn’t mention he’d had a finger ripped out of its socket by a runaway horse and cracked his skull open twice -- by the time he was nine years old. Listening to him, you’d think his childhood had been one big lark.

He’d lied about his age and got a job in a high school when he was 15 earning enough to pay for two of his brothers and one sister to attend secondary school. In Canada he’d paid for his nieces to attend school -- no-one ever seemed to have enough money for the girls. If there was a patriarch in his family, he was it, not his father.
Beyond the town of Flores, we caught sight of Lake Peten Itza, the site of Coppola’s La Lancha Lodge. Lake Peten Itza is Guatemala’s second largest lake and has at least 27 Maya sites around its perimeter. Originally settled by the Itza tribe who left the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico in the 13^th century and built the capital called Noh Petén or "City Island" in this region, it was the last independent state of the Maya civilization to hold out against the Spanish conquerors. They didn’t manage to conquer the island until 1697.

With tendrils of vines slapping the windshield, our journey began to feel like a scene from Coppola’s film classic Apocalypse Now. The highway deteriorated to gravel and then mud. We slowed to navigate the potholes and I was able to peer into the jungle and see mounds of crumbling stone structures and rough trails leading off into darkness. Legends say many Itzá people hid in this jungle for years. It was easy to see how. It looked virtually impregnable.

“How did Coppola ever find this place?” asked Javier once we finally arrived at the lodge. Covered in dust, we ached from 40 minutes of jostling down the access road.

“Most people come here to hide away and not be seen. We pick up VIPs at a private airstrip in Flores and transport them to our property,” explained manager Bernie Matute, a slim, stylish Belizean who greeted us. He'd transferred from Coppola’s property in Belize to oversee a major renovation of La Lancha and was in the midst of adding a lounge, a library and a gift shop.

The resort was laid out in terraces with the main lodge and dining area at road level, the swimming pool below and cabanas scattered across the hillside down to the waterfront. Palapa roofs peeked out of the foliage facing Lake Peten Itza which stretched as far as the eye could see. Its surface was bathed in a light fog which made its surface seem as soft as cashmere. A lone figure of a man in a dugout canoe glided past and then disappeared into the mist.

“You’re staying in Bungalow #6 - the same cabana as Charlize Theron did,” whispered the desk clerk. “She was here with her husband Stuart Townsend.”

Our cabana was worthy of Hollywood royalty. Tucked off a cobblestone pathway, it was draped in vines from the orchid-threaded jungle. A deck with a white hammock faced the waterfront. We were completely alone. At night, white moonlight lit up the stone pathway and the flickering hurricane lamps on the upper terrace looked like fireflies. Javier fell fast asleep and I lay awake listening to the night sounds.

But as the night progressed, the guttural howling, wet snarls and crunching outside the window became far from comforting. I couldn’t help wondering if Charlize Theron had felt as spooked as I did. I doubted if Stuart Townsend had fallen asleep like Javier. There was no TV or radio and the only telephone was a giant conch shell that functioned as a walkie-talkie. I closed the shutters and tried to think cheery thoughts.

One of the first thoughts that came to mind was of the pastel de elote, a corn dessert the chef had promised to prepare for me the next day. I was excited to explore the menu the upcoming day. Months earlier I’d reviewed La Lancha’s menu and been intrigued by its creative blend of old dishes and new techniques. Now I was about to meet the chef. He hailed from Jobompiche an aldea or small community next to Cahui National Biosphere 30 minutes from the lodge. The community, made up of people of Q’eqchi and Ladino descent, is well known for its communal planting practices where the entire community would plant the fields for one member in one day and the event would be followed by a ceremonial meal prepared by the women. Their town’s festival day prominently featured skulls in its festivities.

One of Guatemala’s most promising young chefs, he drew on this cultural heritage for inspiration but was also classically trained at INTECAP, Guatemala’s culinary institute. Although in the past, Guatemala’s luxury hotels featured American favourites such as Caesar salad and spaghetti, the country was at the cusp of a culinary renaissance and many chefs were reviving cultural traditions and ingredients. I looked forward to hearing what he had to say and fell asleep listening to the shriek of a gecko snatching its prey, and dreaming of pillowy dessert custards.

The next morning, the echoes of howler monkeys woke me up early. Although it was already hot and humid, Javier threw on his jeans and boots and headed down to the dock to fish. I could have gone hiking with the lodge’s resident bird expert but it was easier to do my bird watching from the breakfast terrace where masked tityra, social flycatcher and emerald toucan flitted past. My real interest lay in the bread basket, packed full of coconut bread and banana bread, followed by desayuno petenero – fried eggs cooked with corn and bacon served on steamed potatoes topped with a spicy ranchero sauce.

Well fuelled, we spent the rest of the day scrambling over the pyramids in Tikal National Park. One of the largest archaeological sites of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, Tikal was declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. The jungle, home to puma, jaguar and white tailed deer is one of the most untouched in the Americas and stretched north as far as Chiapas, Mexico.

It was Javier’s first visit to Tikal and he was as fascinated as I was by the enormity and mystic quality of the structures. One of the major cultural and population centers of the Maya civilization, its monumental architecture dates to the 4^th century BC and I understood why Francis Ford Coppola had been drawn to this place and this country.

Stepping off the path leading to ancient pyramids called el mundo perdido (the Lost World), we encountered a man foraging for pacaya in the gloomy shade of the giant cieba or kapok trees. Thelma and I had prepared pacaya, an edible flower pod of the pacaya palm tree, just a few days earlier so it was serendipitous to see it growing in the wild. The delicate fronds – which resembled octupus tendrils - are dipped into egg batter, fried as fritters and sold by village women in colourful Mayan markets such as Chichicastenango, Solola and Todos Santos.

That night I indulged in several glasses of crisp Sauvignon Blanc from Coppola’s own Napa Valley winery, nibbled on appetizers such as tostadas con salpicon, a refreshing blend of shredded beef, lime juice and finely-minced radishes and chatted with Chef Ezekiel. Spanish was a second language for both of us and we struggled to find the right culinary terminology.

“I prepared Suban Ik for you” he said as he brought forward a steaming clay dish. I was thrilled and honoured. It was the tourist off-season so Suban Ik wasn’t officially on the menu and it was a labour-intensive dish to make for just two people. The ceremonial Kaqchiquel Maya dish relies on wild turkey, ancho and guaque chiles to impart its unique flavor.

“This dish signifies communication with the gods so it’s most often served on ceremonial days,” explained Chef. While I spooned up the succulent meat and savoury broth, our conversation turned to Guatemala’s first winery, regional specialities and then cheese from Zacapa.

Rain began to fall in great torrents. As we walked down the cobblestone stairs to our cabana,thunder shook the ground and waves of mist drifted in from the lake like heavy breaths from a great unseen beast.

“Watch your step, “said Javier as he held the flashlight out ahead of us illuminating the glistening rocks. I grabbed his belt buckle so as not to trip or lose my way.

Beyond the path’s edge, wide leaves swayed in the wind. Tall as men they appeared like Easter Island heads. Muffled chirps from frogs echoed like amphibious pinballs out of the darkness.

It was nature on steroids – terrifying and wonderful at the same time.

Guatemala had burst into life and I loved it.

Recipe: Suban-ik

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