We woke before dawn. As usual, the early-morning condensation had soaked everything. Everything, that is, except all the gear I wanted dry, which I had zipped into my pack the night before. I was learning.
Fernando built the fire, made two cups of steaming, sweet coffee. We ate a light breakfast of hot granola and jungle fruit, and then he left to retrieve the mule while I broke camp. He returned bewildered.
"La mula ya se fue," he said.
"What do you mean, the mule already left?" I asked.
"Ya salió," he said.
"What do you mean he's gone?"
We searched the jungle for more than an hour, kicking through the underbrush. Nada. No mule.
"I talked to the guards," Fernando informed me, "and they said we can borrow one of their horses. You can just buy the lost mule from its owner."
I made it clear that that was not an option, and we resumed our search. Back into the jungle, for another hour. Still nothing. No way was I going to buy the damn mule. We stepped out of the jungle, and there, in the clearing, was the mule, grazing as if he'd been there all morning. Maybe so. I'd experienced enough weirdness over the past months that it was not beyond the realm of possibility. We packed and set out for Nakbe, two hours late.
The day spent at El Mirador without my pack was noticeable in my muscles and joints, but an hour into the late-morning trek, the pain had returned in full, to its most excruciating levels. This was the hardest, the longest, the farthest I'd ever pushed my body. The waist buckle on my pack had taken to popping open repeatedly, demanding constant readjustment.
The garrapata itch in my legs raged like wildfire, mosquitoes were in full swarm, and the bees were active. The prior days had taught me to accept the itch of the mosquitoes and the venom of the bees, to diffuse them, to quicken their dispersal. The process was never total, but it helped. For the first time, I noticed the splendid coloration of the bees-electric, vibrant, reflective metallic sheens of red, orange, blue, green-on these resplendent robotic creatures from some faraway galaxy. Still, in the cynicism of my pain, I knew their true purpose, to inject my flesh with venom, to drive the pain to a maddening crescendo.
The jungle floor was scarred with massive toppled trees; root systems thrust vertically, two mules high, exposing at the base tangles of roots, dried soil, and cavernous recesses. Just as we passed one of these, the mule reared in front of me, neighing and snorting, backing violently toward me, almost pulling Fernando over by the lead rope. I snapped from the trance.
"¡Barba amarilla!" shouted Fernando. He threw down the lead rope and stepped away from the snarled cathedral of roots. The mule almost backed over me as we reversed our position. The snake disappeared in a matter of seconds, slithered back into the root system. I never did see it.
The mule refused to follow the trail past the roots. We hacked a detour around them and continued. The rest of the morning, the mule was skittish. So was I. The pain of the heat and the heat of the pain were racking. The trance set its delirium-laced hooks. The jungle was a monotonous collage of identical, rhythmic green in every direction. The waist buckle popped open.
Dammit, man, are the manufacturers of this pack going to hear from me! The single most important part of a trekking pack and it doesn't even work! How is that possible?
I stopped to readjust the pack, to fix the infuriating buckle, again. I finished and looked up. Fernando was gone. The mule was gone. Vanished into the endless deep tapestry of green.
This is not good.
I looked at the trail behind me, in front of me, identical in both directions.
Okay, stay calm. Think. Which way were we going? Which way were you facing when you stopped to fix the buckle? Have you changed position since stopping?
I . . . do . . . not . . . know.
I searched both directions of the trail, squinting and straining my eyes as though that would somehow enable my vision to penetrate deeper into the impenetrable cloak of vegetation. Exhausted and delirious, I accepted my fate and guessed. Fifteen minutes later I saw the mule. Damn, they were traveling fast.
The rest of the trail passed without incident. After a late start and six hours of travel, we arrived at Nakbe. As we emerged into the clearing, several guards crossed the encampment to meet us. "¡Bienvenidos!" they shouted, welcoming us with warm smiles. As we learned later, we were the first outsiders they had seen in three weeks.
The jefe of the greeting party gave us his formal welcome, addressed Fernando in a ritualistic dialogue similar to that of the chiclero days before. It's a peculiar exchange, one of protocol and etiquette, a jungle language of respect. The guard complimented our mule.
"Sí, él es chiquito, pero fuerte," came Fernando.
The conversation turned to the shortage of water in the jungle. The guards told us of the stagnant, algae-clogged water dwindling in their collection device, and immediately offered it to us, no mention of charge. Fernando recounted the guard at El Mirador, who sold water. All the guards demonstrated their contempt, in dramatic fashion. The jungle was changing, they agreed.
Fernando and I rushed to unpack the mule, watered him, and set off with two of the guards to climb Temple I, a twenty-story behemoth soaring high above the canopy. After the near-vertical climb to the summit, we emerged into clear blue sky at the top of the world. The older guide exclaimed "¡Aire fresco!" and inhaled. The rest of us followed suit, breathing deeply of the purest air imaginable.
"¡Fresco!"
"Verdad."
"Ahhh . . ."
I moved to the opposite edge of the temple's crown, three king-sized beds away, to sit in silence. I heard the low voices of the others behind me, hushed, reverent. The topic of their conversation never deviated from the sheer pleasure of the moment, the fresh air, the stiff wind, the warm sun, the clear day. These beings truly loved the jungle, and their interactions with it. They were hard men, living hard lives, in a hard environment. Moments that provided a sacred eagle's view of their world were precious and to be appreciated-moments that offered at once a sense of pride and accomplishment, humility, fragility, context, and a glimpse into the elusive forces behind perfection. After ten minutes or so of profuse praise, the conversation subsided to a barely audible murmur. A very tranquil time later, relaxed and recharged, we stood and walked reluctantly to the vertical passage leading off the temple. Before descending, each of us stole one final glance over our shoulder, one last taste of calidad.
We'd arrived at Nakbe later than planned because of the lost-mule fiasco, so Fernando parted with us to go set up camp, and sent me with the two guards to explore the rest of the city. They proudly guided me through the domain under their charge-speculating what structures lay buried beneath mounds; pointing in the direction of faraway cities connected to Nakbe from atop the snaking causeways that connected them; describing day-to-day life at the encampment. Their excitement mounted midafternoon as we neared a recent discovery of the archaeologists. We turned off the trail into the thick of the jungle, walked through undergrowth for a while, and then stepped among a mass of rectangular ruins, scarcely discernible beneath a carpet of foliage.
It was not a temple, they told me, but a great residence, one of the largest in Nakbe, probably that of a family line of successful merchants. The guards explained the floor plan as we passed through the ruins, and then we returned to the forest, walked a short distance, and arrived at a hole in the ground. It was an opening, they said, to an underground water system constructed by the Maya.
The younger of the two guards climbed in and gestured for me to follow. The opening swarmed with mosquitoes and the black air was musty and stale. A short passageway led to a circular tunnel running horizontally to the left and right, about four feet in diameter, with a thick layer of sediment forming an even floor. I turned on my headlamp, revealing a rectangular pile of stones the size of a water tambo. Lizards bolted for the dark void. The guard explained that wealthy families used these passages for hiding and escape in times of trouble . . . and as vaults for their most precious jewels and treasures; the pile of stones, he said, was an opened vault. He motioned for me to shine my light down the passage. There, fading into the darkness ahead of us, was a row of the rectangular vaults, unbreached, unopened.
We crawled to the first intact vault. The guard pointed. "Tiene tesoro. Todos tienen tesoro."
The vaults all contained treasure. Knowing that I might never get that close again, I put both hands on the vault in front of us and held them there for a long moment, closed my eyes, imagined the contents, imagined the former keepers, imagined myself as the keeper . . . and returned the treasure to its creator.
We shuffled backward and climbed from the hole, through the mosquitoes, into the light. As we walked away, I looked back toward the inconceivably discoverable, unfeasibly accessible, subterranean secret, and thanked it for its lesson.
We emerged onto the faintest of trails and followed its course. We had been stomping through dense underbrush for some time, so it didn't bother me to continue. The guards followed the trail, while I walked beside them, kicking through light ground cover. It was easier than staying on the path.
The older guard stopped and beckoned to me. We squatted in the path and he pointed at the leaf of a small plant, inches off the ground, half green and half brown. He picked the leaf cautiously and indicated the brown half.
"Garrapatas," he said.
"Huh?" I thought, leaning in for a closer look. The realization was shocking. The dead brown half of the leaf was, in fact, green leaf covered in a teeming mass of thousands of larval garrapatas.
"Es un nido," he said.
In one of those lightning seconds, those singular flashes of brain synapses, when so many questions are suddenly and simultaneously answered, I realized that I must have kicked one of those nests on the first day, that this was why my legs were so infested, why the garrapatas seemed to launch their endless attack from nowhere, why Fernando had so relatively few, why Fernando often preferred that the mule lead the way . . . clear the way.
"It's easier to see them on the path," the older guard explained. "You'll always get them from the trees and the ground, but if you can avoid the nests, it makes life much better. Now you know. Stay on the path."
I had heard that before. "Sí."
For the rest of my time in that jungle I scanned the ground in front of me for those furry brown leaves. At first it was a game, maintaining that awareness. Then it became automatic and I no longer had to think about it. I managed to spot many, and evidently avoided them all.
We walked on and the guards gathered fruit from the jungle floor. We ate it as we walked, and I told them of the fruit Fernando had gathered at El Mirador.
"Could somebody live in the jungle, eating only its fruit?" I asked.
"No," the young guard answered. "Necesita tortillas también."
We climbed Temple III, almost entirely covered at its summit with full-grown trees, and bathed in the scenery and aire fresco. Proper reverence was given and silence observed.
As we climbed back down, the younger guard asked how much a beer cost in the States.
"Dos," I told him.
"¿Dólares?" he asked.
"Claro."
He did the math. "Eso es igual a dieciséis quetzales."
"Sí . . ."
"We get beers for nine quetzales in Santa Elena." Pause. "Quetzales are much better than dollars."
"Cierto," I responded. Couldn't argue with his logic.
We crossed the urban heart of Nakbe to Temple II, the last pyramid in the triad, and climbed to its highest plaza, from which we would make the final vertical climb through the canopy to the summit. The younger guard and I had begun the ascent when the older guard called out. We stopped and turned. The older guard told his colleague to come down. The younger guard looked at me, shrugged, said "Siga," then climbed to the plaza below. I continued the ascent. Once at the summit, I waited for the guards, but they never came. I took in everything, aware this was the last temple of the day, nagged by the knowledge that the guards were patiently waiting below. I did what I had learned. I breathed deeply of the aire fresco, observed a state of reverence, and savored the moment.
I thought about the Maya who had constructed these massive cities a thousand years across time, the chicleros who had used them as encampments for decades, and the archaeologists who had recently discovered them. I thought about how difficult it had been for me to get this far from civilization. Was there any place left on earth worthy of true exploration? Any place where one could realize the dreams of explorers, to be the first and only? Maybe I was too late. Maybe that era had long since passed, before my birth, before I had a say in the matter.
What was it that drove explorers? Treasure? Adventure? A need to prove something to themselves? A need to be unique? To overcome difficulty and hardship? To push the frontiers of possibility?
Those archaeologists hadn't discovered this place, not in the true sense of the word, but to themselves they had. What had they discovered? Could I discover it also? Maybe in those adventurous moments when one arrives at a sacred place, that place becomes a safe harbor, a place to explore the ultimate frontier, the inner realms. No electricity, no running water, no civilization, no people, only an isolated patch of physical reality. A place where one cannot remain, and thus where one must relish every detail, lest it ever slip away. A sacred place where it is possible to step into the abyss, enveloped by the perfect, unyielding laws of nature, from which flow the immutable laws of man, of the explorer himself.
I watched the eagles and parrots and monkeys traverse the canopy below, perfectly living out their lives. I identified trees below, as Fernando had taught me to do at El Mirador. A butterfly landed on my knee and stayed there for a while, slowly opening and closing its angelic wings. The late sun warmed my body and the jungle winds cooled my skin. I didn't want to leave, but it was time.
Atop the Pirámide del Sol at Teotihuacán in Mexico, a friend had taught me that in such sacred places, an offering is in order-an offering not of man, but of nature. I had no flowers or stones or animals with me, so I offered my heart. I offered it in whole, still beating, with all the reverence I could summon, and then I thanked the temple for the experience.
I met the guards on the plaza below. We descended the mighty pyramid to the jungle floor and made our way to the encampment. Dusk was coming on fast.
I met Fernando back at camp, unpacked, and rested. We talked for a while. Soon, all the guards came to our camp to socialize. Laughter and voices rose with the flames of the campfire, only to dissipate in the encroaching darkness. One of the guards found a scorpion and several of them played with it. I talked with Fernando and the elder guard, not paying much attention to the others. A few minutes later the other guards surrounded us. One of them extended his arm, palm open, holding the small scorpion. He motioned for me to take it.
No way, I motioned back.
He insisted.
I looked at Fernando. He nodded.
I let the scorpion crawl into my hand. The guards laughed with anticipation, and their excitement grew. The guard who had handed me the scorpion gestured at it with a stick.
"Moléstalo," he said.
"¿Moléstalo?" Is this guy kidding me, I wondered. The last thing I plan to do is piss this scorpion off while I'm holding it.
"¿Estás loco? No." I told him.
"Sí, sí, ¡hágalo!" he insisted.
I looked at Fernando; again a nod. So I took a stick, poked at the scorpion, and as expected, it whipped its tail forward, injecting its venom into the heel of my palm. I dropped a few f-bombs, and the scorpion. Remembered something my mother had told me about friends' jumping off cliffs. How stupid could I be? It stung, but not too bad. Close to a bee sting.
Everyone laughed, yours truly excluded.
The guards turned over a second scorpion in the dirt, and demonstrated how they'd removed a series of fleshy comb-like organs from the belly of the first scorpion-I assumed these were the venom glands. This time I laughed with them. I was exhausted and delirious.
I had packed an agonizing liter of dead-weight whiskey for four days, thinking that it might prove useful for killing pain or marking some ceremonial moment. I grabbed it from my pack, along with two shot glasses Fernando had included in the kitchen mess, filled them both to the rim, handed one to the guard who had handed me the scorpion, extended the other for a toast, and exclaimed, "¡A la selva!" We knocked them back, the guards cheered, everyone echoed the sentiment. I poured pair after pair of shots and passed them among the guards. All imbibed. It was the first whiskey to wet their lips in months. We joked about the scorpion and polished off the bottle, Fernando and I deferring, to the benefit of the guards. They returned to their camp after a dramatic round of handshakes, in the best of spirits.
Fernando and I had some coffee, enjoyed a light dinner of grilled plátanos, and talked for a while. Then I rose and threw some gear into my sleeping-bag sack.
"¿Adónde vas?" he said.
"Arriba, a Templo Uno."
"Alone?" he asked.
"You want to come?"
"Sí, me gustaría, pero necesito quedarme aquí para cuidar el campamento."
"Well, then, I guess I'm going alone."
"Bueno, chico. Cuídate."
"Sí."
After stumbling through the dark jungle, I scrambled up the almost vertical mountain temple, felt my way through the night from plaza to higher plaza, burst onto the summit, into the heavens of the clear night sky, into the crescent moon, into the Milky Way, into the infinite sea of stellar luminescence. Laid out a tarp and sleeping bag, pulled on long underwear, weighted and secured all remaining gear against the wind. Lay there, alone, eyes wide for hours, embraced by the wind and moisture, staring into every conceivable possibility that ever has been and ever will be, the source of all mystery, a boundless dimension of dreams, patiently waiting to be realized.
The stiff jungle wind applied constant pressure; vapor condensed, soaking everything. Dreams cycled through the night with electric physical sensation. The stone temple was uncomfortable, hard on the back, and sleep was poor, but the night itself was fantastic.