Wednesday, June 23. Xeo, Ixil Country, Guatemala

At 7 AM, I was stretched out on the floor of my hotel room breathing into my tense hamstrings, the way my yoga instructor told me to. The four year old, Jenna, barged in to tell me breakfast is ready.

"Desayuna listo!" she cried. She didn't seem taken aback by my erratic posture. I nodded "Si" from my awkward position.

Anna, the oldest of the five children, comes a few minutes later to confirm, but she just knocks loudly. I chow down some beans, eggs, and thick corn tortillas, while I kindly declined coffee laced with a pound of sugar. No wonder there's a lot of gold teeth in this country.

At 8:39 AM I head down to the terminal looking for a ride to Laguna Tsalbal. I had this wonderful computer printout of a self-guided hike, in fact a series of self-guided hikes, which began at Laguna Tsalbal. From there, I would walk for a few hours, arrive at a quaint yet poor highland village, where I would sleep in the hospedjae, and eat some great food with a lovely local family. I would take in the views, watch the children play in the streets, converse with the women. The next morning I would get up as dawn broke over the mountains, and repeat. I planned to spend the week bopping from village to village, ascending gorgeous mountains with some of the best views in Central America, then dropping into lush river valleys, and sleeping soundly after a hard day's walk and play. I had been looking forward to this week for at least a month, and I was very excited about my upcoming adventures.

The terminal was encircled by a half dozen tiendas, which are tiny open-air stores. The buses park directly in front of these things, so close you can spit on them. I approach a woman sitting behind the counter of one of these tiendas as she carefully wove a piece of material. From the looks of her, she had been minding the store and weaving for fifty years.

"What bus to Laguna Tsalbal?" I ask politely, in my thickly accented Spanish.
"Saber," she replies, without looking up. "Saber" is loosely translated into English as "Who knows?" and said with that sort of apathetic, just give it up attitude. At the very least, it's an unhelpful response that assumes that the correct answer isn't even known. At the most, it says quit looking for the answer and quit bothering me. However, I lacked the Spanish to express my confusion and agitation about her apparent disinterest and lack of vital information regarding my situation.

At the next tienda, the smiling man tells me 11, 12, and 1, and he's at least two decades younger than the woman. Maybe it's the machismo, the men here are always ready to help a girl out.

I decide I'm walking to the Laguna. Rumor had it that it was only an hour's stroll, and I wanted to be on the trail early enough to beat the consistent afternoon rain. About 30 minutes down the road I run into three women who are CLEAR that Tsalbal is real far, about a four-hour walk.

I stop at a small tienda to confirm this. The woman behind the counter agrees with the ladies.

"You know Xeo?" I ask. Xeo is my final destination for the night, about a three-hour walk from the Laguna.
"Saber," she replies, and rolls her eyes.

I sit down at a set of crossroads, pondering my day, when I hitch a drive with a family. The man didn't know where Xeo was either. I'm in the back with the two little girls who don't say a word to me for the next fifteen minutes. They just look scared.

They drop me off about halfway to Tsalbal, and I start walking along a gravel backcountry road, past some folks who are obviously wondering what the hell a single female with a backpack and a pile of dreads is up to on their road. Some children came near me, looking shy and scared...mostly scared, because they yelled "AAAAAAHHH! GRINGA!", and ran away.

After fifteen minutes I catch a ride in the back of this dump truck. Literally. The driver can't stop because we're on an incline and he just won't start again. But his buddy in the cab is waving at me to catch up. So I jump onto the rail of the side door and hang onto the window, wondering what do next while the truck rumbles up the mountain. The man riding shotgun motions that I should hop into the back that is enclosed with a solid wall of green fence about six feet high. I think he's crazy, but I throw my backpack over the top, and pulled off my best Dukes of Hazzard stunt moves scaling the truck. Then I realized I would be sharing the bed with two local men, a spare tire and a load of crushed gravel. Good fellas overall, who tried to convince me to take a ride with them all the way to Xeo. The didn't quite understand my desire to walk there, especially since I had no idea where I was going.

In Tsalbal, I thanked them again, and jumped down from my green wall with no grace whatsoever. I met the stares of three men, as if I had dropped from Mars, not a gravel truck. I asked how to get to Xeo, and in unison they tell me it's real far as my ride pulls away. One of the guys in the group is drunk, so I turn my attention to an older gentleman who appears slightly concerned and definitely disapproving of my situation. He gives me directions to the trailhead, I understand that I'm supposed to go straight "recto", and then he pats me on the shoulder with a quick "good luck girl, you'll need it" look.

The town is no more than a five-minute walking circumference and it took me about a half hour to get started on the correct path. I had given up on the computer directions, and started meandering through someone's fields, going in what I thought was the generally correct direction. I noticed a small house with a family working in the front yard, and I start walking towards the friendly looking woman of the house to ask once again, which way to go.

Her dogs were attacking me when she fended them off with a stick and her boy threatened them with a corncob. I tell her my situation that I'm looking for Xeo. She knew where I meant, and told me to cut through the woods, it would only take an hour and a half. She also said it's seguro - safe, lots of people, no drunk guys or ladrones - robbers. Just some dogs.

I imagine being on this the trail is a bit like being in the Hobbit's Shire, as I walked by people toiling in the cornfields, and rolling countryside passed by, dotted with small cement or earthen huts. Occasionally a child would stop and stare, but people seemed mostly friendly or indifferent to my presence as they busied about their daily tasks. I was also the tallest, biggest thing out there, which added to the hobbit impression. After an hour, I spot this village on the other side of the valley that I am descending, and a woman minding her goats tells me that it's Xeo. This village is situated about halfway up a mountain that peaks in the clouds. Looking down, I can see glimpses of sparkling water, and looking across, I see a brown trail steadily switchback at some uncomfortably steep angles up the mountainside. I figure I will have to descend a kilometer, then gain it on the way back up, or build a rope bridge right now. My legs weakened in anticipation.

A rope bridge did not appear, so I began my descent. My legs were shaking so much on the rapid and stiff descent that it made stopping stupid because I wobbled like jelly on crazy precipices. Finally at the bottom I reached the river valley that was hinted from above. The gray blue water rushed below me from my seat on the covered bridge, it was a color I have never seen before, it looked fresh and inviting. I don't know how water can look that clean during the rainy season.

I started my ascent as the clouds formed, and made it in an hour. My butt muscles were on fire and I had no energy left to look presentable as I stumbled into the village.

I made eye contact with a child playing in her yard as I puffed up the hill. "AAAAAHHHH! GRINGA!" She ran away, screaming.

Her sisters came to check me out, and were no help helping me find the people the computer said I would be looking for. Just arriba they told me, which means go up, up, up. This village was built on one slick hill, the steepest I had climbed to date, let's just call it a cliff. It seemed everyone came out to watch me scale that mountain face, wheezing like a pregnant fish out of water. But everyone told me, just arriba, more arriba, it's only arriba. Most of the children had the "AAAAAHHH! GRINGA!" response, although one little guy stopped his wailing when he saw me. His tears cleared up and he hiccupped in awe as I passed by.

I found a store, bought some water, which I gulped down like a calf at the teat, and found the woman running the store to be shy and not very comfortable in Spanish. But she found the key, brought me to the hospedaje. She clucked in sympathy and giggled a bit at my mountain inadequacy. Then said she would bring me supper. Good, that meant I wouldn't have to go get it.

I barely moved for the next hour. Then I talked to the girl next door. She told me one guy on the list had gone to the States.
"And the other?" I ask.
"Saber," she tells me and giggles.

Eventually Miguel arrived, he was on the list, I don't know if he's recently back from the States, but it was his wife that brought me dinner. They talked to me while I ate, along with six kids who shyly watched me munch. I relaxed a little, and would feel a child pulling at a dread now and again, usually when I was thoroughly occupied with a tortilla. I told them their hair wouldn't take to it.

After supper I sat and watched the clouds roll in at eye level. They just moved through the valley on their way up to higher skies. It looked like the trees in the valley were smoking, lighting fires then carefully releasing waves of fog into the sky.

Thursday morning, June 24. Cotzol, Ixil Country, Guatemala

At 7 AM I was up, fed tortillas, beans rice and eggs, and the sweetest coffee this side of a sugar plantation. At 8 AM, I left with my guide, Miguel, in the cool quiet morning. After yesterday's fiasco, I though I would try out a guide for the day. The views were something spectacular, and it was nice having a guide, but not necessary because the trail is obvious and there are many folks about. We talked a little about Canada, but not much. I don't like to talk and walk, and anyway, I don't have the lungs for it.

Made it to Cotzol by lunch. Miguel lined up a meal for me in an old woman's house, so I sat on a child's chair in a little dirt floor kitchen while she made tortillas over an open fire. She served me a cup of boiling hot soup in a black cast-iron mug, along with tortillas, and a drink, which they said was soya but it looked like oatmeal mush to me. It was easy on the sugar.

There's a young girl, her name has slipped my mind, who is patiently and constantly hanging out with me. Her baby brothers and cousins are running amuck but are technically in charge of a measly herd of sheep that are munching on the slim grass spread about my hospedaje. She speaks little Spanish, I speak no Ixil. Therefore, there's not much to talk about. I wonder what her home is like, if she's just avoiding it, or if she's with the sheep too. I asked if she wanted to play cards or checkers, but she said no. She seems happy enough sitting, and watching.

I met one drunken loser today, at the place where I ate lunch. He got out of bed to say hello and to pat my back, all red-eyed and chubby. The old woman watched him carefully during his attempt at being friendly. There are no chubby men up in these mountains. If you are chubby you are rich or lazy.

Friday, June 25. Nebaj, Guatemala

Today my home cooked breakfast was a boiled egg with chicken flavored noodles and tortillas. I ate this with Elena and her six daughters. Dunno where the husband was. Quiet meal, once again an all-round lack of Spanish amongst the seven of us. And sugared coffee again, it's like eating a coffee crisp bar. There were chickens and ducks in the kitchen, Elena even shooed one out of the basket that she drained the noodles in. Living with animals is a much more intensely real experience than anywhere else I have ever seen.

By 7:17 AM I was ready to go. It was cool, cloudy, misty green and blue. I got to the bottom by nine, sat down by the river and drank my water, and ate my cookies before beginning the ascent. Now, the computer said one and a half hours of a good climb, but it took me two hours pretty much on the dot. Long, tiring, sweat stinging my eyes, just becoming more exhausted with each step. I needed a break.

At the crest were a small village and a little store, so I bought some water, and caught my breath on the steps of the store. While I sat, some young boys with their fathers trotted past carrying hardwood planks on their shoulders. They were coming from the same direction that had wiped me out, but the boys had bright smiles and a quick "Hola" for me. I was being humbled by eight year olds.

The store was run by a young woman whose four-year-old boy was sitting in the front yard. He appeared mentally disabled, and he sat there, naked except for a ripped T-shirt, playing with a stick. His mother was obviously busy running the store and the house, and he had a younger sister who played with the energy and curiosity of an average two year old. But I think he just spent his days sitting there, eating some dirt, and looking at whoever passed by.

I'm back in my hotel room in Nebaj, waiting on my supper. I wonder if I got whatever I wanted out of this little excursion. It was scary at times, it was uncomfortable most of the time, the climbs hurt all the time, and the views were breathtaking. I don't feel pride, or strength or a sense of satisfaction. I'm just tired and grateful to be back in civilization.

Monday, June 28. Cocop, Ixil Country, Guatemala

I decided I would do a two-day hike, and according to the computer it was an easy climb, some crest walking, and fairly short. I arrived in Cocop and settled in by 2:30, then arranged for supper and a temascal, a Mayan sauna that is essentially a small dirt hut with a low door and a very hot fire that is fed from the inside or outside. The family uses it for weekly bath, because you get in there and sweat out all the dirt for as long as you can stand the suffocating heat and darkness.

Feliciana Brito R. is the owner of this particular temascal. She's a bright-eyed 40 year-old, giggles a lot, has her own teeth, eight kids, five or six that are still living, and a dead husband. Andres, at twelve years old, is the man of the family. I met him struggling with a pickax and a large flower bush recently dug up.

"Necesitas ayudar?" I asked.
"Si," he said. There was no running away and screaming from him. Brave lad.

So I took the pickax and helped him plant the bush under his mother's direction. Andres is smart as a whip, you can see it, but there's no more school for him after this year. We talked about this in Spanish.

"I want to go to school, but I can't pay. No father, no money."
"Other boys from here, do they go to school in Nebaj?"
"Sure a lot of them do, if they have fathers and the money."

Ten-year-old Hyacinth speaks only Ixil, and seems to have avoided learning Spanish despite going to school. Mario is eight, doesn't have many of his teeth left, and also has a mental disability. He's a friendly boy, always walking around with his slingshot, and seems to listen to his mother very carefully. The youngest at six is Maria Angelica, also bright and personable. We all hung out in the dirt floor kitchen waiting for Feliciana to prepare the temascal, and feeding the fire under a huge pot of corn tamales.

Once Feliciana decided the temascal was ready, she showed me everything and asked if I wouldn't mind if she took her bath with me. Sure why not? I responded, after initial apprehension about being naked and alone in a dark hot room with a strange woman. But then I decided it would be a great learning experience, since she must know how to conduct oneself properly in these situations. So in we go, off come the clothes, she's yelling at the little ones to bring her a towel to protect her hair from the fire. She puts one of her children's sweatshirts over my head.

"Like me," she says to me, giggling wildly.
"Si," I agree.

She has a big pot of hot hot water going on top of the fire and a smaller one for washing, some soap that I usually see used for laundry, and a cold-water hose that is leaking away on my feet. Feliciana tells me to put my hands on the bench and turn my butt to the fire - get it as close as I can without burning. I assume the position and in less than five minutes and there are rivers of sweat pouring off me. She's spitting up mucus, I guess it's temascal etiquette, so I start clearing out the sinuses. She's talking to me, or yelling at the kids, or trying to get the door closed just right the whole time. I'm getting light headed rapidly.

The youngest, Maria, is crying at the door. "I'm scared you're going to die in there, Mama. I'm scared of the temascal." She's a smart one I figure. Feliciana scrubs down my back with the laundry soap and this instrument that is a cross between a loofah and a wire brush. Then she threw some hot water on my back. I'm not getting scalded, but I'm damn well getting clean. This sort of bathing must account for the beautiful Mayan complexion. I say the water's a little hot, she cools it down a bit from the hose, but by now everything is overwhelmingly hot.

Things started to get a little fuzzy, mentally, as I get hotter, it's harder to breathe, and my head is spinning. By the time we pop the door, it's a struggle for me to grab my clothes. We go inside and sit down on her bed, which is a platform covered with her clothes. She tells me to lie back, I say no, because illogically, I have decided the bed has fleas. I got up to leave, wrapped only in my towel, despite Feliciana's warning that I hadn't cooled enough to be walking around. I even made it out the door.

My next memory is being held slightly off the ground by Feliciana while the kids stared at me anxiously. I stumbled back to Feliciana's platform and collapsed there, while Hyacinth was left in charge of fanning me with a straw hat and a big grin. After a few minutes, all is much clearer and I said, "I think I can go now."

Feliciana and Andres said, "No. It's raining, and you still have the fire in your body. It's bad to go out in the rain with the fire in you. Wait until it stops."

I curled up back on Feliciana's platform and she sat beside me repeating, "Tch, Tch, I was scared for you." I was too tired to argue.

Because the temascal was still going, the rest of the family piled in according to some unknown order. The oldest daughter, who couldn't be more than twenty, had arrived with her husband and two little boys, and she managed the temascal from within. I watched Maria and Mario come out, naked little children in halos of steam, whose brown skin glowed and black hair glistened in the firelight. They ran to their mother, who giggled and whispered to them while she dried them off. I remember getting the same treatment from my mom after a Saturday night bath. I watched family life unfold from the platform where I was curled up, and listened to the rain sputter off the tin roof. After an hour or so, Feliciana and Andres let me go back to sleep hard at the hospedaje.

I went back in the morning for breakfast and bought two placemat sort of things, both used with little bits of corn still on them. Feliciana was eager to make a sale, and I liked the idea of buying something that had been useful. Besides, I was grateful for getting picked up off the ground.

She told me a bit about her family. One of her daughters was less than ten when she was shot to death in the government-sponsored massacre of 1981 during Easter Week. Feliciana was also shot, but the bullet passed through her side and she lived. Another daughter died of disease. Her husband died six years ago in a construction accident when a bunch of cement blocks fell on him. She lives in her mother's house, on her mother's land, the "terreno de mi madre".

After I ate, I helped Feliciana with her weaving. I fed the fire that kept the pot of tamales warm and wound skeins of thread into balls. She showed me her jig, how she had set it up and that she was going to weave some clothes for herself... I guess that's part of being Mayan, because it means something to weave your clothes thread by thread than to pick up some second hand American duds for a couple of bucks like I do. Cheaper and easier, just not really important.

I left around 10 AM when the rain looked like it had stopped. I was back in Nebaj for a late lunch, and went about a dreary Tuesday. I was cold, and all my clothes were at the laundramat. I kept thinking about Feliciana and her family.

I found out two things before the day was out. First, Feliciana completely ripped me off, charging me two and a half times what I would have paid in Nebaj for the same pieces of weaving. However, I decided to look at the rip-off in context because she isn't exactly taking me for more than she needs. I believe in the redistribution of wealth, so I had an active role in that today. Secondly, I talked to the guy working at the hip touristy restaurant/internet cafe who is also studying computers at school. 1500Q, or 190 USD, can get you through school for a year. I thought this was cheap. The guy working insisted that it wasn't. I heard him repeat my naiveté with incredulity to the girl working in the back of the restaurant. I wonder what he thinks watching me throw around a month's worth of tuition on internet and food? Then I thought about Miguel, who made 20-30Q each day to a maximum of 900Q, about 112 USD each month ... how do you send a kid to school on that kind of wage, after you feed everyone else and pay the rent?

Wednesday morning, June 30. Nebaj, Guatemala

Need to put Andres and Feliciana at the back of my mind. Have you ever wanted to change something but feel powerless to do so, or maybe just scared to try? There are millions of children in a worse plight that Andres...and I got to catch a bus to check out some of the other highland highlights.

Questions?
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