After a lazy morning, we rented kayaks which were unlike any I’ve encountered before. Made of thin plastic with little round, keel-less bellies, they didn’t cut through the water so much as flit across the surface driven by invisible forces. My attempts to steer prompted bouts of swearing; things were better when I just bobbed around, pivoting my mighty craft only to face the wake of a passing speedboat.
Later, we swam in the very cold lake, and got ready to hike to Santa Cruz de Laguna: the only safe route around here. (Along the trail in the other direction, toward San Pedro, there are frequent robberies by bandits with machetes. Armed guides are the way to go, if you must.)
It’s a steep, narrow, slippery trail with magnificent views. We soon encountered a middle-aged, new-aged woman from New Mexico who asked to hike with us, and then asked me every few minutes if I was sure I was going the right way. That’s a very silly question to ask someone like me. I sometimes don’t know where I’m going even after I’ve gotten there. After I told her about the time I got lost in Death Valley she fell into an uneasy silence, and turned back without us soon after — but not before she described her current project: comparing the astrological charts of 30 ex-boyfriends, 30 spiritual healers and 30 mass murderers.
As elsewhere, we passed local Mayas hauling things: two men bent under broad chests of drawers balanced by a forehead band; other men with burlap sacks half their height and filled with rocks; women with heavy-looking baskets on their heads and grown babies strapped to their sides. If I were walking on a wide, level, paved path with a burden like that I’d be whining about why I was ever born … and this trail is about 2 feet wide, scree- and rock-covered, and precipitous.
At one point we got … well, not lost, exactly, but turned around among the thick vegetation. As I grew increasingly nervous, we were startled by the sudden appearance of a local man, who reassured us we were aimed in the right direction … strange, since nothing looked familiar. He walked along with us for about ten minutes till we got back to familiar landmarks. I gave him Q10 for his kindness.
Speaking of precipitous, I don’t know why M so enjoys looking for things like wild orchids in places that make my heart choke.
And she also didn’t listen to me about the importance of applying sunscreen properly. She covered everything but her nose, and looked like this at the end of the day.
I worry that the locals resent having a gringo wandering recreationally around their trails and villages. Maybe they do, but they’re too civil to show it. Whenever I’ve attempted a passing buenas tardes their mask of concentration has cracked off to reveal one of courtesy.
In the few days we’ve been here we’ve rarely encountered a local person doing something alone; mostly they’ve been hauling and walking and washing with a companion or two … which seems different from the more isolated way we Americans get stuff done.
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