It all started on a sunshiney and hopeful Friday afternoon. I climbed into the shotgun of a 12 passenger van with 15 other bright eyed and bushy tailed people, excited for my 8 hour drive into the jungle of Guatemala- Semuc Champey.
Hours and a soul-searching conversation with Courtney later, I heard my voice from the backseat. “Adam!” I turned around, “Que pasa?” “No, no, outside!” I had already been outside, so I stuck out my head again to admire the land around me-the rolling hills of Guatemalan country sides, going further and further from anything familiar. Realizing they meant to turn around outside, I did and saw Amanda waving from the back window. I waved back and laughed, turned around smiling at the others in the van. “She was waving at you for the past 5 minutes, you were too distracted with the beauty weren’t you Adam?” Suzanna said. “It is just filled with beauty, huh?”It was as if in that moment she understood one of the more beautiful parts of me-my ability to have my breath taken away at all times by the grandiosity of the undiscovered parts of the world, their beauty shines in innocence, in freshness, in splendorous colors of light and welcoming. To Suzanna’s question I only smiled and stuck my head out the window again.
Just swim to the right. My feet bare on six inches of rusted metal, my arms reach behind me to hold on. No time to wonder what is below, just jump. Faith, it is blind, especially at midnight in the jungle.
Cold, my butt hurts, the water takes me further and further. Just swim to the right, this time not the voice inside my head but the others at the riverbed. “Further up, follow our voices,” I swim again, reaching out for something, anything, a hand and safety at last. The rush of the previous moment is realized as we laugh in the dark. “The fall lasted longer than I expected,” Pat said, “What a sensation!” John said “What a way to start off our jungle experience!”Chris said. I just smile and wait, soaking in, literally, the cold dark moment. Wondering how I got here.
The others meet us at the edge of the bridge, our heads wet from complete immersion, from not holding back for a moment. We walk up a hill with the flashlight on our crummy phones; “Whiskey!” is shouted by all at the top, a photo that is labeled “the Bridge Crew” is all that remains.
I wake from my bungalow bed at 5:45, rolling over, not wanting to walk down the ladder to take my early morning piss. I am sleeping with Chris, John and Pat, of the Bridge Crew, in the roof of the cabins. Quite literally, the part where the cabin becomes a triangle, if you were to cut it from the square of the cabin, you have my home. Jungle leaves, tin, jungle leaves, the sandwich of a roof over our heads, sunrise light pouring in through our non-door, only open to mother nature’s beckoned call.
Sunrise in the jungle. Aside from being that, it is the first sunrise I have seen in Guatemala, and what a way to discover it- awoken by the light pouring in, naturally, not expecting to see the sun beginning to creep over the hills, so far away, from everyone but me. I watch the leaves curl up and dry, stirred from their nocturnal slumber somewhere in the distance. I watch the river touch up its muddied waters with bits of sunlight, dancing in rapid motions. Over the hills a lighter form of a shadow takes the place of the real shadow, but it is still not the sunlight that touches upon the canopies of the trees, something more innocent. The sky takes the only color of gray that is hopeful, the one sprinkled with pinkish orange hues of solar force, removing traces of melancholy and replacing it with a harmony of night and day; their sound is only seen, by me.
Nine o'clock and I am anxious to be a part of the jungle more intimately. I see Freddie in his South Padre T-shirt. “Ayy! South Padre, es circa Tejas, la playa en el muy sud. Que bonita! Tu visitas?” “No, solo puygas el camiso,” his smile lightens in the dim atmosphere of the hostel’s covered patio/bar/tell all your secrets place. “Freddie, quantos tiempos mas salimos?” “Un momento mi amigo, un momento.”
An un momento later, (40 minutes) I ask Freddie again. “Somos saliendo pronto?” “En un momento, tranquilo tranquilo.” Laughing I say “Estaba un momento hace un momento. Quantos minutos en ‘un momento’?” True Guatemalan laughter, “Jaja, muchos minutos amigo, muchos minutos”. And so goes how I learned what “un momento” means in Guatemalan time.
Mucho momentos tarde, la vista, que bonita! -The view of Elysium, or whatever Elysium looks like in Spanish. From on top of the tallest hill in Semuc Champey I stood, below the natural pools that pour over into each other in beautiful sweetness, like the layers of a chocolate fondue-the richness looks grand from afar, but to be in it is to experience it. To the far left, somewhere in the distance the source of this grand translucence of water, a waterfall pours over, peeking its cascading head out from behind the verdant hills. Straight ahead is only lush greenness that rises above from the perfect blue, the most fitting combination of colors, only found from a bird’s eye view. To the right, the mountains, hills, whatever you call them they are rises in the earth, attempts to reach towards the sky, to draw a newer and more vivid horizon, and they do. The river falls out of view somewhere towards the distance, the sky opens up and you see for miles the purity of the land.
Yet aside from the understood expanse, the one thing that makes this view the best is being a part of it. “Cannonballo!” I shout as I jump from a cliff side into the waters below, I can see the bottom. The senses all over my body are engaged as I take in the moment that takes me right now. My feet touch the bottom of the earth, soft dust with water makes softness. My body up to my shoulders feels the water, temperature perfect, if you looked from afar you could see my whole self to the ocean floor and know that it is so. My ears hear the sounds of Guatemalan children splashing in the agua pura, el agua pura del tierra. My eyes, they see the world not from a bird’s eye, more of a fish’s eye view, water sprawling into the hills of the earth.
I sit down on a rock that protrudes from the water just so, and imagine. Someone wonderful, Katy, stands there at the edge of a cliff, her feet tickled by the gentle pull of the water. Her yellow bikini is stretched delicately over her tanned body, brown hair tousled just so with moist jungle water. She smiles proudly and beckons me to join her. I am about to do so when Edgar, the guide, shouts “Vamanos chicos, vamanos!” I turn to hear his voice and turn around again to see Katy, but she is not there, only the river softly whispering, the sky blue. Yet I swear I could see a spark of yellow flutter in the wind, and just like that gone.
The candlelight flutters, casting underground shadows on the rock above and all around my head, the water below. My flip-flops are tied with a thick medium between a string and a rope, as if they would stay on my feet in such a place designed for men of the earth, under the earth. I walk with hesitation in the bowels of Semuc Champey, an underground cave that is filled to the shoulder with water, sometimes more, so that as you grace along the floors you must actually swim with one hand, candle barely above the water’s surface. To place a description upon something that has never been seen is difficult to do, so I will not try. I will only say that imagine something you have never seen and it is like that. I scale the cavern walls, and I hear a roar in the distance. Moments later my body is tucked into a space not meant for muy altos gringos, and I stand at the edge of a waterfall, underground. It pounds down and I walk just under it so that it jostles my hair vigorously, allow it to hit upon my back, receiving a massage from Mother Nature.
I climb up a ladder, almost drown in 8 feet of cave water (my flip-flops dragging me under), climb up another cliff eight feet into the air and jump into a pool of water of the same depth. Then I do it all over again, backwards, cold and wet and almost scared, more because of the fact that I am underground than anything else. I emerge from the cave, my candle gone in the midst of the water world, and am welcomed by the jungle showers of late afternoon. At this point I feel nothing but pure adrenaline and a desire to soak my feet in a tub of hot water, and smile for a picture that doesn’t even begin to touch upon the journey that started it.
The morning after, Freddie to my side, I turn around and watch as 12 heads nod in and out of sleep upon each other’s shoulders, dreams of jungle times dance in their heads. I only smile and stick my head out the window.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario