How to survive the Lacandon Jungle: don't offend the guide. It's a wonder I'm still here...

(Dec. 11, 2011)

Well,

I hiked into the Lacandon jungle along the Mexico – Guatemala border and survived! In a quick turn of events I found out about an ‘exploratory’ jungle and decided that, instead of heading to Palenque and over to the Yucatan immediately following San Cristobal, I would sign on to this jungle excursion! The trip was to cover 6 days and include a mix of kayaking, hiking and camping on and off trails through the region’s jungle. Our team included 6 people: 2 Swedish women, a Canadian woman from Toronto, a Canadian man from Quebec, myself and the guide. When we were actually in the jungle (about half of the promised time) the trip was fantastic.

On our first night we arrived late and, instead of kayaking to our camping spot, we took a local motor boat from a small nearby town and navigated the crocodile-filled river in pitch darkness. It really was quite something to peer into the blackness with nothing but a small headlamp for direction and crocodile spotting! The roar of the engine was deafening and the threat of potential head-on collision and hungry crocodile advances onto our floundering team was exhilarating! That night we camped in the jungle beside the river and could hear all sorts of bugs and animals around us throughout the night.

The following day we packed up our gear and kayaked down the river, stopping for lunch and a hike along an overgrown trail to an unexcavated Mayan ruin site. At the beginning of the trek I was using a side-to-side scanning method for snake protection (I was wearing sandals and shorts! Very snake ‘friendly’) and by the end of the trek we had walked through so many underbrush-thick, muddy, and thorn-covered trails that fear for my delicious ankles dissolved. There was no way I could protect myself from snakes even if I wanted to. I just walked along and hoped that nothing would feel hungry as I passed! On this hike we saw a lazy anteater meandering through the treetops, toucans, Royal Scarlet Macaws, hawks, a variety of bugs, puma and tapir tracks (but no actually pumas or tapirs – probably best), and deer. We arrived at our next ‘camp’ spot just as the sun was setting – no thanks to the guide, who took his time and stopped to look at plants and animals along the way. It is amazing how fast someone (me) can paddle down a river with the threat of night (and the accompanying invisible hungry crocodiles) approaching!

We spent most of the following day in the car, driving to the boat launch for the Yaxchilan ruin site. We took a small motor boat to the site, which was nearly empty by the time we arrived and looked especially beautiful in the yellow light of the setting sun. We wandered the mystic ruins, climbing up temples and winding through underground passages filled with sleeping bats. At one point, as we walked through the jungle paths to another section of the ancient city, we became surrounded by a family of howler monkeys. It is important to understand that howler monkeys do not merely howl, but rather roar with a ferocious fervour. Seriously – we could hear their tiger-like calls kilometers away in the previous days and thus to have a group of 5-9 very vocal and territorial monkeys in the trees above and around you is really quite amazing.  In the site grounds we saw large rodents (can’t remember the names), toucans, and spider monkeys in addition to the vivacious howlers. That night we drove to the indigenous Mayan village of Lacanja, where the local people have jumped on board with ecotourism schemes supported by the government.

We stayed in a beautiful little cabana that night but faced disappointment in the morning when the local guide said that he would not take us on the original planned hike into the jungle to camp due to liability and spiritual aversions to taking sick people into the jungle (I had been really quite sick for the entirety of the trip up until this point and was not nearly my usual exuberant self. However, for the $500 trip, I was making the most of what energy I did have). Instead of the mysterious and exploratory hike that I had paid so much for (the rest of the trip was pretty ‘regular’ for an adventure tour and thus could have been found at a much cheaper price), we ended up walking through a beautifully manicured park, to a have lunch by a babbling stream, and end the day at a beautiful waterfall. Boring! At this point I was not impressed: Throughout the trip it became apparent that the Swedish girls were getting significantly reduced rates (one of the girls was the girlfriend of the guide, the other was her sister), that the guide was incredibly unorganized (he kept stopping for 2 hour-long lunches, leaving our camp site around noon every day, and had a very less-than-appropriate medical kit), and that the prices quoted to us and the trip promised was open to be changed as the guide pleased. Now it seemed that the true essence of the trip, THE event that had led me to pay so exorbitantly for the trip, was being stripped out of the package. The other Canadian woman on the trip, equally displeased, and I decided that something needed to be said. That evening we held a ‘business meeting’ with the group, requesting the reintroduction of the off-trail hike and an improvement in our value-for-money. Our guide, his girlfriend and her sister all took extreme offense to our complaints and requests and I learned in the process that I really need to work on my business and negotiation skills. My ‘hardball’ approach did get us results (the following day we went on a fantastic, out-of-the-ordinary jungle trek) but poisoned the relationships on the trip, creating tension and dismissal from the ‘family’ group members.

But business is business and with the successful re-hauling of the trip my mood changed, I stepped out of my demanding mask and spent the next day in, what I thought to be, extremely agreeable terms with the rest of the group. My excitement during the off-trail hike, as we traversed MANY deep and fast flowing rivers and waterfalls, knee-deep mud flats, and snake filled underbrush shone through. Though we didn’t see any, our ‘wander’ (more like a gallop) through the jaguar, snake and crocodile-filled jungle  filled me with fear of new encounters with every tree we passed, brambles we navigated and swamp we waded through. Despite this, I felt that everything was positive and I was finally getting what I had paid for: a real, exciting and turbulent jungle experience. I hoped that the relationship break that had occurred the night before could be repaired. I was wrong.

The next evening, after sunset but still 2 hours outside of San Cristobal (or final destination), I was informed by the tour guide’s girlfriend’s sister that I was not to stay on their property that night (as had been arranged) and that I would have to find a new place to stay upon arrival in the city. Dirty, tired, still sick, disoriented, and without any way to contact couchsurfers or research hostels I suddenly felt very homeless, rejected, and offended. I learned at that moment how truly juvenile and unprofessional the guide and his ‘family’ were. To turn a woman, vulnerable due to her age, appearance, and language barriers, out onto the street due to a business-related disagreement seemed so incredibly ridiculous to me and after the shock had worn away I was able to find comedy in the whole situation. The difficulties they would surely face in the future due to their inability to handle business-related negotiation and complaints made me feel vindicated, though this is probably not the right perspective to take. Luckily, I had made a great friend in Laurie (a fellow trekker), a very adventurous woman from Ontario who was spending time in San Cristobal. We had both seen the trip from a more supply-demand perspective and operated like allies and friends throughout the trip and following. In disbelief that the tour guide and ‘family’ could be so petty, Laurie very kindly invited me to stay at her friend’s house with her. I was able to spend an ‘administrative day’ relaxing and catching up on communications with family and friends and organizing my next steps via couchsurfing, finding information about hostels, sights and transportation. For me, organization is the name of the game and needing to have ‘organization days’ may sound neurotic but if it helps me to be safe, explore foreign countries and puts me in a position for potential spontaneity, it can’t be all that bad – right?

The following day Laurie and I hopped on a bus to Palenque, to see the huge Mayan city ruin site. On route we met up with Stav, a couchsurfer who I had been in contact with previously but had lost touch with in recent weeks. It was funny to run into each other – I love the ins and outs of the ‘travel/backpacker road’. We all shared a beautiful cabaña in a hostel called El Jaguar and explored the ruins the next day. Palenque was so huge that after 2 or 3 hours we were getting weary and looking forward to lunch. We had all politely rejected the ‘mushrooms’ (of a hallucinogenic variety) on offer throughout the park and thus were feeling in need of some reinforcements (of a NON-hallucinogenic variety, if possible). After lunch we headed back into Palenque city proper and worked out our next steps. Laurie needed to head back to San Cristobal so we said goodbye to her. And as we said goodbye, the thing that I had wished for and talked about so much on the jungle trek happened – we encountered the jaguar. Not just one jaguar, but three spotted, black and beautiful jaguars who glided through Palenque city in cages, as if to perfectly tie up the ends of the rollercoaster jungle trek that Laurie and I had experienced.

Stav and I decided to continue on to the Merida area to meet up with a couchsurfer who I had contacted previously. We opted to take the slightly cheaper but far more time consuming and ‘exciting’ second class bus route, spending a few dark and shady hours in the Escarcega bus terminal (NOT in the best part of town) leading up to midnight and then a very sleepless ride to Merida, arriving at a less-than-perky 6 O’clock in the morning. We spent the day on a very inefficient shopping trek as we dragged ourselves and our backpacks through the bustling, fairly modern, but melting (structurally and climatologically) city of Merida. After finding very little of what we had set out to find, we were defeated and headed to the small village of Hoctun – where I am writing from now.

The village is small and the people here exude a beautiful disposition – allowing me to feel incredibly welcome here – having been greeted by smiles everywhere I go. Ana, my couchsurfing host, is extremely nice and I feel very welcome in her house. The small and relaxed nature of the village here is a positive influence on me and I have been able to relax into the limited internet availability and ‘mañana mentality’ (aka everything takes 2.5 times longer to do than it would in Canada). I will spend one more night here, swinging in my hammock as I dodge hungry mosquitos and then Stav and I will head to see the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza and then we will split up – I to playa del Carmen to catch up on photo uploading and volunteer report templates, and him to Tulum – his plan is to get to Patagonia in Chile by March! Talk about rapid fire!

Lots of love to you all, I apologize for the inconsistent elongation of time between updates – I am, it seems, relaxing into the backpacker and Latin American mañana ways. Best not to fight it!