The Island of Flores

I cooked my brain crossing the border. In the town of Benque, where the bus line ends, I began what I thought was a short mile walk to the border. A mile beneath the Belizean sun feels like walking ten miles back home. I dragged myself into the immigration station light headed, dehydrated, tired and drenched in sweat; paid my $37.50 Belizean dollars exit fee and got my exit stamp. I could’ve walked straight into Guatemala and caught a bus to Flores without getting my entry stamp. But I didn’t want any trouble (see Mexican Jail story) so I walked over to their immigration booth and got my stamp. Foolishly, I passed the money changers on the Belizean side without paying them any attention — always better to change the currency in the actual country of the currency for better rates.

Of course all the taxi guys were trying to reel me in for an expensive trip to Flores. I denied them all and denied the money changers too. I walked away from the border scene and over a bridge into the town of Melchor de Campos, Guatemala. It was like a poor Mexico of the 1940’s. Dirt roads. Fruit and vegetable matter littered the streets. Trash littered the streets. The houses along the side of the road were old faded wood and dry pond frond thatched hut types. The people had Mayan faces, noses, foreheads, eyes, skin. Guatemala looked very old, like it hadn’t caught up to 2015.

I caught a Flores bound micro bus, which stopped at the top of a hill where I jumped out and exchanged my last $18 Belize for something like $54 Quetzales, jumped back in and we were off. We arrived in Santa Elena and I was so parched from that crazy mile walk to the Belizean border that I bought a can of coke and sat dripping sweat from my brow while I drank it, staring out at all the Guatemaltecos walking around. So different from Creole Belize.

I caught a tuk tuk (thook thook), which is a red little three wheel open air taxi type vehicle,

to the island of Flores; across the causeway, the bridge; up the bumpy cobblestone roads and hopped out giving my man his $10 Queztales payment. I dropped my bag at the Los Amigos hostel — nice place; dim and covered in greenery and little knick knacks and things hanging from everywhere; lively common area; pool table, foosball, bar — and went out looking for an atm, or, cajero, so that I could pay for my room. The first ATM I used charged my card and didn’t give me any money, $40 US dollars worth; got money out of a second ATM, paid up and laid around until sunset when I walked the lake malecon which was alive with people and vendors and noise and hand holding smoochers and families and all that great stuff; bought myself a few tamales and a pineapple drink and sat watching the sun set beneath the lake.

Then there was nighttime when I began to drink and play pool with an Aussie guy, Aussies — they rule the travel world — and stared at his eyes which were sad and sympathetic and reminded me exactly of Jack Kerouac’s eyes. But he wasn’t sad and sympathetic and he talked too much while I was concentrating on the game, which he won anyway. Had huge deep conversation with a cool 37 yr old Hollander named David about people watching and micro expression and gestures and anxiousness and how we are viewed through the eyes of the other and how we view ourselves and all that juicy stuff you never quite remember the next morning.

I caught a 430 AM micro bus to the Tikal ruins the next day. It was miserable to wake up at that time. It was still dark outside and I laid in bed and didn’t move until the last fifteen minutes when I did all my morning preparations with half open eyes. I laid back down after and a Canadian girl I’d met earlier poked me in the shoulder to wake me up when the bus came. I tried to sleep the whole way there. In fact the other 5 travelers on the bus all seemed groggy and they all slept too, or at least kept their eyes closed.

The ancient city of Tikal — set deep in the jungle — massive and atmospheric — foxes and spider monkeys and the roar of howler monkeys in the distance — toucans and agoutis and turkeys; and even a huge Mayan procession which I had to pass through — a thousand Mayans walking in an endless group, with babies on their backs and big containers of water — the women all colorful in their shawls and dresses — all I could do was look nervously at them, all their big brown ancient solemn watching eyes, and say, “buenas, buenas, buenas dias, hola, buenas” over and over — annual Mayan celebration day, what luck; I was leaving when I passed through the huge procession and decided to follow them back to see what was going on — they all formed in the center of the grand plaza and set incense and candles and strange coals and all kinds of unexplainable organic offerings ablaze; the black smoke rose up into the sky and all around me I heard the mysterious language of the Maya being spoken; all the different dialects — the women and their colorful dresses and shawls — the men and their deep eyed dark brown strong boned faces and straight shiny black hair — I was caught in the middle of a prayer ceremony of the Maya, no other tourists in the group — they all turned to face the main temple and got on their knees and put their heads to the ground and kissed it — I did the same, though didn’t kiss the ground; and at once they all began chanting separate prayers, some of the women crying; they did this for each cardinal direction, and I got up and did it with them, feeling very awkward like I wasn’t supposed to be there; I was just trying to get a closer look at what they burned in the fire, which later they began talking hard and fast and running circles around it; wild day.

When I got back to Flores I ran into a Dallas Texas guy I met at a previous hostel in San Ignacio Belize named Brian. We went to some caves outside of town, outside of Santa Elena. We had two shitty flashlights and the cave was a cave — something dark and dank and dangerous enough to die in. Slippery. Bats flying right by our faces. I was immediately nervous (as I sit here in the jungle outside of Semuc Champey, the open air palapa where big huge flying insects crawl all over things and I realize I’m a big wimp for caves and bugs and creepy things). Fuckin Brian was a maniac. He explored every hallway and entrance that he could fit through, entrances we weren’t even supposed to go through — the whole time I remained outside of these secret hallways scared to follow, and scared to be alone in case my flashlight went out and left me in pitch black darkness — oh boy. I just sat there alone in the darkness calling out to him, “Brian? Everything good?” and sometimes he wouldn’t reply because he was so far into the maze and I got to panicking and wondering whether I should high tail it out. I thought it would be weird to leave him alone, so I just sat there hunched and sweating, listening to the occasional sound of him slipping and sliding somewhere deep and far off. And as I said, the cave was just a cave. It wasn’t set up for the traveler to be safe. It was just a cave. The only indication of a formal path through the crazy maze was the occasional wooden sign that said entrada or salida. Of course we paid a Mayan man an entry fee and he would go searching for us if we were gone for too long (and he was sitting outside the cave waiting for us to exit, to make sure we would exit, when we finally did). Wild day indeed.

The final story on Flores is short and it has to do with a girl named Pina — the Guatemalteca whose face and body I fell in love with for a night; her light brown face which melts my heart; the way she drunkenly closed her eyelids and looked up at me, her big coffee brown eyes; those full lips and wide set thick pear cheekbones; her thick head of dark chocolate hair and the way she moved in her cute black dress which had a short zipper coming down the neck; the round bulge of her breasts and the body that was hidden underneath (which she told me was delicious), the mystery of it, the dress not revealing at all; and jesus she was drunk and lusty and so sexual with her body it drove me wild; sitting all by herself, I could only melt; I couldn’t help but sit next to her and talk (A donde eres?, Come te llamas? Estas tomando sola?) (And the way you can talk to women in Latin America is so different and much more forward than the US — I could tell her straight that I thought she was gorgeous and it wasn’t any big deal. I could so openly flirt like it was the only way to be). She liked me but almost every time I asked her a question she would look into my eyes and say, “no importa” with a big smile and touch my face and close her eyes. If I was a caveman I would’ve dragged her away then.

As I said she was drunk and she wandered off and played beer pong and was getting close to any guy near her and I sat drinking on a couch with a pain in my heart watching her. All the Latin beauties in the world sink my heart, the more foreign looking, the more Indian looking, the better it hurts. Having already bought an 8 AM ticket to Lanquin the next day and not wanting to continue drinking and wake up feeling like hell on an 8 hour bus ride through the jungle, not wanting to continue torturing myself with beers while I watched her (I caught her looking around for me every so often and when she made eye contact she would nod and smile with drunken closed eyelids) I left. As I walked back to my room I heard the door to the upstairs bar shut and I looked back and saw a cute little black dress walking my way. Ooooof.

Nothing too exciting so don’t get your panties in a bunch. I told her I would walk her home to make sure she got there safe (only a half truth, quite obviously). I got as far as outside of the hostel door and I held her and gave her a kiss on the forehead, the cheekbone, the cheek, the jaw and so softly and wanting’ly on the neck beneath her ear before finally kissing her lips. She wanted it and she didn’t want it. I wanted her ever so badly. “Eres muy malo” she said with a smile as she kissed me back. I told her not to leave and she told me buenas noches and the last word which rung in my head while I watched her little black dress body walk down the street, rung in my head throughout the night and still as I type this — “cuidate”. Ahhh, Pina de Guatemala, my heart sunk to leave Flores.