In the jungles of Tikal, I collected parrot feathers, small red flames or bright blood embedded in the grass. There is a cacophony of screeching and racuous laughter ringing through the jungle. Toucans carrying their beaks of burden, shiny black and yellow trumpets, eye us from the tops of trees by the ancient reservoir.
The incessant thrum of insects is so loud it goes right through you like an electronic sound, amplified. The walls of vegetation hiding imaginary speakers that vibrate. It’s so loud, the surface vibrates the loose cotton sticking to us in early morning.
Promise of heat. Red road, jungle soil. Philodendron, palmetto, liana. We follow an artificial waterway, strange rectangular slots to hold water like miniature watering troughs for animals. Why did the Maya make them? Or were they more recent earthworks?
We stumbled upon an old ruin, not restored like the others, with murals still intact. John treated it like a mountain to be climbed except he can’t get down again. The murals have something to do with sex. The temple is covered with mossy epiphytes. I direct him back down the wall, stone by stone, verbally describing the toeholds. If he fell, surely he would break something and we were far enough from civilization to be concerned. He did make it back down to terra firma again, but was a bit surprised by his own temerity.
Howler monkeys in the distance, the unseen guerilla as well as the young soldiers in the jungle with their Uzis always at the ready—among the few tourists looking for a more ancient rhythm, trying to condone the 20th century.
Promise of heat. Red road, jungle soil. Philodendron, palmetto, liana. We follow an artificial waterway, strange rectangular slots to hold water like miniature watering troughs for animals. Why did the Maya make them? Or were they more recent earthworks?
We stumbled upon an old ruin, not restored like the others, with murals still intact. John treated it like a mountain to be climbed except he can’t get down again. The murals have something to do with sex. The temple is covered with mossy epiphytes. I direct him back down the wall, stone by stone, verbally describing the toeholds. If he fell, surely he would break something and we were far enough from civilization to be concerned. He did make it back down to terra firma again, but was a bit surprised by his own temerity.
Howler monkeys in the distance, the unseen guerilla as well as the young soldiers in the jungle with their Uzis always at the ready—among the few tourists looking for a more ancient rhythm, trying to condone the 20th century.
