Greetings from the Petén

5 June 2005

Greetings from the Petén.  The weather here is hot, humid, hot, sunny, and hot.   And hot. 

We arrived here on Monday, and felt pretty good, despite spending two days in transit, moving stuff and getting set up.   The trip was more or less uneventful, with a couple of stops along the way.  We picked up obsidian from a known prehispanic source called El Chayal, and got some good pieces.   Matt and I got into Flores Monday night, after a long trip from Antigua, and stayed at the Hotel Santana for the night.  Ingrid and Jeanette took the night bus and arrived at 5 a.m. on the 31st.  I picked them up and brought them back to the hotel, where they showered, changed, and had a chance to sleep or eat before we put them on the boat to the site.   Matt and I drove around the lake.

The camp is beautiful, and the hammocks on the lanai are just wonderful.  I slept pretty well the first night, after spending most of the first day setting up tents (Jeanette and Ingrid sleep in tents out back, and will be joined by two Guatemalan students who are expected to arrive tonight), and after wiring and roping and staking and digging and trenching and climbing and staking some more, a couple of the guys – Benito and Carlos – came by and cut some stakes and retied the guy wires and made the tarps covering the tents work to repel rain.    In half an hour they transformed out four-hour long effort at slap-dash tent-raising effort into a set of bungalow condominiums. 

The rest of the day was mostly playing politics and setting up camp.  Took a swim after everything was done, and the water was perfect.   Nice way to bathe, particularly considering the heat, and the view is simply stunning.  The kids from next door came and took their baths with us, at a safe distance.  

On the way to eat the first night, we stopped at Don Jorge's house (he is the most experienced and coveted of the workers).   He is now known to me by his new nickname, Papatulo.  His granddaughter was there, and she calls him Papatulo (Papa Arturo) and she is precious.   I definitely got in my kid fix that night. 

We still have no excavation permits (expected this coming week), and so we are mapping and clearing and doing a lot of the groundwork (hiring workers, talking to landowners, etc.) necessary for a successful field season.   And the worst part is dealing with the guy that has squatter's rights to the land at Trinidad.  He does not want us there – our walking around tears up the stuff his cows eat (and mostly, he and Matt do not get along).   And the amount he asked Matt for last year as recompense for those damages was outrageous.  So this year Matt, in an attempt at a pre-emptive first strike, went to see the mayor before talking directly to him.   The deal is, the guy with cattle on the land does not own Trinidad.  It is owned by the town – he simply has usufruct rights.   So he can't deny anyone access, especially not someone who has government permission and is hiring half the town. 

But the mayor (alcalde) is in a tough spot, too.  He can't really afford to publicly side against a local resident in favor of foreigners.   When we arrived at his office, he had "another meeting" that he was on his way to – he had no time for us.  But later…

Later did not happen that day, despite Matt's persistent presence in his office foyer.  Best guess is that he went to talk to Don Juan, the antagonist, before talking to Matt.  A Monday meeting is expected to clear the path for our work.

The work itself has progressed in fits and starts.  Mapping, after an initial day of error messages and arguments, proceeded well; they will finish up the mapping of Jeanette's site of Buenavista on Monday.   I "supervised" a defoliation project near the harbor of Trinidad on Friday and Saturday.  I did cut a little bit of foliage both days, but I also know to stay out of the way while cutters are at work.   My addition to the defoliation campaign, amounting to a total of three hours of hard labor, resulted in saving them five minutes of work. 

I am not sure where to buy a light saber like the ones they use, but I really need to get one.   The blades they use look like regular machetes, but with a negligent flick of the wrist, they touch an area covered with bramble and thorn and the entire forest splits to permit them passage.   Meanwhile, I struggle with my titanium-reinforced blade of grass I am trying to cut with a butter knife.  The jedis come by and:

One, two, one, two

And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker snack

Seriously, the guys came behind me and in five minutes had cleaned up the area I had worked in for two hours. 

And in the next five doubled the area. 

Don Tirso, one of the older members of the team, has worked in the area for decades.  He worked at Tikal, at Yaxhá, at Uaxactun and Aguateca.  And he has worked with Matt and company for years now.  He worked clearing with me on Friday (Saturdays he has off to go work at the newly incorporated fish farm cooperative), and we sat and talked for a while.   When we left to take him home, I handed the keys to the fifty-year-old grandfather of four and told him he was driving. 

My Blazer is automatic, and is about as easy to drive as anything can be.  But Tirso was nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs – he was tickled to be driving for the first time, but scared stiff.   After not shedding one drop of sweat after working in the direct sunlight in 100% humidity for eight hours, he broke into a cold sweat behind the wheel.  After the third time I explained that you use the same foot for both accelerator and brake (response: "Yes, I understand"), I finally physically picked up his foot and put it on the brake.   His response: "Yes.  I understand."

At the end of his white-knuckled journey (about half a mile of empty road), he turned to me and asked "So, do you need a new chauffeur?"  

"Not now, I don't," I told him.  "It looks like I got a new one today."

I have seldom seen anyone quite so tickled.

We met with the cooking lady, and I held the negotiations with her.  She's here on a trial basis for a week.   After a week, if she is unhappy (she was not looking forward to walking up and down the steep driveway at 5 every morning and was unwilling to stay over) or if we don't like the food (which is not a problem ) or with how prompt she is (she arrived at 4:40 every morning) than we part ways happy.    Otherwise, she makes breakfast and dinner and something to carry with us for lunch. 

The first day was pretty tough – we got scrambled eggs for breakfast and lunch, all made at the same time – but since then she has gotten into a rhythm with us.   The meals have all been tasty, and are served with handmade tortillas – a real draw for us.

Ingrid, who was out with me on Friday, explored the harbor area with me, and was with me when I spotted a feature just out in the water.   About twenty feet from shore, at a depth of three feet, was a circular pile of rocks that looked suspiciously different from everything else around.   I took some pictures of it, and took them back to Matt and Elly to see, since they had both worked in the harbor area two years ago. 

They were angry that I had found something that had gone unnoticed in the previous field season.   I, of course, was rather pleased with myself, and wore my cheesy grin for the whole rest of the day, all the while envisioning how cool it would be to have discovered an underwater prehispanic shrine.

And then I went back on Saturday and asked the guys who live there about it.  "Oh, that thing?"   Valentin grinned between swipes with his light saber.  "That was made last year by my two little brothers."

I am the proud discoverer of the modern Maya equivalent of a sand castle.   I might live it down someday.  Meanwhile, I will just keep working with the machete.   I am sure I can find some cooked broccoli to practice on.