The Future of Petén

July 13, 2008

FLORES, Guatemala — From our plush hotel balcony in Flores, Don Oscar’s house sits by my pinky when I stretch my arm out. A week ago we landed there straight from the bus ride from Guatemala City and scrambled to keep things organized and to have a sense of where we were going as the dinghy pushed off shore. We gave up early and entrusted ourselves to the archaeologists who moved erratically, but quickly. They quickly formed daisy chains to get luggage off the bus and into Don Oscar’s house. We told Michael to stay on shore to wait for the review of our filming permit and as we inched our way to the two story house overlooking Flores. Julio and Paco started drumming and the lights that lit up Flores grew smaller and fainter. I guarded our cameras against every drop of water.

Inside Oscar’s house, David Barreda swung his wearied body on the hammock overlooking the over-sized Gallo neon sign on the porch. I dropped our bags and hugged him. Michael docked with the other archeaologists just in time, as the winds increased. Throughout the night and the rain moved closer as we furiously unpacking and re-packing all of our bags to prepare the cameras and all our gear for the trek and week ahead. We were not prepared and even learning how to use the satellite phone was a chore with many minute steps. The storm came and by 3 a.m., David had collapsed on the hammock, Michael was stuffing soy jerky in his carry bag, Nadia sprawled on the bed next to me and I felt the adrenaline pumping through my veins. As I struggled to slow my heart beat, I remembered something Carlos Castellanos told me on the bus, Neither he nor many of his companions had slept much the night before the hike because most of them were nervous. Nervous, I wondered, about what. When I walked out of Mirador today I realized that if I had to do the trip next summer, the way many of these archaeologists have been doing for many years, even decades, I would also be nervous before the three-month transition into what became for me a community in the wilderness weathering the harsh elements in the name of archaeology. In many ways, it was like summer camp on steroids. As I walked amid this tightly knit group of archaeologists through muck and toil, I started to realize how archaeologists are similar to journalists. How else would these two distinct groups find themselves hand in hand survival mode to tell a story?

When we left Tintal this morning at 8:30 am the sun broke through the leftover rain clouds and created silos of light between the three leaves. We had our rubber boots on this time and we were ready for the swamp or so we thought until five hours later we were propping ourselves with sticks to keep from falling into the swamp. I climbed the mule, not as a defeat, but out of curiosity to see how the perspective would change if I didn’t have to worry about my next step. The night before the mules were being followed by a jaguar, or “tigre” as the arrieros called it, and arrived at camp late in the evening. It prowled in the bathroom and let. Michael had gotten his jaguar and it dawned on me what one of the arrieros had said: that 15 years from now, much of this untouched stretch of jungle would be entirely gone, legally and illegally logged. It was also very expensive to keep the Maya biosphere intact with no real enforcement agency.