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Published: April 12th 2010
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you can take the bus for 75 cents from San Ignacio to the ferry that crosses the Mopan river and then walk a mile uphill to reach the Xunantunich ruins. so i did.
i sat down on the grass to wait for the ferry to come to my side, and this kid came over and said "hey miss, did you see the iguanas over there?" i hadn't. I walk over with him, looking where he is pointing, and I see a big brown thing. "oh wow." I stare at it for a bit, and it is not moving. at all. it is not alive. not in the least. it is a big dead peice of palm tree bark. ha ha. i start laughing, and the kid realizes why i am laughing. you thought that was an iguana? ha h ha. "no, over there." i finally see them. they are huge, beautiful, magestic, staring out at the river. "holy shit, they look like dinosaurs." yeah. he assures me that they do not eat people. people eat them. and it tastes like chicken. the kid is really cool. his name is Cramson. As in the color Crimson, almost. his mother got it
out of the dictionary.
I turn around and realize the ferry is shoving back off from my side of the river. "you gotta run" Cramson says. not like i couldn't just wait for the next one, but i do run, and jump the three foot gap to land on the slowly moving ferry. i look back and Cramson is in stitches, laughing at me. I am too. but the fat-white-person tour group that populates the ferry with their minivan does not even notice me. neither does the guy collecting fare. i guess i blend right in. damn.
the ruins are amazing. don't have many words to explain them. which is why you should look at the pictures, if i can ever successfully load them.
you can then take the bus back to town and get off at the texaco and walk up another hill to the cahal pech ruins. so i did.
and climbed to the top of one of the pyramids and laid down on the hot stone and closed my eyes. opened them and there is another kid, this one a little older, seventeen maybe, sitting close to me. "hey." he lives next door
to the ruins. his brother runs the gift shop. he works here sometimes, gives tours, but mostly just comes here to hang out. breathe fresh air. look around. and smoke pot. we sit there and talk and look down at the plaza where they used to perform human sacrifices. "that's where the king sat." he takes me on a walk thru the jungle around the ruins and shows me some unexcaveted mounds and ball courts. then he shows me some rooms. one is pretty fucking dark inside, but your eyes adjust after a while. this, supposedly, is where the king would come to meditate. we should try it. so we stand there with our eyes closed for 5 minutes maybe. we walk out of the room and the kid says. "did you feel that? that was scary. there was some heavy spirit in my soul." i did feel it, i think. he he.
we go back up to the sacrificial ground viewing spot. eat peanuts and talk more and its interesting to get a mayan teenager's perspective on some stuff. he likes talking to the visitors, but he wears barefeet and a ripped shirt because if he dresses up nice
people think he is a gang member and they get scared of him. yeah, he says, the gang problem is growing in belize, but its not a problem if you dont get involved. he smokes his pot by himself, never in a group cuz thats how the police get you. his used to be best friend is in jail for killing someone. lots of friends in jail. lots of friends gettin in trouble. he hangs out at the ruins a lot, smokes his pot by himself, and tries not to get in trouble. i ask a silly question, whether he thinks he will stay here or if he'd like to move somewhere else, and he looks at me with a funny expression and says "my family has been here for a long time."
he asks me what i think about the whole mayan calander, 2012 thing, and i kinda answer and then turn it on him. he laughs and says that a lot of his friends use it as an impetus to find a girlfriend. like, if the world is gonna end in 2012, man, i gotta find a girl... ha ha.
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