Igor The Troll

Emerald Lakes San Cristobal

 

When we were in our twenties, my wife and I went traveling to San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico. We went trekking in the Jungle around Lagos Esmeraldas, not far from San Cristobal de las Casas. I being hot headed and adventures decided to fling it with a tent and a small bag of provisions of fruit, cheese, rice, and bread. I figured there would be some small villages there where we could easily buy some food. Was I wrong!

We got on the local bus and took it out of town, got off in the middle of nowhere, and crossed into the field. The field was a vast expense of grass, which slowly turned into a hill. We climbed up the hill, sweating profusely, panting like wounded animals.The sun was right above us, and it was very hot. It was about 2 pm in the afternoon. About 5 pm we got down the hill. We arrived at a side of a small lake.

We set up our tent and lied down on the ground to relax. All of a sudden I noticed a small boat approach us. There was a boy about 16 years old in the boat. I said hello to him and found out that he was fishing around the lake. Being that we did not have much food, I asked him if he had some fish to sell us. He gladly pulled out a few trout, for which I gave him a few dollars. We light a fire and barbequed the trout on skewered sticks. They were delicious. We ate and went to sleep.

The next morning we got up to some noise outside. I looked out of the tent and saw a bunch of guys sitting in their boats. They were waiting to talk with us. I asked what is up. They replied, asking us if we saw a young boy fishing on the lake last night. I told them, we bought some fish from the boy and then he left. Not really satisfied with the answer, they slowly maneuvered out of the shallow area looking between the reads.

We wanted to leave, but I knew something was wrong, so it was better to stick around for a while. They came back in the afternoon and told me the boy had drowned. They found his body in the mud. At first the local Indians were suspicious, thinking that we murdered the boy. But I explained we only bought fish from him. Finally they put their minds to rest and believed me that I only bought fish from the boy. The boy must have continued fishing after he sold us the fish and his boat capsized in the dark. I felt really bad, I felt we were to blame for the accident, because we bought fish from the boy.

We slowly packed our stuff and said goodbye to bereaving people. We climbed up a hill and kept walking away from the accident. We were really scared that the Indians might kill us. As I was climbing up the hill, my heart was pumping really hard. My wife asked me to slowdown, but I said to her, “Kayo we must move!” Frantically moving up the hill via a small footpath, after a few hours, we felt that everything was okay.

We got to the top of the hill, and the footpath became flat. There was some open dirt road, but it was getting dark. We walked for a while on a flat road, and within 30 minutes or so, we came upon a small aluminum shack. I asked the owner to sell me some food and if I can sleep on his grounds. He gave us some beef jerky and told us to sleep inside because it was really cold and windy at night. I gave him a few dollars for his hospitality. There was some hay in the corner that we lied down on. They gave us some horse blankets to cover ourselves.

In the morning we got up fresh and rested. I asked which way is it to Lagos Esmeraldas. They told me that I would need to go down the Mayan trail to Tiera Blanka village. We thanked our hosts and said goodbyes. We walked a bit down the dirt road and the road turned into a path trail that passed through the woods. I found a huge white mushroom and some berries. We saw some local girls picking the barriers, so I figured they were safe to eat. The mushroom I held onto, but the berries we ate while walking down the trail. We came down the hill into a small village.

In the village we came to a small house. I asked the lady if she could sell us some food. She said she has pork and she can fry it for us. I asked her to fry my mushroom also. Pork and sliced mushroom were delicious. After eating our lunch we were back on a small path trail. The dirt path trail turned to cobblestone trail. It was like a ravine filled with huge slabs of stones for the floor. The sides of the ravine had moss, fungus, and other green growing on it. It was very misty, but pleasant to walk. This trail must have been a thousand years old.

After walking the Mayan Trail for about four hours we made it out into the open. We saw little girls walking out from the fields. They were smiling and laughing at us. It was all very innocent. I do not think they have seen westerners before. We walked into the village and were greeted by a few men. They showed us an area to sit down. There was a huge wooden organ with steal pipes protruding out of it. A young boy was playing the organ. We set down and relaxed.

We said we were hungry and wanted to buy some food. They said that we must wait till the evening and that we can join them for dinner. It was around four o’clock. We set down on the wooden chairs and relaxed. The boy was playing the organ, and the music was soothing. It turned dark and they started bringing out the food. They came to ask for money. I was ready to pay for the food, but they said just pay for soda drinks. There was not much food, but it was enough. There were corn tortillas, corn on the cob, and fried chicken. The native Indians put on some sort of performance. It was a church inspired gospel music and dance. These were Christian Indians, and they shared their hospitality with us.

We slept in our tent that we set up in their straw shack. The next morning we were back on the Mayan trail. The trail turned into a path. At one point we had to cross a shallow river. Just before we came to the river I saw a huge python snake. It was about 3 meters long and as fat as my bicep, maybe 15 centimeters in diameter. The snake just quietly weaved across the dirt road. The python was light green, with beige and brown spots. It was scary and beautiful at the same time. The snake crossed the road and went into the river. After the snake crossed, we waded into the river and slowly crossed while keeping an eye on the snake. Our hearts were thumbing from fear.

After crossing the small river, we walked for a couple of hours down the jungle path. The air was warm and moldy. We finally arrived at the first lake of Lagos Esmeraldas. The lake was beautiful. It was not really big but the color of the water was emerald green. I came over to swim in it, but there was no beach, just all of the sudden the water got deep. I could not see the bottom of the lake. I took off my clothes and jumped into the lake. It was freezing cold. After a few minutes in the water I climbed out back on shore. My wife decided not to swim. She was scared that she could not reach the bottom.

After the swim, I was really hungry. We had nothing left to eat except a bag of rice that needed to be cooked. We also brought a pot with us, but we forgot the lid. My wife put the rice inside the pot and I light a fire. I tried to make a lid for the pot out of aluminum foil, but it did not work. The rice was so bad, that we could not eat it. For some reason we were very horny, and we just made passionate love to each other. After making love and smoking a cigarette, I said to my wife, “Kayo, lets go back home. I am hungry!” She agreed.

We walked for about 30 minutes on a dirt road, and we were on paved road. After one hour walking the paved road we hitched a ride off some Mexicans who came to see the lakes and were going back to town. We took the jungle trek to get to the lakes, but there was a convenient way to come in by taxi.

Tags: adventure, culture, mexico, travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 12:20 am and is filed under adventure, culture, mexico, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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