June 8. No mushrooms, friends.

In the morning I visit the temple complex of Palenque. It's thirty minute walk down the asphalt road and I'm very sweaty when I enter the site, that lies on a hill. The temples here are amazing, at least on a par with Tikal. When I walk around, I have the feeling I'm in the thriving Mayan city some 1200 years ago. I was right yesterday: don't need the mushrooms. Imagination flows like magic incense - all by itself. There is a tomb of a lady that you can enter (I mean the tomb), a large complex where you can pass through the interior below, and a high temple with a beautiful view of the Gran Plaza, where I will take a picture of a French woman while she jumps on her hands and flips over full-circle in front of the temples.

I go back to the same café as yesterday because I left the cable of my computer there, which is quite an essential part of my belongings. Fortunately they still have it. All kinds of scenarios play through my head. Why worry so much? Faith, faith, faith, and then a good cup of coffee - I jump on the bus to San Christobal...

... and on the bus I learn about this region of Mexico from an anthropology student called Biri. She is working with small communities. She will show me a cheap place to stay where I leave my backpack before we hang out at the mean Cathedral square. Yesterday night, I have suggested Myriam and Mario to meet me in front of the Cathedral. My expertise of Catholicism comes in handy at this point: I know that there is at most one cathedral in a city so I suggest do meet right in front of it. And if that's not enough, I suggest him to stick a note to the front door of the cathedral in case I would be delayed so I could find them at their hostel. I don't know if Mario is familiar with Luther, but I thought it is a cool idea. It doesn't work out though. There's no note on the impressive 20-feet oak door but I meet the group of anthropology students dancing to the boiling rhythms of African drums. It's a nice night on that main square, but I'm tired and go back to my hostel, thinking about some more nonsense I could write just to get the point across.

"Friends" is very popular. And also, it features the ex-girlfriend of Brad Pitt, who is very popular, too. So I decide to write my own episode of Friends. Enjoy:

Bloom and Marcel are standing in their living room, each on one side of the couch. They are about to leave the house, but something keeps them from doing so. Bloom scratches his head and says
"I think I forgot something."
Marcel looks at him and shakes his characteristic head slowly.
-"Aren't we all doomed to forget the most defining events of our lives? To forget the smell of beloved lips, to forget the unique nocturnal sharing of our deepest truths with the person we love most, to forget the look in the eyes of our mother, to forget the sound of the little birds looking for food on the windowsill in our lofty étage in de Rue de Capuccines, forgetting the taste of a fresh Madeleine in the Deux Maggots, crumbling on our tense lips with infinite serenity, to forget even the forgetting. Yes, aren't we doomed to live our lives in a tragical, sad search of what is forever forgotten, in a maze with black walls we see glowing dimly only because we shine our foolish lights on them?"
"Hahahahahaha!" The laughing comes from the audience. Hey, that's YOU!
Bloom scratches his head again.
-"Good point. We are here to unfold the story that we carry inside us, to unveil the inevitable truth that defines us but is bigger than ourselves. It is our meaningless task on earth. We will arrive at something, at some layer of meaning we can indulge in for a little while, ignorant of the emptyness. For how long? Ten years? Twenty years? And then we'll meet our own emptiness again. It's a relentless vacuum sucking everything with a purpose, an intention, a direction, a 'dream' as you would say, everything behind its odorless jaws"
"Hahahahahaha!" There you go again.
"What did you forget Bloom?"
-"Oh, just the keys of my car. I think I left them at Franz's place."
"Franz's?"
-"Yes, we were there last night, don't you remember?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
"Franz invited us to see some movies together. You were so drunk Bloom, just like every Irishman."
"Hahahahahaha!"
-"I'm not Irish. My family is Irish. I'm Italian."
"Hahahahahaha!"
They still stand each on one side of the couch facing each other.
"You were so drunk Bloom, believe me. I bet you don't even remember what Franz looks like."
-"But I do. Franz has dark hair. I think he is Jewish."
"What does he do for a living?"
-"I think he is a clerk somewhere."
"You remember that? How can that be? You were totally knocked out."
-"I have no idea."
"Let's call him to come over and have a drink or something. You do need your car keys,too."
"Hahahahahaha!"
-"You're right. Without those keys I'm pretty much stuck here. And I don't want to be stuck here next to this couch in this murky living room, believe me."
"Hahahahahaha!"
Bloom calls Franz. Marcel is watching him. The swift and eager movement of his fingers over the keys of Bloom's phone excites him. This is a moment that will remain alive in his thoughts for a very long time. Bloom's fingers are typing Franz's number on that little telephone. They seem to have a kind of magic that Marcel can't resist. He sighs
"This is too beautiful! I could live for this beauty alone, Bloom."
-"I could not."
"Hahahahahaha!"
"So what did Franz say?"
-"He says we're welcome at his place to have some wine and talk. He's having some kind of party."
"Let's do that! Who else will come?"
-"Virginia is for sure, Ernest might show up with a bottle, Samuel is delayed. The rest I don't know."
"Hahahahahaha!"
"Cool. Yes, let's walk there."
-"Walk?"
"Yes, you forgot your car keys. Already forgot about that?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
So Bloom and Marcel walk twenty-seven blocks to Franz's place and knock on his door.

"Come in, come in, make yourselves comfortable, grab a chair, make some coffee. So, Bloom forgot his car keys again?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
-"Yes... We don't want to declare it to the police because the bureaucracy and the paperwork would take years."
"At least. I know that since I've been through some of that myself." Franz says.
"Hahahahahaha!"
-"Good. Where could the keys of Bloom's car be?"
"Maybe here, under the table, or here, in the closet, or - where have you been Bloom?"
-"Maybe in the...eh... bedroom."
"Hahahahahaha!"
"You can go have a look."
Bloom and Marcel tiptoe into the dark bedroom and sees that someone's sleeping there.
-"There's a person in the bed."
"O I forgot, it's Virginia. Don't mind her, she's cool. Just look for the keys where you remember you've left them."
-"I can't remember a thing."
"Hahahahahaha!"
Bloom pulls the sheets off Virginia and sees that she holds his car keys in her closed fist. She winks at him with an intimity Marcel would have written at least a thousand pages about if he would have noticed it.
"Hahahahahaha!"
"Should I wake her up?" he asks Marcel.
-"And I'll make some coffee" Franz mutters in the background. Marcel looks at her small hands holding the keys and says
"Isn't that beautiful? Life is so rewarding if you look at it this way."
-"And if you don't?"
"If you don't look at it?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
-"Yes."
"Then... I don't know. Who can know that anyway?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
-"Take the keys", says Bloom, "I'm going home. I've got some work to do."
"Bloom takes the keys and drives back to his appartment. Marcel stays with Franz.
"This is such a boring day!" Marcel says to Franz.
"Hahahahahaha!"
Meanwhile, Virginia is waking up and tries to remember what happened the night before. She fails at that and sleeps for another hour. Marcel enters her room and asks her if everything is alright. Marcel is the friend she shares her most profound secrets with.
"Hi Marcel, I don't know..."
-"You don't know what?"
"I'm writing this script but I'm stuck."
-"What kind of script is that?"
"It's about two friends having a good time together, even though they are in love with the same woman."
-"Are you the same woman?" Franz asks from the background. "And who wants some coffee?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
"I am the same woman" Virginia says proudly.
-"And I am the same man" Franz laughs heartily, but we are not sure if he has understands everything.
"Hahahahahaha!"
"I'm just too tired. I'm going to sleep now."
-"Your work is not yet finished!"
"I apologize for that. But tomorrow I will be the same woman too."
"Hahahahahaha!"
Virginia goes to bed. Franz lays his hand on Marcel's shoulder and says:
-"She's gone to bed now. And soon the birds will come to eat off her windowsill."
"That's so beautiful. Birds on a windowsill. Birds! A windowsill! What else do we need in life? Isn't all the beauty present in that little scene? What else do we need?"
-"I can't think of anything." says Franz but he thinks of Virginia. He rolls his eyes.
"Hahahahahaha!"
"Neither can I."
-"That is good, then."

June 7. Mexico!

I get up at 5am again, this time to be picked up by a shuttle bus to Palenque, Mexico. It is an eight-hour busride including a long section on a bumpy dirtroad. But the scenery is simply beautiful. Busrides can be a real attraction. This one includes another exciting complication: the border to Mexico. We unload the luggage and embark on a long speedboat. The crossing of takes twenty fantastic minutes, because the Mexicans built the road several kilometers downstream (vexing the Guatemalans?). I peel a starfruit that I picked for breakfast and throw the rotten bits overboard as the boat splits the water bow high up. At the Mexican side, another bus is already waiting and immigration services work quickly. However, a few kilometers into Mexico, the trip is interrupted by the peculiar moaning of the Opisthocomus hoazin turistica. We have to cross a national park and the park official is demanding a 15 peso tax which is obligatory even if you're just passing through. The park reliess on local taxation to pay for helicopters to put out wildfires, they tell me. Some Germans in the back ask if they can camp here because "there is no way we pay this stupid rip-off tax". Other tourists join in and soon the conversation turns into a grumbling tumult with the park official. Over slightly more than one dollar. I think they should rethink their attitude, the tourists that are by definition filthy stinking rich. As for myself, I have another problem. I just left all of my remaining cash at the exit post of Guatemala so I can't pay the 15 pesos though I seem the only one willing to do it. So I step out of the vehicle, tell the park official I'm really willing to pay because I understand the cause being an environmental activist myself. What can I do? Sir, can I work, all I have to offer is what's inside my luggage and my muscular power. Can I do some work for 15 pesos? No. Then I climb resolutely on the roof of the minibus, untie my backpack and start getting out things.
"Un guia turistica muy buena en ingles. Muy recien."
-"No intiendo ingles."
"Pero senor, puede venderlo despues a otro turista. Tiene que pensar como un hombre de negocios!"
-"Hahaha. Pero no gracias."
"Este cuchara de una marca de alta calidad. Resiste el calor."
-"No necessitamos aqui."
"Crema de sol? Detergente? Camisa? Por favor..."
-"No, no... haha... es loco, haha...hihiahaha. Pffrrrrt..."
I am standing on the roof of the bus selling stuff from my luggage to pay for a Mexican natural reserve tax of 15 pesos and I feel so intensely happy! This is so good! Cool breeze in my hair, decisiveness in my mind and - admittedly - I'm in the center of all the attention. The roof of the bus is the stage and I'm performing.
"Quizas esta bolsa de documentos?"
-"No, haha, aqui en Mexico es diferente. No tenemos eso." He symbolizes his throat being cut by a violent thief robbing the travel wallet.
"Pero para vender a otro turista...?"
-"Ok, ok", another man says. "Compro la billetera para veinte pesos."
"Veinticinco."
A man gives me 25 pesos and I pay my taxes. I ask the park official to write down the name of the municipality so I can find it later, see on google earth if the wildfires have been put out properly. The conjuction of a German hand and a German accent urges me to get off the roof, because we are rolling on. As I get back in the bus, nobody talks with me. They have all paid their taxes because "there is no way around it". The guy next to me says it's not the money but the principle that matters. And do you want to know what I answer the guy?
"Look, I own a f.... PhD in philosophy and that's as close to principles as you can get. But I left that behind me man."
We still have 147 asphalt kilometers to go and I think about principles. All I can come up with is that I find them ugly when they are not capable of adjusting themselves to a different cultural context.

In Palenque, the tourists quickly disappear and I am alone again. I see an American couple in the bus station and decide to talk to them because the man has a pirate appearance like myself. They tell me they're on their way to Tulum (it's supposed to be a marvelous place). You could easily hitchhike in Mexico accordinig to them. I decide to try that on my way to Panchan near the historical Maya site, which is near anyway so I don't have to rely on cars. So I walk down the road and one car after another passes without responding to my stuck out thumb or the question mark I wrote in the air with my fist. I just want to know how far it is to Panchan, but no-one halts. That's good for the singing. It's great for the singing. I march singing everything between Bach and Bob Dylan. I manage more melancholical registers and even have a go at David Bowie's "Space Oddity":

"I'm sitting in my tin can
Driiiiiiving down the road
And the little feller out there
I see him sticking out his thumb
But I don't take him nowhere
Because I'm absolutely numb

Here's ground control to major Tom
Just hold on you're not alone."

Finally a car stops and the grumpy old driver tells me I'm almost there. I explain him he is the only one who pulled over and wish him all of God's love but he's already gone. Panchan is a lodging complex where you can stay in a dorm room for 50 pesos. How grateful I am for the shower! And the calory-loaded Pasta a la Carbonara! And the live music! And the delicious chocolate sold by the guy who made it himself. He has all kinds of flavors: orange, ginger, mint, chili, and pssst (whispering conspiratorially), a new one, a very special one - chocolate with hongos, mushrooms. In this region, magic mushrooms are very common. You need about fifteen for a trip and it costs you about 200 pesos. For the chocolate he used thirteen mushrooms, well ground and blended with the cacao. It's only 100 pesos for almost a full-fledged mushroom trip. Imagine how many crazy ideas you could get out of it. Imagine the hallucinations you fly through the jungle back to Maya times easily run up and down the temples, communicate with the Gods - time to make the priests redundant and wrap them in cotton - peel ripe mangos and avocados sharing them with sacral snakes that have seven head. Imagine the apotheosis of staggering bright watercolors pouring from the sky and ten thousand rainbows - I decide not to take the mushrooms because I think my imagination is doing pretty well anyway.

I can't sleep in the hot cabin and mosquitos bite me. I rub my skin with diclophenac sodium. Then I go drinking with a group of Mexican anthropology students. They are traveling around Yucatan and Tabasco, visiting Maya sites on their way. Myriam and Mario are really fond of their studies and it's good to talk with them and sharing a few 940ml bottles of delicious Corona beer.

I can't sleep still and get some fresh air outside. A strange noise from the cottage next to me. I walk closer. It's a woman screaming in the height of her pleasure. It goes on and on. I go back in my cottage but the noise is too loud. Panting, screaming, wheezing, groaning. For a short while, the man kicks in and produces a few short panting cries and then it's over. A few seconds later excited wows and satisfied wemadeits. So this is what the origin of new life sounds like, I think. And then: as a writer you can pick one little detail out of a vast range of events and mold that detail into a story. You're coiling and folding the general storyline of life you offer to your reader. Perhaps that's an important job. Perhaps this is all rubbish. When one guy decides to enlarge certain details he thinks are important, what's the big deal? Who cares? If he thinks the general storyline of life gets more streamlined, more interesting, more vital from it, good for him. Congratulations. But don't bother your neighbor with it. It's an individualist society where everybody has his or her episode of going to a romantic cottage in some beautiful country to reproduce. And the storyline remains as flat as ever.

June 6. Tikal.

I get up at 5am to take the early morning bus to the heritage site of Tikal. It's cooler in the morning and you have a greater chance to spot a lot of animals. A comfortable shuttle bus takes me there (gee - am I writing a travelguide here? Can I be more boring? I could mention the music in that bus or begin to describe the other people or the fact that we drove alongside the beautiful lake or the armed guards at the park entry or the flat vertical roots of a tree growing on the wall at the side of the road - but there is absolutely no use to do that. I just sit on that bus and arrive at about 6:30). While the group awaits their guide, I walk off on my own and take a path to the Gran Plaza where the main temples are. From the treetops the howls of a large pack of frenzied lions, terrified grizzlies and suffocating wolves caught my attention. I know no fear and walk off the path to see what it is. My imitation of the cries doesn't yield any response. The noise is, of course, produced by the howler monkeys (Alouetta pigra) that live in this park. They hide well in the high trees. I do see some spidermonkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) though and the make a very sportive and lean impression. Their favorite sport is supposed to be defecating on the visitor's head - I am warned. A little later me and a spidermonkey are teasing each other: me performing a laughable parody of his canciones, him throwing all kind of stuff down from his tree. Leaves, fruits, complete branches hit the floor next to me. The monkey and I are communicating, we are having a conversation. Perhaps not on a level measurable by any diplomatic standards, but still, we're exchanging our views on life. It gives me a good feeling, knowing that little new friend watches over me as I explore the Maya site.
The first ruin I see seems perfectly climbable and I have a go at it. I ascend two from about ten levels and walk around - I am at the Gran Plaza and I am standing on temple number one, the temple of the Jaguar (a propos Jaguar: they do live here and have occurred to patient early visitors). A guard walks towards the temple, gesturing that I should come off. They had forgotten to put a "no subir" sign on the side I just climbed. The Gran Plaza with its north and south acropolis and two fifty-something meter temples is awesome. Instinctly, I start climbing the ruins and taking a series of pictures.

Tikal. Spot the tourist.

Ancient Tikal, with the tourists hidden

The bird of satisfaction has already nested herself somewhere in my mind when I walk on to "do" the remaining temples. Temple 3 is covered with trees. I see a "no subir" sign on one side but at the other side such a sign is omitted. With the mellow and benignant reaction of the first guard in mind and because I'm naughty by nature, I climb up a few meters. My sandals are hindering me, I don't make it to the top. Temple 4. They have installed a safe wooden ladder to reach the upper platform. At an altitude of seventy meters it is the highest point of the city, and it has a great view I enjoy with a group of other visitors. Imagine this place, devoid of trees, and a Maya crowd at the foot of the temple. The sungod is standing on the top, raising his arms. Imagine a ceremony here, with thousands of people, a ceremony expressing gratitude for the climate that was attributed to a god rather than statistics. Imagine a Maya boy running around the crowd looking for his little sister. He finds her. She is not sacrificed to the Gods - yet the Mayas DID sacrifice people (they used prisoners and the like; present-day Mayas don't sacrifice people). The sacrifice is rather a pseudo-scientific method to stimulate the land's fertility than the overly stirred-up hysteric sacrificing business we know from Abraham and his tribe. Here's what happens: The Maya priest makes equinox and solstice calculations and predicts for example a long and dry summer and a prisoner is slaughtered on the altar in the hope his spoiled blood will convince the gods to let it rain. It totally different from sacrificing what you love most (your son), a perversion that's only possible in a religion with a problematic relation to the Absolute. But I'm not an expert on religion (I welcome comments by people who do consider themselves experts). I'm just writing what I think when I consider the height of the Maya temples. Looking at their construction skills, they could have built much higher structures, but they didn't. Why not? I think because they had appointed this worshipped individual to have a direct link to their deity. As long as this individual is placed high enough above the people during ceremonies, it's okay - there's no need for a tower of Babel. No need for an absolute sacrifice to the deity as in the biblical religions. The deity provides what the people need as long as they perform their (occasionaly bloody) rituals. No exceptional wish like the victory over another people, the migration into a promised land or the total destruction of the enemy is granted. Such wishes don't even occur here. The towers are "functionally high" as I would like to call it, hoping the term will soon become proverbial. I don't know if this association makes sense, I leave that to my readers.
On my way back I slip into the forest and get almost lost. There is no way to measure this stupidity! I walk around in circles, losing track of where I am and get out my compass but I have no idea if I should walk half an hour north, south, east or west. Shortly after I make some noise to provoke a human anser, I find the track and tred back to the Gran Plaza, where I rest between the temples waiting for the bus back. It has been a beautiful and worthwhile excursion.

However, there is still too much aggression inside me. When the busdriver asks me for my ticket I mistakenly tell him that the other driver took it from me. He says he doesn't know me and wouldn't let me on his bus. A gloomy scenario of being stuck here and the memory of a lost 900 dollar return airfare ticket ignite my aggression gland and I say some ugly things to the poor driver. A little later, I find the ticket in my bag and get in the bus silently and ashamed.
"Have you been smoking something? Man, can you give me some of that shit?" the driver says in American vernacular.
I apologize and shake his hand.
-"No buddy, I wish I had man, I wish I had."

I write the whole afternoon on two cups of evil Swiss instant coffee.