Today was just a rotten day. Standing in the sun for hours, waiting, waiting. First waiting for traffic, on a road cutting straight through the dense Yucatan jungle. Often not one vehicle for five minutes, and still some genius figured that they needed pedestrian bridges across this road. Not just one, but two, utterly overgrown and disused, in this town of no more than 200 souls. Some of them, have become dear friends though. Later, here in Escarcega, again the sun beat down on me, my arm outstreched, my thumb almost limp, but no one who thought they could help me with a ride. Screw it, I left the roadside and made for a cheap inn nearby, an old wooden shack of a place, now covered in a rich layer of candy pink paint, in and out.
But that is today, to relate to you the events that have passed since my last post, we return to the old hills (250 + million years) of the Appalacian range, in sweet north Carolina.
With the usual stroke of luck my host in Ashevill went to visit her boyfriend one day, who lived near the trail. So after stocking myself and my bag to the point of bursting I got to the trailhead in a deep valley where a powerfull river formed a set of rapids bridged by suspencion. The weather was fair and the air fresh with the smell of leaves, life and the late summer. The trail went straight up the hill, as I had been told for a few miles, winding between colouring groves of oak and various types of maple, that were still desperately trying to deny the advencing autumn. The first 800 meter climb was the longest to come in my 10 days on the trail, but it seems that the makers of this epic 3000 km path were fervent lovers of the incline, applying it wherever possible. It was beautifull, yes, and very quite. Usually sleeping alone, in half open shelters or simple campsites, always under the eaves. Only rarely does one get a chance to gaze over the endless green and roling hills of the Nantahala forrest, and so you quickly start to treasure them, because when one does, it gives you the air needed to continue through those green bowels, of nature.
I was starteled by the way it seemed so untouched. At one rocky outcropping, not a single patch of clearcut could be seen as far as the eye reached, which, was a good many miles at that point. Sometimes I would camp with others, many veterans were on the trail to hike away their wartime traumas.
The trail becomes a way of life. Hardships or not, painfull bones and hard sleeping. It is enchanting. Water was a rare comodity at some parts because of the summer drought, especially once I hiked my way into Georgia, but luckily some trail angels often left water at where the trail intersected with roads. Everyone kept talking about the turning of the leaves. I can not say that I feel I really saw it, but than, something was definitely changing. A certian type of tree, whose name is lost to me, turned not red or yellow, but a sweet warm pink, and as it was very common, thats the hue a lot of our world became.
Inicially I became a bit bored with the somewhat monotomous landscape, same woods, same trees, same rhodondenderon tunnels, up and down, endlesly. But as the days went by, the actual walking became the main focus, and it was all good. As the trail mostly runs across the tops of the hills, shops are extremely rare so going to the town of Hiawassee for my first resupply I suddenly realized how special it was what was going on up there in the mountains. How the hikers form a kind of moving community, even if you only meet them once. It took me 10 days to hike the roughly 200 km to the southern end of the trail at Amicolola Falls, from where it was an easy hitchike to Atlanta.
To Atlanta I went because it so happened that the very morning after I had decided to get the heck out of that crazy country of America, Tamara, my stepmother messaged me that she wanted to see me in Phoenix, and I should come over. Okay, well, Alright. So in a mad act of bizar eventness, I also booked a flight to the dessert, just 10 days before I was bound to fly to Cancun. Im usually not one for airtravel and after all these strange hops ive decided I definitively dont like flying anymore. Its so weird and ungrounding, and it takes me days afterwards to fully come down back on earth. Anyway, still smelly and fresh off the trail I hopped to Phoenix, where a very happy Tamara awaited me. What joy to see her again after more than a year, and how well we do get along. She looked really good, and I was shown into her American life. First thing we got in her Suburban and drove to the aptly named Hole-in-the-Rock. The dry afternoon heat engulfed me like a cocoon, but I like it.
How dry this place, how different from the juicy woods of the east, Oh yeah, Were in the Dessert. She welcomed me into her beautiful house of a castle, with high ceilings and arches, white pillars along the walls. In the garden ran her dog Bellum, and the turtle made it a true home. For a few days we mostly worked in the garden, in the mornings when it was not yet too hot, or went for walks. The area of phoenix is a vast valley where westeners share the dessert with various native tribes, that own large swaths of reservation. Vegetation is all very stark and hardy, but when left to itself, definitifely abundant. The kings of that dessert however, are the great Suguaro Cactussus. They tower over everything else, and form a forrest of sorts. Just have to alter your idea, of what a forrest is. They crow up to 8 meters tall and can easily survive a century. She even has one in her garden. Tamara lives very near the edge of her Suburb and so little wild pigs and all kinds of other wildlife regularly swarm across her the front lawn, nibbeling at even the spricklyest if plants.
Halloween also happened while I was there, and we went to a friends house where we decorated the whole drive and watched classic halloween movies while all kinds of kids usually in great outfits came by
to trick and treat. Ofcourse, no one had to worry about rain.....
We were all in mysterious dress too and even the two dogs there had little strap on batwings on their backs, to the great pleasure of all the passer-bys.
Next morning Tamara and me loaded the car with anything we thought we might need in the dessert and set off for the grand Canyon. Soon we rose out of the Phoenix valley and the suguaros disappeared. Insead, sagebrush now filled the high plains, and an occasional forrest of pine made itself known in the distence, by the intensity of its green. soon we were driving through some real forrests, be it dry, before hitting the village of Grand Canyon. as we left the car we were met by a bone chilling cold wind and realized we were utterly overwelmed by the rapid change of climate. Wearing all we had, we shuffeled to the edge of the canyon just around sunset, and saw the orange and reds fade into the beige and grays of the night. I camped in the bushes, while Teak made her bed in the car. Luckily I had a warm sleepingbag, because man, it was neigh near 0 degrees that night. Having both slept surprisingly well considdering the circumstances we again set off for the cliff, and after a warm beakfast brought the dog to a kennel for the day so that we might decend into the canyon where animals other than Mules are not allowed. Mules yes, because since many a year, muletrains have been servicing the lower lying homesteads down near the bottom of the Canyon, where the blue Colorado river rushes by. We did not make it that far though, and were content after just a few hundred meters down. The bright angel trail led us past astonishing ancient rockfaces of white and red, eroded over the millenia by wind, rain and ice, into stunning shapes and towers, with desperate vegetation hanging on to crack and ledge. I was surprised by the charmingness of it all. I had expected it to be cheesier, more of a tourist circus, but it was ok. The shaddows on the Canyon are always changing, and it seems impossible to gauge its dept, in meters aswel as in years. 16 km across you say, alright, it means nothing to me. Wonderfull how someone in the history of that place has named all the rocks and turrets after mythical gods and deities. Shiva Templa, Vishnu Schist, Walhalla plateau, Thors Throne....etc.
We stayed another night, in a different place, where one can see the canyon wind away into the northern plains of yellow bison grass, where the wind ever blows, and the spirits of the original inhabitants of this land still roam free. The longer I stayed in the US. The stranger it felt to me, the situation there, with the Natives. How must they feel, having been turned into a secondary kind of citizens, caught
between keeping to their traditions and intergrating into mainstream american scociety.
Driving back, we passed through several distinctly different vegatation zoned. All dessert like, but so diverse. The red mountains, a lush rocky mountain like valley full of leafy trees and a big fresh river, the bare high plateau, the hills of old mining town Jerome, now taken over by some very talented artists.
As we got closer to home, the clouds thickened and the wet blessing came down from the sky. We didnt mind, as dessert people, we were celebrating!
Just back home before dark, the clouds burst, and one could hear the plants sing in the twilight. This was my last night in the dessert for now, as next morning I packed my stuff again, now much lighter, and headed back to the airport.
The next 72 hours were a blur of different vehicles and airports, with a little oasis of rest in New Orleans, where, by pure grace I met a fiendly Lawyer in a wacky bar in Bourbon street that let me stay in her nice house, and gave me breakfast too. How lucky I am, most of the time, and when I feel Im not, the universe usually has some other plan hatching for me.
From that cradle of Jazz in at the mouth of the Missisipi I made it to Mexican Cancun, where the heat again greeted me, but now of the humid tropical kind. I did not linger in cancun though, to the beach, the beach, the beach.....In Playa del Carmen it was, I stayed that night, and loved the climate. I repeat it to myself at least several times a day, Oh , I love this climate!
Down the coast of the Yucatan it went, visiting crumbling Mayan ruins and powdery white sandy beaches. Palmtrees were again my companions in the midday sun, as were some pretty mad traveler folks. Im not sure I can really unite myself with the backpacking cause right now though, and so feel somewhat lost between all these holiday makers. To the lakeside town of Bacalar than, swimming in the gorgeous clear blue waters, warmer than the already mild air before sunrise I can assure you.
From there, I cut straight across the Yucatan peninsula, through the huge natural reserves that contain some of the largest abandoned Mayan cities so far discovered. Coming to the town of Becan, or, town, outpost more like, outpost on a asfalt river surounded by an ocean of green.
The ruins of Becan inspired me a lot. The energy there was very quite, and the many great temples rose up from velvet green mossy grounds where imposing trees still stood tall. In on of those human built mountains I found a bare room, and sat. I felt the ground pull me into a deep awareness of that place, felt I was going into the minds of those that had once lived and died there. Of the rituals and relations thay had. So strong it was, that I didnt even want to leave. So I stayed another day. With great guidence I met a friend called Guilermo who surprisingly has a art studio where he lives, and also does camping. An interesting combination of his own contemporary but anciently inspirered work mixes with thousand year old stone axes, ceramics and other artifacts he has collected over time. Litterly every stone around there has been turned over twice at least, so finding things is not hard. We had a really good connection and so next day I spent all day at the ruins, untill the sun set, and I was watching some highspeed butterflies circling the top of the highest pyramid. Towering over the jngle, this mountain of stones was completely moved by pleople. How many loads?
Higher up means less stone to carry, but it also means carrying that whole top of the pyramid up those incredibly steep steps. The temperature was still awsome up there, even as the full moon came out, big and bright. Man that white thing sure gives off a lot of light!
Than it was time to decend, and with the Jaguar and the serpent on my mind made it through the blackness back to Guilermos place.
And than, it was today. A rotten day, maybe, but Im still assured that all that happens is in the will of the universe. So when I dont get a ride, or when I do bump my toe, When the sweat runs down my face or hunger consumes me
I do know, its the way it has to be.
