Page 100 - Exile-ebook

100 AN EXILE OF THE MIND THE RIVER OF LANTERNS 101

Mayan traditional huts. Waiting for the dory, Mopan River.

moonlighting in the wee small hours covered in a tangle of jungle.
when I was still asleep on Pacific Zone Women were seen decked out
time. Loyally I stayed on because in the gaily coloured huipil, worn
it was cheap. I had no choice. The before the Spanish conquest. A
funds I had transferred to Mexico on vibrant contrast in the village of
leaving New Zealand had got lost in a thatched wattle and daub huts and
paperchase of red tape. crushed limestone floors dimly lit
A truck with boards across the with kerosene lamps.
tray for seating was the public trans- Perilously close to the Guatema-
port to El Cayo in the Wild West of lan border, we trekked to the ‘Stone
the country. For five bum-numbing Woman’, the Mayan ruins of Xunan-
hours it rattled on a bone-shake of tunich, named after a ghost in white
dirt road for 90 kilometres. The fare said to frighten the living daylights
was one dollar which was exorbitant out of the locals. The commissioner
considering the torture it inflicted. was as passionate about his digs as
I was to meet Hamilton Ander- Howard Carter was when he was
son, the country’s first Commis- scritching around for Tutankhamen.
sioner of Archaeology, in San Jose Neither of them had formal training.
Succotz in the Mayan heartland for A tropical greyness swept sheets
a bit of ‘scritching on a dig’, the pro- of rain across the Mopan River
fessional term for unearthing ruins where we winched ourselves across
on a raft-like ferry that clung to a
The world’s second largest coral reef. cable strung across the river. And