The Quest for San Bartolo:
Among Petén Jungle Roads, Trails and Ruins,
March, 2008
by Dwayne Shreve
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In 2006, I finally seriously became interested in visiting San Bartolo and the famed Pre-Classic murals there, and late in that year I sent an e-mail to archaeologist William Saturno, who had discovered the murals and who still worked there. I got a response indicating that he would be on Sabbatical and, although work would go on, the murals would not be opened the upcoming year. In April 2007 at the Maya Weekend I asked Saturno if it would be all right to visit in 2008 with some Maya enthusiasts and, although he would not guarantee that the murals would be actually opened by our arrival, he said that we would be welcome.
Eventually the trip priorities included Naachtún and Rio Azul. I set about finding transport and ultimately selected Dieter Richter, who co-owns Cafe Yaxhá and who runs many tours there as well. He suggested that depending on the condition of the roads, we could see a good many other other sites along the way. He listed some that could be possible depending on road conditions, which unfortunately included Holmul. Because March is typically a dry one, things looked rather optimistic.
My portion of the trip started out almost too well. My flight was uneventful, because my having a USAir credit card and frequent flier account gave me premier status when checking in and at security at Philadelphia. It was even looking a bit too easy at first.
I was taking some books for the Children's Library at Santa Cruz la Laguna, a village on Lake Atitlán. The plan was to drop them off at Xamanek Inn in the Zona Viva in Guatemala City, where a friend would pick them up after the jungle jaunt. Once I was at the airport, the local cabbies all seemed to want 40-50 Quetzals to take me to the very nearby Zona Viva, which is normally a complete rip off, but it was Holy Week. Despite my having an extra duffel bag of books, I walked out to find a cheaper cab.
Eventually I was happy to get one passing by for 35Q and I headed to Xamanek. However, it was short staffed for Holy Week and would not open until 4 PM. The normally busy Zona Viva streets and avenues were virtually deserted. I decided that I should take my books and head downtown and get a seat on an overnight bus as planned. A cabdriver took me right past the Fuente del Norte station, which was closed, and he stopped in front of Autobuses del Norte, and it too was closed. He then drove me to my last resort, Linea Dorada, which was also closed. Because the bus options were nonexistent, I negotiated an additional 40Q to get me to the airport. Obviously, Good Friday is not a good time to plan on riding in a long distance bus, but it turned out that airplanes still fly there.
The airport area for flights to Flores has a Banco de la Republica kiosk to collect the 20Q or $3 flight tax (a bad rate of exchange anywhere) and a non-working ATM. Unlike the ones in the International area next to the Banrural kiosk, it had no “fuera de servicio” sign. It just didn't work. The banks are located in such a way that if you have your boarding pass to fly out of Guate anywhere, you go right past the appropriate one to pay your tax. There is no more hunting around to pay the damned tax like there used to be.
This would be my first flight to Flores in quite a while. As usual, it was a short one, but being as it is run by a soulless multi-national company, TACA, there was now no effort at even a beverage service. This was a far cry from my first flight back in the early '90's, where a 6 AM flight hurriedly and successfully served a normal breakfast to every passenger on a small plane. I didn't expect that, but a soda would have been great.
Because I was arriving unusually heavily laden, I did not head out for a mere 2 or so mile hike to Flores with an eye to maybe flagging down one of the three wheeled tuk tuks. Because it was Holy Week, prices from the airport into town by taxi were a ridiculous 40Q and a shared shuttle van was only half that. I did go the short distance out to the highway to look for any tuk tuk, but I kept my eye on the next van that would be leaving. There were no other options anywhere that I could see, so I got into the van and headed straight to the Hotel Sabana once all the others got off. There I already had a reservation for the next night with two others, Greg Vandiver and Scott Turner, though the latter would be already checked in and expecting me in the morning.
Hotel Sabana is a nice enough hotel on the northwestern part of the island, and it is currently the cheapest one in Flores with a pool. However, it seems a bit far from restaurants and the two sealed glasses of water that it provides are throw away plastic ones. Because Guatemala has little or no recycling, this is not a plus. It did have a nice view from my room of the lake and the management is helpful.
At the hotel, I dropped off all the weight in my room and left a message for Scott, and then I set off according to the directions from the desk clerk as to where Cafe Yaxhá was. I had arranged with Dieter Richter of that fine establishment for a six day 4x4 truck tour of a good number of Maya ruins, the priorities of which were to be San Bartolo/Xultún, Naachtún and Rio Azul. However, the odds of including many more seemed quite good, depending on road conditions. I planned to have supper there and to meet Dieter.
The directions the desk clerk gave me to get to the cafe would have been good a few years before it had moved to Calle 15 de Diciembre on the the eastern side of the island. I would have even been all right if I had even just looked looked in my guide book for it. But no, following local instructions, I headed along down the western side and dodged between the Good Friday procession that looks somewhat similar to that of Antigua, though it is not as involved.
Finally I had walked up just a bit toward where the cafe really is and gave up. I headed back and decided to backtrack and give the Los Peches restaurant another chance, despite the glacial service on an earlier trip. I figured that with a lot of food already looking done and visible outside on a barbecue, the wait would not not necessarily be so prolonged, but I was mostly wrong. The chicken was all right once I got it, but it was not even a bit quick or all that impressive. After finishing the meal, I headed back to the hotel back on the opposite end of the island.
There the same desk clerk greeted me by name and handed me the note that from Scott, who had been there but had left. I found him where he said he would be, at the only really nearby restaurant, Cool Beans. He also now knew where the Cafe Yaxhá restaurant was, despite getting the same bad directions earlier. He and I headed to the previously elusive restaurant, where Dieter later came in and we got to meet him.
The next morning most of us went on a pre-trip tour. One of our members had arranged it for those of us already in the area the day before. In it, she arranged for Oscar Tun of the Mirador Project show us around “Tayazal”. This is not the Tayasal or Tah Itzá that the invading Spanish had destroyed in 1697 and had buried under Flores. It is instead an earlier version which is a short boat ride across from Flores on the San Miguel Peninsula. It mostly precedes the Itzá period. but little work has been done there.
Those of us there were Marilyn (Merlina) Barnes, the catalyst of this portion of the trip, Erik Christiansen, Mike Reed, Scott Turner and Skip Caldwell. Greg Vandiver would arrive that night.
Boats from Flores to San Miguel are regular, take only a few minutes, cost 3-4 Quetzals and they all leave from the north shore of Flores. Those of us already there rode over and met Oscar, who also owns and runs Posada San Miguel. which is a small and affordable hotel there. The place looked so pleasant that later some of us came up with the idea of staying there the night after our return, but it was not to be. By the time we later got back from the jungle, the last thing we wanted to do was move around more than necessary.
Señor Tun took us up and around the site. The paths are well trodden and it looks like an ideal place for a family picnic. It is also surprisingly impressive and yet still close to Flores.
That night we all met at Cafe Yaxhá to discuss the trip and finalize plans. One of our members then made the fateful statement that he so hoped that we could indeed get to Holmul that that somehow became our first new goal. This had indeed been listed as one of the possible sites we could get to if all went well, but it was not one of our important ones. Because the approach already would place San Bartolo at the end of the six days and would save us the Tikal entry fee, I should have asked serious questions about the possibility of delay, but I did not do so. Because there had been some rain not long before, this should have been a red flag for me as well.
The next morning most of us were ready right away to take our things and head down to Cafe Yaxhá, where we put them on the two trucks. When going far beyond good roads, it is best to have a second vehicle to be able to pull each other out when stuck, but I had not realized just how important that could be until we got well into the jungle.
We met our support staff. One driver was Raúl Noriega, who is an architect with years of experience at Nakúm, Yaxhá, and Naranjo. The other driver was Manuel (AKA Lente). The helper and guide was Walfre Chí, who was always very helpful and who speaks some English.
Our two truck convoy headed out toward Melchor de Mencos near the Belize border, where we would then head north into the jungle. Dieter stopped the trucks at a nice restaurant in town on the road heading north from there for breakfast, because we were due a meal. Also, going somewhere cheaper could have resulted in us all getting sick, which could have messed things up quite a bit.
I noticed
along the way that the stelae in the Melchor town square were right before the
restaurant and I mentioned it to the others. After eating a rather pleasant
brunch, most of us walked back to see them before heading off. Thus, even at the
very beginning of our trip, we were seeing a sight seen rarely by
tourists. Once we were just out of town, the drivers stopped so that we could
see the Xunantunich ruins in the distance. The early ride was mostly on roads
that the lumber companies sort of take care of, so it was fairly smooth. I rode
most of the time in the back of our truck and had a wonderful time. I also
discovered that Walfre's amiga cooks excellent fried chicken. Once he and I ran out of
my beef jerky, he opened up a small pack and offered me a piece of her chicken.
I just took a drumstick, but it was so very tasty.
There is something to be said about riding in the back of a truck and peering over the top in the Petén Jungle and presumably elsewhere. If a white hawk or other bird is way up in a tree, you are still likely to see it. If some animal appears near the road on one side or the other, you will likely still see it, because you see both sides.
The way closer to Holmul was not easy and it was quickly obvious why having two trucks was a very good idea. When one would get stuck, the other would pull it out and I think that there was a learning curve here for our drivers. They seemed much better in the days afterwards.
Where that particular road was not a muddy mess, quite often there was a fallen tree to keep our drivers further occupied. At times, it was good to have a full complement of male muscle to also help push the one truck that was stuck, but more often the second truck pulled the other one out easily enough.
It was our first serious situation where the road was so bad that our people had to build a detour where Mike Reed found a nearby and barely known ruin, which he later figured was most likely a particularly obscure one called Hamontun. He and some others trotted off to look it over during the building of the detour, but I later realized that we would soon be able to move on. Sensing that with each passing hour, the chances of us getting to San Bartolo after this now so depressing side trip to Holmul were fading, I went off in pursuit. The site did seem interesting and I saw a bit of it, but then it was just a delay in the way of my main goal. Eventually the explorers returned.
Had I been
psychic and had somehow still agreed to save San Bartolo until the end of the
trip, I would have then just settled back
and enjoyed things as they came much
sooner than I did, but this was not to be. I did my best to hustle the
group back and then we were off to the next of many times of becoming stuck in
that road. Quite often, we would again have to wait for one or the other truck
to pull the other from the muck. When a fallen tree was the cause for delay, one
of the drivers would bring out the chain saw and take care of the problem.
No one with any grasp of reality will claim that I am very good at just hanging around anywhere waiting for others to do things. Generally speaking, the drivers and Walfre did not need help from the rest of us, so I ended up scouting ahead with flashlights in the dark with Scott. When we got to a particularly bad rut, I poked in a stick so it was sticking up, making it more visible in the dark. This seemed to work okay for those following. We did a lot more walking than one usually does near the end of a long day, to the point where I felt mostly on auto-pilot instead of being actually tired. It did seem pretty cool that we were able to walk so far without running across any settlements at all.
At some point, the road was not bad for a very good distance and the trucks finally caught up with us. Scott and I got in and right before we finally arrived at the Holmul ruins, we saw a horse running loose in the headlights. I figured that that just had to be a good sign and it was. We were finally there.
Our arrival was around 9 PM and we made camp and had a late supper. Although I did eventually choke down some food. I was quite glad to just be able to pile into a hammock and just sleep after we were finally able to do so.
The next morning after breakfast, we spent some time exploring Holmul. It is an impressive large Maya site that had existed from the Early Pre-Classic and survived until around 850 CE. After we saw it in the morning, we were on our way.
I don't regret getting to Holmul, because it was quite a feat and it is an impressive site. However, I do regret going there, because it set us back a whole day behind our tentative schedule and it made it impossible to seriously persevere to San Bartolo near the end while wondering about the road there, when we could easily see a good number of other ruins instead.
On our route along the way, Mike convinced Raúl to stop in at a woodcutter camp, where Mike proceeded to buy some chicha, a widely and locally made fermented drink of the masses. Here it was made from pineapple juice and we each got the opportunity to sample its milky alcohol substance that night.
Near dark, we arrived at a lumber camp called La Lagunita, where Dieter and Raul had to spend some time in chitchat with the local management to get approval for us to stay there. Then we set up camp, although by this time doing it in the dark didn't seem so unusual. Because the nights were cool and I also preferred to have everything of mine in an enclosed space to make it easier to find everything each morning, I switched from using a hammock to putting up one of the tents. I had a small inflatable pillow along and found it easier to cover up in my blanket in a tent. Because it was dark and this was the first time I was to use this tent, Walfre held a flashlight for me and started to help me set it up, but with only his light I was able to see what to do by myself.
I should mention that I brought along a headlamp, but it was right then not readily available. I had also come up with the idea to bring a very small flashlight that I would and actually did keep in the same pocket all the time, even while sleeping. This worked quite well in keeping me readily able to get my hand on a light in the dark.
The next ruin, Naachtún, was actually among the main three we seriously wanted to see. However, the road was incredibly bad. Between the ruts and fallen trees, it took us five hours to make it 16 kms, only half way to the site, where we gave up, but from our improvements, it took only three hours back to where we could camp.
I should
mention that for a good bit of the time, while rounding a corner on foot, I had
had the hope that things on the Naachtún
road would get better. However, the
last stretch just looked hopeless. I remember that I was again just going on
autopilot and scouting ahead, this time with Dieter, when he said, “You know, we
could turn back.” He also mentioned how the drivers were not looking forward to
pushing ahead again in the dark. It just sounded so sensible at this point.
Though I was definitely in favor, we needed to put it to a vote of the group, so we walked back to consult. Barring an actual emergency, any trip I arrange is not going to have a major decision made by just one member instead of the whole group, no matter how logical it may seem. The resolution certainly did pass. We were all ready to head back.
We returned
to Dos Lagunas and camped. It is a pretty location, but you wouldn't want to
swim or fish there. There is a very large crocodile who lurks near the dock
hoping for food of one sort or another, and he doesn't look very particular as
to what kind it is. Apparently there is another much more shy one out in the
laguna somewhere. Presuming that they are not of the same gender, there are
likely to be smaller ones as well.
Next morning after breakfast we headed off to the ruin at Kinal. It too is an impressive and formerly lost city of the Maya. There I broke my camera while climbing in to see some graffiti inside a small room. Fortunately, Scott had a spare and he loaned it to me. Unfortunately, I placed the old memory stick into my pack and put a larger one into the new camera. Naturally I lost the first one, so my own extant pictures only start after that.
The next day we had breakfast and visited Rio Azul, which actually was one of of our priorities. It too is a large and well known Maya site well off the beaten path. For years, I had figured that I would be unlikely to ever get there, but this trip made it attainable. There had not been much visible work done there, but it was impressive.
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This YouTube video shows a much wetter journey than ours. |
We discussed the options and on the next to the last day of the jungle trip, we headed toward more easy going roads. We could not be sure that the road to San Bartolo would be in any sort of decent shape and it sounded good for morale to see a few sure sites. After breakfast, we headed toward Uaxactún, where we drank a few beers and picked up a few more from a couple of tiendas and then headed to the ruins. Near the entrance, we had lunch after exploring that part of the site a bit, including the E Complex. Most of us had already visited the place at least once, but it was very pleasant to return to for lunch. Then we headed south to Tikal, where we stopped hit the restrooms and walk around a bit in the non-ticketed area. Raul pointed out the scale model of Tikal and said that he had made that.  South of Tikal, we took a side road back to the highway between Santa Elena and Melchor with a view to spending the night at the ruins of Yaxhá. It was the first night I had even seen a bed in days and I was happy that I got a private room with one. Sometimes it isn't so bad to be older and get comforts. I had brought some body wash along and a camp towel, so it is likely that I wasn't all that rank smelling, but it was great to be able to shower at last. The next morning after a pleasant breakfast, we went on a short visit inside Yaxhá, where Raul had worked. He took us climbing Temple 216, which I had seen both before and after the restoration efforts, but I had not noticed the wonderful view from atop it up Lake Yaxhá until he pointed it out. |
Heading north from there, we stopped at the small site known as Poza Maya.
From there,
we headed to Nakúm, which had not even been on our radar, but it was as impressive
as I suspected.
It has an acropolis much larger than that of Tikal and from the work going on
there, my guess is that it will be next offering for people who want to see more
than Tikal, but who don't want to necessarily go trekking to get there.
After Nakúm, we stopped in at a small site called Naranjito. We saw what was at least a six foot snake and a few buildings that had had no work done on them, except by looters.
Getting back to Flores was no big deal after all these adventures, but none of us were ready to do much more than attend the party celebrating the trip. We all basically headed back to our previous hotels. Cafe Yaxhá has one no-frills room that people can stay in and the is where Erik stayed before and after.
Greg
Vandiver is a big man in more ways than just size, because he paid for our
banquet at Capitan Tortuga's in Flores. It wasn't just for those of us who had
paid to go. Dieter was there along with his girlfriend. Both of our good drivers,
Raul and Manuel, were there and the capable assistant, Walfre, was as well. It was a
fun evening with good food and plenty of cold beer.
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The next morning, Erik, Scott and I headed off for Raxrujá, where after seeing Cancuén, Erik would return to Flores and Scott and I would brave Guate City and see the Mirador Basin Museum.
Scott Turner, Mike Reed, Raúl Noriega, Greg Vandiver, Dieter Richter, Erik Christiansen,
Skip Caldwell, Mer (Marilyn) Barnes, Dwayne Shreve, Manuel, AKA Lente or Lente Loco.
Walfre Chí took the photo.