If You Drink the Water….

They say in Petén that if you drink the water from Lake Petén Itza, you will never leave. The turquoise green water of the immense lake beckoned me as the little airplane dropped towards the Santa Elena landing strip. An oasis in a sea of green tropical plants, the complexity and immensity of the lake called my attention. I immediately felt at home.

Stepping out onto the hot tarmac, I felt I had returned to summer in Iowa. In the humid, tropical air, my red hair began to curl, and I felt sweat start to drip down my back. I looked at the vast flat land covered in Ceiba trees and hundreds of other plant species, and relief filled my soul as I realized I had left Guatemala City hundreds of miles away. How could it be that I felt at home immediately? A sense of place in a location I had only read about? Petén Itza had called me home.

Erick, smiling widely as he saw me trundle out of the airport gave me a warm hug and said, “Nancy, bienvenida a Petén!” I had told him and Carlos, my other Tikal connection, that since I was 12 years old and in sixth grade I had wanted to come to Tikal. I remembered learning to count using the strange Mayan glyphs. Vividly I recalled videos about the tropical forest, where Mayan ruins and temples lay buried under layers of soil and plant debris. Finally, I would know Tikal. At 24, twelve years after I had vowed to come, I would realize one of the largest, most important dreams of my life.

The relaxed, almost Caribbean environment filled the small communities of Santa Elena and Flores. Everyone walked around in flip flops, shorts, and t-shirts. Sweat glistened on everyone’s foreheads. Tut tuts, or taxi-motorcycles, zoomed down the street, announcing their presence with their “tut-tut” sounding horns. Erick and I stopped to purchase ceviche from a small ceviche cart. The men frantically squeezed lime juice onto containers of shrimp, tomatoes, and onions, as they prepared the exotic treat. Containers of ceviche in our hands, we hopped back into the car and cruised across the causeway to the island community, Flores.

Flores, with its tin-roofed houses, was a quaint, tranquil community. Everyone sat in the shade, waiting for the midday heat to diminish with the night air. They greeted Erick as we pulled up to his home, a little brightly colored house. Inside, each wall was painted a cheery teal, orange, green, or bright blue. Estelita, Erick’s wife, immediately made me feel welcome into their home. Their casual, friendly joking helped me recognize that for the first time in Guatemala, I had a community and a home I could go to. Eagerly, we ate the cool ceviche before venturing out to the surrounding communities.

Marimba music pulsed through the air in San Jose, a quiet, sleepy community on the other side of the inlet from Flores. We wandered up to meet Doña Nelly, one of Estelita’s friends. She handed us refreshing glasses of soda, ice clinking against the edges of the cups. As we sat, enjoying her company, they began to joke that the ice in the cup was actually made from water from the lake. They explained, “You see, Nancy, once you drink the water from the lake, you’ll stay in Petén. You won’t want to leave. Look at us! We’re from Guatemala City. We drank the water and we will always stay in Petén. You’ve drunk the water now, too.” As I looked out at the lake, felt the heat in the air, and realized a sense of community stronger than I had experienced in two months of life in Guatemala, I immediately understand what they meant. Petén Itza had called my name and I would forever count the days until I returned to Petén.