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The
Occasional
March
8 , 2002
Katanchel
(updated 3/29/02)
I’m
in the Yucatan, a part of Mexico so far to the east that if I headed
straight north I’d run into New Orleans. I’m writing from
a place in the jungle called Hacienda Katanchel. It’s previous
worldly function was to grow agave cactus for the sisal that created
a local gold mine in rope which nylon replaced in the 1950s, leaving
the place deserted and destitute. It returned completely to the
jungle until it was purchased by a visionary couple nearly a half
century later who began hacking away at the growth to find not only
the grand old Hacienda itself, but a small town of buildings built
for the workers in the glory days. This suggested to the visionary
couple that there might be the potential for a hotel here. The heavy
adobe and concrete structures which became the outlying cottages
of the hotel lie in a row like a town road. The road has its own
cable car system on two rails pulled by a small horse named Margerita.
I leave Margerita in peace and have tried to apologize for the laziness
of the humans by trying to feed her carrots. She doesn’t seem
to recognize carrots and prefers to gnaw on tree branches they leave
at her feet.
The place sounds idyllic and I guess it is, but there is something
else going on here. You expect to open the bedside table and find
Heart of Darkness and Mosquito Coast along with Gideon’s Bible.
This is a decaying grandeur and it seems to be only minutes away
from being swallowed whole by the jungle. I am comfortable in nature,
but this place frightens me. I normally go around in my politically
correct mode, complaining about the destruction being wrought by
humans on this planet. This is a place where it feels as if the
humans are loosing. Don’t get me wrong; I’m rooting for
the plants, but when it’s me here I’ve got to admit they
look pretty hungry. This is a place where the plant life will send
roots through the concrete. Even the drawings of the ancient Mayan
city of Uxmal from 1839 show trees growing on the steep slopes of
the pyramid called The Magician’s Temple. It isn’t rain
erosion or ice which has toppled these pyramids; it’s roots.
I am reminded of the last line of a poem I read in a volume called
Where Is Vietnam years ago…. “and the jungle riots in
eternal green.” This feels like a riot; big, forceful and quite
out of human control. I tend to think humans will make themselves
extinct in this entire process and that this green will indeed riot
and shrug off the temporary experience of homosapiens. This place
seems quite ready to do so.
The landscape is numbingly flat. There are no hills, no valleys,
nothing. Nothing. Just green and birds. There are trees which achieve
rather monumental proportions, but as they’re part of the green
too, they are easily subsumed into the flat landscape. I’m
sure the Mayan’s created their monumental pyramids just to
keep themselves from going mad in the flat, green sameness. Today
overweight tourists stare balefully up the precipitous stone stairs
of these pyramids in 100 degree heat and somehow elect to forego
the climb. I ran up the things in near desperation just to experience
a view. This isn’t a casual “honey, look at the view”
sort of situation. I’d actually begun to wonder if such a view
still existed on this earth and had to reassure myself that it did.
I’m going back tomorrow to do the same thing.
I cannot comment generally about the weather as I’ve only been
here 24 hours, but the sky since I arrived has been an even gray.
It is utterly impossible to tell where the sun rises or sets. It
is gray. Given that you can see exactly ten feel in any direction,
it doesn’t give one much of a perspective on where exactly
you are. Where you are, of course, is in the jungle. I’ve always
thought I might enjoy going to the Amazon. I’ve reconsidered.
Unless they install pyramids in a regular grid before I arrive,
I’ll leave that exploration to people who have not seen the
director’s cut of Apocalypse Now.
Will
(I
recommend reading Don Victor next)
Uxmal
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