TRAVELING SOLO

         RATIONAL MIND OR WHISPERING INTUITION: WHICH TO FOLLOW?

San Pedro, Guatemala 1993

"Stay on the boat,” Jaime urged. “I will show you where the hotel is. We will go to the next dock, just a minute away."

The next dock? I was sure the boat captain had said this was the last stop, the end of the line. But Jaime lived here, he should know, shouldn’t he?  Had I misunderstood the captain? Maybe I had misinterpreted Jaime. I had talked to him only during the hour and a half boat trip, so I didn’t know how to evaluate his invitation. I had been glad to find a seat on the bench next to him. His articulation was clear, even above the din of talk and the radio music blaring from the captain's cabin. We were having a real conversation in Spanish, I told myself. I hoped that was not merely an illusion, and that my months of Spanish lessons had finally begun to kick in.

Jaime smiled. Fine sunshine lines splayed from the corners of his eyes, but something like sadness seemed not far beyond his crinkly-eyed smiles. His weathered mocha brown face reflected myriad feelings as he spoke of his life and ambitions. If I had been with a friend I would have had the advantage of checking out my perceptions with her. Our pooled perceptions would have given us a workable hypothesis about whether Jaime could be trusted. But this was one of the times when I had given up that luxury in favor of meandering solo.

In unfamiliar terrain I especially appreciate casual connections with locals such as Jaime. When it comes to following the advice or responding to invitations of local people, my head and my gut feeling are often at odds. Confining itself to facts, my rational mind weighs the pros and cons of taking some questionable action, It leaves it to my intuition to say whoa, when appropriate. In that case I might slow down because an indefinable something seems is off kilter. But such a warning wouldn’t necessarily come in the form of words. It might be a stomach rumble indicating “this is risky; back off.” But it could just as likely be delivering an alert to a trivial concerns such as, “you’re supposed to turn left.” On the boat, my intuition apparently had no message to impart, other than its apparently complacent silence, implying, no problema. I interpreted that as “Trust Jaime and see what adventure develops.” But, veering back to my mind again, I ticked off reasons for caution: the contradiction between Jaime’s statement and the captains’ about the last stop; puttig my trust a man I had just met; following him to a place I’m not familiar with, and finally the question of why was he eager to have me stay on the boat? What was his hidden agenda? Should I listen to the mental bean counter, or to the silence of my intuition?

San Pedro is one of the tiny pueblos that circles Lake Atitlan in central Guatemala. As we neared the dock, my watch said it was still early evening. But darkness had blackened the sky, and obscured the shoreline. Peering out the open sides of the small boat, I could locate nothing resembling hotel lights. I had heard that San Pedro offered tourist rooms in two or three small hotels, and I had my fingers crossed that one would be waiting for me. It could be great to have a local person guide me around town. I looked at Jaime. His dark, dark eyes and soft, musical speech had drawn me to him from the start of the trip, and I concluded once more that he intended me no harm. I reviewed what I knew about him.

At the beginning of our boat trip from Panajachel, he had begun a friendly conversation with the usual questions, starting with, “Where are you from?”

“Seattle,” I said, “but I live in Mexico half the year. Do you live her in San Pedro?”

He said he lived in San Pedro with his wife and child, and was forty years old. His next comment was a surprise. “I am a painter,” he said. “I own an art gallery.”

An art gallery?  Here? I might have expected my intuition to kick in at that assertion.  The San Pedro population hovered around five thousand, and until very recently had attracted few tourists. It had a reputation for still being relatively free of us gringos, which was good news for some of us seekers of off track places. But those facts also added to my distrust of Jaime’s claim that he owned a gallery here. How could he sell enough to keep such a business afloat? But I needed more information. Maybe it was in some more fashionable tourist town.

“Really?” I said. “Where is it?”

“Here. Right here in San Pedro.” Jaime sat up straighter, and smiled his pleasure at my surprise. “You can come and see it.”

But he must have sensed my skepticism because his smile quickly faded. “I support my wife and my daughter by working in the fields,” he said. After a brief pause, he added, “Will you give me your Seattle address?”

“Why Seattle?” 

He said he might visit me there. My mind added that odd request to the list of negatives. But I figured Jaime wasn’t likely to get to Seattle, and if he did, I wasn’t likely to be there. So I found some paper, and we exchanged addresses.

As if trying to paint my identity into his mind, Jaime focused intently on my questions and comments. He leaned toward me to peer into my eyes with a warm appreciation that disarmed me. Once again I asked myself if I should take up his offer to guide me to a hotel at the alleged next dock? If I had consulted with sensible friends, they would have warned me not to trust this man. They might well have been right, but if I had listened to “sensible” friends, I would have missed a lot of adventures. I still didn’t want to dismiss Jaime’s invitation without weighing the pros against the likelihood of a con.

Earlier that day I had met Paul, a thirtyish British architect on a bus where we pooled our ignorance about San Pedro. Now he sat in front of me. I tapped him on the shoulder and invited him to join me in staying with Jaime. I figured that old maxim, “safety in numbers,” would resolve my ambivalence. Slowly Paul scrutinized Jaime and hesitated. The captain had already cut the motor, and just then the boat lurched into the dock. Half a dozen young boys came aboard to offer services as guides and baggage carriers. Paul nodded to a muchacho, withut a word turned his back on Jaime and me, and was swallowed up in the disembarking crowd. What, I wondered, had his intuition whispered to him?

I glanced back over my shoulder. All the benches were being vacated. Everyone was abandoning ship. I asked myself one more time whether I wanted to follow a strange man to a never-heard-of port at some dock I couldn't even see in the dark with only the boat captain as witness?  The scenario included a shade too much of the unknown.

I hastily stood, scrambled into my backpack and said no thank you to Jaime. Straggling after the last of the passengers, I hoped to catch a muchacho-guide before the last of them disappeared into the blackness. But I was the last to reach shore, and Paul and the other passengers had all disappeared.

The boat pulled away from the dock. I could barely discern a hill straight up what appeared to be a dirt road. Here and there, mostly near what I assumed was the top, a dozen scattered lights gave me hope. I tried to beam my gaze out into the terrain but could distinguish neither buildings nor any form of life on the hillside.

Before I had time to worry, a small boy hurried toward me, and said he would show me to a hotel. I handed him my extra bag and followed. My instinct was to trudge up the hill toward those lights that indicated at least a bit of life. When I made that suggestion, the muchacho, whose name was Pedro, said, "No, we walk this way.” With apparent confidence, he turned left. I fell into line behind him. We plodded along parallel to the water, which I couldn't see, but sensed was about a hundred yards away. As we made our way along the path I heard rhythmic clapping. My heart quickened at the possibility of an indigenous ceremony or fiesta.

"Que es?" I asked. “What’s that?”

"Los Evangelicos," answered my guide.

So much for romantic assumptions about the indigena.

The thin sliver of the moon was of no help as I picked my way along the narrow, dark, rocky path. I stayed as close to Pedro as possible. Our single-file positions didn't lend themselves to extensive conversation. But seven-year-old Pedro asked, in the tone of a professional guide, the usual questions about where I was from, how long I would stay and where else I'd visited.

The clapping Evangelists’ presence faded away. A dog barked. Otherwise, the silence of the night was broken only by the soft pad of our two pairs of feet on the dirt and the occasional clunk of a kicked rock. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. I could make out buildings here and there, yet I couldn't shake the sensation that we were moving farther and farther from the center of the village. Pedro had become my security blanket and without him I wouldn't even have known a path existed. In rejecting Jaime’s offer I had prudently erred on the side of caution. And here I was, at the complete mercy of this seven-year-old, who claimed he could guide me safely through nearly invisible territory to a destination that remained obscure.

As I was becoming discouraged again, Pedro and I approached a small wooden building with a sign I was sure indicated a hotel, and I pricked up my optimistic ears. But no. It was only a comedor, a small eatery. At least I knew where I could find food the next day, assuming I could locate it in the light. It was about then that I realized I might as well accept the fact that this walk would simply take as long as it would take, and I began to relax. An Anglo man, about fifty, skinny and bearded, emerged from out of the dark. When I asked if he knew of a hotel nearby, he cheerfully assured me I was close to it.

Pedro and I hadn't walked much farther when he led me through a wooden gate which he said was the entry to a hotel. In the low light that seeped out from a window, I could make out a spacious yard of barren dirt. Half a dozen plants stood here and there. Rows of low buildings I guessed to be of cinder block made a U formation. Pedro led me to the office, but the manager waved us away saying he had no singles. My shoulders drooped for only a moment before I was inspired to ask the price of a double. The equivalent of about two dollars and twenty cents, the man said. This place was definitely upmarket compared to the one I had earlier rejected at a dollar forty.

The manager showed me a space enclosed by four gray walls containing three beds: an unmade single and two doubles. I didn’t ask why it was called a double. Feeling like Goldilocks, I sat on one of the doubles and concluded the mattress had been constructed of leftover concrete. The other one was soft, but lumpy. The manager pointed toward the communal bathroom, about fifty yards away and I checked it out. It was clean but there was no toilet paper. "You buy it at the restaurant, right there," said the manager. He pointed to an area with tables and chairs set off by a bamboo fence. I caught myself viewing the situation as if I were cruising a mall for the best deal. But Pedro made it clear this was the only deal, and suddenly it looked better. I snapped it up.

I treasure my ability to sleep under conditions most agemates deem impossible. But I was afraid the lumpy mattress would present too great a challenge. I chose the concrete bed. Tired, and relieved finally to be settled somewhere, I stretched out and. eager to find a hint of what San Pedro would offer me, I opened the Lonely Planet. But it only took a moment for it to slip onto the floor as I fell sound asleep.

At dawn I was startled awake by a couple of querulous parrots screeching at two caged monkeys about injustices in their universe. Grumpily, I opened my door, but immediately the scene a few dozen yards away wiped out my embryonic irritation at being rudely awakened. The lake had become a red sea reflecting the flaming sky. I strolled toward the shore and lazily watched women duck into the shallow water. They soaped and then finger-combed thick blankets of hair that glistened black in the sun. Another group of older women scrubbed brilliantly woven clothing on the rocks. Perhaps fifty feet away from the water, men in white, delicately embroidered pants raked coffee beans. The rich ocher color of the beans was enhanced by its contrast to the deep brown of the earth. In the distance a few small boats were silhouetted, their noses lifting out of the water like optimistic porpoises. A sleeping volcano loomed over the lake.

Although I wanted to continue drinking in the shifting pageant, another desire rudely ran its fingernail along the blackboard of my serenity. That alleged art gallery of Jaime’s nagged at me. Did it exist or not?  Had I been right to trust my rational judgment that advised me not to stay on the boat alone with Jaime? Or should I have relied on intuition, which had discerned no reason not to trust him? I expected the manager to laugh at my question about whether there was an art gallery in San Pedro. But he surprised me by just pointing down the road.

I followed his direction, and the farther I walked, the dustier the road and the fewer the buildings. Tiny, one-story houses appeared here and there. They looked more or less alike, some of them neatly whitewashed, others with gray clay crumbling from the walls. It seemed ludicrous to think anyone could sell paintings from such an obscure, unlikely location. But just as I began to consider turning back, I noticed an open door to one of the well kept houses. I could catch only glimpses of the inside, but dramatic splashes of color peked my curiosity. A girl stood in the doorway, as if waiting for me. I moved closer and beyond her I saw paintings on the walls. In answer to my question, the girl said, yes, this was the art gallery. She motioned me inside.

The room was bare of furniture except for a small table and two chairs. Brilliantly colored paintings covered the four whitewashed walls. The girl summoned her mother who emerged wiping her hands on a red and white checked apron.

"I'm looking for Jaime Gomez," I said.

"This is his house. I am his wife," she said in clear Spanish. "My name is Rosa." 

I told her about meeting Jaime, and she said he was at work in the fields. As she talked about his paintings, I viewed the art that surrounded me. Soon Jaime arrived. A huge smile showed his delighted surprise that I had shown up.

The gallery displayed the work of his two brothers as well as his own. The men were self-taught, and the paintings mostly featured portraits of women in indigenous dress in dignified poses, some with deeply creased faces. I was drawn to the naïve quality, strong lines, bold color and sharp definition in Jaime’s work.

He entreated me to buy. I waffled. I was short of cash, and the hotel manager had told me San Pedro had no bank. I didn’t want to disappoint Jaime but I hadn’t budgeted for art, and I didn’t look forward to adding a cumbersome painting to my baggage for the rest of my trip. Still puzzled about his invitation to stay with him on the boat, I was wondering how I cuold politely ask for an explanation when Jaime brought up the topic himself. He said he perfectly understood my hesitancy to stay on the boat. Then he explained that the captain usually docked near his house for the night, and took Jaime home on the way.

He had been telling the truth. Had I decided to trust Jaime I would have had only a ten-minute walk to my hotel. I'd have been spared–or deprived of–the uncomfortable walk along that narrow path in the dark with Pedro. My intuition that Jaime was not a dangerous person had been sound, but my mind had also been correct about one thing. He had hidden at least part of his agenda. Now I was certain one reason he had urged me to stay on the boat was the hope that he could sell me a painting.

            And he did.