rising tide

So I left San Cristóbal earlyish tuesday morning, taking the winding road through the mountains to Palenque. As I reached the outskirts of the town, it began to rain, and with the window down and the damp lush jungle rain smell wafting in, I actually felt a sort of nostalgia for England and rainy winters! The road was fairly empty and in good condition, and it swept back and forth between beautiful jungled mountains, with small villages dotted along the way. The major thing of note to happen on the journey was the indigenous people trying to sell some kind of fruit to passers-by. in one village, small children were rushing into the path of oncoming traffic in order to try to force it to stop, while their father looked on critically. Presumably he would beat them if they didn't reach their quota. A little further along, a Mayan woman and a small girl had actually erected a rope-and-flag barrier across the road on a blind mountainside bend. I did the only thing I could do in the circumstances: hit the gas. Presumably the contraption fell to the road, and didn't wrap itself around the rear axle of the ´burban (possibly with Maya family still attached).

When I arrived at Palenque, it was still raining. I began to get the first feelings that maybe actually rain wasn't all that cool. I had never noticed it before, but in England when it's raining, that usually means it's going to stop sometime soon. So I had a sort of subconscious expectation that kept being denied, which was unsettling. I decided not to go up to the ruins but to stay at El Panchan, a sort of grotto in the jungle, and hope the rain might have stopped in the morning.

I met Haken a Swede (who I'd first met in Oaxaca) in the bar whilst I was wandering around unsuccessfully trying to find a bed. His roommates of the previous night were leaving so we decided to try going halves on a cabaña: it only came to US$5 each. The only one she had left was on the first floor, so we left our bags and went back to the bar to eat drink and socialise. I met a Canadian family of two teachers and three children aged probably 6 to 12 who had bought an A-Team style van, and taken a year off travelling down through the US and Mexico. How totally inspirational. It became clear in conversation that having kids is the best ice-breaker and cultural ambassador you can have!

The next morning I went to see the ruins, and the rain mercifully held out for the four hours I was there. Back at the hostel, the rain began again, so I abandoned plans to visit Agua Azul
and we instead went into town on a supplies mission. The following morning, we would leave to drive to Chetumal with Veronika, an Austrian girl.

As we sat in the bar that night, eating, drinking, and watching first a fairly appalling harpist, then an amazing fire dancer (and I have seen quite a few), the rain just kept on coming. I began to wish I had driven the few hundred yards from the cabaña to the restaurant. At about 1am, we finally decided it just wasn't going to stop, and as we planned to wake up and leave early the next day, we made a run for it.

I arrived a little after Haken, to the first surprise of many that night. He was butt naked (Swedes eh). He explained, between slightly hysterical laughter, that he had decided to run back with the room key in his mouth, as he was using both his hands to hold a plastic bar chair he had stolen above his head as a makeshift umbrella. As he reached the top of the iron spiral-staircase to our room, the key had fallen from his mouth, dropping straight into the growing muddy puddles below. Being one to confront unpleasant situations head-on, he quickly realised that his only option was to strip naked and swim around in the mud looking for the key. Absolutely incredibly, 15 minutes later he actually found it, and ran naked and mud-coated to the shower blocks to clean off. Needless to say there was no hot water. I can't imagine what other people must have thought if they saw him.

Anyway, relatively unfazeable, I just (after laughing quite a bit) put out the light, and got into my bed. The rain was still torrential, and it was so loud, sleep was slow in coming. In fact before it did, we heard a commotion outside: the American girls from the neighbouring cabaña were screaming into the night: "Don't do it! It's too dangerous! Muy peligroso! Come back!". Kneeling up to see what was going on, I couldn't believe what I saw. The river had risen so high with the rain that it had burst it's banks entirely. Our bridge back to the main area was underwater except in the middle, with a fierce-looking current rushing all around it. The entire cabaña area was at least a metre deep in water. And it was still raining like it would never stop.

The five guys whose (ground-floor) cabaña had been flooded, and who had been considering attempting a swim to higher ground, became the first of many refugees in our first-floor cabaña building. As more and more came, lured upward by the sight of others, each had a crazy story to tell. Some poor fools had camped, and had simply abandoned tents full of possessions to the rising water. Some had been fast asleep and only awakened when the water rose above their mattress. A Canadian couple were in a very bad way: the girl was suffering from shock and was shovering uncontrollably and vomiting off the blacony. Another Canadian girl had left her bike, which she'd ridden all the way down from Toronto, chained to a tree. It was anybody's guess whether tree or bike would be there come morning.

The girls next door got the iPod going, and made everyone cups of mushroom tea. Soggy rizla came out, and joints started to circulate. Our room became a sort of changing-room and chillout room, with Haken, incredibly, still trying to sleep through everything. I had gotten up, and whilst I was chatting to some people, a wet Quebecois guy and a wet Mexican guy decided to occupy my bed. At 4am, the rain continued unabated. I had had quite bad diarrhoea that day, but since we were effectively ship-wrecked, I just clenched butt-cheeks harder and grimly held on. At this point, there were about 10 people passed out on beds and floor and packs in the girls' two-bed room. The Canadian couple were sharing the end of Haken's single bed; myself and Erica from Michigan joined Francois and Gaika on my bed. Then, whilst trying desperately to keep my sphincter closed, a feat which took almost all my attention, and yet also having to fight the growing need to just shut my eyes and sleep, I lay and listened to Erica (a recent Biochemistry graduate, it transpired) from Michigan talk for three hours about how life on this planet originated, how life can be detected on other planets, what dengue fever is, and other topics that are now lost forever to me.

At 0630, when I was feeling horribly bloated and uncomfortable, and really thinking I could no longer control my body, a guy appeared in the doorway looking grim. "I've been," he said. I thought he meant he had finally given in and relieved himself in the raging waters. Feeling slightly better for not having to be the first, I decided I had no option but to do likewise. But it turned out that in fact, in those fews hours, with the slackening rain, the water level had falled dramatically. It was now possible to squelch barefoot through marsh to the toilet block where, incredibly, the tide-marks indicated that the water had stopped rising just before overflowing into the toilet bowl. Ah unalloyed delight. Ah blessed relief. An eruption fit to wake a campsite, but I didn't care. And somehow, my emergency toilet paper had survived dry through everything. Never was a man happier. When I returned to my wet, already-full bed, I pulled a bit of damp unused cover over my head, and within minutes was asleep. Sorry Erica: I must have seemed terribly rude.

In the morning (well, later that morning), we were made aware that the following night's stay would be free. But what with a guy coming in with a bleeding ankle, saying on of the El Panchan dogs had bitten him, and the whole place being a marsh, and the rain restarting again, we all were very keen to leave as soon as humanly possible, even though it meant fording the river with the ´burban. But it started and forded like a trooper, and we were on our way without a backward glance.

Three minutes down the road, the rain suddenly, and completely, stopped. Was it just one raincloud, with a Mayan-cursed vengeance against hippy campers, that had caused all that destruction? Difficult to know. But as the sun came out, and the car and ourselves began to dry out, I decided that perhaps I didn't really miss the rain, after all.