As travelers we like to think we’re pretty much open to trying
anything. Eat Guinnea Pig? Sleep in a tree house? Take a helicopter to the top
of a glacier? Tumble down a hill in a giant inflatable ball? Sure why not? That’s the point of travel after all, the
opportunity to see new places and try new things. Most of the time it works out
great, our minds are open and blogs are written. Other times it doesn’t. This
is one of those “it didn’t work out” blogs entries.
Yesterday we decided to take a walk through El Panchán. The
jungle community we have called home for the last few days. It’s a strange and
awesome place to say the least. Located just kilometers outside of one of
Mexico’s most well known and loved ruin sites, El Panchán is a collection of
thatched huts, run down “motel rooms”, camping sites and a few over priced
restaurants to round out the experience.
Humidity fills the air during the day and the nightmareish screeches of
howler monkeys own the night (I’ll get to those in another entry).
Up to this point we hadn’t seen much of El Panchán. I
arrived with the flu and was in bed for a day and a half, while Sabrina busied
herself writing blogs. A successful tour of the Ruins in the sweltering mid day
sun behind us, we decided to take a stroll through our neighborhood. Deep into
the jungle community. Passed places we wish we had stayed and places we were
glad we didn’t. Until we came upon the end of the road, literally. A sign out
front read, Ancient Tattooing and Body piercing. The gate was open so we
thought why the hell not. We entered.
After nearly being eaten alive by a hairless Mexican dog
sporting a Mohawk, we introduced ourselves to a couple people hanging out on
the porch (playing a wooden flute of course.) They looked at my tattoo and
assumed I was ready to get another one. We said actually no sorry, we’re just
some dumb white people walking through the jungle, hoping to find something
cool. He said well you are in luck. We have tons of cool things going on here,
one of which is an Ancient Mayan Sweatbath Ritual we are hosting tonight. You
should come.
We should come! That sounds like exactly the thing we
went searching for. He said great, come back at 6. We did. Promptly at 6, as
not to miss a second of the sweaty goodness.
We sat there awkwardly until about 7:30. Surrounded by people much
cooler than us. Every body part pierced. Skin covered in jaguar tattoos, Mayan warriors, and Lamnbda Chi fraternity symbols…oh wait that’s me. These people
were next level jungle hippies. I mean they made the bums hanging out on venice
boardwalk look like Fortune 500 CEOS. I was impressed, and somewhat
intimidated. We so did not fit in. Never the less our hosts were very
welcoming.
They sat us around a roaring camp fire as they prepped for
the ritual. The girl with the leopard tattoos covering her body swept the area
around the fire, as her boyfriend and our host piled volcanic rocks onto the
burning wood. Soon the sound of a conch shell rang through the forest and the
rest of the party joined us. After several minutes of conch shell playing, we
all disrobed. The girls in the group including Sabrina, wore bikinis. The head
shaman joined the circle and lead us in prayer. We raised one hand and prayed
to the sunrise, and then turned and prayed to the sunset, the skies, and the
ground. Once that was done we we’re ushered single file into the sweat hut. I
don’t know if that’s the technical name for whatever this thing was, but that’s
what I’m calling it, sweat hut. As we each entered we bathed ourselves 4 times
in burning sage, I’m guessing to cleanse our spirit. Then before we entered the
tent we kneeled and kissed the ground. Filing into the tent we all found our
place around the center fire pit. I think there was 12 of us in all, packed inside
this 7x7 tent. I made myself comfortable on a leaf matt our host laid out for
each of us, and prepared myself for who the hell knows what. The conch blower
started shoveling in glowing volcanic rocks, which our host grabbed with two
sets of antler horns and tossed into the middle of the circle. Then another
person took what looked like some kind of twisted rope material, and began
drawing circle crosses on the rocks. The material acted like a fire pen, you
could actually see the crosses being burned into the rocks. Shimmering like
volcanic glitter.
Once the rocks we’re in place. Our host took a seat next to
me with his deer skin drum, and then the shaman took a seat next to him. The
shaman then began to speak about the ritual, what to expect, why we were here,
the significance of it all…unfortunately it was entirely in Spanish, so Sabrina
and I understood nothing. I turned to look at her; classic “what the fuck did
we get ourselves into” look on my face, only to find she was wearing the same
expression. I turned to look at our
host, all he said to me, in broken English, was “if it too hot..go to ground,
find cool place.” I was like uh ok. And then the door to the tent shut. Total
darkness.
I immediately wanted to run out of the tent screaming. But I
didn’t. My heart was racing so quickly I thought it might burst. I looked to
Sabrina, but she was in total blackness. We were 1 minute in to this thing,
that was supposed to last an hour and a half, and I was already drowning in my
own sweat and panic. So I took a deep breath and just tried to focus on the
only light in the tent, the burning volcanic rock.
The shaman began to pray over us. Then our host started
singing. Then he started to play his drum. My head was spinning by this point.
Minute 2. The heat was already unbearable. I took another deep breath. I
focused on the rock. Listened to the beat of the drum. Tried to center myself
in the moment, and it worked. Until the shaman threw water on the rocks, and
the temperature inside the tent soared 1000 degrees. The air was so hot I
couldn’t breathe it without setting my lungs on fire. Sweat was pouring down my
face and body as if I had just jumped in a pool. I looked over at Sabrina, she was
already face down on the floor trying to find “the cool place.” I reached over
to touch her and her body was soaking wet. I asked her if she was ok and she
said “for now”. Just then the shaman began tossing sage water on all of us, as
a blessing. The singing and drumming continued. I swear to God I thought I
heard the Shamman puke. That’s when I went to my knees.
I was shocked. It worked. It was much cooler on the ground
than it was sitting up. Maybe I could do this, maybe it wasn’t as bad as I
thought as I sat soaking in a pool of my own sweat. I grabbed a hold of Sabrina’s
hand and she grabbed mine, then she said “I’m done. I need to get out.”
I’m sure I broke 1000 Mayan sweat Ritual rules, but I tapped
our host on the knee and said “we need to go”. He responded “a few minutes
more”. So we waited, sweating straight to our core. The shaman said a few more
words and then miraculously the door opened. We said thank you to the fire and
crawled out of the tent absolutely drenched. I looked at Sabrina and she looked
at me, we “survived “ 15 minutes in the tent.
15 minutes. We suck.
Soaking wet in sweat and shame we sat around the fire trying
to collect our thoughts. A few unanswered questions remained. Did they stop for
us? Are we forever cursed? Could we have
kept going? What do we do now?
If at the beginning we felt awkward, we felt 10 times worse
now. We wanted to run into the jungle and hide. We failed. The whities couldn’t
hack it. We we’re convinced our host was going to be exiled from the group for
inviting us. Even worse, the shaman was now out of the tent sitting across the
camp fire from us, while the ritual in the tent continued. Oh man, we really
fucked this whole thing up. He came out in the middle of it all! The God’s are
going to be so pissed. How do you say “I’m sorry for being so white” in Mayan?
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