Volunteer Day; or, The Martinez Farm; or, Once Upon a Waterfall

On Saturday, Mr. Rodolfo (the principal) took all the volunteers to a farm out in the bush, less than an hour from Benque.  The occasion was “volunteer day,” although this year the support staff were also invited (but none came).

Before I go on, please dispel from your mind the images of manicured pastures and cozy red barns conjured by my use of the word “farm.”  The Martinez farm is beautiful, wild, exotic; it is anything but manicured.  We drove most of the way over dirt roads through increasingly jungle-like scenery.  The family who owns the farm makes their living by renting it (or parts of it) out, hosting visiting archeologists and the like.  A little-known benefit of living in Mayan territory, I suppose.

Although the farm is large and prosperous, the family lives very simply.  Below is the kitchen.  The Martinez’s cook most of their food over a wood fire in this thatch-roofed, dirt-floored structure, where we ate our barbequed chicken and tortillas around a large picnic table.

Most of the day was rainy and overcast, which meant that it was almost chilly; but the main effect of the rain was the incredible amount of mud.  Later on I washed my clothes three times before I was satisfied that they were clean, and I hadn’t even participated in the mudbath…er…pickup soccer game (though I did get muddy by other means; more on that later.).

We didn’t actually explore much of the farm.  Rumor has it that they keep wild (?) horses somewhere on the property, but we didn’t see them this trip.  We did go down to the stream behind the main set of buildings and outbuildings, where we discovered a gorgeous tree-house.  It stands half in the stream, overlooking the beginning of a glorious series of cascades.  Apparently the Martinez’s actually rent the treehouse to archeologists as a place to stay.  There are beds on the second floor (the building has a second floor!), and hammocks on the first.  Imagine, for a moment, the experience of being a visiting archeologist; exploring and digging through ruins in the natural peace and beauty of the jungle by day, and sleeping each night in an open-air treehouse, to the accompaniment of the soothing sounds of a real waterfall.  Actually, imagine being an archeologist at all.  What a job!

The tree-house (I should probably call it a “stream-house” or something more accurate; it wasn’t exactly in a tree…) came complete with a ladder, to allow for easy descent into the pools and cascades at the head of the waterfall.  After lunch, most of us decided to climb down the waterfall, to see where it led.  I wish I had been able to take pictures during our descent and subsequent re-ascent, but I was afraid my camera would simply drown.  Judging from my own soaked state by the end of the day, I think I made the right decision.  However, Kelley and I did take a few pictures of the waterfall from the treehouse at the top, and I took a few of the stream itself.

Below, our group begins its descent.  We are mostly still dry at this point.

Climbing the waterfall was definitely the highlight of the day.  By the time we had been climbing for a couple of minutes, finding safe footing had become a much higher priority than staying even slightly dry.  Each cascade pooled into a “step,” which was significantly deeper directly under the falling water.  Because of this, safer footing could usually be found around the edge of the step, between parts of the waterfall, or on various logs and plants lying across the water.  Anyone who knows me knows that my “balance” is both comedy and tragedy, so threading my way over rocks and roots was a little tough; perhaps a better word would be “exhilarating.”

We had to rely mostly on vines, bamboo, and rotting trees for balance and support, which made the experience many times more exciting, since the trees were often so soft that they would give way immediately, and many of the vines were armed with jagged thorns.  At one point, as I tried to duck through some overly dense vegetation, something caught the skin of my shoulder – through my shirt – and wouldn’t let me go.  I was completely stuck while I attempted to wiggle my way away from the thorn that had firmly bitten into me.  Looking at my shoulder later, I could see two puncture marks, so I think reason for my thorough “stuck-ness” was that the thorn had hooked all the way through my skin and back out again.  I did manage to remove that thorn as soon as I was free, but I still have another one in my finger.

Time has assured us that the barbs were not armed with any deathly venom, at least, for which I am grateful.  That was not a ‘given.’  The whole experience was strange in this respect, because on the one hand it didn’t feel exotic at all; it felt like a somewhat grander-scale version of the muddy, woodsy, pondsy traipsing I used to do as a child, getting just as wet and muddy, and feeling almost equally adventurous.  On the other hand, when I stopped to think, I was struck by the fact that I really was climbing a waterfall in a tropical jungle.  The plants and even the fungus and bacteria were probably foreign to me.  In this climate I suppose I truly could have met a killer plant or animal, but it didn’t seem much riskier than similar excursions at home.  Ultimately, we were within climbing distance of the farm, and within driving distance – albeit somewhat bumpy driving – of help, and the climbing itself was tame enough for me to partake, so it probably wasn’t that dangerous.  Nevertheless, it is surreal to think that I am here, and that this is the way we “get away” for a day.

In accordance with that fact, the surrounding flora and fauna were beautiful and unfamiliar.  Unfamiliar to my old self, I should say.  I am actually getting used to them now.  Once again, I wish I had been able to take pictures farther down the waterfall, but my camera (and the pictures) probably wouldn’t have benefited from the attempt.  At one point on the way back up, Joe stopped ahead of me and said “this looks fake.”  He was standing in front of a wall of cascades, complete with clear water falling over rocks, bamboo and ferns and who knows what else shooting out in random directions.  And he was right.  It looked like an artificial background piece at a rainforest-themed restaurant, and even more like an environmental recreation in the rainforest section of a natural history museum.  But this was real, and we found it in the midst of a casual Saturday recreational excursion.

I did not want to come out of the water, but we had to leave eventually.  Here is the group of us, with Mr. Rodolfo in front.  The picture also includes one of our students, whose uncle owns the farm.

I should have mentioned that the bus we took (The school rented a bus, which was funny, since it ended up being very empty with just the volunteers inside.) dropped us off on the “main” [dirt] road, about of a quarter mile from the farm.  We had to walk in and out.  This experience was significantly funnier because the side road to the farm was showing the effects of the recent days and days of rain.  It was so muddy that you could easily sink right in, and parts of it were flooded completely.  The walk through the woods was pretty, though!

Yep, that’s the road:

We made it back to our bus in the end.  Please note that the bus is a painted, converted school bus, which is completely normal in Belize.

When we got home, still soaked and muddy, there were workmen in our house, wiring lighting and putting up new fans.  I was so wet that I didn’t want to sit down until I had showered, so I ended up standing around in the living room for probably close to an hour.  Finally I gave up and locked myself in to shower, not even coming out when I heard the men talking to one of the other girls in a way that signified their need to get into the attic…which opens into the bathroom.  They just had to wait.