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| Hostel Inlakech in Solferino |
Traveling from Valladolid to Solferino was a bit of an
experience. We took one bus to a small town called El Ideal and had to get off
at the side of the road to switch to another bus. Lucky for us, we had some
musical accompaniment in the form of a man who played guitar and sang and a
woman who tried to harmonize with him, with occasional success. The bus driver
did not announce our arrival to Solferino – lucky for me,
I sat near a kind student who let me know that we were in the town. I
got up quickly from the back of the bus, woke up Jenny, who was sitting a few
rows in front of me, and we hopped off the bus. Another woman who disembarked with
us asked who we’d be staying with and directed us to Beto’s palapa.
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| Note the tilapia pool in front of the palapa! |
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| Betos' cat, Michi |
We began to see some brightly painted signs pointing to his
place, Hostel Inlakech, and were impressed to see the three-story palapa made
of wood and other natural materials. Check out the facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/hostel.solferino
We were greeted by two young ladies, Yvette and Leni, who were working on
starting a fire for the stove to make rice. Beto’s property featured a couple
of dogs, a cat, and a bunch of chickens and roosters. He also had a large pool
filled with tilapia, which Beto later told us he was raising to sell as food to
others in the village. Apart from meat and eggs Beto derives from the animals he raises, he also grows a number of plants he uses in food he prepares, including papaya and mango trees.
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| Dining area, with swing-style seats |
After chatting with the girls for a bit, Beto arrived
and informed us that none of us would be staying at the palapa itself that
night. Instead, we were going to stay in a 25-meter-high tower in the jungle
overlooking a lagoon. We prepared and ate some dinner, while explaining the project
and purpose of visiting Solferino, and we began to load up the truck with
materials for camping. Even though Jenny and I weren’t prepared for a night out
in the wild, Beto provided some useful materials – mattress pads, some sheets,
and a bit of food for the night and the following morning.
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| Water meets jungle |
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| Looking up at the tower from one of the lower steps |
With the truck packed, we drove for about thirty minutes to
the even smaller town of San Ángel, where Beto exchanged some words with an
older man. We were a bit unsure of the plan, but he was trying to figure out
where we were going, too! The man rode a bicycle down an unpaved road into a forest to show
us exactly where he had stored some kayaks. We doused ourselves with bug spray,
loaded up the three kayaks and began our journey, seated on the mattress pads.
Beto rode with Leni’s dog, Liat; Liat and Yvette rode together; and Jenny and I
rode in the third kayak. Liat, a sweet golden retriever with one dreadlock
hanging from his neck, decided to jump into the water soon into the ride, which
meant Beto had to go back to shore to get the dog back into the boat.
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| Liat, the water-loving dog |
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| Kayaking back in the morning: we took turns rowing and resting |
The kayak
ride across Laguna San Ángel was long – just about an hour – but provided us
with a good workout for our upper bodies and a bit of adventure. It was also interesting
to see this large lagoon with the moon providing our only light. Beto joked
that there were crocodiles in the water, but we only heard a bunch of frogs and
insects. Some parts of the lagoon were harder to navigate than others because of
a thick, slimy substance (maybe some sort of algae or slime mold) which held up
the kayaks and our oars. After some intense labor, we finally arrived to the
site of the tower, unpacked the kayaks, and climbed up dozens of stairs to
the top of the wooden platform.
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| A view of the water in early morning light |
From that vantage point, we saw the entire moonlit lagoon. We
changed into dry clothes and hung the things that had been wet and the ride
over. Beto set up a couple of hammocks, and we watched part of a movie (Baz
Luhrmann’s
Romeo + Juliet) on my
laptop until the battery died. Exhausted, we fell asleep shortly after setting
our stuff down and spent the night above the canopy of the surrounding forest.
Bugs were not really a problem, thanks to our height and the strong breeze, but
shortly before dawn, there was a good amount of dew, which moistened the things
we had tried to dry the night before, as well as our sheets and the clothes we
slept in.
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| Lounging in the hammock |
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| Waking up with nature and no coffee :( |
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