The 12 day Guatemala circuit (Day 9- cont.) - Petexbatun lake - The 2nd of April 2008

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We then headed towards Sayaxche, so as to get on a boat to sail along the Petexbatun  Lake, which turned out to be of a natural beauty I had never seeen before ... Mayan communities are said to have settled here in the classic period and many innacessible archeological sites are still to be found in the area.  

 

As we were moving farther away from the little port of  Sayaxche, we could see people along the river shores either washing the clothes or themselves. The Petexbatun river is a tributary of the river Passion, which in turn is fed by a number of upstream tributaries covering an area of 3.000 Km2 altogether.

 

We then sailed into an area of complex narrow canals surrounded by luxurious vegetation in what  seemed a never-ending trip. The sound of the boat engine was at times "silenced" by the noise of the birds we could not see but whose strong presence we felt ...

until we stoped at some stairways embedded in the forested shore that led us into an open dining room area right in the middle of the forest. We had just reached the Petexbatun lodge where we would be spending the night, we were later told ... and it was not long until we were led into one of the double bungallow huts, which immediately fascinated me because of the traditional decoration and the interior garden area within the bathroom space of the major bedroom.

After having had what I personally considered to be a very tasty dinner (cooked right in front of us in an open traditional grill ... the perfect "match" for the surrounding atmosphere) and having been told that the generator would be turned off by six in the evening (this being the reason as to why I had seen quite a few candles lying around in our bedroom) ... I felt I would no doubt have a perfect night's sleep ...

...By around three in the morning we were awaken by a frightful loud and deep gutural sound that pierced our ears for something like five minutes after which there was a five minute interval followed by another series of  "unidentifiable" gutural sounds ... We gradually lit all the candles and by looking across to the twin hut realised our "neighbours" must have been frightend too, as they had their candles lit as well.

I thought of going out to try to find out what was actually happening, but the idea of walking into the dark forest with a candle in my hand didn't seem to be the most appropriate approach in an unknown situation like this one ... at times I convinced myself that it might be a recorded sound due to the regularity of the intervals in which the growling occurred ...

It wasn't but at the breakfast table that we were told the all night growling  were the vocalizations of howler monkeys, which according to the Guiness Book of World records can be heard clearly for 32 Km. Their howling is mostly relatedd to territory protection ... to this day I don't know how far or close they were ... and what their feelings might have been towards our "invasion" of their territory ...