Part Two
So on we go.
A week later, perhaps, we rolled up to the Isla de Flores, an island in the enormous Lago Peten Itza (an enormous lake), linked to the mainland by a long and very very thin causeway (two coaches meeting one another would have presented a bit of a challenge – we’d have had to joust for the right of way). First stop was Santa Elena, which we were assured was the last stop at which we could get hold of cash before crossing the causeway. This turned out to be utter bullshit, of course, but at least it led to some unexpected adventure.
I’d survived until that point without having to cash in a Traveller’s Cheque, but the time had come. This is another thing that makes me feel we must have gone there at least forty years ago; I have only used TC’s once, since, and very much feared, on cashing them in at Kiev Airport, that I was about to be ‘taken away’. These days I am a credit card man. They have a nice safe ubiquity, provided you don’t get coshed at the ATM.
The coach dropped us off and we had forty minutes until departure. Santa Elena itself was an unmitigated dump; one long dusty road with all of the facilities along it. The bank was halfway down on the left hand side. Big queue, no aircon, and a perfect storm of moustaches, sweat and big guns. Swaggers fled to get a sandwich; I queued, like a good Brit. 30 minutes later, sweating and weak with hunger, I emerged at the head of the queue and attempted to get my $200 transformed into Quetzals. Moustaches were rubbed in sweaty suspicion; if anything the process went on so long one could see them growing. The guns grew larger. My passport was taken away into some manner of back office – comments were exchanged. Who was the pasty-faced, corpulent thirty-something with the slightly plummy voice? Just as I thought I was going to come up dry, the staff re-appeared with a piece of paper on which I was to write my address. And so I did. All smiles, “here you are, Senor”, and there arrived in my greasy paw a substantial pile of ageing notes. I look back now and wonder what real security they must have felt they had gained by discovering I abided in a small, undefended railway cottage in North Norfolk, the teensy matter of 6,500 miles away, as the crow flew. If they were planning to send the boys ‘round, they are as yet to arrive. Much I cared – money stuffed into pockets I waddled back to the coach and away we went.
Flores was very pretty. Looking back it’s a shame I didn’t see more of it, but then again I am an idiot, something of a danger to myself, and as such it would be wrong to express too much surprise or disappointment. The resort in the middle of the island in which we were to stay was beautifully green. A sort of mini rainforest, with open cabins on two floors dotted ‘round it in an elongated oval, with an eatery, bar and pool at one end, at the bottom of a gentle incline.
We were assigned our quarters, during the briefing on arrival, and Swaggers and I hauled ourselves up the hill and up the steps to the cots in which we were to sleep. The ground floor was a shower block. The whole arrangement was really, really open. One was well-used, by then, for the need to keep taking the malaria medication and to keep applying repellent and so on. However, in all honesty an eagle could comfortably have flown in there. Therefore, it followed, any manner of scuttling, occasionally jumping nasty could make an entrance in the night watches. One’s mosquito net might come adrift, one might roll onto one’s back, mouth agape and….. AAAAHHH! I was unhappy about this, but resolved to keep quiet and have a nice afternoon and evening.
Too nice, it turned out. On went the shorts and the t-shirt, and down to the pool one went. Only to discover that the bar end had a set of stools poking out of it on which one could sit, legs in the water, and order these things called ‘cocktails’, for roughly £1.50 a throw.
For context, I have always had a healthy suspicion of cocktails. Not stuff like a gin and tonic; I mean the sort of 8-ingredient nonsense we holidaymakers get seduced into chucking down, only to then subsequently revisit them in a range of locations. They act on the brain in the way more familiar strains of alcohol don’t seem to, so much. In short, you know where you are with a glass of beer or a glass of wine; if you drink stupid cocktails in a swimming pool in 100 degree heat you are, by definition a bloody fool.
For a while, my nerves were conquered. White rum, umbrellas, crushed herbs, coloured fruit juices and sugar made me bold. Thoughts of an insect insurrection vanished. I was, as they say, happy in the haze of a drunken hour. At some stage in proceedings, the dinner gong got bonged and we traipsed off to the eatery for some sort of mighty flat fish, roasted with a lot of brown rice and other adornments. Very nice, I dimly remember, but filling. Rather went off the fresh nip of the cocktail at that point, and opted instead for the depth and the satisfying velvety buzz of red wine. Water ingestion to that point was a grand total of zero. Sense had clearly left me – and I had been so sensible since our arrival from the US.
I talked crap at people for a while. Lucky them. However the tide had turn on my ability to stay conscious and coherent. I was given the loan of a flashlight and headed off into the jet black night. First to a sort of Portaloo. That was easy enough to find. A night time tiddle was had, under nervous illumination. Off up the way I went. The wrong way. Stumbled and fell twice, lost internal compass totally. Arrived back at bar, rather than casa Suggzy. Thundered off into the dark again, rather than have folks laugh at me. Hither and thither I went, and finally crashed back up the steps of the cabin.
At which point, fearfulness and wakefulness added themselves to drunkenness. A heady mix, for the night. I hauled myself under every imaginable covering I could lay my hands on, and sweated my way through the small hours, scarcely sleeping so much as a wink. Imaginary beasties circled my cot. All was not well. No water did I drink. As was mentioned, I am an idiot.
Eventually, it was morning, and, unsurprisingly, hungover and dehydrated as I found myself to be, I was in far from good order. The heat started to enter the day and I stumbled, scarecrow-like in the direction of breakfast. I promptly drank about 2357607 pints of water and had some cereal and felt twice as bad. I declared myself unfit to go on the boat ride scheduled for the next couple of hours, and returned, biliously, to my quarters, cursing my stupidity. The resort fell silent, and I fell asleep, exhaustion conquering the fear of the tug of something nasty at my shorts or shirt.
I came to at the end of the morning with a thunderous headache. Hangover in full swing. Confirming once again that I am an idiot, I decided I could not be fagged to get some water to swallow a couple of ameliorative paracetamol (always been a bit of a pills man at the onset of a headache). I took them down dry. Except I didn’t, of course. They got stuck. And I came unstuck very, very quickly.
I choked once very badly on holiday with my family, as a boy of about 15 or so. 15 years later, the rapidly remembered rise of panic through the chest bubbled up in no time. There was no bugger there, and I could barely raise a noise, on making two or three attempts to swallow the pills. Just sort of honked a half “help”. I’m typing this another ten years on and I can remember the taste in my mouth and I feel sick all over again.
The light started to go an oddly pale blue-y, yellow. I had the notion, and I think I can say dying notion, that smacking my back on the edge of something might cause the blockage to shift. I did. To no avail. I was going to pass out of life, aged 30, by dint of cocktails and paracetamol, but rather without the glamorous showbiz gloss.
But, obviously, I didn’t. That Swaggers has his uses. Not administrative ones, as discussed. Chocolate fireguard on that front, the lad. But, those mighty ears have the sensitivity of a bat. Just as I was starting to drop to my knees at the railing looking out over the rainforest (cool view to peg it to), there was the thunder of Swaggerly hooves, and my still-foaming-from-the-shower friend and saviour, having registered my call for help a minute earlier, encircled me and did that Heimlich Thing. Which hurt, but worked instantly. The analgesic little specks flew out in arc across the greenery. Air tore back into my lungs and my heart slowed, gradually, back to a normal drumbeat.
We found little to say, as I remember – we laughed and joked quite quickly, after a spot of breathless reflection. It doesn’t take long to register that one friend has quite genuinely saved the life of the other, and it isn’t something we have felt the need to discuss that often since. A piece of bloody good luck, one has to say. Ten minutes earlier and that would have been the gig over with. No reason to declare it God’s will, or anything, either. Just part of the rich pageant of life. A weird part, spawned by misadventure on the part of the idiotic, but just a part.
I made a mental decision to decide to put a line through the whole airline tickets thing. Call it a draw. And I maintain a healthy – healthier, in fact, suspicion of cocktails.
Back soon, for: ‘Into Belarus, with vodka, guns, dogs and sleeping on a bench. With too much disco.’
By all means add any comments you have, here or on facebook – happy to take readers’ notes, as I am new to all this. Cheers!
suggzy 