As far as one can remember, there had been dense rain forests covering the country and for a long time it had been the target of commercial loggers and colonial exploiters. As a matter of fact the country was ‘discovered’ by English pirates as a shelter from the high seas when it got tough going for the pirates, being chased by their enemies.

Under the umbrella of dense forests it was not easy to find those hiding culprits and soon the pursuers gave up. Gradually the pirates extended their hide- away territory inwards and to their surprise found precious and durable timber in shapes of mahogany trees. This was a real boon from which they were elated and soon diverted their energies from piracy to logging and exporting the timber as a valuable commodity. There was a high demand for it in many countries around the world.

More manual labour was required to do those tough jobs and soon they recruited enough men from the adjoining countries and from elsewhere with promises of fat profits. Still the main problem was as how to carry the logs to the sea, which was a few miles away and they began to ponder over solving that problem. Being lucky they found a small creek running inward from the sea and which had to be widen as to make it navigable for the boats to carry the timber to the sea.

Soon it became a big timber business and colonies of labourers were established, as there were high monetary rewards in exchange for their hard labours. Their prime target became the mahogany trees with their fine quality timber that being in high demand. Encouraged by this venture they extended their logging further inland and as they cleared more and more trees, they found that cleared land was good enough for cultivation and planting of other crops. The labourers brought their families and wives over into the country and soon became attached to their landed properties. They established small village communities all over the place and which eventually grew into towns and soon the greed for logging was superseded by a settled way of life.

It was blessing in guise as mahogany trees in most of the inland areas were spared.

The government soon realized the potentials of saving the rich natural resources of the country and a potential for tourism and in its wisdom created natural reserves to protect abundant varieties of trees and the bird life. I wanted to see such natural wonders and arranged my annual holidays to spend there. I was received at the airport by man from one such reserve and we drove to the reserves late in the evening. The reserve being a hundred miles from the airport and the coastline.

It was not a busy season for tourism and there was only one more family from Sweden staying there. The following morning, the activities of bird watching commenced. The best way to see and hear our feathered friends was very early in the morning and we were woken at six in the morning. The man in charge had already set up his telescope like some field glasses and provided us with individual light binoculars.

There were about three hundred varieties of birds nesting in the forest reserve and when we sighted or heard any birds, Valdi gave us description and habits of each bird.
Valdi knew and could recognize all the 300 birds but I was more interested in their colourful feathers and the sounds of their singing. It happened so that I did pick and remembered the descriptions of about ten birds and it was not a bad thing for an amateur
ornithologist like me. It was refreshing to indulge in a new activity like bird watching.
In the afternoon it was time to go on a trail through the forest and get acquainted with variety of trees.

This morning after breakfast, it was time to go on a guided tour of an old Maya site, which was spread over a considerable area where some of the buildings in the central square have been restored. This main square was the administrative centre of a Mayan settlement where the ruler, lawmakers, priests and other high-ranking people lived. The archaeologists have dated the central stela to an exact date of November 30, 780 AD.

Walking among those ruins, reminded oneself of the sombre thought that nothing remains forever and how the once mighty and powerful had fallen down to dust.

We also observed pieces of broken pottery, which were painted red, and the colour being derived from the barks of certain trees. There were few hollows dug into the earth where the Maya stored their grains. These were deep in the underground but with time most of the space had been filled with fallen debris. Each one of us went one by one to examine the dugout and last one was the mother of the Swedish children and she went down there.

We waited for her to come out and called her at the mouth of the dug out but there was no reply from her. Our guide descended but could not find any trace of her except some fallen earth in the deep passage. It was a worrying time for the party and every one of us went around the vicinity to search for her or to find a trace but all came back with long faces. Had she been kidnapped or taken by an alien? These were our thoughts, which we kept to ourselves for fear of ridicule.

It started drizzling and we started shivering on account of cold and fears. The guide suggested that we all go back to the centre and have some rest and something to eat, which might lift up our moods. We had to accede to that suggestion and come back at dusk to look for her again. The guide would then contact the police in the nearest town and seek their help or suggestions.

In suspense we waited for the dusk to come and drove back to the site and looked into the hole and heard a muffled sound. The guide jumped into the dugout and shouted that he had found her body and that she was still alive and everybody crowded at the mouth of the hole to help each other and the victim and when she was dragged out, she was covered in dirt and everything about her was muddy brown. The guide gave her some hot drink and she was revived into activity from her shock. We put her at the back of the truck to lie down and covered her with a warm blanket and put her on her bed in her room at the centre after shaking the dust off. She rested in the night and in the morning she related us a strange story:

“ As I entered the dugout, suddenly the ground beneath me gave way and I started sliding down a sort of chute. I was rolling over, eventually hitting the hard ground below. I was completely covered in dust and must have looked like an alien from mud flats. I was completely shaken and was trying to assess my situation and rested there for a while.

It was dark and an airy silence prevailed till I heard some voices presumably human but I was not sure and tried to run away but there was not much room for an escape. Two tall figures of men came around, their bare brown bodies glistening under sort of body paints. They were wearing colourful headdresses and skirt like shorts and carrying lances. They grabbed hold of my wrists and dragged me away, I do not know how long for? I was screaming and shouting to let me go but they paid no attention.

I was thrown in front of a figure sitting on a sort of thrown and looking very noble and I thought he was chief and was asking the story from the two men who have dragged me. After certain dialogue between the three men, of which I had no clue as to what they were talking about, as the language spoken was incomprehensible to me.

The man on the thrown gestured me to stand and to him I must have looked like a frightening stranger covered in dust from head to foot. He told the attendant to take me away for some sort of wash up and I was dragged into another building and put into a stone bath. A women came in, starting undressing me and then pouring water over me. She left me alone to wash myself and came in with new attire for me to be dressed into but when she saw me in my pale skin, she nearly screamed and I guess she had never seen a white women.

She dressed me into a long white tunic and tied it with a band around my midriff, put some jewellery on my body and a headband on my forehead with symbols painted in red. I was lead back to the front of the official seated figure and paraded before him. There was another man sitting beside him but on a lower level and to which he consulted often. From their conversation I gathered that there was going to be a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice to one of their gods and then afterwards it stuck me that the sacrificial victim was going to be me, I fainted.

It was an open square and people dressed in colourful clothes as for a celebration, with
multitude of people sitting on terraces awaiting the arrival of officiating priests. There was a tall pyramid in front of me with scores of stone steps leading to the top. On the top there was a big sculptural figure of a god stone erected and the terraces were covered with hundreds of cob corns from which I surmised that it was a deity and the god of maize and to whom I was to be sacrificed. I was creaming and crying and rolling on the ground. There were trumpet calls and a procession of priests was coming towards me fronted by the dancers and musicians. Two guards came and lifted me up to be examined by the head priest and he gestured to the guards to undo my tunic to see my body and when he saw my pale skin, he nearly lost his temper and started shouting at the guards as he thought me unfit for sacrifice. My life was throbbing back as he guessed from his gestures that I was going to be spared and some other unfortunate victim was going to take my place.

I was lead into the bathhouse, given back my old dusty clothes and thrown into the dug hole. I slowly crawled back up the hole and that where I was found alive by the group.”

Durlabh Singh© 2009.