Hum of Hope

The first time I left the country was in January of 2020 when I traveled to Belize.  I was meeting a friend outside of the airport in Belize City, and we were then going straight west to a yoga ashram.  From there, we would slowly work our way back across the country, staying in different towns until it was time to go home. 

We had partly chosen our journey through Belize because of Hummingbird Highway, a gorgeous stretch of jungle road in the middle of the country.  Hummingbirds had become a sort of theme or mascot of our friendship.  We both brought positive experiences with hummingbirds, and we shared similarities with these creatures.  We happily flitted from one thing to the next. We were always buzzing around, bright and cheery, and filled with curiosity.  We started taking hummingbirds as a good sign, so when we saw Belize had a highway named after them, we knew we had to go.

Everyone asked me if I was nervous.  I said no, and I did not lie. 

I was terrified.

I had never traveled with a passport.  I worried I would get stuck in customs.  I worried my bags would not arrive.  I worried I was one language barrier mistake away from being locked up in a foreign prison.  And even if I was allowed one call, these are cell phone days.  I did not know anyone's number by heart.

I had read that Belize is an incredibly safe country for everyone except single women who get caught out alone.  Sex trafficking, rape, and misogyny are not uncommon.

Despite these fears, I was also overwhelmingly excited.  I had always wanted to travel out of the country.  I want to see as many places and cultures and views as I possibly can and starting at 36 years old felt like I had a lot of catching up to do.  So as soon as I made it out of the airport in Belize and found my friend's bright smile waiting for me, I was still terrified, but I knew I was never going to turn around.

My friend had secured us an impromptu ride on a shuttle that would get us most of the way to the ashram, which was in an area known as Monkey Falls, and just a couple hour hike to San Ignacio.  When the shuttle could take us no further, the driver called his friend to taxi us the rest of the way in an old and abused Volkswagen Jetta that half sped, half slid down gravel roads and around narrow turns.  Any confidence I had gained by seeing my friend, flew out of my open car window and tumbled gracelessly in the dust when we came around one particularly sharp turn to find a dented pickup truck parked in the middle of the road.  The vehicle had blacked-out windows, and as our taxi braked hard to avoid hitting them, the words, "uh, oh," escaped from my mouth.

I pictured an elaborate trap.  Men would surely jump out of the truck, robbing us, raping us, and the taxi driver would get his cut.  But suddenly, the taxi driver quickly maneuvered around the truck, and we were flying down the road again before I could even wrestle the knife out of my pack.

Once we arrived at the ashram, it was apparent that our visions and reality were not aligned.  What had looked like glamping turned out to be two surprisingly stained camping tents with thin sleeping pads.  The promise of nearby beautiful waterfalls was a trickling stream.  "Meals included" meant a dinner of one piece of breadfruit with olives on top and three precise cucumber slices.  Even Monkey Falls was a letdown.  I had hoped to make friends with local primates, but the name was in response to the monkeys falling ill and perishing decades ago.

While disappointing, none of this was scary, until Laura and I realized only one other lone traveler stayed at this retreat.  On the tour, I asked how many people would be sharing the single bathroom, and I was told thirteen, but there was no sight or sound of other people.  I could not help but feel uneasy.  It felt again like we had been lured into some unusual foreign country trap.

Two yogis from Canada ran the place.  They lived in varying states of high, which should have been enough to ease my mind, but so far, all traveling had taught me is that I was a very fearful person. 

The sun was starting to set when one of the yogis decided to host a nighttime yoga experience on the top floor of their open home in the middle of the jungle.  I have never been passionate about yoga, but this seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Also, there was no way in hell I was being left alone.

I may not know much about yoga, but what I did know immediately is that this man was, in fact, not a yogi.  He was looking up poses from a notebook he had printed out from the internet in town.  He fell over in a couple of the poses.  And there were times I swear he forgot we were even there.  What started as a quick yoga nightcap turned into a two-hour session of him holding poses for so long, I started clearing my throat to remind him he had an audience. 

As the evening progressed, the extended yoga session turned from uncomfortable to absolutely terrifying.  Slowly sounds began to emerge from the darkness around us.  A cough.  A sniffle.  The unzipping of a nearby tent.  One by one, people silently appeared and lined up behind us.  These people had skin as dark and rich as a moonless night, and light-colored, loosely flowing linens for clothing.  At first, it was one.  Then two.  Then three.  Every time I looked behind us, another person had silently approached and joined our session from the shadows.  I was desperate to make eye contact with any of them.  I remember I stared with intensity at one of the women.  I was screaming in my head for her to look at me.  "Look at me!  Give me some sign we have not stumbled into a cult!"  But she looked only at the "yogi" or inward at herself.

I stopped following the "yogi's" instructions.  Time was passing both slowly and with terrifying speed, and I had no idea what direction any of this was taking.  What I did know is that I was going to watch every movement around us so I could scream to run at the first sign of danger. 

But no one came any closer than the shadows, and slowly the "yogi" seemed to tire himself out and slow down.  His yawn gave the cue for the session to end, and just as silently as they came, all the other people disappeared back into the night.  My friend, the lone traveler, and I looked at one another with grumbling hunger in our bellies, but a shared sense of unspoken relief that we could finally just go to bed.

Our relief was short-lived as my traveling friend and I made our way to our sleeping tents.  It was at this moment that the weight of being surrounded by only the jungle hit us.  I saw a tarantula crawl out from its hole as we walked, and I yelled with excitement, "Look, a tarantula!" 

She grabbed my arm.  "Where???  I missed it!" she said.

But I mistook her tone.  What I assumed was enthusiasm was actual fear, so when I replied, "Don't worry.  Their holes are everywhere.  You'll see one," she practically ran to the tents with me following close at her heels.  She was running from the spiders, but what was I running from?  From being alone?  From being alone with these strangers?  How funny is it that you can be afraid of both being alone and being with someone else at the same time?

We reached the clearing that held our two tents, away from all other people.  And the only ones who knew precisely our location were the "yogis," the "silent ones," and the tarantulas.  We stood for a solid minute, each of us looking at our individual tents.  We hoped for the other to show fear first and ask to sleep in the same space, but neither of us budged.  So, we each crawled into our rickety, weathered, and thinned coverings and zipped up for the night with resignation. 

I laid on my back, with my knife in my hand, and stared straight up at the ceiling.  I don't know how much time had passed, but I waited as long as I possibly could before I called out across the clearing into the night and over to my friend's tent a simple yet laden, "Hello?" 

From her tent, I heard, "Me too," and within seconds, I was packing up and moving over to her tent.  Not that in the broader view of things, it would have mattered much.  If her fears came true, and wild animals attacked us, or if my fears came true, and crazy people came for us, we both would have died.  But at least, we would have gone down at the same time fighting for each other.  And sometimes, that is all the difference you need to allow sleep to step in and calm your mind.

I believe it was the cacophony of birds that woke me in the morning.  Sun was streaming down through narrow spots between the trees, and the tent had taken on a bright and cheery color of yellow.  The morning was already starting to warm.  I looked at my friend and decided to let her sleep for a bit longer while I stepped out of the tent to investigate.  I followed various flowers, insects, and birds back down the path to where the "yogi's" lived.  I still felt hesitant, but in the light of surviving our first night, my confidence was enough to explore.

I made it to their open-air kitchen where the "yogis" had clearly heard me coming.  They had set out a cup of tea and a bowl of papaya with lime juice for me.  Moments after I sat down to eat, the air filled with a buzzing noise.  It was a pleasant sound that felt familiar and comforting, and I watched in awe as the whole space seemed to fill with hummingbirds coming to drink their breakfast from the surrounding flowers.  They treated me with as much curiosity as I treated them, and I was overwhelmed with delight that these new friends would allow me to share their space.

As I watched the hummingbirds, the "yogis" came and chatted with me briefly before returning to their chores.  Their characteristics that had seemed odd the day before, now felt somewhat charming when surrounded by so much beauty.  I found them to be fascinating people.  They told me about their land, and I agreed to walk with them later to see what they have done to preserve their space.  I understood them as two people who wanted a natural life away from things that detracted from what they felt was necessary.  They also told me about the silent people on the land.  Their custom involved being mostly quiet.  They spoke only when necessary to avoid missing the sounds the world would like for them to hear.  One time, one of the married women had even given birth in her tent in the middle of the night without even a single cry to wake anyone. The silent people's lives centered on preserving the jungles of Belize and protecting the animals and plants.  My heart filled with admiration and respect for them.

As the yogis left, I saw one of the quiet people walking up from the nearby creek through the trees.  It was the same woman I had desperately tried to connect with the night before, but this time she did make eye contact, and when our eyes met, she gave me the most beautiful and genuine smile I have ever seen.  At that moment, I knew with the sun, the flowers, the smile, the constant buzz of flitting hummingbirds that I was safe.  I was okay.  We had a whole adventure ahead of us, and with my friend walking down the path to join me, we were exactly where we were supposed to be.