Post 4 - The Story

The Story

 

The main character of the story is Kelli, an American nurse.  She volunteers to work at a medical clinic giving free care in a Mayan village in Belize.  She goes a week early for a vacation, to enjoy the natural beauty of this tropical country.

I know this clinic well, and I know the village where Kelli would be staying.  This was our base of operations when Virginia and I visited Belize in search of the scrap of truth behind the ‘evil spirits’ tale.

Kelli asks a Mayan guide to show her around, and he introduces her to two other Americans who had already hired him.  They are retired teachers searching for the answer to the Mayan Mystery.  Kelli agrees to join them in their search, and the guide takes them to Mayan historic sites.  The teachers are elderly, cannot walk well enough to go to all the sites, so Kelli goes to some with the guide as the others rest.  Early in the story, the guide takes her to a deep crater with a mystical blue pool of water.  The following photo shows the blue pool of water, but that is not Kelli entering it.  She's fictious, you know.  That's Virginia. 

As I said earlier, the characters would be fictional but every place described would be a place Virginia and I have been, and the scenes would be mostly activities we experienced.

Kelli invites the guide to join her in the pool for a swim, and he does.  He then tells her an ancient legend that any couple who swim in the pool together will enjoy a happy life together.  She tells him to expect a short life, because she returns home in a few days.

The guide takes Kelli to climb pyramids and explore the ruins of ancient cities, such you see in the following photo.  Here we pass between an unexcavated palace on the left and an unexcavated pyramid on the right to reach the excavated pyramid in the distance.  This taller pyramid was the main temple of the ancient city.

 

 

The guide also carries Kelli into a cavern where ancient priests conducted their sacred rituals, and she clumsily knocks the flashlight from his hand.  It breaks when it hits the floor, and he leads her out of the total darkness by following the stream of water that had carved the cavern through the mountain.  He also takes her to remote Mayan villages of thatched homes, and she learns Mayan ways that had been passed down for generations.


Pulling the Facts Together

Each day, Kelli and her friends discuss at their dinner table all they have learned, and they compare that with the current theories. Their guide knows the ways of his ancestors, and he helps them understand what they are seeing. They recognize that none of the theories of the researchers can be correct. The following photo shows a small restaurant such as the one where they ate at the end of each day.

 

This flowering bougainvillea covers the canopy over a restaurant I liked, this is the restaurant I had in mind when I described the daily dinner scenes.

Finding the Scrap of Truth

After their final day of exploration, Kelli and her friends eat dinner at an outdoor restaurant similar to the following photo. I enjoyed places like this where the locals eat, I preferred them to the air conditioned restaurants that American tourists frequently choose.
 

Kelli and her friends had previously decided that none of the current theories could provide the answer to the mystery, so they discuss all they have learned, especially the ‘evil spirits’ tale, and they pretend they are at the city a thousand years ago when it was abandoned, same as I had done.

They realize that the priests had been using the threat of ‘evil spirits’ to intimidate the common people and keep them in submission. They figure out that those ancient commoners had been repressed cruelly, and they valiantly chose to live free or die, just as other people have done throughout history when their repressive rulers became unbearable. The commoners, farmers and craftsmen, did something the priests had warned them to not do, and then they fled the city in panic because they feared the revenge of these ‘evil spirits’. Kelli and her friends believe they have discovered the secret to the Mayan Mystery, and so do I.

At the beginning of the story, I gave Kelli and her friends my purpose and with what they learned, they discovered what eluded me during my five visits to Belize. When my fictional characters achieved their purpose, I achieved mine. To me, this search has been just like an Indiana Jones adventure, and I took it twice. I took it with Virginia, and I took it again with Kelli and her friends.

Can you figure out what they discovered?

If not, I’m not going to tell you. That would ruin the story if you decide to read the book. You can order it directly from this blog, (look for Post 7 - Order this book), and you can experience the adventure from the comfort of your own home.

It’s a lot cheaper than flying to Belize, but be warned. Reading it may make you want to go there and see the places it describes.

Those places are real, you know, like the plaza at the ancient city of Tuna Sandwich, shown in the following photo.

 

I hope you enjoyed my little story about my adventures in Belize. If you did, please share this with someone. I do not have a big publisher promoting the book, so the only way others will hear about it is if someone tells them.

Will you do that for me?

Thanks for your time.

Glenn Lawson