Tuesday, March 3
The Owl, the Lake and the Occult
The other night in my sleep I thought I heard an owl. It was one of those nights when the dogs in the village (one of the real annoyances here) were barking like mad making it hard to sleep. The hoot sounded fake so I started getting paranoid. During our brief time here I've become aware that if an indiginous person comes to your house, they don't knock on the door but rather stand in the middle of the yard and make a bird noise to get your attention. In retrospect it's a nice peaceful way to announce one's presence but it's also a little spooky. So I heard the hoot and feeling a wee bit creeped out, got out of bed to investigate. It turned out to be just an owl but I remember thinking it was distinctive because I hadn't heard of owls living around Atitlan. I went back to sleep.
The following morning we took the girls to a brunch spot a short lancha ride away*. We ran into an acquaintance, Lee, who rented us our kayak. He proceeded to tell us that the day before, his wife and some friends had rescued a baby owl from the lake. The "baby" already had a 4 foot wing span and was 14 inches tall. It had been quite a struggle getting the owl out of the water. Lake Atitlan drops off rapidly from the shore so there are few places to wade in. (Although no one has actually measured the depth of the lake, which is a caldera, it is estimated to be at least 1000 metres deep in the centre).
Suffice to say that rescuing a young bird of prey from a deep lake in Guatemala is quite an emotional feat. The women (2 American and one Guatemalan) were worn out and not sure what to do with the bird who was still very much alive. In researching what to do, they learned something unexpected. In Mayan spirituality, the image of an owl in the water signifies a messenger from the underworld, a spector of death.
That night at about 9pm, two lanchas had a head on collision just beyond the bay of Santa Cruz la Laguna where the owl had been rescued. One man, a local, died in the accident. Also in Santa Cruz that night a mother lost her baby. (It turns out that neither lancha had lights, and the driver of one was wearing a walkman. Also, the indiginous are notoriously bad swimmers.)
The baby owl went to a local animal sanctuary the next day. As we become more entrenched in village life, it's hard not to become more mystically-minded about the bizarre things that happen here. On a more practical level, next time we take a lancha, the girls twill wear life-jackets.
* Lanchas are local water taxis, and really the only way to get around the lake (apart from the tuk-tuks which will do if you only need to go to the next town). One mafia family controls all the lanchas on this side of the lake. A few years ago someone told me that another family tried to set up a competing lancha company. He was found danngling from a tree. Needless to say these boats (which seat about 12 but are usually maxed out at 20) have a dodgy safety record. All the Mayan boys around the lake aspire to be lancheros, who all wear slicked back hair, gold chains and impressive-looking belt buckles.
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