Maximon

This was a mission to another town on the lake, the most indiginous town in the area, or however you put it.

I had one goal: To see the shrine to Maximon, some kind of hybrid deity based on Mayan beliefs, and evolved after Christianity. I had read one paragraph about him, that he was killed every night by Christians or something, and that he returned every morning with a rotten hangover, and a cigar in his mouth.

Arriving on the boat, all the tuk-tuks and kids were asking me "Maximon? See Maximon?" but I never trust that shit, so I went wandering. This town has a history of misery, with massacres during the civil war and mass hurricane damage in the mid nineties... Although compared to the Gringo lagoon I was staying at, it all seemed in quite good repair.

I bumped into a French guy, who I assumed was here for Maximon as well, there wasn´t much else to see in this town. He wasn´t really here for anythgn in particular, so I semi abducted him to give me a travel buddy. I got to the top of the town (all the lake towns start at the shore and have their centres up a hill or slope), where there was a small park and a church.
I asked if this was the Church of Maximon, and a woman laughed at me: "No, es Catholica. " She pointed us in the right direction.

No wonder I amused her, Maximon´s shrine turns out to be a room in a house.
The door is covered with a large sheet, so it´s hard to tell what´s inside. I drag the Franch man inside, and the temperature goes up by like 10 degrees, sweat forming instantly. Inside the room is the statue of Maximon, cigar in his mouth, and a man swinging one of those incence balls around (which makes the place sound a lot biger than it was).

It was so small and intense it was a bit awkward, "I´ve come to visit some statue I know fuck all about. Oh, and take a picture of it. " I felt bad for the Frenchman, I had dragged the poor fucker into a weird situation, and there was nothing he could do but sweat. I noticed in the corner there was a glass mausoleum thing, which upon closer inspection had a statue of dead Jesus. It was weird, like it was a rusted bike or box of old clothes, the way it´d been stashed in the corner there. I think it´s a way to placate the Catholics, as if you´re worshiping both of them. I have a cigarette, as there´s not many holy shrines where you can smoke, I wanted to make the most of it. I took some pictures. The French man looked out of his depth. I probably did too.

We left Maximon, and headed back towards the jetty. We stopped for a beer, and on the tabl enext to us was some kind of psychadelic cowboy. He had a black cowboy hat, and black tgrousers, but his shirt was white and lime green, with strange patterns. His skin was brown, and tight - people here donçt seem to age like us honkies, rather than their skin going flabby and loose it seems to go taught, and when he smiled deep creases formed around the sides of his mouth. To top it all of, one of his eyes was, well, deformed? Pale and milky and grey white. He´d make a great villain in a cowboy movie.
My boat was good to go, and I sat on the roof. It was like surfing across the lake or something, and I could see all these guys in canoes so far out it looked like they were heading for another world, and the mist meant you couldnt see the other side of the lake, it was like seeing some guys paddling across the ocean.