It doesn’t take a lot to be nice to the people around you, yet somehow many of us find it easier to be otherwise. Here’s a story of how my friendliness actually saved me from a pretty scary situation, and I think it’s a great lesson for travelers: Treat those you meet with kindness and respect, and they will help you.
I was at one of the many beautiful ruins Guatemala has to offer, the ancient — and once capital! — city of Qʼumarkaj. It’s a remote spot with a hilltop location and the parking area is covered with tall pines. I parked and paid the nominal entry fee, then was walking to view the structures when I saw two girls taking photos of each other nearby.
I smiled as I passed, and they beckoned me to come over to them.
It would have been easy to brush them off, to smile and keep walking, to shake my head. But I didn’t. I approached them and after a few moments realized they wanted to take a picture with me. Which seemed so cute and silly, even. It wasn’t like I was a 20-something celebrity.
We took photos and that was it…I thought.
This particular ruin has a very interesting feature that I wanted to check out: A long, handmade tunnel runs underneath to the main structure, beginning at a little cliff face, and it was open to the public via a fairly sturdy wooden staircase that led down from the main plaza to where the entrance was.
I went down, explored the caves, and when I came out, the girls were standing there. I’m sure it was by chance, they just happened to be planning to enter the tunnel when I was exiting.
We took a few more photos, laughing and chatting in Spanish, and then suddenly everything changed. Two other people had come down the stairway, and while I wasn’t really noticing them, the girls certainly had. These were two men who seemed decidedly not like normal locals out for a pleasant afternoon at the ruin. They were grubby and seemed, it was hard to put my finger on exactly, but the vibe was angry. I wondered if they were the jealous older boyfriends of the girls I’d been chatting with. While it had been entirely platonic, there was the chance someone might perceive it differently.
Quickly, the girls ushered me up the stairway and past the men, one of them in front of me, one of them behind, putting themselves between me and the men. I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time, but when we reached the top (without incident) the girls explained that the two men were planning to rob me. Or us. (One of the girls had a DSLR almost as nice as mine was.)
Though I’ve never felt unsafe in Guatemala, or anywhere, really, I have to say that part of that is that I’m fearlessly friendly and people respond by going out of their way (as these girls did) to make sure that I’m safe and protected. I feel such gratitude to their kindness, and afterwards I thought of how different it might have been had they not been here. I was away from any crowds, alone, totally unsuspecting that something like that might go down. Locals know what to look for, and listening to them and respecting them is a key way that tourists can not only be nice, but be safer as well.
Candy and Elizabeth, thank you for your help that day!
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