THIS ISN'T SOME MADE UP STORY. IT'S REAL.
Greg explained to me about Guatemala as we walked up [ie. climbed] that last hill. He sprang up it like the earth-crunching Terminator he is and had plenty of breath left to talk when we reached the top. I plainly couldn’t go and meet the group because I couldn’t get a word out let alone breathe, my face was bright red and I was pouring sweat. While I tried to get myself together, Greg went on over the brow of the hill to the group, to announce our arrival and introduce them to Idris. Then he came back for me with the group’s leader, Sully. Together they showed me what I couldn’t at first see for myself. Beyond this hill, they explained, lay Guatemala - a desperately poor nation with an enormous population who’d cut down and destroyed their own rainforest in the interests of money and their own survival, and were now attempting to pour over the border, here in this remote region where no one could see what they were up to, to do the same to Belize. Tracts of forest had already been razed bare. That was why some of the hills we’d just trekked over had been open to the sun. And that was why this hilltop was bare too.
I looked around....