by Mike Tidwell (Zaire 1985–87)

“HOW MANY NIGHTS will you be staying?” the Indian innkeeper asks me, leaning over his dusty desk. He speaks in slow, accented Spanish. Behind him, an assortment of wooden Christmas ornaments festoons the inn’s aged door. The stone fireplace is a gentle tempest of logs and cracking flames. It is Dec. 23.
     “Three nights," I say, lowering my backpack to the warm stone floor. The innkeeper arches an eyebrow. "So you’ll be staying through Christmas?”
     “Yes.”
     “And you’re alone?” He glances over my shoulder.
     “Yes.”
     “I see,” he says.
     I gather my gear and follow the innkeeper, whose name is Guillermo, down a narrow hallway to my room. Through a window, a liquid flaming sun is sinking toward 9,000-foot peaks outside this rural mountain village in southern Colombia. “You’re our only guest,” Guillermo says, unlocking my room and handing me the key. “There are no other visitors here.” I can almost read the rest of his thoughts: “We never get backpackers at Christmastime. Never. And the Colombian tourists — they have all gone home to be with their families, of course, for the holidays.” I settle quickly into my room, then hurry outside to catch the last of the sunset. I pass unlit Christmas candles, thick and red and half-used, scattered throughout the inn.
     My being here is no accident. I want to be at this distant spot, far from my own country, a lone traveler, at Christmastime. The holiday in America always leaves me feeling a bit blue. While others relish the crowds, the shopping, the Yuletide specials on TV, I’m never quite able to catch the “spirit” — to get festive on cue — when so much of the package seems like a scripted marketing opportunity. The best solution, I decide: Sample the holiday elsewhere. Which is how I wind up among these Andean mountains. I follow a short path down from the inn to the edge of Lake Guamues, the largest, highest, most beautiful piece of fresh water in Colombia. The indigo surface is cradled by forested mountains turned blond by the waning light. In the cool alpine air, I pass ponchoed Indians in bowler hats. A young boy with braided hair carries a panpipe as he herds llamas along the shore. The lake is shaped like a giant teardrop.
     I take a seat and watch as a series of final, awesome sunbeams falls to earth. The myth runs that a powerful medicine man created this lake and these mountains from the bodies of a feuding husband and wife — and the result is absolute peace for all who live here. I can feel it. A stillness spreads through my road-weary body. Nearby, a peasant farmer is harvesting potatoes from the black earth and humming a familiar tune. I listen. I recognize the song. “Noche de Paz.” Silent Night.
     The last of the sun disappears. The panpipe in the distance begins to play, flutelike and joyful, getting farther and farther away. In a manner of speaking, Christmas this year, for the first time in my life, may very well be a religious experience. The best Christmas holidays I’ve ever spent were overseas in obscure corners of the world — in Africa, central Asia, South America. There was that Christmas in the Congo, for instance, sitting down to goat meat and fufu with other bearded, ponytailed Peace Corps volunteers under a rustling palm tree. There was that time, too, in faraway Kyrgyzstan, gathering juniper branches in the snow for window decorations and exchanging used books wrapped in boxer shorts.
     At such far-flung venues the holiday ritual is simpler: You call to your table whatever American expats happen to be within easy travel distance. There’s no media bombardment telling you to buy, buy, buy — so you don’t. There’s nothing to purchase anyway. You just come together for a daylong meal with a little too much wine tossed in. Just like Thanksgiving. It’s love unhindered by the distractions of listmaking and gift-wrapping, fellowship without credit card heroics.
     And so it was a few years ago I found myself alone in South America at the end of a long writing trip. Christmas was just a few days away. I could have flown home in time, but I had already missed the two-month, hyperventilating buildup to Christmas back in the States. Arriving now, with the holiday peaking, might give me the Christmas equivalent of the bends. I’d be coming up way too fast. So I drifted into the mountains of Colombia instead.
     If overseas travel is a way of forgetting your own culture while experiencing another, then Christmas, by my tastes, is a perfect time to travel. I opened a map of Colombia and picked the tiny, isolated village of El Encano on Lake Guamues (also known as Laguna de la Cocha), 300 miles southwest of Bogota. I decided that whatever Christmas was at this little place, that’s what Christmas would be for me, too. There’d be no handful of American expats around this time, either. Just me and whatever I found. Just me and . . . Christmas.
     I awake the morning before Christmas to the sound of cows being milked outside my room. From my bed, I peek outdoors through a badly cracked window at Guillermo. He’s sitting in the distance on a stool, humming, milking a cow — squish, squish — into a tin bucket. An explosion of morning sunlight shows that he’s wearing the same clothes he had on the night before — old canvas pants and a llama-wool sweater. These are the only clothes he’ll wear during my entire stay. The cracked window has been repaired with a cheap opaque tape.
     But the place has perks. I exit my room and Guillermo hands me a steaming cup of just-made Colombian coffee. He’s added cream straight from the cow and the result is sublime. “Come see all the hummingbirds,” he says brightly as I moan with every sip.
     Outside, the weather has warmed quickly to a dreamlike morning of shirtsleeve sunshine. The lake below us is a giant, blue-white mirage of reflected light. Most striking, though, are the flowers. They grow wild. They grow everywhere. Orchids, asters, daisies. They climb along the stone walls of the inn and up toward the Spanish tile roof, offering their nectar to two dozen red and green hummingbirds.
     “December is the start of our best weather,” Guillermo says. “It’s our springtime.”
     I take another sip of coffee, standing in the sunshine, and wonder what blustery winter weather is making mischief back home in Washington, D.C.
The inn grounds double as a family farm, and just then Guillermo’s three children arrive carrying eggs and more milk from a barn out back. They are Gemri, a boy, 8; Guillermo Jr., 17; and Dorys, 22. Guillermo himself is 50, but looks younger, with a thick mane of black hair sans a single gray strand.
     Guillermo is fretting now, his face lined with perplexity. He doesn’t quite know what to make of me. I tell him I’m going for a long walk along the lake. But before I leave, he tells me again that I’m the inn’s only guest. In fact, he says, there’s never been a guest at Christmastime in the 25-year history of this out-of-the-way establishment.
     “Hmmm,” I say. “Okay. See you this afternoon.”
For hours, I wander along grassy bluffs overlooking the lake. I see more llamas and shepherds — and cows with snow-white herons perched gently atop their backs. I see a tiny island in the distance with a shrine to the region’s adopted saint, Nuestra Señora de Lourdes. She watches over local fishermen who in turn honor her each year with a huge feast of stewed guinea pig, an Andean delicacy.
     It’s nearly dark and the air is again chilly by the time I return to the inn. Guillermo has built another fire and has lit all the candles for Christmas Eve. My boots and socks are wet from my hike, so I place them by the fire to dry. I join Guillermo on a long bench pulled up close, and thaw myself in the warmth of the flames. But seeing my socks hanging down from the mantel, I feel a stab of homesickness for the first and last time during this trip. I can’t hide the feeling as I describe for Guillermo the tradition of stockings turned magically full by Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.
     No such stocking tradition exists in Colombia, he says. Then he gives me a long, vaguely fatherly look. “Why are you not home now?” he says. “Home with people you know? Then you could have this tradition.”
     The tinge of sadness in his eyes leaves me touched. I rush to tell him my philosophical beliefs aren’t quite in harmony with the holiday back home. I’m very, very happy to be here, I say. He accepts this readily with a look of kind respect. “My family, we are Catholics,” Guillermo says, “so Christmas is very special to us. We also have this man Santa Claus in Colombia, but he does not come to our home.”
     Now I’m the one feeling a tinge of sadness. “Why not?” I ask.
     “Many years ago, when the children were very small, we stopped giving gifts in our family. We are a poor country. Even me, with the inn and the farm, I am a poor man. So the children know about Santa Claus, but they don’t believe in him because he never comes to visit their home.”
     I say nothing, trying to show him the same respect he’d shown me earlier. His voice trails off into the fireplace flames.
     It’s past dinnertime now, and I hear sounds of cooking in a back-room kitchen.
     “Could I order some dinner?” I ask. This strikes Guillermo as funny somehow. “There’s nothing to order,” he says, laughing heartily now. “There’s no menu! You’re a guest of my family tonight, not of the inn.” It has grown completely dark outside, and I slip out to view the Andean night sky. Christmas Eve has arrived in full, heralded by a billion bright stars. Only the sumptuous odor of good cooking inside finally lures me back. At 9 p.m., at a table set up by the fireplace, we sit down to eat. Guillermo’s daughter, Dorys, has been doing all the cooking. I still have not seen Guillermo’s wife, and there’s no place set for her now. I sense a sad story behind this somehow, and I decide not to ask.
     I survey the table and am incredulous. Dorys and Guillermo Jr. have covered each plate with a thick bed of yellow rice crowned by a large, roasted chicken breast. The breast is stuffed with minced liver and covered with a sticky sweet sauce. It is a fantastic feast by this family’s meager means, and I consider the thought that I’ve never been offered a more valuable gift.
     Guillermo says a short prayer, and we begin eating. The chicken is wondrous, and the accompanying red wine is quite decent. Dessert is a bowl of very sweet white-bean soup eaten only at Christmastime in Colombia. When I compliment Dorys on her cooking, she shrugs modestly. “These are recipes our mother taught me many years ago.” There’s an air of despondency in her expression that again keeps me from asking more. Guillermo, clearly, is raising these children alone.
     The children ask me various questions about America throughout dinner. At one point, 8-year-old Gemri says, “Tell us a Christmas story from your country.”
     I decide to steer clear of the Rudolph and Grinch stories, both of which end with children happily receiving mountains of gifts. In the candlelight of that table, I tell instead a simple story of a Christmas Eve when I was a child and times were hard for my family. My father was out of work, except for a low-paying job delivering newspapers. I helped him with his work on Christmas Eve morning so he could come home quickly. My mom and sister made hot chocolate for us when we returned and we spent the rest of the day arranging strings of popcorn across our Christmas tree. We all wanted very badly for it to snow that evening, even though it rarely snowed where we lived (Georgia). But that night it happened — there were snow flurries. The first time ever on Christmas Eve!
     “Un milagro,” Gemri says. “A miracle. They happen at Christmas if you really want them to. Papa says so.”
     “No,” Guillermo says quickly. “I said a miracle happened to me one time at Christmas when I wished for it.”
     I look at Guillermo quizzically. “Come,” he says, standing. “The children know this story. I will tell you outside while they clear the table.”
     We step out into the sparkling night air, and the stars are even more lustrous than before. Whole galaxies are visible, cloudlike and full of mystery. Guillermo and I walk toward the lake, happily full of food and wine, while he talks.
     “I tell you this story because, without it, you would have no place to stay tonight,” he begins. “Twenty-five years ago I had nothing. No money. No job. In these mountains, it’s hard to find work. My dream was humble: to have a little farm and a place for travelers to stay.
     “Then God helped me. It was Christmas Eve, 25 years ago — a starry night like this. We were visiting my wife’s family, who are city people. Her brother was very, very drunk that night and he asked me to help him walk home. I was upset by this, but he really needed my help. He staggered and swayed so much. One time he almost fell down on the sidewalk and I rushed to catch him and that’s when I saw it. On the ground, in the dark, was a little yellow bundle. I reached down and picked it up, not knowing what it was. Then I saw it was money. Lots of money. Ten thousand pesos [$600]! I had never held so much money in my hand in my whole life.
     “I was shocked. I looked around to see if anyone was looking for it, but I saw no one. It was so much money. For three days I watched this spot from a distance, waiting to see someone looking for it so I could give it back. But no one came.”
     Guillermo and I have turned around in our walk and are nearing the inn again. The front windows bear the faint glow of dying fireplace embers. The children have already gone to sleep.
     “With that money,” Guillermo says, “I bought my first cow. And I bought the materials to build this inn. All of it came from a sidewalk, this money. A sidewalk.”
     We step through the front door and feel the warmth inside. “That,” Guillermo says, “is my miracle.”
     The story has left me bewitched, my mind in a happy spin. But now it is time for bed inside this giant Christmas wonder of an inn.
     “Sleep well, Señor Mike,“ Guillermo says. “We will speak more tomorrow.” “Feliz Navidad, Señor Guillermo.”
     The next day I rise late, wondering if the events of the night before were a dream, a fairy tale. But Guillermo and family are still here. It’s Christmas morning, and they are soon giving me coffee and a sweet, fried corn bread called bunuelo.
     Later, Guillermo tunes his transistor radio to a Catholic Mass being broadcast out of Bogota, and the family gathers round. There is no Christmas tree here and no evidence whatsoever of gifts having been exchanged. Nor is there any palpable letdown hovering in the air, that Christmas ether of dashed expectations common in affluent countries after the inevitable dissatisfaction with things.
     The day is a leisurely one, and I spend it all with the family. Guillermo Jr. and I chop wood for the evening fire. Guillermo Sr. helps Gemri with his homework. Dorys cooks another handsome meal. The family is happy today — and very, very wealthy. Less really is more. Stripped to its core, Christmas is slower, deeper, bigger. I feel fully present for the holiday for the first time in years.
     But I can’t shake the impulse: I want to give the family a gift. My cultural background leaves me feeling incomplete unless I wrap something up and hand it over. I’ve never spent a Christmas in my entire life, I realize, without giving at least one small thing to somebody.
     But I have nothing except what’s in my wallet. I’m traveling light — and nothing’s for sale around the lake on Christmas Day. The next morning, Guillermo hands me a bill for three nights’ stay totaling all of $18. None of the food has been included. I hand him the equivalent of $30, intending that he take it all, but he promptly returns it.
     “Please, Guillermo,” I say. “It’s a Christmas gift. This is a tradition in my country.”
     “But you have come here to escape your traditions,” he says.
     Before I can protest, he continues. “You have noticed that my wife does not live with us. She had to take a distant job in another village to help earn money for the family. She could not come home for Christmas this year. You, too, are away from your home, and we have taken care of you. Maybe that means people where she is are taking care of her.”
     I nod that I understand just as the children step forward to say goodbye. It’s strange, but I feel as if I’ve known this family for many years now. They’ve taken an ancient celebration and made it new for me by, ironically, omitting everything new and modern and so making the holiday recognizable again.
     I lift my backpack to my shoulders, ready to leave.
     “We weren’t expecting you,” Guillermo says. “Don’t you see? You were our miracle this year. You came at Christmastime. You somehow found us. There’s nothing left for you to give us or us to give you. It was a nice holiday that way. Don’t you think?” I nod again — and wave goodbye.

This essay is from Mike Tidwell’s recently published collection of travel stories, In The Mountains of Heaven: Tales of Adventure on Six Continents.