Reunion!

So much has happened since my last post entry. I finished Spanish school, Elise and Deborah joined Kyra and me in Guatemala, we made our way over to Honduras, where we visited Copan, the furthest south the Mayan empire was known to extend. I have enclosed a picture of a us standing in front of a sacrificial stone, evidently the Mayans would position folks face up over the stone and slice and dice them. I thought it would make a great X-mas card with the heading "wishing you were here", but Deb thought better of it. We all got a strange vibe (mal onda) from Honduras, I'm not sure if it was just because the people in Guatemala are so friendly that anyone else would seem stand-offish by comparison, but we were happy to move on. We took a long bus from Copan to Rio Dulce, Guatemala, then a water taxi from Rio Dulce to Livingston, that was magical. You start out in a freshwater lake where they take you by this old Spanish fort, then by a few islands full of waterfowl (we saw a Northern Jacana, an odd looking creature who has feet made to walk on top of water lillies). The lake then gives way to a river that passes through a deep, narrow canyon of the plushest jungle imaginable. Then you end up popping out into Livingston, a sleepy little ocean-side pueblo on the Carribean Sea. Although still in Guatemala, it had a totally different, typically Carribean feel to it. We only stayed there for a day, just long enough to have possibly the best shrimp I have ever eaten, then took a water taxi to Belize. We ended up in Placencia, a nicely beached little town that is the very definition of peaceful. We stayed there for several days enjoying the water and seafood. We booked a snorkling tour that took us out to a small island which has been designated as a National Park. The coral and fish were as good as I have ever seen. We then took a series of long, painful buses all the way to Playa del Carmen. I already described Playa to you, but it was nice to see it again through my families eyes. We spend 5 days there, culminating in a tour where we swam with whale sharks. The tour involved a long boat ride (almost 3 hours out) into the open ocean. It was rough seas, and nearly all of the 11 people on the boat got sick, including all of us (I even ralfed, the first time in some 27 years! There goes my record.) On the way back in, we got caught up in a swell, the waves got rather big for our 20 foot lancha, and it was raining like a good shower head. All the while, the captain had rediculously loud music pumping into the boat, a little like Apocalype Now. During the worst of the storm, the theme song for the Titanic came on, which made us all laugh despite ourselves. I have here a picture of a whale shark from the internet just so you can appreciate what it might be like to swim right next to the largest fish in the world. I swam right next to one that had to be at least 30 feet long, I was so close that I had to watch to make sure he didn't hit me with his tail (they are plankton eaters, but they swim with there mouth open and could easily swallow a small adult whole).

It was in Playa that Kyra decided she needed to return to New Mexico to try to find work before heading off to Morocco and Jordan for 4 months in the Fall. Elise, Deb and I then took another marathon bus ride (19 hours) to San Cristobal, Mexico. San Cristobal is a bohemian town in southern Chiapas not far from the Guatemalan border. We enjoyed our stay there, although a tropical storm (yes, yet another one) left us in rain for 3 days straight. Not the hopeful, usually disappointing desert rains we desert rats are used to, but a unrelenting, driving rain. In the midst of said rain one night, on our way home from dinner, we heard some jazz playing, stepped into this bar, and were rewarded with an amazing 8 piece Cuban jazz band. We listened and danced until the wee hours. These are the rewards, often unexpected, that make traveling so worth it.

Then, another series of long buses back to Antigua. After reuniting with old friends in our hostel, (OX), in Antigua, we went to Semuc Champey. Semuc about 8 hours north of Antigua by windy, awful roads through jungle mountains broken up by a tapestry of farms. The last 11 kilometers is a dirt road which delivers you to, quite honestly, a jungle paradise with a series of rivers, waterfalls, and caves. We went caving the first night we were there and saw tons of bats, tailless whip scorpions, and, of course, stalagmites and stalagtites. I have a picture of some bats exiting the cave. The next morning we took a tour through an underground river system inside a seemingly endless cave. Rumor has it that the river goes back over 11 kilometers into the mountiain, but the truth is the end has yet to be found. Our tour took us about a third of a mile into the cave, where we waded through the river, at times having to tread water because the water was so deep, all while holding a candle in our hands (our only light source). There were places along the river were we could jump from ledges into the river, natural water slides, and even a chute about as big around as a patio table, where you hold your breath, jump down through the chute about a meter or so until it spits you out into a chamber below. That part was actually pretty scary. We then went tubing down a river outside of the mountain for a bit, and finished up in a different part of the river where an amazing natural limestone bridge about 1/3 mile long was formed over the river. The "bridge" has springs that feed into it, forming a series of small waterfalls and turquoise ponds. All of this sits atop of the river running underneath. We swam in the ponds for a couple of hours, then returned to our cabin. I have here a series of pictures of Semuc. The first one is us up at Miradora, or "the lookout", the next, a closer one of the pools we swam in. This day ended up to be one of the most memorable of a very memorable trip.

Without Kyra, the translating has been left mostly to me, although both Elise and Deb are pretty good. I told Elise that it would only take her another year of classes to pass me up, getting passed up in language is nothing new to me. We returned to Antigua from Semuc after 3 days, and right now we are at the Earth Lodge, a hippy ecolodge just up the valley from Antigua. It sits at the base of a rather extensive cloud forest, where the birding is especially good. I saw a blue-throated motmot, an exotic bird found only in a small region of Central America. My last picture is looking down into the valley from the Earthlodge, if you look closely, you can see that the volcano to the left has just erupted, that is a plume of smoke, not a cloud. We are going to stay here for a couple of days, then we will take a 2 day bus ride to Managua, Nicaragua, where we will slowly make our way back to Guatemala over a 2 week time. Then, finlly, it will be time to return home. I will try to add one more post before I return.