Heat wave

We hiked up an active volcano here in Guatemala yesterday. The lava was literally under us, flowing, crackling and melting our shoes. We walked on hardened lava to get to the flowing stuff. It was amazing! More later, no time now. xoxo

I was a monkey for day, swinging through the forest, screaming out my monkey call.

Well, we have arrived and remained intact here in Guatemala (the country that I secretly dreaded coming to... or not so secretly). So far, so great! We drove here yesterday with a tour group from Belize. We arrived at a place just outside of the famous ruins of Tikal and went zip lining through the canopy of the rain forest!

I was shaking like a leaf, wondering as I climbed one step higher, ¨what the hell am I doing?¨ I am not a fan of heights and here I am leaving my life in the hands of a 17 year old kid who is securing my harness and hooking me up to a wire.

¨Ready?¨he says with a Spanish accent. I am sweating, seriously, sweating. Hands literally shaking. Eyes like saucers, looking into his, searching for reassurance. He just stared back into mine, probably enjoying my fear, cause he´s so fearless with it. He goes down the line legs spread and upside down!

Trying to put my weight all onto the harness, but to scared to. Thoughts going through my mind= Point your feet, keep legs together. Left hand on harness. Right hand on wire, behind my head, only to be used as a guide and breaks when he tells me to break. Lean back. Go.

Wow! We did that about 10 times from platform to platform throughout the jungle. It was very amazing and as usual, I was so scared to do it and in the end happy that I did it and I have no regrets.

Then we saw the ruins of Tikal, which were great. Ancient buildings of the Mayans. We also saw toucans, parrots, spider monkeys and howler monkeys ,which we heard from atop this huge temple. Sitting up there with the wind blowing at us, cooling us down from the hot day. High above the canopy, an airial view of the whole jungle, mountains in the distance and temples sprinkled all throughout the mass greenery, poking their heads up to enjoy the view. The howler monkey´s groans reaching the skies. They groaned and called out to each other cause it was about to rain and they, like us, don´t always like the rain.

Then Dan and I and 3 other girls came here to Flores, our guide dropped us off and didn´t leave until we were comfortable in our hotels. The 5 of us went for dinner together and again for lunch today, enjoying each others company.

It´s been a safe and nice time here so far. Today Dan and I enjoyed a swim in the lake that surrounds Flores, as it is an island. Warm and refreshing. A group of Mayan ladies stopped by the lake, most likely on their way home from church, and they stripped down to their undies and had a swim too. Ohh laa laa!

I can´t post pictures, as I haven´t found a computer that accomodates my memory card yet and I can´t hook up an usb cable to my camera. I will post some as soon as I can.

xoxoxo
Amie

Going on a gator hunt, but I'm not afraid! I got my trusty oar.

So, Dan and I rented a canoe today. We're here in San Ignacio. A small town in the middle of a valley, surrounded by jungle with a river running through it.

We set off, heading up river. As the town's traffic grew more distant, the bird calls and leaves rustling in the forest grew more distinct. We paddled in and out of shady overhangs of big old trees and caverns and half caves. We were hearing things coming from the forest that we couldn't define.

Then it occurred to us that there may be crocodiles and/or alligators! We had our eyes peeled and talked about all sorts of strategies, should one come upon us and attack. We even had the swiss army knife ready (like that really woulda helped). Then we saw one! crossing our paths, head bobbing along slowly in the water. Crossing the river. We backed off, not sure what to do. Watching. Waiting. It got out on the other side and then we realized that it was only a huge iguana. PHEW.

We went up river some more and asked a man that was in his boat if there were alligators in the river and he said, "only ones that are like 3 or 4 feet long". Yikes! Anyways, we think we saw one a little later, hanging out near a tree, either that or a really big lizard.

We did a lot of bird watching and that was fantastic. We saw about 40 eagles flying around us and far overhead. We saw some green and pink humming birds feeding on some flowers. There were 3 vultures feeding on some dead meat, one of which got chased away by the other 2 vultures. There were dozens of other birds that we saw too. We would paddle and park in the shade and watch something that caught our eyes and repeat that as the ride went on. Always on the look out for gators though.

Girl! Whose ya teacha? Who you playin drums wit? Who you gonna listen to? You listen to me!

We're in Hopkins town now and it's quite the interesting little find. It's got all dirt roads, with many potholes. It is beach front along the turquoise Caribbean ocean. The people here listen to either reggae or hip hop. There are a tonne of dread locked heads in sight, mostly welcoming you with a hello and a smile. There are grass roofed houses and cabanas galore and palm trees and bushes, even more.

We're staying with an artistic, eccentric lady named Trish, at her place, Kismet Inn, and she's pretty interesting. She's 54 and is originally American, from Manhattan and she had an after death calling to come to Belize and make a life here. She died for 3 hours about 11 years ago and took a while to recover and about 10 years ago her calling became clear. Go to Belize. So she did. She came and married a Belize man with the last name Kismet so that she could live here. On one end of town she's known as Mrs Kismet and on the other she is Mrs. Elvis.

Elvis is a laid back Caribbean man with long arms, a head full of dreads and a killer white smile (purchased at the dentist in Guatemala). He lives with Trish and as she puts it he is her "Black Caribbean lover". He grunts and groans at her in a language I have a hard time understanding, when she tells him to do things around the place and he speaks of needing a rest or a nap instead. She says he turns into a clumsy animal when he drinks and he breaks her bikes when he tries to ride home in them, cause he's so hammered.

In any case, he's really nice and so is she. Elvis took Dan and I out for a good time the other night to an open aired, sandy floored bar. There we listened to the men play their drums and turtle shells and dance and sing in a language called Garifuna. I sat down at the bass hand drum and the man next to me, Conrad, taught me a "rhydum" (as he put it) that is typically played here in Belize, forgive me but I forgot the name of that "rhydum".

Conrad was trying to teach me and then Elvis would come in and show me something and then another guy. I was trying to listen to all of them and then Conrad let me have it and asked me who was teachin' me and who I was listenin' to. Anyways, I learnt the beat and kept the beat and had the drummers playing along with me and singing and good ol Elvis was dancing and swinging his long arms around and up in the air. Dan took a chance at the shakers and he did good!

Dan and I are having a great time and we keep breaking out into hysterical laughter about something strange we've seen or something that Trish has done or said, or another great story she tells and I will come and tell Dan and we'll laugh (in good fun of course).

All is going good here and we're really enjoying the people we've been meeting and as always, each others company.

Next stop, coming soon is Guatemala.... which I am a little nervous about.

Eh Mon! Can I gettu anyting?

We're still in Belize city and it's going well. I don't feel safe going out after dark, so we haven't been. We did a walking tour today of this area downtown and along the ocean and it was really nice. We got the info on where to go from our lonely planet guide. We saw the governors old mansion, a bird island, a cemetery and some neat houses. I had a gigantic glass of orange juice at a restaurant, got some stuff at a store (for super cheap), saw a cathedral and got to see the city in action. Later we went to see a movie and we had a nice dinner too.

There's this one guy who hangs around our hotel telling us the places we should go check out in the city and later gets aroung to asking us for money, or trying to come up with ways he can get us to give him money. "Can I gettu anyting? What do u need?" He wants to run out and grab us, "some beer? or a burger? some vics vapour rub? juice? cigarettes? anything at all, man?". Anyways, he finally just came out and asked me for some money last night, and i threw down a dollar from my balcony (he was on the street and we were hanging out upstairs). Then he came back asking if he can get us anything again. Then this evening when we came in for the night he came up to us as we got out of the cab and asked how we were, where we went, if we had fun and for more money! Dan gave him 50 cents. He's nice enough... it's just awkward standing there talking, knowing what's coming.

The streets are full of wanderers both day and night. At night we sit up in the balcony and watch the people. They are mostly our age or younger and we aren't sure if they're up to no good, or just wandering around, yelling out to each other, singing, playing loud music, etc. There are lots of stray dogs about and at night they seem to go wild barking at people. Not all the dogs, but some.

We were woken up at 4 am last night to some long honking coming from a car down below and yelling. And then we heard glass break, at which point we got up to check it out. They were trying to wake up their friend who lives across the way from us. Anyways, some great music came on in the car and the girls started singing and I kinda wished they woulda stayed out there longer, cause I was grooving to the tunes, as I spied out of my window.

Tomorrow we are going to a place called Hopkins Town and it's on the coast. We're planning on staying for maybe 3 nights or so and then we will head to the Guatemalan border and stay in a town near there before crossing over.

Bye for now!

Beach bums

Beach bums. That´s what Dan and I have been for the past week, mostly. We left Playa Del Carmen after 2 nights spent there and came to Tulum, an area known as Mexico´s backpacker´s beach bum heaven. We stayed in the town for a night in a sweet hotel that had a king size bed and no bugs or grass roofs. It was a night of being pampered before our excursion out to more beach side cabanas.

The first place we stayed in on the beach was this hut on a small cliff that had a great view and we could hear the waves crashing just feet from us. Our bed was on stilts and just turning over in the bed, as non disruptive as possible, was a challange. We thought we´d for sure be the last people to stay on it before it finally collapsed. Luckily we made it through the night without incident, just lots of teetering.

Once we made our way down to the beach for a swim, just a few steps down some rocks, we found ourselves on our very own private piece of beach. I tanned topless and no one was around to see, it was liberating. It was like being on a deserted island, which is a far cry from Playa Del Carmen.

We went walking to check out some other cabanas along the beach, cause ours had a few too many ants and the bed was, as I said, on it´s way down....crashing to the ground... with or without it´s patrons. Anyways, we didn´t find a place to stay on that walk, but we did find a place to shower... we couldn´t resist the tile walls and nice appearance of the shower and we were hot and our shower at our place was a darkish place with crappy wood walls and rusty faucets... actually, rusty faucet, the other one was only a hole in the wall.

The next day we took a taxi about 5 km down the beach and found a super place to stay! Big, cement floored cabana, with a sturdy bed! Many places to chill out on the property, beach front and we were just a few blocks from the Tulum Ruins, which we went and saw on Monday. We counted 22 lizards and iguanas on that trip to the ruins and it was great fun trying to pick them out of the landscape, since they blended in so well.

We partied with a group of Mexicans that were staying the night at the same place as us. We called the head guy "Montezuma" (secretly). He was very insistant on us sitting down at the bar with him and his friends and having a few drinks on him. We were skeptical at first, but he ordered and opened them in front of us and later it became clear that he has finally gotten a day off from catering to the Cancun tourists and came out there to party and he wanted people to party with... enter Dan, Amie and a sailor named Raoul. So, there was a group of about 8 of us and we had a great time.

This one guy " Little Richie" dove for the volley ball on the pavement and totally bloodied up his big toe, ouch! He was trying really hard at that point, cause Dan and I were beating him and his friend so badly, awww.

Anyways, we stayed there 2 nights and Tuesday was beach day, which was nice. Played some frizbee and swam and then came to town to stay in the same sweet hotel again. Today we went to Chichen Itza, one of the modern wonders of the world and it was pretty spectacular. We hung out there all day and here we are back in town at an internet cafe.

Tomorrow we head off to Belize, via bus. We´re hoping and expecting it to be a smooth trip and transition.

Wanna get ripped off? Come see my junk!

That´s what a street vendor said today on the road as we walked on by...lol, it was quite honest and therefore hilarious. We are here in Mexico, Playa del Carmen, and although the travel time to get here was long, we are here now and happy to be so. We should have a good sleep tonight, as it will be the first solid hours slept in the last 30 something... yay!

Our beach cabanas are decent. Nice grass roof, comfy clean bed, what else do you need? Maybe some airconditioning and a bigger lock on the door... but, hey, it´ll work for tonight and then tomorrow we go to Tulum. The water is beautiful, aqua and warm. The beaches are white sand and oh so nice! Anyways, more later! We are being safe and having a nice time.