Lanquin

this has been quite the week, taking me from tired to astonished to car sick to adrenalin-filled to ecstatic to sad to, for a day, wanting to be doing nothing else in the world than what i was doing.

Starting at the beginning, tikal would cover tired and astonished. we were successfully in the shuttle at 4 :30 am and at the gates when the park opened at 6. we walked into the grand plaza alone with mist surrounding everything and the 2 enormous temples rising up out of it to tower over everything. i never imagined them to be that big it was incredible. high point: sitting on top of temple V looking out over the ruins and neverending jungle and listening to rosalita by bruce springsteen on my ipod. talk about a coming together of the old and the new. The next morning me an alex split ways-he flies out of costa rica, while im changing my flight home to be out of mexico, and his was about a week earlier than mine. so he wanted to do mexico first and then head south, while im doing guatemala first and heading north, therefore not being logical to go together any more. the goodbye ended up being pretty much just like saying bye to anyone else ive met on the road, and it actually felt pretty good being off alone again. you do whatever you want, you dont have to ask what anyone else wants to do. i dunno its easier in a lot of ways.

anyways, that morning i left for Lanquin, which covers car sick on the list. its the closest town to Samuc Champey, which is argued to be the most beautiful spot in the country and as i found out very reasonably so. The place im staying at is best described as a mix between a resort and a hostel, and is unbelievable. a bed for 4 dollars, outta this world all you can eat buffet dinners for 4.50. So far ive eaten, among other things, an amazing amount of vegetables, enchiladas, smoothies, tuna salad sandwiches, french toast, shepherds pie,mashed potatoes, fajitas-the list goes on and on! and its mostly not central american! how great is that? the place is set in a huge green mountain valley with a river running right through it that on several occasions we have innertubed down. as for samuc champey, i took a tour, and this would be what covers adrenalin-filled, ecstatic, and wanting to be doing nothing else in the world. there were about 20 of us on it, and the adventure started on the way there when everyone was loaded into the back of two cowtrucks. nice. when we got there the first leg of the journey was through a nearby cave which had a river running through it. we took in nothing but our swimsuits and candles they gave us. and next thing we knew we were doggy paddling through this underground cave, doing all we can to keep our one hand holding our candles above water. it looked rediculous, like out of harry potter or something, just this long line of heads bobbing in the water illuminated by the little individual pools of light the candles gave off. during our tour through they had us climb a mini waterfall with a rope, jump off a piece of wall sticking out into a pool below, and drop down a tiny hole a side stream had made down into the dark of the main river below, with barely enough room to fit your shoulders through. when we got out we warmed up again and went innertubing down the sunlit river outside for a bit. and then finally after that we got to samuc champey, which is a limestone bridge that formed into 6 different pools with see-through super light-green water, all set in another valley with the mountainsides going up on each side. and below the pools is a different cave that has a different river absolutely roaring through it.but while we were swimming in the pools you couldnt feel or hear the river below you and it was crazy to imagine that it was below us somewhere. anyways, the finale to the tour came when they took us to the bottom pool and set up a rope ladder down a little waterfall. we went down and found ourselves in the exit point of the river out from the cave, and it was really indescribable,but ill give it a shot. the river was a mess about 50 ft below us, just going around every which way in a huge patch of white water that looked convincingly enough like instant death if you were fall in. and looking back into the cave, it looked like the batcave or something, with the rock carved into unbelievable formations by the water. and all over the place, water was dripping down from the ceiling from the pools above us. when everyone had gotten down, the guides come in and say, okay, who wants to go rockclimbing! we all kinda start laughing nervously, but they took us through this little hole in the wall that led even farther into the cave, giving us a better view of everything. and then of all things they say, okay who wants to jump in! fortunately they didn´t mean there, and they led us back up through the hole and down out to a bit of a point farther on from the whitewater. this was the point where we were all giddy with adrenalin, and one by one as we approach the jumping point, the guide asks if we´re good swimmers, and explains that once you jump in you have to swim like a madman to the side to get out of the current and avoid getting washed through the rapids downstream. and so in we went, and man what a rush. i dunno how bad i just made that all sound, no one came close to not making it. but yeah it was wild. and speaking of wild, with an irish owner here, a few irish travellers, and about 50 others, st patricks day lastnight was one to remember.

on a much more depressing note, sad was on that first list because i found out that the other day one of my classmates from garfield comitted suicide. He wasn´t a friend of mine, i didn´t really know him well at all. but it shook me up, especially hearing about it here, alone, with no friends to really talk about it with. and just thinking about what if it had been someone i´d really been friends with, how unbearable that would have been. one of my friends pointed out that hes the first person in our class to die, which was an awfully sobering view of the whole thing. anyways, david, rest in peace. to all my friends, i really cant wait to see you all when we´re all home again.

much love,
gus