Part Two: "Why would ´they´ put a lake on an island?¨

Hello, again, family and friends.

Last we left you, we had just checked in to grandma and grandpa's crazy hotel/house/hostel/someplace-we-never-want-to-stay-again... LOTS has happened since... First of all, after walking the town looking for a restaurant (which we seemed to do a lot of in Belize), we stumbled across what we thought was a restaurant, only to find out it was a little store run by an American hobbit selling "underwears"... he told us he only occassionally had pastries and then looked at his watch and told us he didn't know who could possibly be open at 4:30 p.m. for food. I think we were more confused than he was... we really felt we had stumbled into a Tolkein novel or were on a hidden camera show.

Luckily we found a place to eat where we were hassled by "Feliz" -- a free-lance tour guide and quite possibly the most religious human being who has ever walked the face of the earth (details to follow)... by the end of our meal we had signed up for what seemed like was going to be a 17-day ultra-adventurous jungle excursion with promises of snakes, jaguars, white-water rafting, and no-strings attached.

Knowing now what we would do the next day, we went back to Hotel Grandma/Grandpa to cram ourselves into the four-by-four square room, where we had to sleep in spoons to fit.... BUT, before we went to sleep, we heard Megan whimpering and beads started to bounce off the tile floor. We looked over and Megan explained that she was trying to do a surprise for us -- a surprise of taking out her corn rows a short 24 hours after they had been put in, because they itched, burned, were falling out, and quite frankly looked like the head of an old naked Barbie long ago forgotten at the bottom of a 1980s toy pile. So, we all gathered around to undo the damage which had been inflicted on Megan's head on the shores of San Pedro Island. Three hours later, a giant chunk of blonde hair lay on the bed (looked like someone shaved twelve Troll dolls).




(poor Megan)

During the undoing of the hair, there was a shark special on TV -- which we were very happy to be seeing AFTER our shark-snorkling/spooning experience of the prior day. We're pretty sure none of us will be going back in the water (not even in our own bathtubs). During all of this we started talking about our shark excursion when Megan informed us that "there are a lot of things about those fish I didn't need to know." When we asked her what exactly, she said, "Well they pointed out all these beautiful fish and then told me all these TERRIBLE things about them!!! Like changing their sex!!! That means that all the pretty girl fish can also be men! GROSS!" Quite sure that Megan had a different snorkling experience than the rest of us we asked for more clarification and she explained that she has always just associated pretty fish and animals with girls and the ugly ones with boys... Her whole world has been shaken.

San Ignacio was hot! The room was well-equipped with fans and A/C, and thirty dirty sheets per person for a cover (grandma must still be doing laundry in the river...which makes sense because we think she was born in 1825, and she yelled a lot at grandpa -- probably still mad at him for turning her shower into a Broadway show when he led all of us in to meet her while she was naked). Anyway.... Feliz picked us up the next moring in his friend's tin can on wheels to haul us into the deep dark jungle...

We found out along the way that Feliz, who was sitting in the very back on the floor because there was no where else for him to sit, has a lot to say and that he was going to say it all that day and none of it was about the tour we were on. We did learn a lot about soccer, team work, sobriety, house building, service, the Amish, the river system in Belize, and more than we ever wanted to know about Central American Evangelical Missionary Songs. So, by the time we got to the jungle we were ready to climb into a deep dark cave and die or do anything he asked so we could get the day over with fast!

The first thing on the agenda was to go cave tubing (which Megan wanted to know if we only got to go once or if we would get to take our tube back to the top and go again, like it was a waterslide at Raging Waters), unfortunately Feliz was not a very good planner and after driving for three hours to get to the caves, they were closed and the only life found at this tourist spot were giant army ants which immediately started feeding on us. Felize ran around in circles for a while, then disappeared into a hut, then came out with four innertubes and explained that it "looked" like it was probably going to be safe for us to go afterall (even though the caves were closed because the water levels were too high and they weren't sure we could get through without scuba gear... but, Feliz informed us that he prayed and with faith the waters receded enough for us to scrape through... Then, we began our one-hour walking trek through the jungle carrying our tubes, in our flipflops (because Felize failed to mention we would need shoes to hike through the jungle and rivers with sharp jagged hidden obstacles and very strong currents), and we unfortunately made the mistake of telling Feliz we're religious as well... cue Evangelical Missionary songs. All verses. En espanol. Interrupted by Evangelical missionary sermons and the occassional side-hug and wink. Hallelujiah.




Finally we got far enough into the jungle, and four-thousand ant bites later, we were at the place to enter the river and disappear into the unexpectedly long, dark, horrific, bat-infested, hidden waterful, multiple-death-trap-corridors (but only one being the right one) caves, gushing with 90 mph waters. Though, never fear, we had four partially-inflated innertubes, and four flashlights (one which was still sort of working by the time we got to the cave entrance). Feliz had us get into the river one at a time and then cling for life to the perfectly smooth moss-covered slippery rocks in order to prevent being sucked into the cave, separated from the others, and lost forever (had this been Raging Waters, this part is the equivalent to the top where the worker holds onto you before letting you shoot through the tube).

Feliz got all four of us in and had us hook feet under armpits of the person in front of us (as you can imagine, none of us wanted anyone's feet in our armpits, even though we are all related, we had been walking around barefoot in the jungles for about a week). Felize was in the front so he could paddle us out of harm's way -- occassionally he would look very scared and would start a panicked paddling into the dark (because it was soooo dark in there) and that would freak us out so we would all start paddling, too, to try to help... except for once, when we noticed Megan was paddling the opposite direction... When we asked her about this later she told us she didn't want to go that way because it looked scary (which nothing looked like anything because our flashlights didn't work and it was just pitch black everywhere and the water was so high our heads were about scraping on the roof of the cave).

The cave tubing was cool if it was about one-tenth as long as it was... Naturally, after about 30 minutes, the fear innappropriately wore off and Eli started singing that song from Willy Wonka where that horrifying boat is flying down that terrifying chocolate river ("is it raining, is it snowing, is a hurricane a-blowing....the river must be flowing because the rowers keep on rowing!!!!!"). Then, we got out right after almost being sucked under the part where the water was definitely too high... at which point Feliz told us about a lady who had just drowned there because she didn't get out in time.





(the caves)

So, we were back on dry ground, once again being eaten alive by ants and Feliz passed out two sandwiches to each of us that his wife had made, we think in her church. Megan ate all eight of them, because Krishelle, Eli and Uncle Will would not eat them because they violated the following rules:
1) They were made in someone else's house,
2) There was an unidentified mayonaisse-ish substance on them,
3) Unidentifiable slab of mystery meat,
4) Everything was damp,
5) We didn't want to feel like we owed Feliz anything.
Megan ate them all because she was starving and she said they were delicious.... though, she is now the only one of the four of us who needs Immodium (true story). However, we're not sure it was the sandwiches -- it could possibly be traced to the public toilet seat/ledge she sat flat on in a rainy Guatemala city around midnight... the place smelled so bad we could smell it across the parking lot but she ran in, no questions asked... and, apparently, no one has ever taught her how to squat when you use an unfamiliar bathroom. We told her we will practice with her later. In her defense, she had been holding it for all nine hours of a miserable bus ride through Guatemala and it was a dire emergency.

After the cave tubing extravaganza, we were marched over to the zip lines. Not much to report here, other than it was really cool and well worth it, but Megan is probably the reason it costs so much -- she caused a lot of manual labor to be involved by getting stuck half-way through every zip line because she was a little premature on the brake... even though the "braking" process was the majority of our lesson and how to NOT brake too soon because then you back up the whole process as you hang above the jungle and wait for someone to come and fish you in. There were seven zip lines that you go on to get through the canopy and she got stuck on six of them... so, our zip line tour lasted about five times as long as it should have, but the views were nice.


(zip line platform)

By this point of our day with Felize we were ready to go back to grandma/grandpa's for some homemade cookies and milk, or perhaps some pastries at the "underwears" store, but Feliz had a different plan which involved the Belize Zoo... which, we were excited to go to before we ever flew down here, but we'd seen so much wildlife and jungle by now, we just wanted to sit somewhere and ponder what we were really doing down here and why.

Between Evangelical serenades we drove to the zoo... Megan hadn't said two words for about five hours, then all of the sudden there was a shriek from the back seat that said in English, "DON'T HIT IT!!!!" We noticed a dog sitting in the middle of the road about 100 yards ahead. The driver slammed on the brakes and we all flew forward... the driver, who already looked confused just in general, now looked confused and terrified... Megan explained that she was NOT going to be part of any animal massacre.

We get to the zoo and immediately started looking for the exit sign. It was not at all what the guide books say, except for the part where monkeys are roaming freely... there were signs everywhere saying basically that if you touched a monkey it would likely be the last thing you ever did... however, Megan walked up to the first big black monkey she saw, wrapped her arms around it, named it, and put it in her purse. The monkey protected her later when she was saying "here kitty, kitty" to the jaguar and putting her hands into the cage. We saw jaguars, crocodiles, birds, etc., etc., etc.... most of the same stuff we see at Hogle Zoo, except for the giant guinea pigs (Tapirs) which we had to stop Megan from climbing in with... Though, all in the all, the zoo was cool but we'd skip it next time. Zoo's are just sad...







That night we were on the move again. Not interested in another night with grandma and grandpa, or across the street from the Hobbit's "underwears" shop, we high-tailed it for the border. Basically, we walked right into Guatemala, passing a 12-year-old immigration kid who stamped our passports in an open field and told us to have fun. We took a three-hour van ride to Flores, an island on a lake in northern Guatemala. It's a very quaint village on an island, on a lake... after a while of walking around, Megan inquisitively asked "Why would they put a lake on an island?" All of us individually tried to figure out how this could possibly make sense and each came up with the same answer -- it didn't. So, against better judgement, we asked for clarification. Megan pointed at the lake and said, "Well that's the ocean, isn't it?" We explained that were a good 15-hour bus ride into the mountains from the ocean. We then wondered what the lake was that she had referred to if she thought that was the ocean. (She is still trying to explain her logic to us, as we type.... it still makes no sense.)






The next day we went to Tikal and, of course, didn't go on a tour... and, of course, still wore our flipflops to hike through the jungle and up thousands of steep, narrow stairs to the tops of giant, cascading pyramids, where we were told two tourists recently slipped and stumbled to their deaths. The ruins are very amazing and very, very, very worth making the trek! These ruins are smack dab in the middle of virgin jungle and are still quite buried with lots yet to unearth. The jungle is thick and high and you can feel like you are lost in there or actually living a scene from the Jungle Book. Being the low tour season, there aren't many people wandering around so the animals are thick! You see and here all sorts of monkeys, wild cats, and other things just through the bush... The howler monkeys make a horrific sound and when they started, Eli said, "What the Jurassic Park?!?!?!?!" And, then, we ran for the exit, which was about four miles away...






The next morning we were on the move again. We caught a bus to head to the beaches on the Pacific side of Guatemala, but so far have only made it to Antigua, where we have found the rainy season that we were promised... and, there is a volcano within eyesight that we can see spewing smoke and ash. More details on Antigua, volcanoes, and interesting bus rides in our next email. Though, Antigua feels more like somewhere in Spain than Central America -- it's beautiful here!






Krishelle, Eli, Megan, and Uncle Will