el alto sol me quemó pt II

ok, here i am again. i feel the need to write this down so i dont forget. we woke up on sunday morning, and we wanted to find a church, but we couldnt find a branch in poptún. we knew there was one there, but we didnt know where it was located. it was funny because later in the day i found a book of mormon in the book exchange that had the elders phone number in it. if we had only found it sooner!! we hung out and relaxed the whole morning. played cards, talked to people. we havent met too many americans. i think i started to have a slight english accent. we signed up to go on a walk to a cave. the man that was our guide was named narciso, chicho for short. he was a good guy, and the cave was neat. we bushwacked through the jungle, got ticks crawling all over our feet, and made it to the cave. inside, we were greeted by bats and the freakiest cave spider your eyes have never seen. it was hanging from the stelagtite like, what do you want, it was big. chicho played the stelagtites like a marimba. i asked him if he had ever slept in the cave. he looked at me like i was dumb. of course it was a dumb question. there are very few reasons to sleep in a wet cave with murcielagos and cave spiders breathing down your neck. the formations were beautiful, and i was glad we took the walk. when we got back we were more freaked out about the ticks that were climbing all over us, and i killed a bunch of them. chicho laughed, but he also tried to remove them from his clothing. we were so dang hot at that point that we went swimming in the natural pool there. it was green. mmmm. i snorkeled a little bit, we mostly just cooled off in there, reverently, you know, because it was sunday. that night nothing special happened, and sleeping was much more pleasant because i was clean and i got the rhythm of the mosquito net down. oh, i forgot, the first night, we were walking along in the dark and i shined my light and . . . there was a guard! we screamed, then laughed, and he said buenas noches. it was funny. monday morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and talked to a british guy who is doing scuba training in honduras. he was friendly and may have convinced us to go to honduras rather than belize. we went into poptún on a tuk tuk, said a fond goodbye to finca ixobel, and hopped on a dilapidated fuente del norte bus. it was pretty full when we got on, and i sat next to a man named luis. he was going to visit family in morales. he is a guard at tikal and told me all sorts of interesting things about the place, like how the sun aligns just right on may 1st and october 21st, i think, and it lights up a lovely pink color. it was the first time that i got to have a good conversation with a guatemalan rather than a european, and i was glad to have such a friend. when we got to rio dulce, i said goodbye to my friend, and we were stressed out a bit by the city. it was loca. some guy helped us get on a boat, and we zoomed across the water into a little tributary that has a hostel that some swiss guys run. the egrets at the entrance were unreal. they werent smiling, but they werent evil. beautiful. the place was a little tropical hide a way, and it was lovely, except for the evil deer flies. these literal suckers were a menace. but we slept fine, and it was tranquil. we jumped on a lancha right at our hotel in the morning, and went on the rio dulce tour to livingston. it was beautiful. we saw a million birds, stopped at a hotspring, and drank a coco frio. then we got here. livingston is lovely, calm, and there will be music tonight! and we ate ice cream! and i am sunburnt! and i need a shower! i am glad you cant see me right now! this trip has been beautiful so far and the excitement of sololá is making me insane. and there will be reefs in honduras! i love you all, hasta luego!