They call me Indiana

This weekend was possibly the coolest of my life... I am in a dreamy haze of adventure.

Friday night at 8 pm I received a call. A call which may have changed the course of my entire trip for the better - and not shockingly it was from Sebastian, my boss. Here is how it went:

Him: "Hallo, Meagan? Do you want to go on a rafting tour and see some caves? There is a group leaving tomorrow at 7 am - I will send you the details (never sent), but here is the number of my friend Manuel who gives the tours. There are two other girls going. You will love it, are you in?"

Me: "Uh, yeah! 7 am? What do I need?"

I then proceeded to glaze out and dream of white water rafting, something I do often (the dreaming, not the rafting; that I only do on rare occasions), post to my blog, and then shove a whole bunch of crap in my backpack and pass out.

I have no sunscreen, I have no bug spray (If I get Dengue in a week you will know why), I mainly packed work clothes for my trip - but I do have a pair of Chucks and some flip flops, which got me through my entire superbly-fantastic weekend.

So at 7 am the next morning I was up, as ready as I could be to leave. A car, driven by my guide and now friend Manuel pulled up with two American girls (Caroline and Sharon), who were both very blond, very northern, very tired from working at a hospital in the campos for a few weeks, and very awesome. We began our 6 hour drive up into the highlands, which was incredibly beautiful. Up until this point I hadn't done much traveling out of Guatemala City (read: ugly), but suddenly I was surrounded by green, which as you all know is my favorite way to be.

By mid-afternoon we were hiking the trails to Samuc Champey, limestone pools which have formed particle by particle over the centuries. It is supposed to be the most beautiful place in Guatemala - it is possibly the most beautiful place in the world. I really did not know places like this existed outside of the movies, and I always thought that those were color-enhanced.

Pictures do not do the pools justice, but I will try:




We then came home, ate at a fun outdoor restaurant that was basically one grill and candles and loud music, and passed out for our very early start.

The next day was a marathon:

We started out the day rafting (Team name: Nivel Cinco: because level three rapids were nooo problem; Team Members: The four of us, two local guides, and a young couple - Nathan and Maria, one from Guatemala and one from Ft. Lauderdale. He speaks little spanish, she speaks no English, they both speak the language of love and he has been flying down once a month for the past year. Pretty cute and seemingly-impossible at the same time. They both were really bad rowers.). It was an amazing three hours in which I was continually forced to play guinea pig for water rescues because nobody else wanted to get wet without cause. But it didn't matter, because we all had to do it and we all got soaked in the process of taking on some hardcore rapids and extremely strong current because of all the rain. Also, we lost our bucket and almost sank halfway down the river. Thank god for helmets and manpower. I don't have any pictures of this, but someone does and we've all exchanged emails so I will post as soon as I get them.

Next came the real Indiana Jones part of our trip - the wet cave at Lanquin - once again, no great photos because of the water. This was possibly the coolest thing I have ever done in my life. The maya believed that the caves were the entrance to the underworld, and now I know why. At different points I was swimming in the depths, avoiding stalagmites and stalactites, passing through underground waterfalls, and scaling rock walls and then jumping into pools (some of which were not very deep), all by the light of a few headlamps and candles. We befriended a couple of Canadians who will be sending me some great photos from their waterproof camera. Our local guide, Sebastian (there are a lot of them in this country) was extremely nice and sported great headgear, as can be seen here:



We then tubed down the river (so much water!) and quickly changed before sunset so that we could head to a different cave, this time dry. Deep in the depths of this cave live about a million of four species of bats, all of whom swarm the entrance and swoop out at sunset. You would think it would be scary to have thousands of flying animals swirling around your head, but no, it was just amazing.



I am in love with this country. In love with the people, the trees, the lizards who run on two long legs across the road, even the giant scary cicada-type bugs that sound like some mechanical monster out of Lost. And I'm making so many new friends, both local and foreign. For the rest of this week Manuel and I are going to the climbing center so that we can prepare me for a camping/climbing trip that he wants to go on with some friends. Caroline and Sharon will be back in Guate on Wednesday before their flight out and we are going to all go out on the town, and on Friday I fly to Tical, to see some of the grandest ruins in the Mayan world.

Pinch me please.