It's been a long long time...

And I have to play catch-up. you see, Patrick came to Honduras with me and told me that I wasn't allowed to use a computer. If he saw me touching one, I'm sure he would have cut my hand off. and so I did not compute (much). I can place the blame squarely on his shoulders and it won't even matter because he is not in this country. Ha.
So without further ado, I will now relate the entire time that I have been travelling since the last time that I wrote a travelling blog entry. It will be a long time, so I hope you're not too hot to trot - this might be good.

Oh, by the way, if you want to see all of the pictures, you have to look on facebook. If you want to see all of the pictures, but are not friends with me on facebook, either you have to join facebook and be my friend, or just imagine what guatemala looks like, and put a little mental image of me in there, and you're close enough. I'm convinced that all of the pictures i took can be found somewhere else on the internet. I did use a popular guidebook, after all...

Okay, after I left Panajachel, or the land of the lotus eaters, I made my way north and east to the Carribean coast. The first place that I stopped was called Rio Dulce, "sweet river". It was sweet. The place I stayed refused to be captured digitally, but it was a 15 minute boat ride from civilization into the mangrove swamps surrounding Lago de Isabel. Once there, I stepped onto a dock that was covered with a palapa roof (a giant tiki hut) and got my room settled. It was a hut that was connected to the rest of the hostel with a series of wooden walkways - usually there is enough water to completely cover the ground, so the walkways are necessary. This was far and away the coolest place I have ever stayed. There were little nocturnal mangrove rodents that hung out by my hut and crickets louder than most of the dickens that lulled me to sleep at night, along with the gentle rocking of the rocking waves...it was very peaceful, and I noticed that all of the people were also peaceful, probably because everyone slept like wombers on the sweet river.
During the day, I went to the hot waterfall and boqueron caves - the waterfall was HOT, smelling all sulphury and coming out of the mountains.

I met a man there who wanted to make sure that I knew about his work saving mayans from sickness. It was a very hard job, he assured me, living on 60 acres of Guatemalan rainforest near the hot waterfall and swimming in it twice a week, but someone had to do it, and that someone had to be him. I am meeting alot of people here who I think have reached a state of lonliness so profound that they think the only way to meet women is to toot toot toot their little tooters. Maybe he really did have some sort of a God complex, but I think rather that he just really wanted someone to talk to. I always meet those people who just need someone to talk to, it seems.

On a slightly happier note, though, I met one of those 'listener' types today, and she listened to all of my pent up 'I haven't talked to anyone in three days' words.

Okay, moving on...I met mom and kate. But they were from Scotland, and they were the way Mom and Kate would have been had they met 20 years ago. It was really fun hanging out with them, and they shed some light on the major topic that I have come out here to think about, but which up until now haven't even mentioned on the blog: love. theirs is a love that is unacceptable in guatemala, so they had some interesting things to say. I can't go into it now, because it's all connected to more connections that are connected to thoughts that can't yet be spoken, but someday when I make a manifesto, I will let you read it. how's that? For now all that needs to be said is that I have a lot of thoughts about love and our culture's conceptions of love that need to be spoken aloud at some point, maybe with a bottle of red wine.

Okay, so then I took a trip up the Rio dulce. This is a tourist hot spot, and it was hot. I mean cool. First we saw the only fort in Guatemala. I have since learned that there is a fort in Honduras as well, that is a little bigger, dubbed "the biggest fort in all of Central America ca ca ca!" It isn't that cool or big. The fort in Guatemala, as evidenced by my facebook pictures, is right on the waters of Lago de Isobel. It was used to keep stanky British pirates away from the good Spanish holdings in the area. What these were, I'm still not sure, but probably the Spanish were in control of the port that led from inland Guatemala to the Carribbean, so they naturally sent ships that way.

We took a lancha - basically a motorboat with a fringe on top to hide our white heads from the Carribbean sun - so we slowed down at certain points, like for instance this place and the next place: an empty island full of birds. I named this today in honor of Patrick - he knows why I hope. (if not, email me).

Whoa. this is getting intense. I watched a giant pelican eat a giant fish. I didn't buy conch shells from little kids in homemade child-sized dugout canoes, but I did think about you, emily, and your class making a dugout canoe. When I asked how long it took to make, they said 2 days. I think they have better tools than you did, somehow.

Okay, so then I was in Livingstone. I quickly made my way to a loud and rather male-dominated guest house by the name of 'something about Iguanas'. Actually, I can't remember the name, but it was something about iguanas. I think my name would have been better. When I say male-dominated, I mean testosteriffic. this is the kind of place where people made fun of me for not drinking enough, and really pushed the drinking games. These were 30 year old men. naturally, I wondered why they were so obsessed with adolescence when they were, like I said, 30 or in some cases, way older. I haven't been able to figure it out. Maybe someone has an idea out there in blogland? anyway, I left for the first evening to make garifuna food!

I learned how to cut coconuts and grate them and soak them in water to make coconut milk. I helped make banana dumplings (using green bananas, because they hold up better and are super starchy) and turned them into soup, stew chicken, and coconut rice. I danced with cute little girls, to drums played by puff chested masculine little boys. I laughed, I cried. It was a very good night.

I woke up the next morning and read an entire book. Anansi Boys, by Neil gaiman. Not as good as American Gods, but still a good read. Jacquelyn, you will probably like it since you're in a big old modern myth phase.

This blog seems somehow way less profound and more making fun of my journey that I had originally hoped. maybe this is because it has been a long time since it all happened and all I can recall in this slightly dehydrated state is the funny parts. Probably i should blog more. But for right now, I am totally sick of blogging. After I read the whole book, I booked it to San Pedro Sula, the fourth circle of hell is how i described it, I think. It was Honduras. Honduras will have to be the next blog...