Action! Adventure!

All too often on this trip I feel like I haven´t been ¨extreme¨ enough. When is my six day jungle trek? It´s been nearly seven months of backpacking (!), whaddayamean I haven´t rappeled down a waterfall yet or gotten a tattoo? I know I shouldn´t get down on myself but hell, you see these people´s Facebook albums... you start to question one´s commitment to ADVENTURE.

Well I got those nagging doubts covered this week. Cause I´ve been tectonically active, you could say.

Guatemala wins ´Country Most Likely To Explode´ in my book. In a country the size of Tennessee, there are no less than four active volcanos. Most entries on pueblos in my guide book include the phrase ¨due to the recent eruption¨ something something.


So we climbed up one. Check it, here´s the view at the top. Volcan Pacaya, 2,000 plus meters high and covered with live lava flows and a bunch of gringos toasting marshmallows on them. Adorable.

Right after the hike, on our shuttle to Lanquin, an English girl told us about her friends that had done the hike a few weeks prior and found themselves running back down the trail in flight from an actual eruption. File this one under excursions that US travel agencies would find disagreeably litigational.

And now we´re in Lanquin, an agricultural, hilly paradise in the country´s center. And we hung with bats in a bat cave! Las Grutas Lanquin, where there are rocks that look like curtains and mushrooms and every night when the last cadre of spelunkers leave, they turn out the lights and thousands of winged mammals flap out over your head like some silly girl´s nightmare. It was wicked.

So as you can see, I am totally extreme and there is no worry because here in Central America, the adventure train just don´t stop. Even in my stomach! See, Erik and I, having been on the road like I said earlier for nearly seven months now, were of the opinion that we had stomachs of steel. No water too contaminated, no street food too filthy. Well weren´t we in for a surprise when one evening shortly after our arrival in Guatemala we met Montezuma and his fabled revenge. My parasites have been with me for one heartwarming week now and are beginning to give me burps that taste like sulfer. Truly, these guys are my good friends now. We shared the volcano hike, we spelunked together... buena honda.

Here´s the site of my convalescence, the young adult summer camp that is El Retiro Hostal in Lanquin.
It could be worse...

Con amor,
CD (and the parasites)

Photos by Mr. Erik Anderson...