Bouncing arounD: Lanquin and El Retiro

Hello again, its 1 minute since my last post, but I am still writing about last week! Its fun to relive some memories.....

The place we arrived at was spread over a sloping field that went down to a river which i did not take a single photo of, so I hope you believe me that it existed....if not it's just a short hop to guatemala and 15 hours on a chiken bus to verify!

I was able to put up my tent and slept in it for the next few nights.... Super cheap too, although it did cost me a new shirt I never even got to wear! But such is life....I have heard many more stories of people 'losing' things like cameras while staying in dorms so one shirt in 3 months is ok....

The place held about 100 people in private rooms, dorms, and then some more in tents and hammocks..... They had a yummy but expensive kitchen and supper was served family style with about 70 people eating together...they were even quite vegan friendly as some American girls passed a month before and were the guinea pigs...so they didnt even flintch when I asked for my meal to be vegan...Here is Dinner... Lots of fun and then came lots of beer!

The next 2 night I found a couple other veggies like myself and folks that were happy eating just veggies and we did some cooking on my stove, another thing that I had yet to use....it took me 2 months to find fuel and then a while to need to use it as some hostals have kitchens.... One night we had a peanut sauce with a side of green beans and the next a curry with a cabbage salad! The food at the giant dinner was great but Q50 a meal whle cooking came out to about Q7 each... And I met an Israeli guy who also had been carrying around the same mount of gear as myself so I felt a little less insane.....

Here are a couple sites form the street in Lanquin....Dont know what that tree is but I want one in my yard..... (I guess I should hope for a yard before the tree though!)

There were a few great activities to do from El Retiro.... One being getting a ride up the river and floating back down in a tube! It was a long float and awesome.... The funny part was that to get there we all had to ride in the back of a pickup for 10 minutes in our bathing suits...not bad for me or the other guys but for all the girls in bikinis it was like they were paraded through a town where women usually swim with t-shirts on.... I would not be surprised if the truck driver calls ahead before he drives through town to alert his friends of the passing excitement!

The Highlight for me of Lanquin is by far this cave!

Our guide was an awesome guy who was very happy to share all his knowledge of the area! We had a tour where we went into the cave for about an hour, there is a Mayan altar inside and many cool rock formations....the inside is covered in black soot in many parts from hundreds of years of burning sacrifices....these days chickens are sacrificed and thats all I wanted to know about sacrifces! On the ceiling there were some baby bats!

Here are some more formations on the cave and a local residnet who is harmless but scary none the less....when I askled to hold him (her?) he ran up my arm and almost into my shirt, it was pretty freaky!!!

The absolute best part of the cave came at sunset, where about 100000 bats flew over our head! It was pretty freaky and very cool, you ould hear them and then someone would take a photo or turn on a light for a few seconds and all you can see is bats bats and bats!!!!