San Cristobal, Palenque, and a string of ranting traveling tangents

Sumidero Canyon, hostels and hippies. Palenque, ruins and sun. Buses. That pretty much sums up my time since whenever I last blogged. Buses always make me mad. Being stuck next to 20-30 people for a few hours...there is sure to be one that gets on my nerves. So here they are...

I was sitting next to this really fat lady and her fat kid was sitting on her lap. I have nothing against fat people, but I don't feel like I should give up half of my seat just so the person next to me can be a little more comfortable. So instead of doing so, I held my ground and decided to use half of the armrest separating us. This meant that I had to sit for a few hours with this lady's rolls hanging over my arm and lap. She was making me so angry and that just made me more stubborn. I'm not sure whose sweat it was (Mex is hot), but when I got up there was a lot of it. To make matters worse, they were eating the whole time. I guess it's important to note that this wasn't an afternoon trip. The first meal came at 8am (a normal breakfast time). Doritos and Coke. I wanted to puke. The second meal came at 10am. Tortillas and chicken. Seeing this chubby little 7 year old wipe her greasy fingers all over her shirt was just repulsive. After a few hours the bus made a stop, some seats cleared and I left. On buses kids ride for free. This should be changed. Every person should have to pay for and sit in a seat. On my 2 round-trips from the States to Japan I was amazed at how many people go on vacations with their less than 5 month old babies. I guess it is possible that they are moving or something and then it would of course be necessary. But why would you want spend 20 hours on a plane, twice, with a baby who you know is going to cry the entire trip until it becomes exhausted from doing so and falls asleep - for 15 minutes. Obviously there is something about 20 hour flights and/or busrides that really irritates infants, thus irritating everyone else. There should be some kind of special tariff or something on children that are less than 1 year old. Also, feeding your kid Doritos and chicken for breakfast should violate one of the Rules of Common Sense that someone should develop (although really they shouldn't need to).

The next bus had this guy behind me who was snoring really loud. I couldn't reproduce this noise if I tried. It was awful. This was a nightbus. That trip sucked. Then it arrived at 4am and I hung out on the street for 2 hours until a hotel opened. Anyway, I would feel rude for waking someone up even though I don't think I should feel that way. Even if you can't help it, keeping everyone else awake with your sinus problems is just rude.

Hippies really disgust me (not to be confused with anger). All the hippies I have met have been nice and everything. But just talking to them I get this sort of distaste in my mouth. I don't know a better way to describe it. Around the UofM there are all sorts of hippy looking kids...but these are not hippies, they are posers. The true hippy wakes up in the afternoon everyday and then proceeds to do nothing except smoke weed, drink, play cards and listen to music until 4am. They do this everyday. To them there is no difference between Saturday and Wednesday. Just the whole idea of doing absolutely nothing with your life seems very strange to me now (even if I kind of used to be like that). Some of these guys I've met have just been on a 5 year life-vacation, doing the same nothing everyday.

The thing about really fat people and hippies (or anyone else with habits that are the opposite of the ones I want) that intrigues me is that whenever I am around them I become filled with ambition to be the opposite. While this lady is sucking the fat off of the chicken bone I just feel like exercising. When I'm sitting around the dinner table with a bunch of stoners I just want to do anything that is even a little productive. This sort of weirdo contact derived inspiration(is there a non-Mark term for this?) seems like it could be a very valuable tool for the rest of my life. So next time I start falling behind at life I just need to spend an hour or two with a person who is completely wasting his.

Rio Dulce, Utila, Mexico

Rio Dulce. The highlight was seeing a Coral snake inbetween my bedroom and my bathroom. At the last hour I changed my plans from Mexico to Honduras. I went with two Israelis and Wolf from Austria. Wolf will probably be the strangest drifter I ever meet and the stories involving him are not appropriate for posting. But they were funny.

Utila. I have another 500 little bites from the stupid sandflies. I also have my PADI license which I am pleased about. I roomed there with Wolf and Cam from NZ. Cam was the first traveler I´ve met that I actually got along with really well. He was also my diving buddy.

A quick (Central American quick) trip through Belize and I´m sitting in Chetumal Mexico with nothing to do. I wanted to get a haircut but both of the shops I found were apparently closed due to Mexico playing in the World Cup. I bought a ticket to Palenque and will leave tmrw night.

In other news, this whole school orientation business really bothers me. Why do I need to register in person and have a tour of the school? I am really not concerned with making any friends or finding a nice student group to be a part of. I basically want to take classes so I can get a job. I picked the latest time to go back and register (1 month before the semester starts). I feel like the classes are all going to be full. Then I will have to go try and beg to get into classes. That´s so annoying. So I am going to have to sit around in Mpls with nothing really to do for a month. Century College and I are starting out on the wrong foot. They better have room for me...otherwise I will have ended my vacation a month early for nothing.

Adv. in Guatemala

So the last two weeks have been pretty crazy. In chronological order:

Panajachel and San Pedro. Both on Lago de Atitlan "the most beautiful lake in the world," a huge collapsed volcano. Panajachel was nice but there wasn´t much to do and nowhere to go swimming. The little girls were the most persistant little vendors I´ve ever seen. Well they were exactly the same as the old ladies except not so scary.

San Pedro: I met up with a friend of the friend I went there with, played pool, ate food and swam a lot. I guess this trip was 4 days of being lazy on the lake. Everything here is really cheap...a hotel can run you 3 dollars.

Semuc Champey and the caves. They were cool. Semuc is the most beautiful place I´ve ever been and there weren´t many people there. I went there with Jasper from Germany - Sarah´s friend from San Pedro. We stayed in Coban the first night in a hotel that sucked and then we were up for the 5am bus only to find that we were locked in and couldn´t find anyone to open the door. We arrived in Semuc early and it just happened to be the one day of the week that they offer a tour to the caves and the hot spring pool things. So we went. The caves were full of water and we had to swim through parts. I of course wasn´t allowed to bring my camera so no pics. We carried candles, slipped through little crevices, slid down little slides and I jumped off about a 10 foot ledge into the pools. They were fun.

Tikal. Tikal is a big Mayan site. It was pretty nice but after completing my history major I no longer have any interest in these things. I do like climbing huge structures and contemplating what the heck they were thinking when they built this stuff in 90 degree weather...I do this while the tour guide is at the bottom explaining it to everyone. Also Howler Monkies are my new favorite animal.

El Mirador. The largest Mayan ruins in Central America. I went there with another German dude that I met a few weeks ago at school. And we were of course the only tourists there!!! The reason for this is it´s a 3 hour car ride from the nearest city with internet...followed by 2 days of hiking through the jungle, one day of sightseeing and then 2 days back. To sum it up: about 50 miles in 5 days
about 10 of those on a horse (or a mule if you want to get technical)
90+ degree weather
the rainy season
15-30 horsefly bites
25-40 ticks.
50-100 mozzy bites
walking through mud up to my knees (New Balance....your "All Terrain" shoes need a new name).
Taking only DEET showers.
And I still love howler monkies.

And just wait until you see how studly I look riding around a mule. I felt kind of like those crazy death guys in the Lord of the Rings....only more badass. And I now know where the term dumbass comes from. Badass....I have no idea.

I had another fun day today but I´m too lazy to blog about it now...and I decided I´m going to Honduras in 2 days.

druk druk druk. That means busy busy busy in Danish for all you non-worldly people.

dag dag dag. That means bye bye bye in danish....but only weird people say it.

marcos