Lanquin

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Woke up to a beautiful morning & a beautiful setting. We are nestled in a beautiful valley surrounded by green mountains & sitting right next to a rushing river. There was a bit of fog this morning but it lifted & has been a sunny, warm day. After doing another thorough sweep of the floor for scorpions, I was able to get out of bed. Won't step down without looking now, that is for sure.

We enjoyed breakfast here at our hotel. The restaurant is set right on the river. It definitely caters to the tourists. Not only is the menu on a chalkboard, all in English, the prices are about 2x as much as town. However, our huge breakfast with 2 coffees cost us $8. (Our dinner last night with 2 beers was a little less). We decided to take it really really easy today after our travels yesterday. We read on the porch & journaled & just enjoyed relaxing the day away. It is soooo quiet here. It's a nice change of pace from the towns. I appreciate that the only sounds we hear are the river, the rooster (who never stops telling us it's morning, even though it's noon now), the cow, the dogs barking, & ocassionally people talking. Lovely.

Geoff ran into the woman from last night with the scorpion in her room & apparently, after telling the people at the desk about it, a guy walked her to her room with a large machete to deal with it. Awesome! Everyone has a machete, so it's really not too surprising that is the go to tool. But, the scorpion won the battle & ran between the wall boards. The woman switched rooms. I hate to tell her that I'm sure they're everywhere... We are in the jungle. But, I don't really blame her. Just hearing about it has put me on high scorpion alert. Eek!

There are currently a gaggle (don't know what else to call them) of hens with their rooster parading through our yard. Geoff named the rooster Honcho because he obviously runs the place. I also just spotted a cow heading through the palapas in search of food. Geoff just said "I feel like I'm in the middle of Animal Farm." Between the hens, roosters, dogs, cats & the cow that have ventured past our deck today I can't disagree.

After sitting around & catching up on reading, for pleasure & future travel planning, we headed down the hill to the hotel restaurant (an open air palapa) for a snack. We had some yummy chicken quesadillas. We watched these guys who work here use this rope attached to a wooden board (in the middle of the river)& ride the current of the river on it. Sort of like the idea of surfing but the board was a perfect rectangle of 2x4's. They were really skilled at it & we discussed what they could do if it was shaped like a wakeboard. There was no way I was going to try. I watched the guy lose his grip on the rope & quickly get moved 20 yards by the current. No thank you. I am not that good of a swimmer. I tried to talk Geoff into doing it, but he didn't. Maybe tomorrow?

After lunch, back to the reading. 😊 Favorite pasttime other than watching birds & livestock. There is also the cutest Husky puppy running around here that belongs to the owners. He keeps following this cow around & running around him & barking. The cow completely ignores him & continues to eat grass. I think the puppy is getting frustrated. Now he just sits there at the cow's feet & barks at him. Too cute. While sitting on the deck, the absolute tiniest little gecko/lizard creature walked by us. He was no more than an inch & just too adorable.

This afternoon we took a little tour to the Lanquin Caves. It was just us & the guide, a young guy Juan, who works here. The caves are well known because at dusk thousands of bats fly out of the cave to eat. The caves were really beautiful. The river flows out right below the cave entrance. The cave is full of quartz & stalagtites/mites, & of course bats. We saw one group of about 10 of them huddled together. Ick. When we shone our light on them they would wiggle & poke their heads out to see what was going on. Double Ick. We climbed through a little crack in the cave which wasn't well lit. It was fun & super duper slippery in there. Juan said he & some friends have walked into the cave at least 10km & never found the end of it. They have lights in the first section of the cave that they've put in for tourists, but he said it is super dark in the depths. It was pretty awesome in the cave. As dusk was approaching we headed to the entrance of the cave & waited for the bats to leave. They started heading out by the dozens & as it got darker by the 100's. It was really a sight, when you could focus on them. They are fast little guys. Juan turned off all the lights & we were able to see them a little better. When we would turn on our headlamps there would be 100's flying right by us. Every now & then one of their wings would brush us. It was crazy. Juan took some cool pics with my camera. Another fun adventure. We rode to the caves in the back of a pickup, standing up. It is a free feeling riding in the open air like that. Not super safe considering we are on a really bumpy gravel road in the middle of nowhere but it was fun.

Once back home we washed the dirt off of us & headed back to Comedor Shalom for a delicious dinner of chicken & beef with rice & avocados (I asked for no extra salt on my avocado & it was salt free!). When walking in & out of the restaurant, the locals would tell one another hello/goodbye & to enjoy their meals. I love the simple courtesies that people have for one another. It's refreshing. And everywhere you go, everyone says buenos dias/tardes/noches.

The bar down the hill from us is having an 80's music fest right now. Geoff is currently stoked because they are playing Africa by Todo. Random. Although they just finished playing Wham & I had to explain to Geoff who Wham was & continued on to the rise & fall of George Michael. Boy, we are learning a lot about eachother. Geoff also just mentioned that Africa might be his favorite 80's song. Ok, now it's techno fest down there. Ugh. Who comes to the jungle for techno? Really?

Now in the scorpion free confines of our room, time to read & go to sleep. Tomorrow we are off to Semuc Champey, a village 10km from here, where there are amazing limestone waterfalls & pools. Hoping for sun! I'm severely underwhelmed by the techno right now, but I do have earplugs... I prefer the loud crickets thank you very much.

Off to bed.

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Photos

Our room
In Lanquin

The back of the truck
To the caves at Lanquin

Geoff kissing the spider
In the bat caves

The bats
leaving the cave at sunset

Us watching the bats
as they leave the cave.

At the cave entrance
Eeew bats!