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Published: July 24th 2006
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Me and La Ladronita
Glad I brought my girlfriend on the boat... First of all, I must thank my loyal readers. My 11 entries have been read 600 times so far, making this blog almost as popular as the local synagogue bulletin in Saskatoon. Yay! I'm very thankful.
I won't be able to upload pictures on this one for another day; the hostel I'm at doesn't accept digital cameras. However it (Finca Ixobel just outside of Poptun in Eastern Guatemala) does have three amazing things:
*Hot Showers
*All you can eat food
*Everything (including beer) on the honor system
I love hippies.
Also, thanks to my mom, who agreed to make me a kosher brisket at Grandma's when I get back. Anyone in the vicinity can come, except that I can't endorse the shabbos atmosphere in Burbank: Jerusalem its not.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Last I wrote, I had been waylaid in Raxruyjah (I know I've spelled it three different ways. It's like Chanukkah that way). Well, Thursday morning I caught a bus to Sayaxche (Saiy-aaah-che) and found a dude at the river, Tony, who helped me hire a boat down the river into a jungle to see the Mayan ruins at Ceibal. The ruins
were said not to be as spectacular as Tikal, but they are 1) off the beaten path and 2) you take a frikkin jungle boat there. I mean, how cool is that ?!?
Some might say, "But Rabbi Mark, couldn't I just go to Anaheim and take the Disney Jungle Boat cruise?" Lets compare the two. The asterix is by the winner.
Guatemalan Jungle Boat Cruise --- Disney Jungle Boat Cruise
*Guide missing three fingers - Annoying American with 10 fingers
*Guide with real machete - Guide with fake gun
- Monkeys *Hippos
*Monkeys are not anamatronic -Hippos, anamatronic
- Ceibal is 90F and 99% humidity - Anaheim is currently 100F, 0% hum.
(thats a tie)
-Guide knows nothing *Guide knows nothing, but tells witty jokes
*Tour takes 5 hours - Line for ride takes 2 hours, ride is 15 min.
- Doritos and water *Disney Nachos at convenience stand
Even with the nachos, I give the nod to Guatemala. We took an 1 1/2 hour ride down a river, and pull up at a dock, then walk 20 minutes down a trail through the jungle with huge vines and amazing bring orange caterpillars to this
Jungle Boat Cruise
No guide from Laguna Nigel pretending to shoot a hippo, however. complex of small temples and unexcavated mounds when a temple is buried beneath earth and trees that have covered over the ruins since the Mayan civilization mysteriously collapsed in 900 CE. There was only one temple fully excavated, and it was about 40 feet high, plus there were about 15 stele of different mayan gods. My guide was able to occasionally say things like 'Thats the Bean God,' or 'Thats the War God'. But I couldn't really check those things, could I?
One really cool thing was the Howler Monkeys. We couldn't see any (that wouldn't come until Sunday at Tikal), but we could hear them. Howler monkeys sound like a cross between Chewbacca and Barry White. I got it on video... I promise to send it out in a few weeks.
On the ride out on a hand built Guatemalan lancha boat, I pulled my guitar out and jammed. The boat captain had to take a picture, because Tony could not work my camera, both because he was missing three fingers and because he was not the sharpest tool in the drawer. Maybe mixing those two images together is bad. Forget that I wrote that.
On
the ride back it poured (It rained every afternoon from Tuesday to Friday, kind of like Ramah Darom). Afterwards I got a room in a local hotel and grabbed some fish and beans for dinner (Yay variety!)
The next morning, Friday, I caught the ferry boat across the river (there is no bridge, all traffic to the north rides a small car ferry), hoping to catch a bus on the other side. While crossing, a man started chatting with me, and offered me a lift, so I rode with him all the way to San Elena, outside Flores. Nice guy, owned a plantation. *Note: yesterday I was decrying the imbalance of wealth and the power of the finca owners, today I am snagging free rides from them. So I'm a hypocryte. But a hypocryte with a free ride north in a truck with AC.
I planned to get my shabbos food at the market in the lakeside town of Flores, but upon walking to Flores, discovered it was nothing but a toursit town and had no market. Back to San Elena for bread cucumbers avocado tomatoes and peppers. Couldn't find grape juice and I was afraid of the
Me in front of a temple
A photographer Tony's not. $1.25 a quart rum they were selling, so kiddush was on beer. Thank you Rabbis Alexander and Kantor for your p'sak.
I caught the bus for my place on the northside of Lago de Peten Ixta, far away from the tourist center of Flores (I learned from my last shabbos on a lake). Getting dropped in El Remate, it was a 5K walk down a dirt road, with my full pack, in 85F 99% humidity to the lakeside hostel. But it was worth it. My ipod was foreshadowing again: it played 'Yerushalyim Ircha' by Neshama Carelbach as I approached the hostel... and after that killer walk, it was the promised land. *Note: The shuffled-ipod then played the Police's 'Roxanne', so maybe I'm just reading into things.
I payed for a thatched hut and mosquito-netted bed by the lake. The only other person there was a Canadian who runs a Guatemalan NGO for women, and she spent all saturday at Tikal, so I had docks and beaches and hammocks and thatched huts and palm trees to myself all shabbat, ate wonderful veggie food by the hostel kitchen, and had a great, restful shabbat, except for the sun burn I
Shabbos in Paradise
The view from my private hut... got while floating on a raft in the lake. But thats a complaint: it was another perfect shabbat in paradise.
I promise pictures will be up soon, and I'll tell you about my trip to Tikal, the lost Mayan City in the jungle. More importantly, I'll tell you about the monkeys, and the further connection between Tikal and Star Wars. Clearly, then, I'm a total whore for pop culture. But hey, whatever works.
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Rabbi Greenstein
non-member comment
Nice Blog
Wow I am impressed, How's is going over there, sounds like your having a great time. We were in Belize and it was great, I layed on a hammock half the time, were just settling into portland and its beautiful. I hold by rum, Baruch