Adios

Our lack of ridiculous misadventures managed to quickly catch up to us.

- We had to walk home from a friends hostel, in the pitch black, in a town that doesn´t believe in electricity past 9 pm. We walked into several bushes, a ditch, a dog house and a barbed wire fence. Erin also managed to crush her toes on every rock along the way.

- I burned Erin´s hair off with a candle. In all fairness, I was trying to save her as she was tripping (which is a hobby of Erin´s). I, however, managed instead to push her further into a cave crevice while burning her some new bangs.

- This is quite possibly the best of our misadventures . . . . In attempt to enjoy the sunset, we invited our British friend Joe out for a little evening paddle. Being on the Carribean coast, he had this incessent need to say, "Mon," in every possible context, whilst wearing a rasta hat. We sat in the canoe, Joe said, "Alright, mon," and we were off. We decided to paddle out to an anchored boat, to pirate it and demand a beer, or at least some tea and crumpets. We never actually managed to go in a straight line, with everyone rowing haphazardly on different sides. Joe and Erin, being the front and back seats, decided instead it would be better to have a water fight. I sat in the middle cursing them both as they splashed each other, managing to wet mostly me. After I was completely drenched, and had sufficiently cursed them both, the boat (surprise!) had managed to fill with water. I began scooping it out when a man rode by on his motor boat. He asked if we needed help, to which Erin quietly said no and laughed, and Joe said, "No, mon." I, instead, asked for something to get the water that had filled 1/3 of the boat. The guy threw us a jar and I began to save us. However . . . in this saving process, I was leaning left, Joe was overcorrecting and rocking every which way, Erin was reprimanding the both of us while Boat Man kept saying, "Don move, ya gonna sink de boat." Sure enough, we did. During one of Joe´s overcorrections, water came streaming in, and the boat went down. We all started laughing histerically, choking on the water as the boat went down like the Titanic. Joe frantically attempted to stay above water, fearing for his pink and blue rasta hat. Boat Man rolled his eyes and scolded us, as our laughter turned into the silent, gurgly giggles. In exasperation he finally said, "Do you want me to save you or what?" We did. He did. He was able to grap the last inch of visible canoe, and tie it to his boat. We were still laughing as he lectured us on boat safety. When we pulled up to the hostel, in a motor boat with the canoe dragging behind, drenched in our jeans, the hostel owner was very curious. Joe told him that we had just gotten tired after rowing so hard, and the nice Boat Man offered us a lift. Joe then turned to us and said, "I don´t usually get the hysterics like that, mon."

We got incredibly side tracked in our trek back to Mexico. We missed the shuttle for the Mexican coast, so instead thought we would try getting there via Belize. On a bus for the capital city, we ran into friends, rasta imposta Joe being one of them, who convinced us to make the trek to their destination - an island off the coast. We stayed two days on the island, ate excellent fish, caught up on the Olympics, snorkled in some fishless, brown grass, and sunk a canoe. After adding to our collection of bed bugs and tan lines, we booked it up the coast to meet Erin´s parents, who happen to be travelling around Cancun. For our last day, we lived it up in style. An air conditioned house, pina coladas, snorkeling in fish infested, brown-grass-free water, cruising in a golf cart and hanging out with baby turtles. Had Erin and I been on our own that last day, we would likely have been drinking bad, cheap beer and playing Go Fish. All day. Thank you Mother and Fater Schulz for seeing us out in style.

Erin has already left me for her flight, and I am once again alone in Cancun, waiting and sweating. Waiting and sweating with my bad Spanish. Trying to say, " I am very hungry, " came out as, "I have many men."

And speaking of men . . . Erin and I have been amazed at the amount of cat calls we have gotten on the street. We are happy to note it has been more than just whistles, kissy faces and hissing noises. Here are some of our favorites.
"I lo you baby."
"Mary me!"
"What happened baby?"
But the best of all was on Belize Island, when a man barked at us. Oh how we will miss these men.

Bat poop shoes and vomit bags

In this past week, sans internet, we have managed to experience our favorite time thus far, as well as our most ridiculous . . .

Our favorite time was living the life of Indiana Jones, The Goonies, Batman and other possible cave dwelling / adventurous / attractive persons. We floated down a river, jumped off a trecherous bridge (well, Erin did. I was unwilling to plummet to my certain death, but Erin very much enjoyed it), rode in the backs of pickups that sped over potholes hurdling us into the air (where our faces were also whacked by tree branches). Oh yes, and we were chased by a large boulder while indigenous Mayans shot poisonous darts at us.

Well, not the later, but we did explore this amazingly awesome cave. We swam through this cave with candles in our hand, the goal being to keep it lit. Erin and I, however, experienced laughing fits, compounded by clumsiness, and my candle was quite familiar with the water. After so many dunks, it was rather reluctant to light. We climbed ladders, and jumped off into a swimming hole (again just Erin. I prefer to observe and say, "Bravo!"). We walked up a waterfall, and bouldered along walls. We also had to fall backwards down a waterfall / black hole, and it was really scary to trust the guide shoving you down it. It was basically the coolest thing ever! and the Indiana Jones theme was whistled, hummed and shouted a good portion of the way. Harrison would be so proud.

The next day we hiked into another cave, full of bats and their poop. The attraction of this cave is to wait until dusk, and sit in the entrance while hundreds of thousands of bats fly out. This was really amazing to have them all whooshing past, with their echo locational abilities and all. We waved our hands to try and hit them, while also squinting our eyes fearing they would pummel our face. A few special ed bats did run into us, one into Erin`s head and another into my leg. I wonder if Christian Bale has ever come out of his cave covered in guano. It`s very sticky and won`t likely come off our shoes for ages. Mmmm.

Now for the events of last night. This has been in the works for awhile, as our adventures are usually packed with mishaps and ridiculousness, but thus far our trip has been rather calm (for us). After travelling for ten hours in a van, packed with tired, sweaty people we pulled up to a lake side hostel. Alas, there was no room at the inn. Our tired, sweaty group were too many for the beds, so Erin and I took one for the team and opted for the tent. As it began to rain, we discovered this tent did not zip up, or have a rain guard. Excellent. We moved it to the kitchen area, where staff had to sidestep our room and cascading belongings. As we stood outside the tent whispering sweet nothings, I began to notice a brown substance dripping on the tent. It dripped on my arm, then my head, then chunkes began to fall from the ceiling. I gagged, as Erin repeatedly asked, "What is it? What is that?!" Turns out it was vomit, seeping through the ceiling. As we moved the tent out of harms way, it dripped on Erin`s arm. Also, having no rain guard, the mosquito netting of the tent served as an excellent strainer. The chunks remained on top, slowly sliding down the sides, while bile mercilessly covered Erin`s backpack. Good thing we moved indoors to save us from the rain.
After much more gagging and cursing / laughing at our lives, our tent had been cleaned out.
At 1:00 a.m. we finally sulked into our kitchen room, where lights were kept on and staff were busily working and chatting. The tent was too small, and our legs stuck out the end, essence of vomit was still circulating, and a cockroach crawled on my head. Luckily we had arranged a 4 a.m. sunrise tour (which ended up being a fog tour), so we didn`t have to attempt much sleep with those excellent conditions.

Bat poop shoes and vomit bags . . . who is picking us up from the airport? Lucky you.

Boy it´s hot here

This won´t be a long update as I am sitting between two frenchmen, whose collective body odor is making the flowers wilt.

We are in a beach town in southern Guatemala, and being massacred by sand fleas. Our feet are just red, raw lumps at this point. Awesome.

Two nights ago we walked on the beach and found two mother sea turtles laying their eggs! It was pretty amazing, but we felt quite intrusive. All the same, we touched the mothers and held some eggs.

Both Erin and I have successfuly, and unintentionaly, managed to have a Guatemalan fall in love with us. Our leaving town is breaking their poor hearts.

Much ado about Erin

I will follow suit with Erin's numbered list approach, as so much happens on this Guaty extravaganza.

1. In response to Erin's getting electrocuted . . . . there were wires attached to the shower head, she was standing in a pile of water, and touching said shower head. After the first shock, she touched it again just to "see." The second shock was accompanied by a scream and, "Courtney come in here! Touch this shower head!"

2. We finally washed our clothes. However, we hung them to dry on clotheslines in a downpour . . . so we are still damp, in another rainy town.

3. While ordering tacos, Erin had a cockroach hanging out on her shoulder. It was huge. After saving her life ( I do this a lot), I laughed a great deal. She continues to spontaneously cringe.

4. We roasted marshmallows over lava. They were pretty excellent, even with the little bits of volcanic rock that came with.

5. We met the most annoying faux-British. This Harry Potter look alike (but nowhere near as cool) is a Virginian, who lived a few years in London and picked up the accent to pick up girls. This accent is believable, but only present 61.7% of the time. He is quite hoity-toity, and while under his British facade uses words like, "bum" and "tele" and "rubbish." Thoughts of him also cause Erin to spontaneously cringe.

6. We shared a romantic candlelit evening while listening to a Guatemalan band that used 6 foot tall pan flutes.

7. We fell in love with a monk, and are contemplating ways to convince him of other career choices . . .

8. Erin is incapable of saying no to children and dogs. This has resulted in her buying a dozen bracelets from every doe eyed child, and using all of my hand sanitizer after touching every doe eyed, flea infested dog. This is probably why a cockroach took kindly to her shoulder.

By the way . . . . you are all getting bracelets as souvenirs.

Shot in the butt. And more...

What is all this nonsense about Erin not participating in blogging? I´m pretty sure that if Courtney were one of the seven dwarves who was cut out of S. White, she would be Neurtsy.

Now, for those of you sitting on the edge of your guts awaiting news of the health of one Neurtsy/Cornqueque/or COurthouse CLine, I am pleased to inform you that the afformention shot in the butt did more than just humor me, it pretty muched extinguished el Parasito. Indeed, the fight between 10 foot Parasite vs. 10 foot COurtney has come to a crippling end for Parasite.

Now to the stuff that really matters. Í´m not quite sure where Courtney left off with this whole blog business, so here are a select few things we have done/learned/or seen in the past few places, etc.

1. We learned the names considered for the Seven Dwarves including Neurtsy, Shirty, Sneezy Weezy, Biggo Ego, and Hungry. Looking at the list, I´m pretty sure that my Dad has been accidentally called at least 65% of the names. His name is Smokey. BTW.

2. We´ve seen just how strong the human neck can be. Or at least the Guatemalan neck. The locals here carry everything on their heads, really. So far we´ve seen huge bundles of wood, chickens, desks, multiple crates of apples, and a plethora of mystery bags 3 times the size of the person that´s carrying it. Courtney and I have been practicing strapping our bags to our heads as to fit in better with the locals. Now, I pretty much can´t tell if I´m walking next to Courtney or a 3 and a half foot mayan woman... I think it´s working.

3. We ate dinner in the middle of an animal SUper'Highway at Lago Atitlan. What started out as a friendly pat on the head to some local dogs, landed them on top of our table during dinner. At one point we had 3 dogs staring at us/climbing on us and licking our plates from one side, and a madre cat and her kitten sneaking up on the other side of the table. It was actually pretty hilarious. Courtney had to hold our plates in the air for about 5 minutos.

4. We´ve become pretty much fluent in 2 of the indigenous languages here. They all include a lot of clicking of the tongue.

5. I was nearly electrocuted in the shower when I reached up and touched the showerhead adorned with varous wires.

6. We watched a giant turkey walk along a roof.

7. We were passed by a loud, little truck with two baboons running around in a cage in the back.

8. We jumped rope with a little Guatemalan family at a semi-sacred Mayan site.

9. To be continued. We really only came in to use the internet to escape a little kid whose been following me for about an hour. I think we lost him...

On good friends and bad Spanish

Another wonderfully Spanish spoken encounter of mine -
Me: " I want to be a teacher"
Waitor: "What do you want to teach?"
Me: "Little kids."
Waitor: "You like little kids?
Me: "Nice to meet you."

While walking down the street, we were called, "Sweetie! Hey Barbie." It´s nice that someone finally acknowledged the resemblance.

Two days ago, I cracked and went to the doctor, whom I wouldn´t have found without Erin. Actually, I would not have been able to do a lot of things without her. If we relied on my Spanish, we would probably end up in Peru.
Doctors here work quite differently. She didn´t even ask for my name until all meds were given. I got four sets of meds to take over the next 10 days, and I was also given a shot. In the butt. This was quite hilarious, with Erin sitting there, and the woman saying, "Please get rid of some more" - meaning my pants. I do believe, however, that this is a trait of an excellent friend . . . one who will sit with you while you get stabbed in the bare behind.

Bleck

So . . . my sickness has not subsided. It may have, in fact, gotten worse. This is day 7 of my stomach´s rebellion. I´m pretty dehydrated, but can´t keep anything in, and I´m about ready to jump ship. A few days ago I tried eating healthy - vegetables and such. No good. I then tried blandness - no good. I decided yesterday, if my stomach was going to hurt no matter my approach, I might as well eat a lot, since I was starving and sick of plain bread. This turned out to be the worst idea yet, go figure. I was in the bathroom every 20 minutes throughout the night, waking up every poor person in our room (except Erin, who now has a cold. We´re basically just a pile of awesome, and the epitimy of health). By 2 a.m. I decided to station myself on a bench outside the toilets to make it easier on myself and my roomies. I just started anouther round of meds, so here´s hoping one more time.

I have been on a top bunk, and the poor guy below me . . .
I keep dropping things on him in the middle of the night. So far, he´s had a brush, candy, money, a water bottle and a book land near his face. I´ve actually dropped money on him 3 separate times, and the last time he sleepily said, "Are you dropping money on me? Are you trying to solicit me with money? I can´t be bought for that cheap." I told him I had accidentaly been dropping money on him for a while, to which he replied, "Next time, just write me a check, it will be easier."