Guatemala...Mexico..........Home

I wound up staying in Guatemala with Mor, Shirri, Idan and Udi for much longer than planned, and to say the least, I wish I had stayed with them longer.

After buying gifts in Antigua and adding another bag on my front-side, I headed up to meet them in Semuc Champey (yes, I went there for a second time). We got a really nice private cabin by a raging river, set up our hammock and had a great few days. The second day there, we went on a candle lit cave tour where we had to swim with our candles above our heads and try our best not to dunk them in. At the end of the tour we got to jump off a cliff wall into a pool below. It wasn't terribly high but it was still fun. We had a fantastic time swimming and climbing and singing through chattering teeth throughout the caves, while avoiding giant cave spiders and rock climbing in the cave to avoid the cold swims. We also went to the Semuc Champey pools and the pool lookout high above with great expansive views. We swam all over in the pools and jumped off waterfalls and lounged around in the sun. On the way back we jumped off a huge bridge a couple times into the swiftly moving river below. It was a bit higher than I expected and I mildly freaked out in mid air.

We spent a couple days just hanging out and playing music and writing lyrics/chords to songs we wanted to learn. We took a ride down the river to our hostel on some inner-tubes. The ride was mainly calm but we were forced to flail, nearly hopelessly, with our arms to avoid tree branches and rough spots. But it just made it that much better since we got to laugh at one another. The hostel had great food and "family-style" dinner and buffets and a huge Jenga set made from 2x4s that was very dangerous when it fell over :)

We left very early one morning on a long bus ride (of which we had quite a few of in the following week) to head to the island of "Flores" near the Tikal ruins. The girls chose us a hotel as usual and the next morning at 4am we left for Tikal with a crotchety old Guatemalan tour guide. We got to hear the jungle wake up with bugs and screaming howler monkeys and exotic birds everywhere. For the sunrise, we were sitting on top of the highest Mayan pyramid of all called, generically, "Temple IV". It wasn't much of a sunrise due to the cloud cover everywhere, but it was still cool to see the misty expanse of terrain with pyramids jetting up out of the jungle here and there and imagining how this once massive city must have looked thousands of years ago. We grew tired of our tour guide, though he was very nice, and I became the tour guide for us since I had been to Tikal a couple weeks previously. We climbed pyramids, played games in the courtyards, ate israeli snacks and had, as usual, a great time before heading out.

After Tikal, we left for Palenque, Mexico. I took the "chicken bus" and everyone else took the twice as expensive option and I beat them and wound up taking the same 2nd bus as they did. I was quite happy with my economical triumph and refrained from saying "see, I told you so" :) At Palenque I was the only person to go to the ruins. The rest of the group just hung out at the hostel. The first night we were there we got a great show at the restaraunt with fantastic music and fire dancers to match. The ruins were probably the coolest of all the ruins I've seen. They had an architecture style unlike the others with a central plaza with tunnels and underground rooms and interesting see-through carving atop the pyramids. I had to run through these ruins just like I did the first time I went to Tikal though because I had no time and had to meet the group back to catch a bus to San Cristobal De Las Casas.

San Cristobal was great. Definitely one of the best cities I've been to; busy and beautiful, refined and indigenous. A lot of the city was created in the colonial style and the layout was well planned. We took Salsa lessons, bought gifts, and wandered around just looking at things a lot. Mor and I basically spent as much time together as we possibly could, knowing that I had to leave very soon since I had just bought a ticket home for August 1st. There was some unpleasantness surrounding me having to leave so soon, especially with crappy bus schedules, but it couldn't be avoided. I had an incredible time with all of them. It was definitely the best part of my entire trip. Playing music, singing, laughing (a lot), and fully enjoying a love unlike I've ever had before. For the last couple weeks, I was generally the only non-israeli around and I picked up a little bit of hebrew along the way. Leaving was immensely difficult, and I didn't realize how great I really had it until I was standing outside of my bus with Mor in my arms. I had held it together just fine until then, but at that moment, something inside me broke, and I couldn't control my tears. Even when I had watched Mor from out of my site, while sitting in my seat, the woman to my side was passing me tissues. I have never regretted a decision so much in my life as I did over those few days, but I’m sure that it must have been the right thing to do. Though if I had to do it over again I wouldn't have left. But I do know that I will see Mor, Udi and Shirri in Israel, and hopefully Idan as well when I go there in around 8 months (supposing that the war has subsided).

So now I am home on Orcas Island after surprising friends in Seattle and driving down to southern Oregon with my little bro Nate and surprising my older bro Isaac. It was nice to get to see them again and it is nice to see everybody here on orcas again but I cannot escape my deep inner yearning to travel away at nearly every second of the day. I am forcing myself to buckle down and work my derrière off until mid October when I plan on taking pretty much the same route I took last year; hitch-hiking down the coast to San Fran where I plan to spend Halloween with friends and then fly out to India in early November. I will do southern India for a few months and then go to Thailand where I hope to get my Dive Master license so I can maybe make some money from scuba diving. Then I will return and do the north part of India for a couple months before heading to Israel to see friends. After Israel, I will head to England and hopefully get a job at least until the end of summer. If all goes well and the money is really good, then I will possibly stay there another six months to a year and save money since the exchange rate is incredible right now and I would come back with a lot of money for college. Well once again, this is a very broad "plan" of which I am sure it will change and transform many times before I see it completed.

I hope my site has as at least entertained you all over these last 4.5 months. Thanks for taking an interest in my activities and giving me so much support and ideas for my travels. And to my traveling friends reading this, I had quite a great time with you all. I can say that pretty confidently since the people I didn't have a good time with most likely did not receive my email or website :)

Till my next adventure,
Hasta Luego,
La Vida es el Camino,
-Zack