February 19, 2009

Yesterday, Rory and I arrived at some sort of Utopian summer camp for adults. In so many ways it reminds me of my own childhood summer camp that I can't help but to be giddy by the tin roof and screened windows or by the wonderful (and oddly similar) smells that come wafting through as the cooks begin preparing breakfast.

It was merely a whim that brought us here but it doesn't look like we will be leaving right away. For the past 5 days or so we have been in Flores, Guatemala, in the Northeast, after arriving from Belize. Flores is a little island 500m into a big lake. It serves as a tourist haven from Santa Elena, which had been unanimously described to us as a pretty nasty place. Flores is nice enough, but pretty boring and with a definite feeling of segregation. We were staying at a very comfortable, jungle themed hostel with good people, decent food and wireless internet (which has become a prerequisite). We finally made it to Tikal, which is said to be the most impressive of all the Mayan ruins. Not being ruin buffs, we were expectedly underwhelmed, but it was nice to see and there were impressive vistas of the surrounding jungle basin. We met a hilarious 60-ish year old American atop one of these ruins and after taking our picture he posited that the Mayans must have derived great strength from rising above the canopy and seeing what to them was the extent of their world.

In Tikal we ran across our Australian buddies and their Scandinavian acquaintances. They were clean shaven and looked very whipped into shape. They both seemed torn as to whether to make a run for it or if they actually had an ideal situation and just couldn't quite realize it. After 4 days being together, the girls had already had two “girl nights” and they were all sleeping in one room! Foolish. Rory thinks that they're content, but I don't buy it.

My infection from a couple of weeks back has returned and that is the main culprit for us staying in Flores for as long as we did, but yesterday, armed with antibiotics, we hit the road. We didn't decide where we were going until we arrived to Poptun, the town that is 5km away from Finca Ixobel (where we are staying now). A tuk-tuk brought us and all of our gear (just barely fitting) out to the Finca. We were given a nice long introduction and shown our rooms by Pablo, an Argentine who has been here for 6 years. To try and paint some sort of a picture of this place, it's a 400 acre (although we've only explored about 10) farm that has a fairly basic central lodge (from whence comes anything but basic food!), several tree (stilt, really) houses in the area surrounding, a nice large cabin for a dormitory (nicer, but so much like Camp Virginia), and a more conventional, stucco motel looking building with private rooms. It is the perfect mix of basic and luxury, of summer camp and country club. 200 yards away from the kitchen a path takes you to a swimming pond (that looks like it could be anywhere rural East coast, States) that has a bonfire pit next door and a little bar (where you give your number to charge drinks, a la country club). It's like Fort Lewis or Cheat Lake Club, except my bed cost $5. And the dinner last night was amazing. They grow many of their own vegetables (on the path to the pond) and so we saw beautiful leafy green lettuce for the first time in a long time last night and the eggplant parmesan coupled with the wonderful fried chicken put both Rory and I into an almost instant food coma. We were kept conscious by the conversation of a beautiful Canadian couple, she a TV personality and he the new owner of a hotel on the Western Coast of Guatemala (who we plan to visit). They are going to organize a poker night tonight, but in the meantime have gone on one of the cave trips offered by the Finca (also possible are horse riding trips, river tubing and rafting, hikes into the surrounding hills, etc..summer camp). Warm in the day, cool in the evenings...we have found a great spot. And have met great people, and so I think I'll go join Rory and kick around the soccer ball with some of them..