Isla de Flores

Flores is a small, circular island in the middle of Lago de Peten Itza, surrounded by the dense forests and jungle of the remote Peten region of Guatemala.  It is something of a tourist Mecca with its undeniable Old World charm, rocky cobblestone streets, pastel cubist buildings, and tropical foliage all set against the backdrop of the bluish lake.  Every building it seems is a potential hotel.  Or restaurant.  Or travel agency.  Or hybrid of all three.  I think we might have had dinner on some woman's back porch the other night.  It is an easy and forgiveable error.  Everything is for sale in Guatemala.

Flores is a revolving door of international tourism, everyone coming here to eventually see one of Central America's greatest attractions, the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Tikal.  But we decide to put off the ruins for a few days.  We are hot, tired, and smelly and Flores is a welcoming little island paradise.  Almost European-feeling with its cafes and restaurants and idyllic scenery.  Our money buys us a real vacation pad at the Hotel La Union - a clean, private room with a private bath, a ceiling fan, and a balcony that boasts sunset views over the lake.  For only $17 a night it is a few dollars more than we should spend, but we are still happily within budget.  It is a vacation from our vacation life.

We dive into the refreshing waters on the lake, soak up some sun, eat, drink some real coffee and local Guatemalan beer (El Gallo) and spiritually recharge.  We also have our clothes washed.  This was a way overdue and most necessary chore.  When boarding the bus in Mexico, William looks at me, pauses and says:  "No offense, but can you find another seat?  You stink."

Our clothes are filthy, wrinkled, mildewy.  William sweat through most of his wardrobe during his jungle fevers.  My t-shirts are like greasy car wash rags.  When the laundry lady (do people still say "laundress?") returns our clothes to us, it is akin to receiving a bag full of freshly picked cotton.  Nothing has ever been fresher or cleaner.  Now we can rest.

Except we can't.  For a tiny little place, Flores is offensively noisy.  Afternoon naps are an impossibility and, we soon discover, sleeping in is a Herculean task.  Flores wakes up at 4:30.  In the morning.

There are few actual cars here, which is logical, as one can easily walk the entire circumfrence of the island in fifteen minutes or less.  But despite this, the streets are overrun with dozens and dozens of little moto-taxis, like Asian tuk-tuks - basically a motorcycle pulling a covered backseat - their engines constantly revving and puttering and sputtering at all hours of the day and night.  They are bright red with lots of Jesus stickers.  "Cristo Salvo," "Jesus es mi conductor," and other hilariously ironic sayings emblazoned across the front windows as they dangerously whip around the bumpy streets, an army of angry bugs, mostly driving no one to no where because, honestly, where is there to go?!  When they aren't threatening to mow you down, they are beeping horns at you to advertise their availability.  Of course they are available.  Everyone who is able is walking the fifteen feet to their destination.  The only people I ever see riding these things are old Guatemalan grannies coming from the neighboring market town of Santa Elena on the mainland. 

The good news is that they mostly stop running around 10 at night, as Flores is not particularly known for its nightlife.  Most tourists turn in early because, as we found out, everyone wakes up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 to catch the sunrise buses to Tikal.  The minibuses with their ancient, creaking diesel engines begin their orbit of the island in the pre-dawn darkness, stopping every few feet to yell, "TIKAL!!"  Even if you have not planned a trip, you cannot help but be awake.  At the urging of some French friends that we met back in San Cristobal, we agree to take the early trip to Tikal, arriving at the jungle park around 6:30 in the morning, early enough to miss the oppressive heat of midday.  We are also treated to an amazing wildlife show.  In the early morning mist and clouds, the jungle is alive with sounds and calls and bird tweets.  Almost immediately we spot a spider monkey swinging high in the jungle canopy, feasting on leaves and fruit. 

(In the interest of full disclosure, we did not take this photo.  These suckers are fast and my Wal-Mart digital camera did not come equipped with a tele-photo zoom lense.  But it's cute anyway, yeah?)

We also saw Toucans, howler monkeys, big crazy jungle turkeys (not their official name), cotamundis...

(thought you might need a visual of that one...)
...and some weird mammal that looked like a giant hamster.  We didn't get a picture of the giant hamsters.  But they were kind of upsetting.  Like a big ol' jungle rat.

Tikal was impressive and vast and, like Palenque, in the middle of the jungle.  I call it the New York City of the ancient Mayan world.

(Yup, there she is....)
But after a few hours roaming and climbing and trekking, we were exhausted and kind of over it.  And only three hours left until our bus was scheduled to travel back to Flores.  We both passed out reclined on top of a stone wall.  Intrepid travellers.

Next stop: San Ignacio, Belize.  A few hours from Flores.  And then we'll have the Carribbean in our sights at last.

Palenque, or One Dose of Cipro Does Not Make One Laura Croft:Tomb Raider

It is a relief that William is feeling better.  And he really has been a trouper through all of this.  My short fuse and penchant for the dramatic would have already sent me far over the proverbial edge had I been in his shoes.  I would have demanded an emergency airlift evacuation and full CNN coverage. 

"I can't believe this!  You've made a 180 degree turn-around."

"More like 162 degrees, " William retorts.  Whatever.  We'll take it.

We move out of the Ritz Carlton to what had been our original destination, the neo-hippie jungle camps of El Panchan, a few kilometers outside of town on the road to the famed ruins.  Here we pay 120 pesos for a hut at El Jaguar, a sort of eco-lodge of rustic cabañas set amongst some truly beautiful jungle scenery.  Our hut actually has no walls, just mosquito netting and a domed palm-thatched roof.  A wobbly ceiling fan and a bare light bulb hang over the beds nd the view is pretty priceless.  There is a murky green stream snaking in front of us (despite the cliche´, it is literally a babbling brook) and thick jungle foliage all round, hanging vines, broad palm fronds, brilliant red and yellow blooms, accmpanied by the squeaks and squawks of birds and insects and the chirps of unknown jungle creatures.  And there are monkeys.  Specifically, black howler monkeys.  Their deep, raspy, throaty calls are unlike anything you've ever heard.  Unless you've heard, um, howler monkeys before.  They sound other-wordly.  Not like animals.  They are damn loud.  And angry.  Scary angry.  Like a jet engine.  Or Bea Arthur.

In the late afternoon there isa heavy mist that hangs low in the trees and we get a bit of hot rain.  It is supremely relaxing and I cannot help but feel very far away from the rest of the world.  In a sort of Henry David Thoreau way.

Having injested a dose of the miraculous Cipro, William feels well enough to conquer the ruins, and since I'm no Florence Nightingale, I say why not?  So we rise early the next morning, have a small breakfast of papaya, granola, yogurt, and bread, and begin our jungle trek.  Now, unlike most people, we opt to walk the two plus miles to the ruins directly through the hot and humid jungle.  Forgettin that William was flatlining a mere 24 hours ago, we push on as dozens of shuttle buses and taxis pass us on the road, offering us rides that we flatly refuse.  OK, looking back, it is probably I tat flatly refuse.  William wants a ride and is too noble to insist.  Apparently, I'm Indiana Jones.  20 pesos for a bus?!  Why waste money when we can walk ourselves?

The walk is, of course, tuher andlonger than Ihad anticipated and by the time we reach the entrance to the ruins, William is beat.  I feel awful and he feels worse.  We sit/collapse on the ground and try to regroup.  William suggests that he return to our hut and sleep, which is probably the smartest thing to do, but it would be a shame to miss the ruins, seeing as how we have come to the middle of the jungle and all. 

Rest.  Agua.  Pep Talk.

He decides he can do it if he takes it easy.  No climbing, frequent pit stops in the shade.  I think it was the right decision, all things considered.  The ruins are truly spectacular.  This is one of those magical places that words and pictures fail to do justice.  William´s spirits seem to soar almost right away as we get our first glimpse of the stone temples and pyramids rising from the jungle floor, landscaped by well-manicured emerald green grass and hemmed in on all sides by the mighty, dense, and encroaching jungle.  Groups of tourists, like ants, climb and swarm the ruins.  It is a United Nations of plump and sweaty fanny-pack toting seniors, clamboring over each other to snap one impossibly gorgeous photo after another.  Tour groups trail in obedient single file and a crazy symphony of languages entertwine in a foreign tossed salad of French, German, English, Spanish, Japanese.

At one point we approach the towering Temple of the Cross, rising dozens of meters into the sky. 

In the interest of health, Wlliam offers to sit this one out as I take the camera and climb the hundred or so tiny steep steps.  Almost to the top, I look down to find William, who is waving his hands at me and screaming something I cannot possibly make out from this far away.  He points at me, behind me... I can't figure out what he is doing.  From up here he is tiny.  I turn my back to him for a second and before I know it, he is bounding up the temple steps, running, taking them two, three at a time.

"MONKEYS!!!!!"

He has just sprinted up the side of this huge pyramid in ten seconds. (See above photo for what an achievement this was.)  So much for taking it easy...

"MONKEYS!!!!"

And there they are, a family of monkeys playing in the trees that overhang the top of the temple.  Right there, almost close enough to touch.  The little baby, hanging by his tail, climbing on his mother, swinging from vine to vine.  This is our Gorillas in the Mist moment.

The day at the ruins is an unqualified success. 

Totally awesome.  In the true sense of the word.  Not the 1983 version.

We leave Palenque ad Mexico behind us but not before another ridiculous day of travel.  At 8AM we take a mini bus out of Palenque a few hours away to the town of Tenosique.  Our bus unceremoniously drops us off on the side of the road and we are rushed by a taxi driver who offers to drive us.  I tell him we are taking a bus to the Guatemalan border and need to go to the bus terminal.  He ignores this, throws our packs in his trunk, and drives off.  After a few minutes, we notice we are heading away from town.  I ask him where he is going and he says he is taking us to Guatemala.  What?!  How much does that cost?  "200 pesos."  Oh no, Señor.  We want the bus.  He sulks and pouts but takes us back into town and drops us off at the bus for El Ceibo, the Mexican border town.  We board the hot, airless bus and wait.  Almost immediately I am surprised by a short little man standing over me.  OK, he's a dwarf.  Little Person.  Whatever.  And he has Down Syndrome.  He grins and holds his hand out for money and I think he is selling the bus tickets.  Heis literally on top of me.  I hand him 10 pesos and he leaps acrss the aisle to William who looks at me and does the same.  "Is this for the bus tickets?", I ask.  He grins and runs off the bus.  Everyone else on the bus laughs at us.  We just got swindled.  How was I supposed to know?  I wasn't going to fight with him, for chrissake.  He was a midget!

"Guess we just paid the retarded tax," says William.

Two or three hours on the bus to El Ceibo where we get off, walk across the border and step foot for the first time on Guatemalan soil.

The Guatemalan officials happily accept (demand) a 40 peso bribe to let us into their country.  We pay up.  Another mini-bus takes us the remaining four hours to Santa Elena where we take a quick taxi to the charming and beautiful Isla de la Flores, in the middle of Lago de Peten Itza, in the northern Peten region of Guatemala.

And it is here we will stay and happily rest for a few days...

Susan Boil and the Virtues of Mexican Healthcare

We make it to the town of Palenque.

Like everyone else, we are here to see the ruins.  Said to be one of the most impressive and important Mayan sights in Meso-America, Palenque is literally in the middle of the jungle.  Steamy, hot, humid, misty, full of monkeys and huge insects and plants from the garden center at Home Depot.  A real live Rainforest.  Just like on the Discovery Channel.

But before we can even entertain a trip to the ruins, we have to deal with William's bizarre Mexican disease.

Heading down from the high altitude of San Cristobal turns out to be the right solution to the soroche problem.  Well, for me anyways.  I feel good.  Headache gone.  Aches disappeared.  Yay Mexico!  But William is running a fever again.  He feels awful.  We hop off the bus and check in to the first hotel we come to, across the street from the bus terminal.  La Posada Los Angeles.  It is basically the Ritz-Carlton.  There's a ceiling fan and we have a private bathroom (or first ever!) with... wait for it... wait for it... HOT WATER?!  Yes!  I figure William will either make a full recovery in this luxurious suite, or he will die here.  Either way... it's a pretty good deal.

But things aren't looking good for the full recovery option.  William´s gums are now bleeding and he has an upsetting boil growing in his mouth.  It's gross.  And black-ish red.  And leaking all kinds of fluids.  I affectionately call it Susan Boil, but I guess we're not quite ready to laugh about it yet.

So, just to get everyone up to speed:

We are in a small Mexican town in the jungle of Chiapas, the biggest city is a world away, our collective grasp of the Spanish language is intermediate at best, and we have, perhaps, a few thousand pesos and an emergency stash of 300 U.S. Dollars in cash (all in ones).  William's fever is off the charts, he is foaming at the mouth, and I'm making Susan Boyle jokes.  Perfect.

We have two choices: sleep or panic.  William chooses the former - or, well, okay... by "choose" I mean he more or less passes out.  I opt for the latter.  Full-on panic.

By morning, Susan Boil has fully moved in.  William is in a good deal of pain and bloody hunks are coming out of his mouth.  Last night, in an ill-advised act of self-remedy, William hacked at his gums with dental floss, hoping to dislodge whatever foreign object may have taken residence in his mouth.  Surprisingly, this only seems to have angered Susan Boil.  She's infected now and totally pissed off.  At this point, I think we can officially qualify this as an emergencia.

Armed with my First Grade Spanish (and fifteen minutes of internet research: fever is el feibre, antibiotico, penicillo, and, just in case, Madre de Dios, El esta muriendo! (Mother of God, he is dying!), we find a farmacia and plead our case.

Now, a lot has been said about healthcare in recent years.  And Mexican pharmacies have become the stuff of legend.  We always hear that it is a drug free-for-all down here.  Valium with no prescription?  Yes, please.  Senior Citizens stuffing their pockets with cheapo Viagra and enough Ambien to put down an elephant.  Well, it's all true.  The main drag of Palenque town has at least a dozen clean, sparkling white pharmacies, inviting you with huge garish signs ("Insulin 2x1!") like some macabre medical happy hour and blaring PA systems mixing happy dance music with periodic announcements like "Your blood pressure is low but our prices are lower!"

It's even free to see a doctor.  OK, maybe he isn't a doctor.  But he says he is.  "Mi amigo esta enfermo," I say.

William, show him your mouth.  William opens his mouth to reveal black and bloody Susan Boil and both the doctor and the lady behind the counter visibly gag.  So much for bedside manner.

"And he has a fever.  Un fiebre, " I say, and hold my hand to my forehead as if a dramatic pantomime will make my Spanish more understandable.  The doctor looks at me and asks me how this happened.  Well, I don't know, isn't that your job?!  He asks me if William has been in a fight.  "Did you punch him in the mouth?"

Oh.  Jesus Christ.

No, no, no.  He has had a fever for two days and this thing in his mouth is a ... um, um, una sopresa?  A surprise.    He is very sick, I add again.  And then I toss out my new internet words - antibiotico?  penicillo?  Just give me the fucking drugs!!

The doctor goes behind the counter, picks out two packets of pills and hands them over.  One is for fever and pain and the other is for the infection.  I recognize this one.  Cipro.  Isn't that what you have to take if you work in the White House mail room?

I turn to William.  This one´s good, I say, holding up the Cipro.  This kills anthrax.

"Take these three times a day and he should be OK," the doctor says.

Grand total: 130 pesos.  Less than $11.00.

And here's the best part.  It works.  Totally.  24 hours later, Susan Boil's brief career is over.  She is gone and so is the pain and the fever.

Now, had we been back home, things would have been a bit different.  First of all, even with our good healthcare plans in Massachusetts, we would have never been able to get a doctor's appointment right away.  "Sure, we have an opening three weeks from next Thursday."  If you are luck y enough to have a good doctor you might be able to get in on short notice, but more likely you will be forced to go to the Emergency Room.  Which, with insurance, will run you at least $50 and untold hours of waiting.  Plus the cost of the prescriptions.  Without insurance?  Start looking for a second job.

Or, you know, just book a flight to Mexico.  It will probably be cheaper.

(R.I.P. Susan Boil.  2011.)

On Backpacking...

Backpacking isn´t glamorous.  Sure, it can be unbelievably fun and rewarding, but it is often stressful, dirty, and uncomfortable.  Travel is almost always looked upon (in America, anyways) as a bit of a luxury.  A way to escape the nine to five hum drum of our day to day lives.  To live, well, luxuriously.  Or at least better than usual.  That´s why we head off to southern beaches in the winter or all-inclusive resorts, leaving all the messy little details of daily living up to someone else.

But why do we go backpacking?  It isn´t travel in most people´s definition of the word.  In a way, it goes against all standards of good sense.  Instinctively, most people want to settle down, to have a home, to feel secure.  We need our three meals a day and a roof over our heads - some place safe and comfortable to come home to.  Psychologists always say that change is one of the most stressful factors on the human psyche.  Packing, moving, new environments...  all right up there.

So why do some of us choose to stay on the move?  Never in the same place for more than a few days, eschewing comfort and sanitation (at least by our rather posh U.S. standards)?  It is wanderlust, it is adventure, it is restlessness.  As I write this, I am conscious of sounding "precious."  By that I mean, it is not my intention to sound as if I am complaining or focusing on the negative aspects of this invigorating/insane experience.  Sure we are obscenely dirty and smelly and sometimes tired and  run down and hungry or sick-ish.  But we are living.  I never want to condescend either to the people we meet or to the places we visit.  My way is not right, it is simply the only way I know.  This story is, for lack of a better term, a fish out of water tale.  Highlighting our differences - be they cultural, culinary, or sanitary - just makes a good story.  Sometimes a very funny story.  There is nothing more delicious to me than the absurdity of human life, and at no time is it more evident than on an adventure such as this...

It is the cacophony of dog howls and rooster crows outside your window at four in the morning, preventing not only your sleep (who paid $150 pesos for your room) but also the suckers trying to escape the third world two doors down at the modern chain hotel who plunked down $1,500. 

It is discovering that it is easier and quicker to buy prescription drugs in Mexico than it is to purchase a ball-point pen.

It is being served four slices of white Wonder bread with your fried rice at a Mexican Chinese restaurant.  And hot salsa with your pizza.

It is drinking a sad cup of instant coffee in one of the world´s richest coffee growing regions, while the fresh beans down the street are all being shipped to Starbucks and sold for $4 a cup.

Is this starting to sound like a bad Alanis Morrisette song?

I guess we travel because there is nothing more exhilarating, stimulating, educational, or hilarious. 

And like all good things - cooking, sex - it is messy and you have to get your hands dirty to really enjoy yourself.

I love what we´re doing and I´m grateful everyday that we have the opportunity to do it.  Just don´t expect me to stop complaining about it....

Coming Down With Soroche Up in San Cristobal

The award (so far) for our most third world/creative mode of transport goes to riding in the back of a packed pick-up truck from Zipolite to Pochutla.  The pick-up looked able to fit about six, but we had at least twice that at any given time, not including our two backpacks which are easily as big as two people themselves.  We are really earning our backpacker merit badges now.

We wander the crowded main street of Pochutla, wearing shoes for the first time in five days and sweating in our pants and t-shirts, looking for the bus terminal.  We are clueless but are rescued by a stranger who approaches us in English - with beards and hiking boots we never have to worry about blending in - and asks where we are going.  Turns out he used to live in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn where he worked as a cook in an Italian restaurant.  He´s helpful and chatty and he walks us all the way to the terminal and even arranges the tickets for us.  He makes the world feel like a bit of a smaller, friendlier place.

Yet another bus ride in the dead of night brings us to the mountain highlands of Chiapas, in the town of San Cristobal de las Casas.  We are high up now and you can feel it.  It is quite cold at 6:30 when we get off the bus and the air is crisp, clean, and thin - a definite change from the blistering heat of the Pacific shore.  Our hostel - Le Gite del Sol - is lovely and cheap and very clean and has a floor.  And five thick woolen blankets folded at the end of the bed.  An ominous sign, indeed.  But we can´t check in to our room until 11AM.  So we are turned out onto the streets to wander and eat and snap photos.  Fine.  This is what we do best.  If we were getting paid, this would be our job.

San Cristobal is touristy and for a reason.  The streets are of cobblestone and the buildings are every color of the rainbow.  The town is like a wonderfully woven quilt.  It is also a political hotbed of revolutionary activity.  This is where the Zapatista movement began.  I love a good story involving gun-toting liberals who are mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.  Power to the people, down with the wealthy land owners and all that.  So, you know, this place is right up my alley.  I consider buying a hand-sewn Zapatista figurine, but they look upsettingly like terrorist voodoo dolls.  And I don´t need the hastle back at US Immigration.  Honestly, when you are sporting passport stamps from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Colombia, you really need all the help you can get.

After our fourth or fifth artesania crafts market, a few cups of Chiapan coffee with brandy, and a whirl through the fruit and veggie market, we both start to feel pretty run down.  Despite our five day chill out in Zipolite, we have been keeping a pretty hectic pace.  And being slaves to the Almighty Budget, we don´t always get the best night´s sleep on those grueling overnight buses.  So we decide to rest in the late afternoon.  We both have headaches and I wake up from a short nap feeling ache-y and irritable (which William will probably tell you is actually not that abnormal).  We attempt to get some dinner, but after a few minutes outside we start to crash.  Back in the room, William is running a high fever and alternating between sweats and chills.  We mentally go back through everything we have eaten in the last two days and can come up with nothing out of the ordinary (well, for us, anyway).  We are either both dying slow Mexican deaths or we may have soroche.  Altitude Sickness.  Without webmd.com to self-diagnose, this is what we come up with.  Our guidebook even warns against rapidly ascending to high altitudes.  Seeing as how we have just skyrocketed from sea level to 2000 meters (about 6,600 feet) this seems to be a reasonable bet.  Except William is really sick.  His fever is really off the charts and he is having trouble breathing.  We don´t need those wool blankets because William is generating enough heat to warm the entire hostel.  I am worried but have no idea what to do.  We are both scarfing down fistfulls of aspirin with little affect.  I can´t remember anything about home health care from my childhood.  Do you feed a fever and starve a cold?  Take a hot shower or a cold shower?  Drink a fifth of whisky and pray for death??  I don´t know.  I went to theatre school.  I can act like a nurse, but that´s as far as I go. 

By morning, I feel better and William´s fever has mysteriously broken, though we are both still weak and sore.  No rest for the weary, though, as we push on to our next destination, Palenque.  My un-trained, non-medical opinion (which William calls "my bullshit") is that we need to get back to a lower altitude.  Palenque fits the bill - it is in the middle of the jungle.  And, healthy or not, we´re headed there.  On another damned bus....

Zipolite

We have made it to what certainly feels like the end of the road.  And in a way, it is.  A mile or so stretch of sandy beach wedged between two large rocky crags on each end, sheltering this little resort from the rest of the world.  This is Zipolite.  Fabled travelers hangout and the coolest spot of paradise you have yet to visit.  A guy from New Zealand we met on our second day sums up this place perfectly: "I came here for a week´s vacation... but that was two and a half months ago."

Zipolite is permanently stoned.  A hippie beach paradise populated by the zoned out, dropped out and tuned out.  Shirtless yogis weave necklaces, aging cosmic surfers sip Coronas at 9AM, and all manner of European tourists beach themselves in the sun, making an art of doing absolutely nothing.  There are more people here with dreadlocks than I have ever seen in one place.  Having not been to Jamaica or a Bob Marley concert, that surely isn´t saying much, but trust me on this, there are a lot of dreadlocks here.  And nudity.  Zipolite has earned some fame for its lassiez-faire attitude to clothing.  By which I mean, no one wears any.  My long ago proclamation about nudist beaches still holds true here: the people most in need of clothes are the ones least likely to be wearing any.  I don´t care who you are, no one wants to be surprised by a 70 year old German vagina when relaxing on the beach.

But despite the nudity, Zipolite is gorgeous.  The waves are huge and the ocean frequently violent with a very strong and dangerous current. 

It makes for exciting swimming, though!

Our first night in Zipolite, we decide to rough it a bit and sleep in hammocks.  For only 70 pesos each, we secure the right to hang all night on the second floor of a mostly deserted hostel with only the crashing waves as company. 

This sounds wonderful and romantic and the stuff of dreams.  It isn´t.  Hammocks are generally fine for a nap, but a full night´s sleep is pushing it.  Neither of us can get comfortable and William has bad dreams all night and I don´t think I actually slept until I finally passed out from sheer exhaustion right after sunrise.  Oh well.  Mark that one off the list!

We amble into "town" - which is basically one street.  One block, actually.  A few beachwear shops, an internet cafe, some bars and restaurants, and handful of stores not selling much.  It is really hot in the middle of the day.  Everything is dusty.  No one wears shoes.  According to our hypotheosis that everyone is most likely stoned, most businesses keep hilariously irregular hours.  One or two will open in the mornings (but not every morning), a few more open around dinner time, a some don´t open for several days.  You may enjoy a nice dinner one night at a little sidewalk cafe, only to return the next night to see it completel abandonded as if it never existed.

A photo is worth a thousand words, they say.  So let me save a few here:

We find a new hostel, run by an ebuillent French expat named Sylviana.  She immediately welcomes us into her ramshackle little place, which is not much more than a few bamboo huts and some mosquito nets set around a tropical garden.  There are no floors here, one or two lightbulbs, and the sanitation is unmentionable.  But we love it and move in for three days.  We have our own hut with a palm thatched roof and a bed draped in mosquito netting.  You can hear the waves crash as you fall asleep at night.

It isn´t the Four Seasons, or even The Holiday Inn Express.  But it is charming and there are other dirty backpackers there with us and we have a hard time leaving.  Our typical day in Zipolite is as follows:
1. Wake up at 7:30AM
2. Scratch new bug bites.
3. Avoid the toilet.
4. Walk for coffee and a visit to the market to buy beans, eggs, and tortillas.
5. Cook breakfast on the little gas stove.
7. Go to the beach.
8. Stay at the beach.
9. Contemplate getting up from the beach.
10. Put on more sunscreen.
11. Eat lunch in town.  Usually a tlayuda for 30 peosos.
12. Nap in the shade of our hut.
13.  Maybe write.  Probably nap more.
14. Buy some beer or mezcal or rum to watch sunset on the beach.
15.  Go to bed.
16. Repeat.

We are relaxed, blissful, and happy.  But we have to move on.

Oh!  And I found some real, green broccoli.  We took a walk for a few miles to a neighboring town and there it was.  Sitting there waiting for me.  I paid 8 pesos and took him home and cooked him up.  Scrambeled with some eggs and leftover spaghetti.  (We´ve had to get pretty creative with our survival cooking here...)

Up next... Zipolite to Pochutla to San Cristobal de las Casas.....