Water Therapy

When our young Guatemalan guide turned off his headlamp, to save the batteries, I felt my first real pang of fear. Darkness in a cave is an incomparable black, and with the roar of a 20 foot waterfall only steps away, my danger meter started to rise.

To that point, I thought Heather and I had done surprising well swimming into oblivion with only candles in our out-stretched arms to light the way. Hell, we'd been agonizing over the decision whether or not to do that cave tour for two days. And now, with five others in our party, we had swam under amazing stalagtites and eery formations, squeezed through dark holes, walked blind through a waterfall, and then scaled a rope latter beside it to the top. And man, I was so proud of my wife.

The water was chilly and I was getting cold for sure, and my adrenaline was pumping, and our candles were all extinguished from this underground cascade, but I wasn't scared because I'd seen our guide pack his two cigarette lighters, and of course, he leads people through this liquid labyrinth twice a day. But then he just couldn't make that first lighter do a damn thing, and he was giggling and laughing and talking in Spanish and Q'eqchi, and then the second lighter didn't work either. It was sparking though, and with his headlamp off, the frequent sparks created a spooky stobe light effect. My heart was pumping harder. My fingers got colder. At first I thought he was just putting on a fright gag. He giggled more, and, then after five minutes that probably seemed like ten, it ignited, and people jammed their candles into it. At last we were saved.

Now, of course, he had a rope and his headlamp, and I'm sure he could have safely led us out of that cave without the candles, but it did add a couple of decidely terrifying elements to our tour that we laugh about now.

This week, post orphanage, has been a bit of water therapy. We have been traveling with our friend Jen, a most excellent person and social worker from Seattle that left Casa Guatemala the same day as us, and hitting a few of the spots that are hard to get to in Guatemala but that most people say are truely amazing. I would have to agree, they are mostly breath taking.

First off, we grabbed a fast flatbed truck ride through rolling pastures and along rivers bordering Lago de Izabel, sprinkled with thatched hut villages here and there, and then stopped as planned at Finca Paraiso (paradise farm). On a part of this farm, for 10 quetzals, you can wade across this rushing clear creek, full of boulders and chilly water that make all great creeks great, to huge a waterfall that comes into the creek perpendicularly from a height of 40 feet. And now get this, the cascada is hot geothermal water, beautiful 100 plus degree water that falls and pounds on your tired neck and shoulders and any other parts of your body you could contort upwards. There are fabulous little rocky nooks and crannies all over the face of the falls, created much the way a cave is created by melting limestone, which you can squeeze your body into and catch the water bath. All of this in a setting shaded by junglely plants above. After an hour, we discovered you can actually climb up above the waterfall and sit in placid yet scorching hot pools as well. On the slow bus ride back to our hostel, a rocked jarred me awake and I looked down and saw that an approximately 8 year old girl was sitting next to me and had laid her infant sister asleep in my lap. I fell back asleep myself, and Heather who sitting in the back of the bus with Jen, said she never saw anyone sitting with me. Only my head bobbing around in slumber. The baby was there, I know it.

Two days later, we finally went spent the big bucks, 100 quetzals a piece, about 12 dollars, to hire a fast lancha to take us down the Rio Dulce, through the jungle and ultimately limestone gorge that dumps out into the Carribean, at the Garifuna town of Livingston. The Garifuna are decendants of African slaves and Carrib Indians that were forcibly evacuated from the Grenadine Islands 150 years ago. They speak a creole language of English and Spanish, and their town of Livingston is a little burg by the sea that can only be reached by boat. Our second day there, we hiked 5 kilometers along the Carribean coastline, passing seemingly out of the way cabanas and lodges, past mango and unnameable other fruit trees, to Siete Altares (seven alters). Essentially, another crystaline cold river, that plunges down through waterfalls and natural swimming pools. The limestone, which we have seen countless times now, colors the water and the rocks in such a way that it seems equal to Carribean island waters. Coincidentally, the Carribean water around Livingston, while lovingly warm and salty, is muddy brown from the Rio Dulce pouring into it.

In Livingston, seafoods are the comidas of choice, and Tampado is the queen dish, a coconuty milk broth soup with a whole fish, crab, shrimps, squids and parts of a pulp (octopus). I ate it all heartily, like any good fellow worth his sea salt from New England would have, with only a trace of remorse for the pulpo. (Heather here, I must admit I sipped heavily on the sweet broth but the floating display of creatures was a little over the top. )

The sunrise six a.m. lancha ride the next morning, the fastest boat ride of our lifes in a wailing rain storm to Puerto Barrios, was exhilerating. The dark clouds hanging on hooks over the water, and the spray from the rain made you feel so alive and at that hour, awake. Barrios is just what it sounds like, a port town for shipping out the tons of bananas for your smoothies back in the states, and we jumped on a nice bus out of there as soon as we had arrived. This was a sweet double decker bus, with movies and the works. A bit pricey, but worth it.

I´ll take this moment to talk a little about Gautemalan transportation, which is mostly by bus or mini bus. Around the Rio Dulce and eastern highlands, it´s minibuses all the way. Take your average Toyota Minvan, which probably holds eight Americans at the most, and Guatemalans will put 23 to 26 people in there, smashing four to row, putting rows where there are not rows, and two guys hanging out the window. When someone wants to get out of the back, everybody has to get out. In the western highlands, like near Antigua and Xela, they use old American school buses up there, and put three or four people in each seat, on both sides, with people standing of course in the aisle. Now mind you, there is always the money guy who somehow manages to climb through and over everyone to get their money, because they never collect the dough at the door because of the frequent pickups without really every stopping completely. These buses are everywhere and somehow it all works. The rides, as you might have guessed, comfort wise are miserably hot affairs. And the drivers scare the shit out of you with their driving. I can't explain to you, and don't really want to try, the amount frustration that comes from trying to negotiate directions and then agree on a price with these guys. After much bartering, both parties are usually satisfied that I have talked them down to a price roughly 25 percent more than what the locals pay. Of course, sometimes I'm just mad as hell after.

We rode the fancy bus to the Alta Verapaz region, a mountain range area once dominated by German owned Coffee Fincas, and hard to get to villages of Indigenos. Today the Germans are gone, but the coffee fincas live on with the additional rich man crops of cocoa (chocolate beans) and cardamon trees (spices for the Middle East) crawling up the hillsides, and impossible poor farms working corn ever higher. The peaks here are often hidden in the mist and this is one of the last known habitats of that elusive symbol of Mayan power, the quetzal bird. Beginning Thursday, Heather and I are going to one of these small farms to start Spanish school again. It's a small school, only like six to eight students, and we hope to stay for two weeks if we like it. We got to the area last Friday, spent four days in Lanquin Valley at a cool lodge along another spectacular river, where we did a self guided tour through a cave system, lighted with lightbulbs this time, equal to the splendor of carlsbad caverns with ceilings stretching hundreds of feet above and limestone stalagtites in all shapes and sizes. Really beautiful, and then we went tubing back down the river to the lodge, where hardy meals waited for us.

One day, Heather and I did a hike into the mountains, and the farm workers we met along were incredibly nice. Most of them speak Q'eqchi and Spanish, in that order, and were usually delighted to try and talk with us. Their first questions are always about how many kids do we have, because that is very important in their culture. They just nod when we say we have none, and acknowledge they have nine or ten. Q'eqchi is an impossible and fascinating language. It must have it's roots in the same pool that many of our Native American languages come from. Try saying Pock Mock Took, Mock Shook Took, Took, Took. There you are, your fist Q'eqchi lesson. Those aren't real words, of course, but that's what it sounds like.

Anyway, the hike was peaceful and a good chance to stretch our legs and talk. We are closing in on our fifth wedding aniversary, and through the thick of this year's adventures and two years of trying to have a baby, we keep finding ourselves being grumpy with each other. There are lots of reasons we can say why this is happening, but those always feel like empty answers. A month ago my dad said you need tolerance and patience, and I have been thinking a lot on this. I love my wife, and my wife loves me, then how can we be mean to each other sometimes? I know all her moves. She knows all my moves. It feels like stalemate sometimes. Maybe some other couples can enlighten us on this. I think it is a bad time that is passing, but the moments when they come can snuff out a brilliant moment or day in just a flash. We want to be better, we are trying to better. To love harder. To be more tolerant.

A rough one hour ride over the mountain from Lanquin is Semuc Champey, a bizaare collection of azul pools formed when the mighty and violent Cahabon River suddenly dives underground for half a mile, and the little water that continues on top makes the pools and waterfalls perfect for swimming. Just down stream, where the Cahabon magically reappears in all its ferocity, is where the Las Marias Caves are, and where today's story found it's beginning. The Entrance is at the top of a 100 hundred foot waterfall, cloaked in orchids and vines. At the bottom, where the waterfall cave creek pushes into the the brown rain swollen Cahabon, I watched my beautiful wife ride a rope swing way out of over the river, and when she turned around to come back, I saw a giddy smile that tells me this is still all worth it, that together we are still very much worth it.