The Young and the Restless

Day 3: Santo Tomas de Castillo, Guatemala

Oh my heart belongs in Guatemala...seriously, I have never seen a place this beautiful. Not just beautiful, but breathtakingly gorgeous. I'm usually not a scenery picture taking kinda person (I think they're kind of boring and an older generation kind of thing), but I swear I took pictures of every square inch of that place. It was nothing but mountains of green jungle which left it kind of mysterious too. We found a great tour that took us on this water taxi to several different locations. We went through this river that was surrounded by these huge cliffs covered in trees:
I'm trying to decide which of these homes we should retire in... Our first stop was a little Mayan village nestled in the rainforest and it was a nice little walk through the jungle. I was hoping that we might see some cool wildlife here, until our guide was telling us about a certain snake that is found in Guatemala that eats human feces and milk. She said when she was 15 she had a friend who had to go to the bathroom when they were in the jungle and this snake crawled up where the sun don't shine. They tried pulling it out but the only way they could get it to come out was to take him to the village and sit in a bowl of milk. She said he died about a year later and they didn't know if it was because of the snake or because he turned gay (??). She swears it's a true story and said she has pictures to prove it, but I'm a little skeptical and nothing about poop eating snakes pulled up when I googled it. She also said sometimes if mothers fall asleep while laying down nursing their babies then the snakes will come latch on and drink their milk. Once again I was a little skeptical, but it was enough to make me a little leary on our jungle adventure. Thankfully the only critter we found was this cute little crab:
and this plant which is a girl's best friend: the cocoa bean. They take the white seeds out in the middle and lay them in the sun until they turn brown then make beloved chocolate out of it: Next we cruised around and found this cool area covered in lilly pads. There were all of these kids in canoes that would paddle up to the boat and for a buck they would show you all the cool turtles and fish they had caught. They paddle in their little canoes all the way to school where they stay all week long, except when cruise ships come in so that they can be home to earn money. There were also tons of pelicans that I know the kids would have loved. It was so nice being able to spend time alone with Jason, but there were so many times that I kept thinking how much the kids would love it if they were with us. Maybe someday...
Our next stop was the real caves where the real Pirates of the real Carribean stashed their real treasure. Pretty cool, Jayden would have loved it. There were miles and miles of these underground caves that all connected together and I was about 99% sure there were anacondas lurking around the corner, and Jason was clinically insane for venturing out into the water. Our tour guide only took us to one set of caves but Jason and another couple we were with convinced her to let us explore some other caves on our own. For the record, I was not on board with this idea, but somehow they convinced me and luckily we all survived. We also went swimming in some hot springs by the caves.The last stop was this little fishing village called Livingston (they must have run out of spanish names) where we ate lunch, and this is where some of you may be shocked. Do you see this fish? The one with the eyeballs, fins and scales still attached? There were grown men at our table who couldn't even stand looking at it and I, Jamie "won't even eat a hamburger" Young ate this fish. It was rather exhilerating and I even liked it (although I'm beginning to wonder whether this was the source of my elephantitis of the eye and not the sun). especially since this is most likely where my fish came from.... they had some crocodiles there that had been captured in the very water that we had spent all day in:I fell in love with the people here. They were so humble and so nice. They weren't the in-your-face-buy-my-cheap-crap type like in Costa Maya. They were just genuinely nice and while we were walking down the street they would all wave and the little kids would come running up to say hi. There was also this beautiful cliff at the edge of the village that overlooked the ocean. I would have been as happy as a clam to just set up camp right there for the next several days. and this is why I love these people...
It seemed like at the other ports they were just happy we were there to spend our money and they were just as happy to see us gone, but the people in Guatemala come from the poorest, humblest conditions yet they are the happiest, most loving people. When the ship was leaving the entire village came out to say good-bye. They had dancers performing and all the taxis lined up with their lights blinking and horns honking to say good-bye as they carried this banner that said, "have a nice trip, consider Guatemala your home". I might do just that. (I told Jason that if he ever loses his job we're packing up the kids and moving to Guatemala).