I am burnt. A girl in my room assures me that it{s not burnt-burnt, it{s turn-into-a-tan-burnt.

Tulum is Cancun without any people. Actually the water is calmer and warmer but just as blue. There seem to be more topless women, but the beach is really deserted. I sat on a hammock and then in the shade in a lawn chair ALL DAY and read some book about Cuba.

Everything costs twice as much as anywhere else I{ve been. But I{m able to feel superior to the week-vacationers. Example - I wanted to buy a sarong to lie on. I asked the man how much it is. A girl buys a sarong for that price. Then after she left I bargained him down a third of the price. Sucker. :)

Yesterday at 2:30pm I got on a bus. At 6:00am I got off the bus. It was actually a very comfortable bus but I am still extremely tired. I got to the hostel and they don{t have any single beds until 11 today and I{m unwilling to pay the 80pesos more for a double bed (which I could crawl into this very second) so I{m trying to stay entertained until the shuttle comes to take me to the beach.

All I have left of this trip is to sit on the beach and read and swim. I{m in Tulum which is 2 hours south of Cancun. It{s hot and muggy. After San Cristobal and the Guatemala highlands (cold and colder) this is FANTASTIC!

I think I{ll spend tomorrow on the beach too, then head to Cancun for my flight home on Wednesday.

I´m back in San Christobal. I love this city. I´m sitting in the Internet cafe that I came to everyday when I was staying here. I left Xela v. late yesterday so I only arrived here at 2 am. And then tried to go to a hostel that didn´t exist. I feel much older and wiser than when I was here last. My comfort zone has shifted and I haven´t realized it before coming back to a familiar place.

First, the trek was fantastic. Challenging. Great weather until the last day. Really fun people. There were 13 of us including guides.

It has always really bothered me when people say things like, "The people have nothing but they have such spirit", especially when it´s followed by some comment about the trappings of Western consumerism. This isn´t that kind of comment, only that I realized for the first time that I am unable to live with what these people have. I can´t live on what they eat. I can´t get wet and cold knowing that it is hard to get dry and warm. I don´t like fires (instead of electricity) or flies. I need space, not just one room for myself and the six closest people to me in all the world. This is a harsh realization.

The first two nights we slept in schools. Both communities have no road access and is a fair trek from any road. We arrived at the first school (1 room school house) and like 40 kids were obsessed with watching everything we did. Like we were setting up sleeping bags on the floor and each window had 10 heads looking in.

The second school house was soley 3 rooms with a dirt floor and a waterproof roof. Whatever you´re imagining it was way less and way worse. 125 kids go to this school. Anyway while we were there the community went to the guides and gave them a proposal for a new school for the community. (This makes sense because Quetzaltrekkers reason for being is to support a school in Xela). Their proposal consisted of needing $30,000. I think a big cost is to transport materials into the community. This is a lot of money, especially for Guatemala but all I could think is that that´s so freaking little money that would do so much good.

A funnier story. The third night we stayed with a family. There was an outhouse that was only reachable via a very steep hill. And it was pouring rain outside. And we had totally run out of toilet paper and there was none to buy in the town. Then we were told by the head of the household to take the broom with us to the bathroom, in case the dogs got too close. Hys-terical.

Today I´m going to swim laps at a hotel pool (I think it might be the only pool in the city). At this altitude you float more but it´s harder cardiovascularly. Then I´m going to eat chocolate cake and pick up my clean laundry. I´m 16 hours from Cancun. I´m dreading that trip but I know that I will be rewarded by beach and sun.

The Full Moon hike was on the sucking side of things. It was a pretty challenging hike. We started up the hill around 12:30am and summitted around 5:30 at 3800 metres (we started at around 2400m). There were a ton of disasters on the way up. Mostly there were individuals who were not fit enough to get up the hill or people getting altitude sickness and it was kind of unorganized so each problem would require us all waiting for a really long time. One girl banged her head on a log across the path. We got off the main path and had to crawl along logs. But the full moon did help when we could see it. Everything had moon-shadows.

I guess it all would have been worth it, but the top of the volcano (dormant, Santa Maria) was inside a cloud. There were moments when spots would clear and you could see the sun and the ground. Being inside a cloud is a really claustrophobic experience. You can´t really see things that are more than 10m away at all. And it´s very white. Also the summit was absolutely freezing and there was a fierce wind.

And the altitude effects feel really weird. I was only feeling a shortness of breath. I would walk on flat ground on the summit and it wouldn´t be physically challenging but I would be panting like crazy. It´s weird to have the two (physical activity vs. cardiovascular work) be disjoint.

The whole way up I was suprised by how awake I was. But on the way down all I had to do was shut my eyes and I would fall asleep. And since it was so steep and muddy and rocky, there was a lot of falling and my knees and hips were abused. We got back to the hostel about 11. I slept until 3 and then ate a big meal.

Tomorrow I´m going on another trek. It´s 6 days but the first and last days are just travel from Xela and back. It´s through indigineous villages that suffered the most in the civil war in the 1980s. It starts in Nebaj and ends in Todos Santos. There´s a political component to the trek, we stay with local families and schools and we climb the highest non-volcanic point in Guatemala (there are also some van rides in the actual trek). Here are the details: http://www.quetzaltrekkers.com/nebaj.htm

Here are some pics from friend Enrico.

Here are his pics from Lanquin: http://www.sevevb.com/pics/?path=./Enricos%20Trip/04-05-24%20Lanquin/

I{m in a couple of the pics (and looking fairly retarded).

Yesterday I was sick. Not very sick but the sickest I{ve been on this trip. I ended up reading Larry{s Party cover to cover and hanging out with Elaine. At night I watched Something About Mary in a bar and had a good sleep. Today I{ve had 2 big meals and am trying to gain strength and energy for this: http://www.quetzaltrekkers.com/fullmoonhike.htm which is tomorrow night.