Lindsey Smith’s Blog

quatro casas (4 things)

1. wednesday erin and I went to cahal pech village, a resort named after mayan ruins in the area. they have a great pool (the hotel, not the ruins) and we went to lounge by it and have some drinks. I had a couple fruity ones, the second of which had orange juice… the guy smelled the bottle it was in before he poured it, that probably should’ve worried me. it didn’t. it tasted weird… that probably should’ve worried me. it didn’t. didn’t feel like eating dinner that night. approximately 8 hours after ingestion of said oj, I violently puked the contents of my stomach from 2pm on. then I had diarrhea. all has resolved after staring cipro (thanks Dr. Bamberger), and I’m feeling good today. guess I won’t be giving my cipro to molli and jason when they come. 2. yesterday, greg, one of the workers at la loma luz, took us out to his farm to try to see some monkeys. we saw an alligator, a couple of iguanas, and 2 turtles (all from quite a distance)… we hiked about a mile into the “mountain”/”bush”/rainforest looking for the elusive howler monkeys. we heard them (waaaayyyy) before we saw them. they make the scariest noise I have ever heard in the wild. erin thought it sounded like a car trying to start and not turning over. I thought it sounded like murder. we hiked another 1/6mile or so to get right below them, with the screaming in our ears all the way. they were way up in the trees, greg assured me (no they don’t) after I asked him more than once if they ever confront humans face to face, or if they ever come down to the ground… we saw probably 8-12 of them up there in the tops of the trees. they were howling because they heard us coming. they were probably trying to scare us away. I was scared for sure. anything making that crazy noise could surely mangle me. as soon as we started walking away, the howling stopped. I caught their cries on video, a viewing will follow my return. 3. on a sad note, erin is leaving today:( we’ve spent the last 27 days together. I can’t imagine what this trip would’ve been like without her. I love her, I will miss her, and I hope she matches greenville (she’s doing peds and couples matching with her ortho-hopeful boyfriend).  adios amiga!!!! 4. on a very happy note, I am off to caye caulker today, a key off the coast of belize. taking a water taxi from belize city that will be about an hours ride. the island is a mile wide at it’s widest and 5 miles long. I’m staying til tuesday. BEACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  unfortunately I won’t have erin to slather my back up with SPF 36… supposedly there’s a vegetarian restaurant on the island.  One of the hotels, (not Rainbow hotel, where I’m shacking up) exchanges books. I’ve read a couple since I’ve been here and am looking forward to (hopefully) finding some good nonfiction reads. the hotel owner told me there are several ’sport bars’ that have wifi.