Jungletime!

Hey blogreaders! (Whoever you may be, comments are always appreciated!) These are pictures of the jungle trip we took over a month ago. My pictures from the experience were lost but Sarah has been kind enough to send some to me and put some more up on the internet. They´re a little out of order but I´ll do my best to explain them. This was definitely some of (if not THE) most unique days of the trip thus far. This is an entire group picture. Our guide is in the white shirt (not Victor) and his two kids took care of the horses (ok so its not a complete group picture) that carried our supplies. This was taken the second night. We were absolutely in the middle of nowhere. No cars or trucks had been there, nada. The only thing that was there was a dugout fire pit and the shelter that was behind us, constructed out of jungle material that was all around us. The noises were extraordinarry. Howler monkeys are EXTREMELY loud. And they don´t howl, its more like a lions roar.

This is a picture of Sarah, Victor and me on the trail in the jungle. There really wasn´t a trail and in some parts it disappeared entirely, leaving us with just a guide and a machete. It was such an eye-openning experience. We would come across clearings where giant trees had collasped, taking out the canopy, thus creating these little pockets of sunlight.

This is us towards the end of the first day. This was our last piece of civilization we were gonna see for quite awhile. The next morning we hiked to these ruins that were just sitting in the middle of the jungle...pretty much untouched. But it used to be a huge city, rivalling Tikal (and consequently it was Tikals main rival). The temples were unexcavated so most we would hike up this "hill" and at the top would be the very tip of the temples sticking out. One of the greatest things was that from the top of the tallest if you looked in the right direction you could see the top of the tallest temple of Tikal rising way of in the distance. The Tikal temples are HUGE! Hopefully Sarah will throw some pictures of that up too. We were excited till we realized that Tikal was where we were hiking too haha. One incredible thing we looked at was they had a guest book to sign and we counted the names since 2005 and only 150 people had been through this area in 3 years!

I forget the name of this plant but it translates loosely to ¨Water Vine¨. You chop one side of the vine and then have to immediately run to the other side of the vine and chopp the other side. This is because as soon as the vine is cut it begins to suck the water to other parts of the plant at an astonishing pace! But once its chopped up it holds a surprising amount of water and it comes out at a rapid pace perfect for drinking. It tastes sweet too!

A picture of us on the first night I believe.

This is me at breakfast before the trip, boy i had no idea what i was in for. The one thing this trek taught me is that, if you by new shoes for a trip make sure that you break them in with the socks you will be using on the trip, not the thick ones you wear in sub-zero Laramie WY. My feet hurt so much on this trip haha.

On pic of the jungle.