The Journey Home

Okay, so I realize I pretty much quit blogging right after the bit about Lago Atitlan (yeah, I know this post says June 1st, but I'm doing it on June 11th, and I want it to show up BEFORE my picture post). So here's what happened next...

I got violently ill on the lake. Monday night (the 26th), I showed up for dinner feeling sort of queasy already, and put a mojito on top of it. Actually, now that I think of it, the mojito could have been the cause, since the bartender said, "Yeah, I think I have some of that left," when I ordered my drink, and proceeded to make me a minty rummy bit of lovileness using the dregs of something sloshing around in a plastic container at the bottom of the fridge. Anyway, I ate a bit of tomato soup and started feeling really yucky, but ate an empanada anyway (minced meat, etc). Within about 1/2 hour, I was projectile vomiting. Seriously. Worst vomiting I've had in ages. Since summer of 2003, actually. I remember. It was that bad.

So all night long I'm getting up every 45 minutes to spend 10 minutes dry heaving. Nasty. I think at the worst of it I might have chosen to lay down and die, had that seemed like a viable alternative. That morning, I decided to bug out. See, May is the beginning of the rainy season, and it washes 9 months worth of shit (literally and figuratively) down off the mountains and canyons into the water supply. And Atitlan in particular is hit hard, since it has no surface outlet. They call the month Mayo Malo. Yeah I split.

So I went back to Xela and Conce, to hang with Miriam a bit before heading home. Just kinda got sick of traveling after a week of being sick followed by that travesty.

Pooped in a cup in Xela and found out I had...giardia. Which may or may not have been the cause of the vomiting. Doubt it. Sounds more like food poisoning.

Got into Xela on Tuesday night. It was an adventure doing so. By the time I took the boat from Santa Cruz to Panajachel, the direct buses had left, and wouldn't run again for a couple hours. So I took a chicken bus to Solola, then to Los Encuentros, then to Xela. It was 3.5 hours of craziness! :)

Miriam was quite sick still, too. So we lazied around a bit for a couple days, and I split on Friday morning. Took chicken buses 4 hours to the border, then a minivan packed with indigenous folks to Comitan. Weather was crappy there, so I just kept on going to San Cristobel again...which was lovely. Spent the night there, then took a minivan to Tuxtla Guiterrez for an evening plane ride to Mexico City. Had a decent night there in a party hostel, and got up early the next morning for a plane to Ciudad Juarez (which is a dump). Took a taxi from the airport to the border, and walked across, which was pretty cool. The bridge is long, and has lots of folks crossing back and forth, and the border agents are dicks. Surprise?

Crossed into El Paso, and walked around a bit till it was time for my bus to leave, around 6pm. Took the bus 4 hours to Albuquerque where my mom picked me up. That's about it!

Now I'm hanging out here, reading and running and biking and thinking. And writing, but nothing really worth sharing, yet.

I miss all my friends in SLC...which will making coming back in the fall all good! *grin* I keep saying I'll never spend another winter in that town, but lookie lookie.

Pax