Sarong-ing It

Day 3: Land of the mosquitos


Ok, my spelling is really bad and this thing isnt going to spell check for me, so I´m just putting that out there. Today Julie and I visited our first centoe, dos ojos. Before we could do that, however, there was a little matter of a sorong I had to attend to. In an effort to not be a total princess, I only brought one towel, even though I knew that I would want one for the beach and one for the shower. However, Julie persuaded me that a sarong is best for the beach and despite the fact that I have always found them asthetically unappeling and somewhat lazy (because they scream ¨look at me, I didn´t feel like getting dressed today so instead I´m wearing a see through toga rather than clothes!¨) I have been in search of one.

As I stated before, they are usually quite ugly and I was hard pressed to find one that said ´I stand for dignity and justice¨ which is what I wanted. Most places wanted twelve but I was like hell no, and finally bargained a nice lady down to 8 dollars. I was tempted by the batik dolphin trio (lesbionic dolphin orgy is always a good motif) but instead went for a dual colored green shell theme because it was the best thing going. With my sarong in tow, and slathered in spf 30, we set out.

I don´t want to curse us, but so far, finding public transpo to take us where we want to go has been super easy, like no waiting at all. Today, we just walked out to the main road and found a condi (or collectivo), which is a van that shuttles people around for a minimal fee, to take us to the cenote. We got to ride in air conditioning, which feels so nice, let me tell you, and were dropped at the entrance off the highay. Being the hardcore travelers we are, and at Julie´s instistance, we elected to walk the one kilometer (more like two) down the long dusty road in the sweltering heat to the cenote rather than accept the rides offered by the many nice people in cars.

I had heard many exciting things about cenotes but everyone forgot to mention their main function: a breeding ground for misquitoes. The first one we went to was deserted because its small and unimpressive, and I had a panic attack as soon as I hit the freezing cold water. I thought I was hyperventialting because it was so cold, but then I found I couldnt stop because I was so scared that bats were going to swoop down out of the low cave ceiling to attack me. I wasnt swimming and would only tread water in one place so we didn´t stay very long. Julie suggested we make a run for it because she had gotten 20 bites in two minutes on her way in, so we ran back out to the main road in our bathing suits being chased by evil bugs the whole way. As we continued on our way to the next cenote, I prayed it would be nicer than the first. I was at that time wearing a dripping wet sarong as a dress over my bathing suit and flip flops while hiking through the jungle--totally awesome.

We finally found the cenote, dos ojos, which were much nicer but the bats were actually visible there. Luckily, there were many scuba diver tourist groups around and I reasoned that the bats were surely go for the annoying people first. The caves are supposedly made of limestone and have all these crazy pointed formations hanging down (stalagmites? who knows?) and even those formations looked like bats to me. After lunch, which was spent walking in a circle while eating a peanut butter sandwich in an attempt to get away from the incessant misquitoes that were hounding us, we got back into the water and I managed to get over my fear of the bats and do some hardcore exploring. We traveled by swimming and crawling through underground caverns to get from one centoe to the other, which was really fun.

I was also scared that a giant snake would emerge to bite us, a la Harry Potter, but it never did. I honestly didn´t realize I was actively afraid of so many different creatures but I guess its easy to avoid my shark, bat, snake fear living in major urban areas. Who knew? All in all, the caves were awesome, it was safe to leave our bags unattended sitting by some rocks, and we stayed in so long our fingers got pruney. We tried to remember why this happens and if its actually bad for you but couldnt. The only sad thing was that water got in my left eye, thus rendering one of my contacts a blurry useless hard shell. So we hiked out back to the dusty road and acutally solicited a ride this time, to avoid Julie doing a crazy dance with her towel in a useless effort to keep the bugs away. I felt bad dripping all over the seat but it couldnt be helped. When we got back to town, I put my clothes on over my bathing suit, but I basically spent the day in a dress which is a first for me in I can´t even remember how long. Vacation brings all kinds of suprises.

When we got back, I spent some quality time in a hammock reading the Golden Compass, which is an excellent book, and drinking a corona with lime (from a lime tree in the hostel I picked myself). Tomorrow we head to Mahual (sp?) which is closer to the Belize border and is supposed to be less touristy and cheaper. Both our legs are totally covered in bug bites and I am hoping to get to the ocean, which is supposed to help heal them, pronto.