Parajachel

We´ve been doing a lot of traveling since the last update and it´s been a little much, but we just paid for a week´s stay at our hostel here in Parajachel, so I´ll be looking forward to some more down time to just get to enjoy this place which seems like is going to be pretty easy.
From Belize we went to Palanque and saw some really cool ruins. They were a lot bigger than the ones in Copán, and we hired a guide so we learned a lot more about them too.

This is on the outside of one of the buildings and it´s Paákal i think is how you spell it. He was a king here and he´s talking to a servant . And I don´t know why this is underlined, but it is. We also went to a couple other places like a really big waterfall and Aguas Azules (which means blue water, but since it´s the rainy season, it was anything but blue. I kinda felt like when people are stoked to see Havasu or the Little Colorado and it´s flashing so all the blue water is dirty, but it was still really cool). Mark is a really good kayaker and Garrett´s catching up with him and they were dreaming about coming down here and getting a first ascent of some of the rivers we´ve seen. When we asked some of the locals about it a) they had no idea what kayakismo is and b) they thought we were crazy for even thinking about it. Their responses were pretty funny.

This is a pretty touristy town, surrounding a lake that was created when a volcano erupted, and where the magma was sunk out, there´s now a lake surrounded by 5 volcanos. It is so beautiful. I think there´s going to be some pretty sweet hiking and swimning and maybe some more diving to some ruins that are under water. We asked about some cliff jumping we´d heard about and got the same looks as asking about kayaking. Like....'so you want to jump of a cliff into the water???¿' I like their responses.

We only stayed there for two nights then went to the very relaxed feeling San Cristobol. It is a really clean, awesome, colonial town with several colorful plazas and an amazing market. My mom would have loved that place with all the colors of everything!

We spent a lot of time walking around the city and around the market. We made some great fajitas with all fresh stuff we bought there. It is a lot higher elevation, so it was actually pretty cold there, and it´s been really nice to have a relief from the heat. One night when walking around, we had some Mexican hot chocolate that is pretty rich and has a cinnamon flavor to it, and amazing churros (sorry, Costco, you got nothin compared to Mexico!) and had that several other times during our 2 night stay. This is one of my favorite pictures of Garrett. He´s 6´7¨and needless to say doesn´t fit in the buses and vans very well. Then after a day and a half of 2 Colectivos (15 seater mini vans), two buses, a night stay in this town that´s pretty much an intersection that the bus dropped us off in, and three more buses, we´re finally here and ready to just relax.


We took a tour of the lake today and went to some of the other cities around the lake. They are named after the 12 apostles. They were cool, but our city is definately best. The other cities were all different sizes and conditiions, but regardless of where we were, we were always bombarded by kids moms and some toddlers to sell stuff. One place we got to see how they make the fabric on thier looms and it was pretty cool. I had to buy some stuff there and I feel bad for not buying stuff from the cute little kids that look up at you with these huge brown eyes! but I´d run out of money and I just don´t need it! The boat driver told us there were some hot springs we could go to and that was one of the major selling points of the private boat, but they were just right up against a wall, no enclosure of any sort and the top two inches was a little warmer than the rest. we were pretty bummed.
So, Panajchel has been pretty great. It´s rained everyday though and we´re hoping that we´ll have some clear days ahead. I have done different designs of braids in Garrett´s hair and this one has lasted like a week I think. He gets some weird looks for sure, but it´s out of his way. He has been giving me Spanish lessons and it´s great to really have some stuff to work on, and I think most of you know that I talk in my sleep and I have a coupel times on this trip, and last night I was speaking Spanish and Garrett said it was making sense so I think that´s a good thing. Can´t wait until the end of the trip when I´m totally fluent! (let´s hope anyway!)
Mark is leaving a little earlier than planned. He is going home to do a kayaking thing so we´re bummed he´s leaving. He LOVES the panderias (the little bread shops) and the taco stands and we´re going to be hungry without him always having some new treat for us to try. It´s gone amazingly well with the three of us, and we´re sad he´s leaving.
Well, the rain stopped, so I think we´ll go try to see the sunset. Adios!

GO SLOW!!! That is the moto for Caye Caulker and it was definately enforced. Let me catch up with a little more details first.

We flew into Guatemala City, got out of there as quickly as possible, and headed to Copan, Honduras, where we stayed for two nights to go to some really cool ruins. We spent the morning at the ruins, and some of the afternoon, a little in the rain which acutally felt great because it was so hot. Here.s Garrett doing as the locals do (can you see the guy farther down he.s got his broom next to him, but it was raining too hard so he just was taking a nap)But seeing the ruins was really neat. I was blown away by the inticate work and can.t wait to see the others that we.re headed for. Then we spent a day traveling to Belize City, probably about 700 km of road travel and 50 km of boat, and just like everyone else said, it wasn.t worth staying there. We did have to stay one night in a pretty stetchy, run down hostel, but what.s one night.

The next day was Independance Day for Belize so there were fireworks that night out over the ocean and that was cool to see but we were really happy to get out to Caye Caulker. Our hostel there had a totally different feel than all the others. Way more relaxed and there was a dorm and much more of a hang out atmosphere.We did happen to get there just in time for the parade for Independance Day on the island and it was great. It took hours for it to acutally happen, and the whole island is only like 1 km long and the main strip is like 4 blocks so it was fuuny, but awesome that we got to be there for that.

One of my main reasons of wanting to go to Belize was to scuba dive. So the next couple days I dove in the mornings. It was really cool. I got certified in Panama last year, and haven.t been since. I got a little spoiled there because there is so much different wildlife and coral, but it was cool here. I did see several nurse sharks, and a couple sea turtles and tons of amazing fish and coral. When I was walking one morning to the dive shop, I was a little late, and walking at normal somewhat fast pace and got reprimanded by several people for walking too fast, it was great. Our hostel had a free canoe that we could take out and Garrett and Mark had taken it out one morning and went again when I got back out to the reef. (I guess where we weren.t supposed to go without a guide woops! ) It took about an hour to paddle out there and it was really cool. Almost as much to see there as on my diving that I was paying a lot more for. At the end of the island there is a place called the split where a hurricane cut through the island and now boats can get through there and there.s a cool dock and diving board that is slanty and slippery but really fun to play on.And watch the sunsets from, which since it.s the rainy season, the clouds are amazing and the sunsets and rises are amazing!!!Yesterday, on our last day there, Garrett and Mark had talked to some locals and were going to go out on thier fishing boat. I was thinking about doing this dive called the Blue Hole which some say is amazing some say not so much but it.s like $200 and is three dives, but the thought of being out all day snorkeling and spear fishing was more attractive, so I went with them. It was really great. We dropped some of the locals off at their parts of the reef and went to a different part. They only had one spear gun and it was weird for me to go from one day with the diver mentality: don.t touch anything, only look at the beautiful fish, to hanging on the coral to keep yourself down looking in all the holes to find fish to kill. But it was cool. We only got a couple, and two lobsters, but the fun we had made it successful. I also came away with an extremely burned whole back side. I had sunscreen on my back, but my shorts line up is fried!! And it.s my own dumb fault, and I.m reaping the benefits of the uncomfortableness of having to sit on a bus all day today. Also, the mosquitos were pretty bad and I am terrible at harnessing my zen powers to not itch them, so I.m going to have some serious scabs from them. Hopefully they won.t be so bad from here on out.


So, now we.re in a bus station, just over the boarder into Mexico. We hadn.t originally planned on going to Mexico but decided we needed to go to Palanque if we were here so that.s where we.re headed. We.re taking an over night bus there. We.ll have spent like 6 hours in this bus terminal but we tried to go out to the city and no one had any idea of something of interest and it is really so hot. I don.t think I.ve sweat so much in the last 6 months, even in the Grand as I have in the last week. But it.ll just make coming home to dry fall - winter of SLC even better! Mark and Garrett are great traveling partners! We have all been on the same page about making decisions and I was worried that they were going to want to be going all the time and always pushing to be doing something, but we have all been in the same mood for stuff and it.s been great. They are great about looking out for me and I don.t think anyone wants to mess with the three of us. Anyway, I.ll let them get on here, but we.re having a great time, and thanks all for reading and I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the nice, cool fall for me!

Caye Caulker

Don't have too much time now, we're cruising the strip (really that means meandering slowly down the dirt road talking to really funny locals) but I just wanted to say that I haven't worn shoes in three days and I've been swimming in the ocean every day and I saw two sea turtles today. It's been pretty rad here on Caye (pronounced key) Caulker. More to come soon....

We made it!

Well, everyone, I know you've been dying to hear, but we made it! After flying to Vegas, then to Huston, Garrett and I met up with Mark who had flown straight there, and we caught our flight to Guatemala City. We spent the night there and have been going ever since. We've been traveling a lot which has been getting expensive, so we're almost to a place we're going to hang at for a bit.

We went from Guatemala City to Copan which is just over the border in Honduras. It's a pretty small town with some really cool ruins just 1 km outside of the city that we went to. We stayed there for two nights, then got on the road to come here. It was a super long day of travel. We got rides with some different people we met, mostly super windy in the back of pick up trucks, then took a ferry across the Atlantic (yes, the whole thing! but not really) from Puerto Barrios, Guatemala to Puerto Gorda in Belieze. From there we got on a super crowded school bus for 5 hours!! I am sooo sweaty and more than anything just sticky. We got to Belieze City and it's their Independance Day tomorrow and they're doing a parade on Mon so I think we'll stay here before we go out to the island where we'll probably be for a few days so I can do some diving.

Anyway, this computer is about as slow as all the people here (excpet for their driving! We have all thought we were going to die on numerous occasions, in all forms of transit... the buses are the worst!) so i can't do any picutres right now but I will soon. It's amazingly beautiful! More trees that you can ever imagine!! It's been great to have Mark and Garret here, especially Garrett to speak Spanish. I think I'll understand most everything and turns out I usually get about 50% so it's great to have him working deals. Here in Belieze, they speak Creole which sounds suprisingly like the one lady with the dreads in one of the Pirates movies, second or third, I'm not sure.... you know the one I'm talking about? Anyway, I understand these people just about as much as the people speaking Spanish. It's pretty funny.

I have got to go take a shower and wash off this stickiness before we go out and watch some fire works, so good night and I hope everyone's doing well, and I'll get some pictures on soon.

Lifetime pictures

My friend, Garrett who I am going to Guatemala with is a great photographer and he's been doing it for years, and is now trying to make a go of doing just that. He's offering a really good deal of doing life time family portraits for $250 and some other great deals, including wedding photos and such for really cheap. He's just offering it for a little while and just to a few so, if you're interested, email me or leave a comment and I'll email you the brochure about it.

Last trip... phew!

The summer is officially over. Well, not really because I still have Guatemala, but the river season anyway. If all of my trips could've been this easy, I could do it forever. I swamped for this guy Tom, who I hadn't met before, but ran a super relaxed really fun trip, and the other boat was RD and Tony, who I've known for at least 5 years, and we wrestle and fight like they're my brothers. I'm not quite sure I





could handle this job if I didn't have my 4 younger brothers to prepare me for living in this world of boys. It was really fun. Sometimes we'll be cooking and I'll look around and see our peeps and I had almost forgotten that there are other people on the trip. It's pretty funny.


But don't let me fool you, it's not a fun job and it's hard work all the time.... well, sorta, while we were rigging the ranger came and picked us up and we got to go up and see the Glen Canyon dam which is 15 miles upstream and even though I have mixed feelings about the dam, it was pretty cool to see it up close at the bottom. The water is super clear and cold coming out of the bottom. That first night it poured at Lee's Ferry and most of us slept in the van and woke up to some beautiful clouds. Because of the rain, almost all of the side streams were flashing so we had clear water for like 5 miles, then it was dirty the rest of the trip. You can see two side streams bringing in tons of sediment.And it was like this the rest of the time. Even Havasu that flashed and those people had to be airlifted out a couple weeks ago was still dirty, but it was cool, because the water was almost white. The people were ridiculously solely concrete walkers and it was too hard for most of them to even get half way in to Havasu. But I always like seeing the side streams flash and seeing everything differently.



On the last night we had a little fire show.... and if you're interested, here's what you'll need:


finish the last of the watermelon from lunch. (I happily took this job)


Then a boy who likes to play with fire, paper towels, lighter fluid, a most importantly, Frito'sStuff all the lighter fluid soaked paper towels and Frito's into the watermelon, light and send down stream. This one lasted surprisingly long without tipping over. (Also, in this picture, you might notice the back of that boat looks a little weird. That reminds me that it wasn't all fun. We did have some adventure. RD got sucked into a wall below Phantom Ranch and the tube popped. We had to take another section of the boat and cut the whole bigger to put it inside that tube. I also hit the wall pretty hard, but luckily on a different part of the boat so it was OK. Tom let me drive most of the rapids and it was awesome. Oh, yeah, and this German guy on the 3 day trip fell and got a compound fracture in his finger and had to be helicoptered out at night. Luckily Tom speaks German or it would've been way more of a disaster. Hopefully some of our peeps will send some pictures of it landing right in the middle of our beach, and I can put some on here ... see, it's not just all fun :)


Since it was my last trip of the season, I tried to take some pictures of the Vishnu Schist. It's really cool, dark, super old (about 2 billion y.o.) rock with threads of Granite in it. They didn't turn out too great, but here's a couple to give you an idea. Ever corner is something else cool. I really love it down there. It pushes up from underneath the regular not so old rock (only 600 million y.o.) Here's some fluting. It happens in the sedimentary rock on occasion, but mostly in the schist, and I love it. My pictures really don't do it justice. Tom is a photographer and you should check out his site, then look through the action until you see the guy climbing in a blue life jacket. It's sweet and it's way better than my pictures.
Overall, it was a great trip to end the season on.



On the way home we stopped at a really cool hot spring I'd never even heard of that's right off the freeway by Meadow and here's a couple pictures from there.

So, I've got a week now, to try to pull my life together enough to be able to leave for 6 weeks. Until next adventure .....

Lava Rapid anyone?

On my last trip, this lady put a waterproof camera on the front of her lifejacket and filmed us going through Lava Rapid. It's the last rapid on the 6 day trip and it's a class 10. It's hard to really get the full effect but it gives you a little idea. It gets knocked a little skiwampus so you don't see the whole thing but look for the lady next to the one filming that falls off the seats they're sitting on. Then look for my shadow there holding her and giving the boatman the OK sign, it's pretty funny.
My computer is going to slow to upload the video, so just click here to see it.
Also, earlier on that same trip, a guy fell off the front of the boat in Crystal, which is a pretty dangerous class 10 and we didn't get footage of it, but here's a video of someone falling off the same way he did but the video is of Hermit. Luckily on our trip, he was able to stay holding on to the front ropes. You'll see the guy in the video hanging on the front for a second, then he falls off, so look close. Enjoy!

Women's Trip in Cat

This trip was a couple weeks ago, but I still wanted to put a couple pictures up.

The women's trip really was one of my favorite trips of the year in Moab, and I was stoked when they asked me to come back up there and do that trip. It was such a fun trip. It's fun because it's different from all the other trips and we do some other stuff like we have a yoga instructor that does yoga every morning and we bring massage therapists and they do several massages at night. And plus, it's just all girls, so it's great.

These girls were great. They had met on college and some lived in DC some in San Francisco. They brought these face masks and they were amazing for my sun baked face. Jos and I bought big sunglasses and hats for the trip and I really actually do kinda like these shades and I've worn them a lot since then. This was on the last day. There was some sweet mud for mud baths and everyone got a facial with cucumber eye covers. They put a dress on my and lipstick on both of us. I think it looks so weird! We all wore our skimpyest dresses for the event.And Jos and some girls did had a sweet dance party for everyone after dinner. It was pretty funny. I love dance parties on the river. Everyone got up and danced later. Over all it was a really good trip and just a lot of fun to be back up in Moab with my good old friends.

help?

I've checked out some of your sites and you've got sweet music on them, and I have a playlist all set on playlist.com but I don't know where to put the code to get it to play on my site. I thought I was getting kinda computer savvy, but alas I need help. Anyone?

Also, I've got a couple weeks off the river, so I'll actually have time to get caught up on reading your blogs and get a little update on here, so just know I'm cyber-stalking you!

Guatemala

Well, it's official ... I'm going to Guatemala this summer. That was my plan and a couple months ago, I was home and listening to NPR and they were saying if you're planning on traveling, buy tickets now, it's only going to get more expensive, so I just got my ticket without really having a travel partner or plans. So, when I was looking online trying to plan my trip, it was saying that it's dangerous to go there by yourself as a girl. So, I started thinking other options, maybe Peru, Thailand, or many other cool places that would have been more expensive. But a couple weekends ago when I was up in Salt Lake, I went climbing with my friend, Garrett and on the way home I realized I hadn't asked him, and within 20 minutes of asking, he'd bought a ticket, so it's on. I'm stoked. He went on his mission to Spain so he speaks Spanish and is a really good teacher, and he's got lots of time to look online and figure out what cool things we should do. We're going for six weeks and going to Honduras and Belize also and probably going to be doing some scuba diving. I'm stoked. So, if anyone has any suggestions of what to do in any of those countries, let me know.

Last week

This week was a great one on the river. This is kinda turning into a picture blog, but there were a lot of good ones last week so I thought I'd just put them on here. One of the highlights of the week was that this girl, Lindsay Hale was the other swamper and she's awesome. We had so much fun. She's from Orem, and we have the same birthday and she's so funny. (Here we are in matching outfits, both Oakley shorts from Steep and Cheap).

When we go to Havasu, we usually just hike up like 20 minutes and hang out there forever and people just hang in the water and play but this week we were going to stay for like 3 hours so Lindsay and I wanted to run up to Beaver Falls which is about 3.5 miles. So, we and a dude from the trip ran up there. It's the coolest run though fields of grape vines.

However, neither of us had been there so we missed the turn off and were so close, but we were below it and we didn't even know that we just needed to get up and around. But the pool we got to was cool enough.

The water is such and amazing color!

I'm trying out my sweet new waterproof camera, and I love it! (I think the one on the left kinda looks like the Nirvana cover from forever ago)

I'm always such a fan of reflections, and I see so many awesome ones, but a lot of times, pictures just don't do them justice, but this one turned out alright. That was the most clouds we saw all week. It was a hot one! The last couple nights, I had to get my sarong wet and put it over me just to be comfortable enough to sleep. For the derig at Lake Mead it was 113! But don't worry, it's not even hot yet, wait until July they all keep telling me..... can't wait for that.

This is a better picture of The Redwall Cavern with the other launch in it. It's huge and so fun to play ultimate or wiffle ball in.

This last picture is of my alarm. It sucks, but this is really what it looks like when I have to get up. Again, way cooler, than what my camera could record, but we usually get up when you can't see stars anymore. Way too early!!!

But the raddest thing about this week was that I got to drive all the big rapids! The way it works is you have to be a swamper for at least 10 trips, hopefully getting some driving time here and there and then you can drive a little, and when there's a spot available, you might get your own boat and be the boatman. This was trip 7 for me and I'd driven a lot of the little stuff and a few of the bigger ones, but Wiley, who's been down there for a while and I've known, let me drive all the stuff on rapid day! There's a couple class 10 rapids and a lot of 8 and 9s (The Grand is in a 1-10 scale rather than 1-5 like the rest of the world so that there's a bigger discrepancy between ratings for boaters who have never seen it before so they know which ones they need to scout). It was really fun. Super nerve racking, and I was so exhausted from that day from having so much adrenaline, then resting, then getting nervous again, but it was so fun. And I had all good runs except in this class 6 one, Grapevine I hit my motor and had to change out the prop. Anyway, it was really fun. Thanks to Wiley! A lot of boatmen get too nervous to let swampers drive but he's a good teacher and his confidence in me I think helps me relax and do better. So, overall, good week!