Mexico Day 3. Jungle Day!

Today was the first day of our Jungle tour. We were picked up by a shuttle van and a guide that I'll call "Daisy" because that was her name, although she probably doesn't spell it with quotation marks. There was only the five of us, plus another family of four and one other young couple. We drove for about a half an hour and turned off the highway to pass through a small village (where we could "see a local village"...I have to say, I guess we did see a local village, but they could have either picked up some of the local garbage, or driven us another way. There were open areas that were apparently just the local dumping grounds for local bags of trash.

We were given a spiel about how the tourism helped the locals, gave them jobs (we were to have a lunch prepared by local women part way through the tour) and there were photographers scattered throughout the jungle who were prone to leaping out and snapping photos at unexpected times and places, as well as little buildings with locally made crafts. And all our money went to these people.

The photographers had very expensive looking cameras, and a "hut" at the end of the tour with about 16 computers where you could get your pictures as they were quickly downloaded. And the craft area, while it was indeed filled with really nice items, they were the same items that we saw at every market and every hotel lobby.  And they were not cheap...the ones in the hotel gift shop were half the price, although I guess the idea is, you can say things like "Yes, I bought this obsidian mask off a "real" Mexican, in a small village in the jungle" and feel good about yourself. I don't mean to sound negative, but it's all a ploy to get tourists to spend money.

Of course now I feel like that was all mean-spirited, and I'm sorry I talked like that, but not sorry enough to remove the post. Because that is indeed the way I saw it. And the fact that they drove us by piles of garbage didn't make me feel like my money was going to help any locals whatsoever, or, more to the point I guess, that they money I spent did indeed go to the locals, but they used it for something other than the care of their village.

But, having said that, the day was really a lot of fun and I did some things that I have always wanted to try.

Our first stop was into a cave, lit with candles, where a Shaman waited to bless us. The cavern was pretty cool, we walked around this little lake, on a narrow path lit with candles (I kept thinking how there would be warning signs and ropes and railings if this were in Canada or the USA...we are both such babied countries, no one ever wants to take responsibility for themselves and we all sue at the drop of a hat, or, at the slip of a foot.)

So the Shaman blessed us and gave us handfuls of some powder which he blew into the air and threw into the fire, and he wished us good luck and safe travels. He was speaking a  dialect that had Mayan roots,  so even a fluent Spanish speaking person couldn't understand, I hate to be cynical (really, I do hate that about me) but I wonder if he was saying things like: "I wish you all would slip into this slimy lake on your way out of my cavern, and hurry up about it because I want to go for lunch and I could use a good laugh before my next break." But maybe not, maybe he was a real Shaman and it was a real blessing. I mean, none of us got hurt at all, and we all did things that were a bit out of our comfort zone...who am I to be so negative about someone elses religious ceremony? Shame on me.

Ok! First stop....rappelling down a cenote. (pronounced "senOtay") It wasn't deep, so they said, only 10 metres. But 10 metres is just over 30 feet, and 30 feet is almost 3 stories high (or, in this case, 3 stories deep). And standing there, harnessed in to this contraption, being held on to by a tiny little girl who didn't weigh 100 pounds, and leaning backwards into this cenote was a bit nerve-wracking. No one wanted to go first. There was a little boy in our group, Ethan, who was 7 or 8 who hollered: "I wanna go first, I wanna go first, can I go first?" When he got up there and looked down, he quickly decided to go "the other first, after this first".

Shane and Linnea ended up going first...Shane zipped down like he'd done it before, which, he later informed me, he had. On bigger cliffs, with no water at the bottom. On days when he skipped school, in our mountains.  I could hear the echo of their "Whooo! It's cold" shouts as they splashed down into the clear, clear water in an underground cave, filled with stalactites and stalagmites.

Great photo! Looking pretty confident!

Then came Steven and I. That initial drop backwards, where you trust that things will hold you, was scary, but after that it was fun! You control how fast you drop, and I was concerned that my arms wouldn't be strong enough to hold my weight, but all went well and I didn't plunge screaming down to the bottom.

Great photo, but not quite as confident!

And then came Scott. I think that he was the most out of his comfort zone of any of us on this particular event because he both hates heights and isn't fond of water.

Scott, looking like he's done this a thousand times.

Once we were all down there, we got to swim around in the cavern for a while. The water was just so clear. I think it must have been 10-20 feet deep and you could see the bottom as if you were looking through a glass of water. Ethan, the "me first!" kid, ended up having to be walked to the exit of the cave by a staff member as he just couldn't muster up the courage to rappell.

The beautiful cave. Not my photo as I didn't have my camera with me, the tour provided photos for us.

After we swam and frolicked a bit, it was time to head off to the Zip Lines, something I have wanted to try for a long, long time. Yeeehaw!