Jungle Fever

Written 20-12-07

ok, so i did the coolest thing ever yesterday.
i met this cool chica named Cathy. she´s an english biologist who´s been living in the jungle here for the past 5 years tracking and studying monkeys. can you think of a cooler job?!?!?? so yesterday we rent a car and drive out to Punta Laguna, near Coba. we almost died trying to drive down this dirt road, which is one small path carved out of the jungle. at one point a mayan fell out of the jungle onto the path very unexpectedly, and we almost hit him. i think he was drunk...it would explain the confused, blank face as he realized that he wasn´t in the jungle anymore and was being stared at by 5 tall people who were not mayan.

so anyway, we finally reach Punta Laguna. by we, i mean Cathy, our guide, myself, Sugar, Emma, a cool english girl working at the hostel, and Abraham, this crazy Ethiopian dude who´s been living in Tulum for about 5 years. (on a side note, Abraham is one of the funniest people i´ve ever met, and he hasn´t worn shoes in 4 years!) so the 5 of us show up in this Mayan village. Cathy runs around saying hi to everyone, and we start out looking for monkeys. the indiginous monkeys are howler moneys and spider monkeys. for those who know me, i am not a jungle trekker person. i´m a beach lying person. so an hour of walking around in the jungle almost killed me. plus i was wearing corona board shorts and flip flops, as i don´t exactly have the right clothes for this sort of thing. i might also mention that Abe was barefoot for all of this. so after listening, pausing, walking, pausing, listening...Carthy leads us right to them! they were all over the place! i learned more than i ever wanted to know about moneys, like their babies don´t leave the mother´s back for 4 years! i also learned that monkeys do not like it when you try to impersonate their noises. Sugar made the mistake of trying, and he got peed on. twice. i also learned that they only eat part of the figs in the tree, and throw the rest down. so after getting pelted with half-eaten monkey figs, we left and went to the lagoon to swim. Cathy was kind enough to explain that the alligators didn´t come there often, and that there were only a couple of alligator-related deaths a year. thinking logically, we pushed Sugar in first to make sure it was safe.

so we leave Punta Laguna and head to Coba for lunch. there we hear of this alligator that hangs out at a pier in the Coba Laguna. we go over, pay 10 pesos, and there´s this giant black alligator, just kinda hanging out. i was scared at first, then i realized that this was the laziest alligator in the whole world. it hangs out and gets fed chicken by stupid tourists. i could have jumped into the water, bleeding foot and all, and it probably wouldn´t move. it´s gotten so lazy that unless you throw chicken right near its mouth, it won´t even eat it! we dropped a piece directly on top of it´s snout and it didn´t even move! fucker! it was fun anyways...

so life in Tulum is nice. except for the Jehovah´s Witnesses.
they keep bothering me.
they came to my door again today, and i finally got fed up!

"yo creo en el padre del navidad." (i believe in santa clause.)
a little shrivelled up woman started crying. i felt kinda bad, but it was just so funny. so i sicked my african roommate Harry on them, who doesn´t speak a word of spanish, and they left pretty quickly. once they had left the street and it was safe to go out, i went to get some tacos.

i forgot to tell you about my new friend. she´s a 14 year old girl named Amairani, which i think is a really pretty name. she gets up every morning at 5 and goes to tulum with the other taco stand workers to get ready for the day and her only day off is sunday. (by the way, these are the best tacos in the world! and they cost 6 pesos each) once i made the mistake of asking her why she wasn´t in school, and she looked at me like i was crazy. obviously, she had already finished school! she was 14, and her parents were looking into getting her married soon! how can she be a wife and in school at the same time? crazy white people...

she does want to learn how to speak english, so when i go i teach her a new phrase. as of now, every time i walk over there, she says, "Hello, Raquel. How are you today? What would you like to drink?" that´s as far as i´ve gotten, but she learns fast, and she corrects me when my spanish is incorrect. and she thinks i´m crazy.

life goes on, as crazy and spontaneous as ever. i met a swedish guy yesterday, who told me all about the Rainbow Gathering in Veracruz in january. i´m going to go, because...why the hell not? i need a "Rainbow Family" name. Freddie, the swedish guy´s "family" name is the Nordic Eagle. that´s pretty sweet.