La Jungla!!!

Oh my God!!!  The phrase, "what the HELL am I doing here??" has crossed my mind, oh, say, 1,000 times in the last 48 hours that I have been in San Jose.

It is so freaking hot I cannot believe it.  Yesterday I felt like I was going to faint for most of the day.  If it werent for the lake, I think I would have - either that - or left.

What the HELL am I doing here?

And this is DEFINITELY the most rustic of any place I have stayed.  The house has a dirt floor, walls made of various pieces of metal and sticks tied together, and a bathroom that is about a 2 minute walk from my room (and that has as inhabitants frogs and lizards) - that consists of a room made of some kind of leaves with a hole in the ground in the middle of it.  The fact that they have electricity was surprising to me, but thank GOD they do - because I have in my room......a FAN.  It it werent for this fan I am sure I would not have slept at all the last 2 nights.  My first night it was so windy and I was SOOOO afraid that the power was going to go off and that I was going to lose my fan... but alas, no power outage.

And, perhaps most interesting of all, I woke up Monday morning and walked to the school - and on the way there were THOUSANDS of dead beetles, thick dead beetles - about the size of a trial size shampoo bottle - all over the ground.  Thank God they were dead!!

I have already swam in the lake - which is gorgeous and very clean, 4 times - and plan to do so some more.  Due to some not very good planning, (and partly to get out of this heat) I need to leave tomorrow for Flores, which is across the lake (and where I am going to splurge on air conditioning!!!!!) - so that on Thursday I can go to Tikal - the great Mayan ruins up here in the jungla (jungle).  I had planned to go one afternoon after my class, but it is just not possible because the last bus back is around 3pm.  So, Thursday I will go to Tikal and then Friday I will go back down South to Livingston and then head for the Island of Utila.  I am SOOOO glad right now that I saved the cushy week of scuba diving and beach-dwelling (in california like weather) for my last full week here.  I cannot WAIT to get to Utila.

I know that I am being a baby - but what I have learned this week is that the Peten Jungle is NOT for me!

The school is good - my teacher is good - today we went on a little field trip to the medicinal garden - and I learned all about the medicinal plants that they mayan people use - and yesterday I got to make aloe vera soap with the women that belong to the cooperative that the school is connected with - so it is not ALL bad.  They have some really neat natural hair and skin care products that I am going to purchase.  I still have the rash-allergy-bug bites - who knows what from Rio Dulce last week - so hopefully something will help.