Coban, Guatemala

July 14: Nebaj to Coban
Today we got up early to catch the 5am shuttle from Nebaj to Coban, and with the help of some locals, were actually able to find our bus. At first the ride was very good, nice smoothish roads and not too bad terrain, but then we hit the dirt road. Its not that the dirt road was that bad, its just virtually impossible to sleep or read or pretty much do anything but sit there and contemplate why the hell they haven´t paved this road yet. Or at least thats what you think until you hit the landslide. Word on the street is that about a year ago there was a giant landslide, and by giant they mean massive. Basically an entire side of a mountain decided to fall off, which completely wrecked the road and demonstrated that even if they put a paved road here, it would probably collapse sooner or later (sooner). The road had been leveled before we got there, but it was still really steep and slippery and took about five minutes to completely clear the landslide area from start to finish. After another half an hour or so on dirt, we hit pavement again (thank jesus) and relaxed- we were almost there. We arrived to Coban around 10:30 in the morning, at which point we secured a hostel and wandered around the town for a while looking for tourist agencies to take us to Bombil-Pek and the Candelaria caves. Bombil-Pek is this massive cafe turned sinkhole, which is made more awesome by the 70m repel that you do through jungle to get to the bottom. We really wanted to do this and heard good things, so tried to book ahead. Turns out that this adventure would be really expensive ($50-60 bucks a person), and we decided to try to do it ourselves on local transportation the next day. So, naturally, with nothing to do we found an interet cafe and whiled away a few hours. That night we found a restaurant recommended by our faithful guidebook, which was a huge success. We ordered Chile Rellenos, which tasted very, very similar to our NM chiles, and this turkey soup called Kak Iq, which is basically a whole turkey breast on the bone stuck in this absolutely delicious turkey broth, with some sides of rice and tamalitos (what we see as tamales, exept these have no fillings, just the corn-- its great for dipping). Full, we headed to bed to watch Back to the Future (watching TV after a month is very refreshing) before calling it a night.

July 15 : D-Day
For those feignt of heart or who have just eaten, please feel free to skip to the next section of the blog. This could get graphic. For this first bit, the I´s refer to Phil.

So today we woke up chipper and cheerful, ready to get on our way to Bombil-Pek, a cave about 2 hours away by local mini-bus. When I woke up that morning I had some diarrhea, which really isn´t that big of a deal because it happens all the time, didn´t really think much about it, until it happened again, this time with some pretty massive cramping. Ok, no big deal, Steph had this same thing yesterday and it just played through by taking a poop, so I popped a loperamide and Steph and I made our way to the bus station. We grabbed a bus, and started our two hour windy as hell journey to Chisec, all the while accompanied by cramping, and eventually got off at the Bombil-Pek sign on the highway. Here I took a moment for self-reflection. I took a lot of these over the next hour or so. By moment of reflection, I really mean moment of what feels like internal hemorraging in my intestinal track while I grimmace and hold my stomach. Ok, Phil, we can do this, you´re fine, Steph had this yesterday, Iron Gut Moquin just got the best of you, just grit through it you´ll be fine. So I did. Our guidebook said there was a tourist kiosk on the side of the highway, but we didn't see one, so we decided to start walking the 'trail', trying to find anything resembling the hut with information our guidebook mentions. We never found anything, so we followed the trail as best we could, thinking at the very least we could make it to the cave and skip the repel (there are ladders for people who don´t want to repel). Finally, after about 30 minutes of cornfields surrounded by jungle, we ended up at a barbed wire fence. Damn... we really had no clue where we were going... and thats when it finally hit me. KABLAM! Like a wrecking ball to my colon, the cramps came and I knew the diarrhea wanted to escape. So I picked a part of the field that had some amount of coverage, sat down, and let the pipes flow. It was bad. I wanted to go home. We made our way back to the highway and flagged a bus, hopped on and started making the 2 hour journey back to Coban. Along the way, I had to ask Steph ¨are you cold?¨ Now it was about 90 F outside, the window was open, my head was starting to hurt, my face felt like it was on fire, and I started to get the chills. Something was wrong here.When we got back to the hostel, I was super weak, so weak I didn't even want to take my socks off, Steph had to take them off for me. I spend the rest of the day and all night going from the bed to the toilet. I popped some ibuprofin which helped the fever, but really felt like shit (while having the shits-- irony) all day and all night. It was without a doubt the worst and longest day of our trip. Steph, bless her heart, stayed with me the whole time, bringing me cold cloths for my head, buying me quart after quart of water, gatorade, and even finding some turkey broth for me to sip on, all the while telling me about how Cholera and Campylobacter are really cool bacteria. We watched episode after episode of CSI and Law and Order, and finished off the night with good old Scarface (which Steph had never seen). We still have no idea what I had or what random food item that we ate that caused it, but now that I´m writing this on the Friday after, I´m finally having solid poops again. Life is good. Which brings me to this... whenever you think about how crappy your day might have been, just be thankful that you´re having solid poops, they´re really awesome. I used to tell a story to boyscouts about giardia to warn them about drinking stream water without filtering it, and used to describe it by saying it would feel like a hurricane coming out of their butthole. For anyone with or has ever had giardia, I know how you feel.

Anyway, we went to bed that night with me feeling like total shit, breathing really hard, fever soaring, and both of us praying that the fever and chills would go away overnight so we wouldn't have to find some Guatemalan hospital the next day.