15 seconds

Fifteen little seconds, that is the difference between life and death, maybe a few more or a few less ... but that´s it. Today I learned that lesson very well. More on that later... I am just very happy to be here to tell you about it.

Woke up this morning and the sky was blue as all hell and not a cloud was in sight. The temp was already at 30 degrees when I crawled out from under the mozzy net and went in search of coffee. In the end, I decided against Manzanillo (I had been flip flopping on it all night long) and went to Cahuita instead to trek in the jungle there and sneak onto the reefs to snorkel - you need to hire an official dive guide for this, but fuck, I´m not a novice; I know what I am doing and won´t damage the coral. And you know, I had to pay to get into Cahuita anyways, so no I was not going to shell out another 20 bucks for an *official* reef guide. I managed to get to a few reefs without getting caught so mission accomplished, lol.

Did a really nice five hour trek along the jungle and beach path there - did it barefoot for the most part too! There is something very tactile about walking in the jungle barefoot, hard to explain. But, it was awesome. I am sure the care I was paying to where I was walking made me miss a few things, but still ... I walked barefoot in the jungle. That is all that I care about. Saw some amazing things too!

Yes Rachel, more trees - get over it. ;)

Cahuita Beach

A river running parallel to the trail

Illegally obtained photo

More of the Cahuita trail

Reminded me of Asia way too much to simply not take a photo

Jesus Christ, I found your lizard!!!

Stingray, chilling, chilling....

Didn´t see the monkeys, but did see they like the beach too!

So that´s a small sampling of Cahuita... now, while there, I saw a massive storm coming in, while I was still 6km in or so, and decided to come back... ran into some fellow hostelers and the owner of Kaya´s chilling in the same place I´d seen the stingrays earlier... made my way back to the bus stand, as I just love the chicken buses (local buses) and on the way, the storm hit full force ... 60-80 kmh winds and driving rain... once on the bus and on the way, the wind uprooted a massive tree and knocked it and the power lines down, on top of a truck, directly in front of the bus - just a few seconds more, and it would have been me - 10 seconds, 15 tops... luckily, the driver was mostly fine... but here are some photos I took literally from beside the bus.

But yes, I am fine - just really shocked, honey badgering and really in need of copious amounts of beer. So... until tomorrow amigos!