Teaching Yoga with Giardia -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from Cafe Kitsch (German Bakery) in Panajachel, Guatemala. It's Sunday morning and my one day off, so I'm splurging on a peanut butter cookie, a rather large cup of coffee and a friend date.

With my pupusa buddy.

Pupusa.

Pupusa.

....

Pupusa.

I've officially completed my first week of teaching at the Yoga Forest. And now that my intestines have somewhat calmed the hell down and I'm not spending a goodly portion of my time whimpering in the composting toilet, I've discovered something rather startling.

I really, really love it here. Like, a lot. Like, I've never been so happy before in a residential yoga environment. I've had three unfortunate experiences with yoga retreats, wherein making money was prioritized well above health, and spirituality is turned into a kind of tourism. At these retreat centers, we were never fed enough, facilities were lacking, and there was just a general vibe of scarcity due to all the penny pinching. And when guests and staff aren't even being fed properly, the complaining starts. And continues. And becomes the appetizer, main course and dessert of every conversation.

All that said, I really love the Yoga Forest. And so does everyone I met who's been there. The environment is laid-back and friendly. The grounds are breathtaking. Guests are fed three nutritious, enormous meals every day. There is coffee in the morning and an endless supply of tea.

There is also an endless supply of peanut butter.

Which is reason enough for me to love The Yoga Forest.

Each morning starts off with me heading down forty stone steps and taking a sharp right towards the composting toilet (it's a blessing when this trek only occurs in the morning and not all night). I spend a moment appreciating the view of Lake Atitlan from the toilet seat, cover my poo with  two scoops of sawdust and then wash my hands with ash.

It's truly amazing how quickly the human body/mind/thing can adapt to radically different situations.

It was less than three weeks ago that I was living with Cathy. Where I had my own bathroom with a shower and a magically deep tub... and this light that came on automatically whenever I entered the toilet area. And now I stumble down forty stairs with my headlamp to get to the toilet, cover my poo with sawdust and wash my hands with ash. 

Wow. 

Then I amble along a narrow ledge over to the Yoga Shalla. The first few times I walked this path, I experienced moments of brief panic looking down -- my mind going back to that one time I fell off the side of the road in San Jose del Pacifico. But I've since discovered that it's much more useful to be looking up when in places like this. Due to the prodigious amount of rain this area receives, mudslides aren't a rare occurrence. Whilst trotting to the shall this morning, a clump of hill dissolved right above me, plopping a rock the size of a football literally right in front of my toes.

Meditation starts at 6:15. There are a vast array of bells and Tibetan bowl things to clang on, and sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by choice that I just skip the intro music and go straight into, "and begin to focus on the sensation of your breath..." For the most part, my meditations are guided. But today I just led a mind dump (twenty minutes stream of consciousness writing) followed by a vipassana meditation.

After meditation, I lead whoever's had the willpower to rouse themselves from bed in a 90 minute vinyasa flow practice. Which is really where I come alive as a teacher (when I'm not dying of plague, that is). I've never practiced yoga in such an idyllic place before. The yoga shalla is constructed almost entirely out of bamboo, is located right next to a waterfall and has a view of the lake and volcanoes in the distance. So we practice to the sound of birds chirping, water pouring into the pool and then bubbling down the hillside in little brooks beside the shalla.

I told you it was idyllic.

Then we all gather around the outdoor kitchen table, join hands and bless the food with the meal chant. I don't quite have it memorized yet, but there's a lot of "Om," Brahma," and "Shanti" going on in there. I'll probably get it down pat the day before I leave.

Because I'm efficient like that.

But I approve of this chanting business. In fact, I'll probably create one of my own when I leave here. Except substitute ever other "Brahma" with "Bacon".

Because I'm obsessive like that.

Breakfast is always papaya, pineapple, oatmeal, bread, PEANUT BUTTER and honey. Eggs are thrown into the mix every now and then (lovingly donated by the several chickens who live in The Yoga Forest), and this morning we were all in rapture over some manner of plantain mash fried in coconut oil.

We wash our dishes with either ash or soap, give them a quick rinse in filtered water and then a dip in filtered water avec kombucha vinegar (to finish off all the nasty bacteria). Then the guests break out their books or guitars, and I grab a bowl and go off on my merry way to gather salad greens for lunch. I also sweep the yoga shalla, place new flowers  (offerings) on the altar and upload a photo or two to the Yoga Forest's instagram account.

In the afternoon, I either mosey down the hillside into San Marcos to Skype Boy, or I spend the entire time confined to my bed. All depending on how my intestines are treating me.

I teach the afternoon yin yoga class at four o'clock and usually follow it with an hour of acro yoga.

Again, all depending on how my intestines are treating me.

The best night for dinner at the Yoga Forest is Friday. Because Friday night is pizza night.

Enough said.

Friday night, the table of the outdoor kitchen positively brims, bursts, American Thanksgiving style with vegetables and cheese. The two Guatemalan women in charge of the kitchen toss out pizza crust after pizza crust with admirable alacrity (tossing out a couple gluten-free, here and there), and we slather them with pesto, tomato sauce, vegetables and cheese to our heart's content.

How we blend tomato sauce for pizza. Blender bike. Amazing. 

You wish you had a machete with which to cut your pizza...

However, regardless of how delicious and nutritious dinner may be (or how many machetes are used to slice the pizza), we always devolve into discussing chocolate and cheese.

(I may or may not be a major contributor to these conversations)

Then I walk back up the hill and go to bed. If I'm feeling extra energetic, I'll stay up until nine o'clock reading a book I borrowed from Erin, but usually I just curl up in my cabin bed and pass out.

That's on a good day.

I'm finishing this post from Shamballa, a cafe I'm visiting due to the probiotics on the menu. Probiotics I now need because of the antibiotics I'm now taking. Antibiotics I'm now taking because I've managed to pick up a nasty case of giardia.

The pupusas never happened. I finished my cup of coffee and my gluten-free peanut butter cookie and immediately started feeling acute pain all over my body. Gas bubbles bulging my belly, creeping into my ribcage, even working their way into my armpits. I ran to the toilet, desperate to release some of the painful gas.

And discovered that my two days of respite from explosive diarrhea were only that -- two days of respite.

SHIT. I thought I was done. God, I was so ready to be done. I thought everyone said I could only get this thing once -- why is it back? I DIDN'T INVITE IT BACK. 

So instead of drinking rum, practicing yoga and eating pupusas (which was the original plan), Erin treated me to a smoothie, took me to her home, made me tea, gave me grapefruit seed extract, let me take a hot shower and use a real toilet (I wept tears of bliss), and told me that the sulphur burps I'd been experiencing were a telltale sign of giardia.

Which is fun.

After helping me buy the correct antibiotics, Erin and I parted ways. I was feeling two hundred percent miserable (now with a fever and a raging headache) and still had a forty-five minute boat ride back to San Marcos (in the rain) and a twenty-five minute walk up a steep hill (in the rain) ahead of me.

I may or may not have cried a little.

I ended up curling into a pathetic little ball in the side of the boat, head buried in my red daybag and flinching every time the water from the lake splashed up into the boat.

How can such a beautiful place be so damn toxic? 

Cyanobacteria Lyngbya exists all over the world, but has reached toxic levels in Lake Atitlan due to the fact that not many (if any) if the towns along the lake deal with their sewage properly. Erin told me that at least half of Panajachel's sewage goes straight into the lake. And since Cyanobacteria Lyngbya feeds off of human waste, it's having an absolute party here in the mountains of Guatemala.

In 2010, the Minister of Environmental Health in Guatemala said, "There is evidence that a low percentage of cyanobacteria has produced a toxin that causes liver damage, diarrhea, skin problems and hepatic encephalopathy, among other diseases."

Delicious.

The woman sitting next to me on the bumpy boat asked if I was feeling okay.

"No. No, I'm not. I have giardia and feel terrible."

"Oh no... you know, I have a friend who sells some natural medicine that --"

"I just bought antibiotics, though..."

"Oh, well you better take those, then. And take good care of yourself. Eat lots of bananas. And don't drink water from cups that have cracks in them -- that's how you can get hepatitis."

This total stranger was so motherly and friendly that I burst into tears. I cried about how my birthday wish this year was for a solid poo. I cried about the distance from my room to the loo. I cried about how I've never been sick like this before whilst vagabonding and just had no idea what to do.

The kind lady listened and empathized. Told me that she'd had the same thing years back and nearly died from it -- went all the way down to eighty-nine pounds.

"I've already lost five," I moaned.

The kind lady ended up giving me a hundred quetzals (which I will use to buy probiotics to help out my gut after the antibiotics finish wreaking their havoc) and bought me a banana, giving me her phone number and asking me to please call her if I wasn't feeling better in the morning.

What a beautiful human being. 

The walk back to The Yoga Forest wrecked me. The pain must have shown all over my body, because a total stranger looked at me and said, "I hope your stomach feels better."

Sunday night can easily be ranked as one of the most painful nights of my life thus far. Headache turned into migraine. Fever intensified. Excruciating gas bubbles continued to burble and gurgle and send me rushing down the forty stairs and to the toilet with frustrating regularity.

In the pouring rain.

And I have to teach yoga in the morning... 

Monday morning's yoga class wasn't the most vigorous I've ever taught... but it went smoothly and I was actually feeling chipper enough (god bless Metronidazol) to eat some of the morning's papaya and pineapple.

I spent the rest of the morning resting. My gut felt better, but my whole body felt completely drained. Totally exhausted. Sapped of energy.

I'm still happy to be here, even though my insides are less than pleased. It's still a wonderful opportunity, I'm still connected with gorgeous human beings and I still get to see this every morning when I wake up --

Girl's just so over diarrhea. Thankfully, the antibiotics are helping and I'm feeling significantly better than I felt on Sunday (and currently suffering no side-effects from the antibiotics).

Also, the resident kitties at The Yoga Forest are venturing out of their home upstairs, to the absolute delight of all the guests.

So things are looking up for this lady.

Birthday Wishes -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from my twin-sized bed with coral sheets and a beige comforter. The walls are honey colored wood and I can see bits of green where the dwindling sunshine peeks through the cracks.

There are eight window panes. Most of which face one of the most beautiful lakes on which I've ever set eye. Even from my bed, I see blue volcanoes shrouded in puffy clouds and soft mist. Verdant leaves of tropical trees frame the volcanoes perfectly, and I heave a deep, contended sigh, thinking, My goodness, what a perfectly splendid place to be overcome with explosive diarrhea. 

I'm ill.

I'm tremendously ill.

I have never, up to this date, been overcome with explosive diarrhea whilst traveling. And I believe I haven't been nearly grateful enough for this unusual phenomenon.

But Lake Atitlan is a special place. Everyone gets sick here. Nary a soul is immune to its intestinal charms (exceedingly unpleasant bacteria). Everyone gets sick here one time. It's like the chicken pox of the lake.

A chicken pox that is exacerbated by the rainy season.

Which has just started.

Hence, all Atitlan's visitors must spend a few days in dire misery, desperately sprinting to the toilet every half hour or so, then sitting for a few minutes in incredulous wonderment as a veritable monsoon of not quite breakfast, not quite mint tea spurts from the behind. Those afflicted spend the time musing how in god's name the human body can continue to produce... stuff... with such great enthusiasm and seemingly without end.

I'm past the incredulous stage at this point. I've concluded that this infinite diarrhea is caused by one of two things.

A) my body is cannibalizing my gall bladder and sending it down the rollercoaster of enthusiastic death that is my intestines.

B) Magic.

We held a ceremony Sunday night, welcoming in the new moon with two hours of chanting and candle lighting. I enjoyed singing with a group for the first time in a long time, and felt all kinds of nostalgic over the years spent in choir and voice lessons.

I hope singing can become a part of my life again. Goodness, I miss that. 

To close the ceremony, we all lit candles to symbolize intentions for this new moon cycle, and then stuck them in the garden around the yoga shalla. As I lit my candle, a moth flew straight into the flame, fizzled a bit, and then fell into the pool of wax to die.

I stood stock still for a moment, stunned by the suicidal moth, and then went to plant my candle in the garden, trying not to read into the slightly foreboding omen.

I taught the restorative afternoon yoga class on Monday, did some acro with a few stragglers and then went down to dinner.

Guatemalan women carry these up a very steep mountain on their HEADS. They make me feel like such a pansy. All of them. 

The bicycle that works as a blender, a coffee grinder, and a maker of delicious peanut butter. 

Where we discussed my, ummm.... not Coloradan accent in great depth. When in such an international community, people are always asking where you're from. At the Yoga Forest right now, we boast residents from Sweden, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, England, Wales, America, Germany and probably a good half of Quebec. So this is how the conversation generally goes:

"Where are you from?"

"Colorado."

"Really? You don't sound like you're from Colorado. What's the accent?"

I always feel insecure about how my accent has evolved into something a bit Irish, a bit French, a bit German, a bit... umm... whatever else people can hear in my newfound placement and lilts.  I don't do it purposely -- it's just... well, comfortable for me. But I really thought about it on Monday night. And I believe that I started making the transition out of a Coloradan accent when I was sixteen. When I was in homeschool high school and studying Aristotle, I discovered that my mind wandered off far less when I read aloud. However, the next discovery happened to be that this activity hurt. I grew hoarse within a few minutes of swallowing my sound. So I imagined pushing it forward. I pushed the sound forward into my nose and out in front of my mouth.

And began to sound vaguely British. Evidence of this is found in the fact that when I volunteered at an English immersion program for Spaniards in 2011 -- well before I went to Ireland -- most of the Spaniards commented that out of all the Americans, I spoke like I had the smallest potato in my throat.

So as with most things in life, I've spent the last few years finding the things that suit me best. Including how I speak.

"I'm a linguist, and you sound German," said my shuttle mate on the way to Panajachel.

"I think you sound a little French," a woman commented at dinner on Monday.

"No, it's all Irish," another contradicted.

"I thought it could be because you're from a city so close to all the Mormons," was another (valid) conjecture.

"I have no idea what it is. But it's soothing," remarked an Australian.

And we spent the next half hour discussing the various accents and placements of all those around the table. I found myself wishing I hadn't deleted the entirety of David Allen Stern's Acting with Accents  instructional CDs from my computer.

It was during this lively conversation that I started getting the feeling that something was quite wrong with my belly. Quite wrong indeed. The cacophony of disgruntled rumblings and seismic shiftings in my intestines made me wonder if the next comment would be,

"Actually, you sound a bit natural-disasterish. Yes, I'm getting very distinctive lilts of earthquake. And perhaps mild flooding."

Side-note: I actually experienced my first seismic activity the other day. I was chatting with a German girl about the role of yoga in her life and noticed that the rafters of the building were having a spirited dance party, sans dancers.

"Was that an earthquake?"

"Yes, Late Atilan is on a fault line. There are many earthquakes here."

"Was that an earthquake?" asked Phillip, a Welsh chap living in the neighboring cabana.

"Yes, Lake Atitlan gets them all the time."

"Oh... well, I was just meditating on my root chakra and all of a sudden the earth started to move... hmmm...." and Phillip paused for a moment, pondering the meaning of this strange coincidence, and then moseyed back to his cabana and meditation.

I hardly slept a wink Monday night. Which isn't surprising, as I've suffered unwaveringly consistent insomnia since I landed in Guatemala City on the 8th of May. Perhaps it's because my body is adjusting to the dramatic change of climate, culture and scenery. Or perhaps I've grown a little too attached to the comfort of sleeping with Boy's arms around me.

Perhaps it's a bit of both.

But this was insomnia punctuated with excessively grumpy belly grumbles and mad rushes to the composting toilet -- forty steep, muddy steps down the mountain in the dark and then a wee bit off to the right. During one of the mad rushes, I slipped and jolted my neck out of place.

So it was with a throbbing neck and out of control intestines that I led my first vigorous yoga lesson at the Yoga Forest the next morning. As I get such an incredible high from teaching Vinyasa, the class went well and no one could deduce the tormented state of my gut... but then I went down for breakfast and proceeded to die a little.

Part of my duties as resident yoga teacher include making the salad for lunch. This is normally a perfectly pleasant activity and involves me wandering around raised beds, snipping off salad leaves and uprooting blushing radishes. However, nothing that included the word "movement" sounded remotely pleasant on Tuesday morning, so Hayley was empathetic enough to give me the morning off.

I was feeling ever so slightly better in the afternoon, so instead of resting, I very brashly decided to stumble 25 minutes down a mountain into town to talk to Boy.

Because even riotous intestines won't keep me away from a Skype date.

(I kind of love that guy)

I felt abysmally bad by the time I reached Circles Cafe, but a two and a half hour chat with Boy was worth it.

(I kind of love that guy)

However, the majority of our conversation was spent with me running in and out of the toilet. Pooping out peppermint tea in quantities that seemed vastly disproportionate to what was actually in my cup.

The walk back up the mountain broke me. I returned to my cabana (which is the highest on the lake) and promptly curled up into a bagel and started to cry.

I'm just... so... thirsty. The stomach pain isn't nearly as bad as the dehydration. The nausea... the headache... the fucking cotton mouth. Everything I drink goes straight through. 

I missed dinner that night. I wanted to try drinking some tea, but didn't have the energy or willpower to walk down the hill to the outdoor dining room. So I stayed alone in my cabana, holding mouthfuls of water without swallowing, just enjoying the feeling of moisture.

There is no way I can teach class tomorrow, I thought in a panic. Shit. I've only just arrived at the lake and I already can't do the work expected of me. Ach. This feels awful. 

So when my roommate came back from dinner, she contacted Hayley and asked if she'd be able to teach the morning class. Which she (with great understanding of my predicament) immediately agreed to. This is something wonderful about having an illness that everyone gets. The empathy and consideration I've experienced from the staff and guests at the Yoga Forest has been nothing short of marvelous. People are giving me medicine and hugs and understanding willie-nillie, left and right. And telling me not to worry, in a couple of days my intestines will return to normal.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I'l be 26.

My birthday last year was spent hiking to the top of a mountain in Croatia, drinking wine, eating chocolate and prodigious amounts of cheese.

This year?

My birthday wish is to a) talk to Boy and b) have a solid poo.

The Yoga Forest -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from a chocolate/coffee cafe in San Pedro, one of the larger villages situated on the banks of Lake Atitlan.

The sound of tuk-tuks honking and grumbling is eternal. The booming fireworks are intermittent. The  respite I have from the flies and mosquitoes is non-exisitant.

The last few days have been terribly confusing. I've felt out of place and lost and forgotten. The shuttle company supposed to take me from Antigua to Panajachel made a mistake with my booking and forgot about me entirely. I woke up early that morning (after spending the night practicing yoga with my host) and scampered into town at six-thirty to have a coffee and a quick Skype with Boy before I boarded my bus at eight o'clock.

I was supposed to meet the bus in front of Cafe Condesa. I arrived at 7:45 and waited. And waited. At 8:05, I walked into the cafe and presented my ticket to the barista and asked if she'd phone the company.

"no, no. Tarde."

Okay... it makes sense that they'd be late. This is Guatemala and it is only five after. 

At 8:15, I entered the cafe again.

"Please. Por favor," I pointed to the number of the company.

"No, no. Tarde."

It is Guatemala. Still. 

At 8:30, I began to consider that the bus had forgotten about me altogether. I wandered back into the cafe and bothered the flustered baristas again. A young girl finally took pity on me and called the bus company.

They had indeed forgotten about me altogether. However, they were able to book me a seat on the next bus they had leaving Antigua -- at 12:15.

Now with almost four hours to kill (whilst wearing Ellie, my monstrous backpack), I decided to wander back to the Jesus Cafe for a hot chocolate.

There are worse things in life. I'd just hoped to get to Panajachel earlier so that I'd have a chance to explore a bit. 

I wandered back to Central Park around 11:30 and ate a bag of mangos whilst chatting with a veritable herd of Americans volunteering with the Peace Corps. During the half hour I sat, a bird who'd eaten too much street food shat on me an impressive total of four times.

Not my day. 

I went back to Cafe Condesa to wait for my bus at 12:00.

12:15 passed.

Not again. Please, not again. 

12:20 passed.

Oof. Don't panic. They'll be here. 

12:25.

This IS Guatemala. Ten minutes late  doesn't mean they've forgotten you. However, this is Guatemala... they've probably forgotten me. 

So I went back to my new Peace Corps friends and asked them to make the phone call for me.

The bus arrived at 12:40. I was so grateful to have not been forgotten that the 25 minutes of tardiness hardly bothered me at all.

However, the serpentine road and hellish traffic bothered my stomach something fierce. I spent the entire three hours belching and pretending it wasn't me.

"Where are you going in Panajachel?" the shuttle driver asked.

"Mayan Traditions," I handed him a paper with the address my couchsurfing host had given me.

"Oh, are you going to work for Erin?" the colorfully dressed woman to my left asked.

"No, I'm couchsurfing with her. How do you know Erin?"

"She's my neighbor. My house is actually connected to hers. She's a lovely girl and has a beautiful home. You'll have a nice stay there."

"Wow, how serendipitous. The bus I was supposed to catch this morning forgot about me, and now I get to ride up to Panajachel next to the neighbor of my host."

The universe is weird like that. FYI.

I arrived in Panajachel at around four o'clock and my jaw immediately dropped into my chest. Not due to the glory of Lake Atitlan, but --

"What's the purpose of the man-skirt?" I asked in complete bewilderment.

"I have no idea."

"Did they just not want to be left out?"

"Maybe it's for extra protection?"

The whole of the shuttle's passengers gazed at the Guatemalan men in wonder, confused and dazzled by the spotted skirts worn over the top of traditional, colorful trousers.

The shuttle driver dropped me off on the main road near Mayan Traditions. As Erin was scheduled to work until five, one of her coworkers took me on a quick tour of the garden.

Where I may or may not have tasted every edible herb known to mankind.

View of Lake Atitlan from Mayan Traditions

The ubiquitous (and adorable. And annoying) tuk-tuk

 Erin led me back to her charming home (which costs about 300 dollars a month to rent. Split with a roommate. Bonkers cheap) 

and we took her dog (named "Sweet Potato) on a walk down to the beach.

That evening, Erin proved to be the goddess of couchsurfing, and guided her two guests (me and a rather egotistical biker from Colombia) through a deafening, dazzling thunderstorm to one of the best pupusa places in Panajachel.

Pupusa = thick corn tortilla filled with cheese and chicharron. Served with fermented cabbage and red chilies in vinegar.

I want this all the time. Not only because they're melty and crunchy and delicious, but because I get to say "pupusa." 

Pupusa. 

Pupusa. 

....

Pupusa. 

Erin and I stayed up late that night and had rare (for me) and needed (for me) girl time. We talked about our respective boys (she encouraged me to keep mine) and her life in Guatemala. We shared a brief yoga session the next morning and I then stumbled off to the dock, accompanied by the egotistical biker from Colombia.

I believe I will visit Erin every Sunday.

She will be my pupusa buddy.

Pupusa.

Pupusa.

...

PUPUSA.

 Forty-five minutes later, I arrived at the dock in San Marcos.

Tip to all travelers to Atitlan -- ask foreigners who've made their home around the lake what the proper price is for a boat ride to your destination. And then make sure to have exact change. Else you will be ripped off, guaranteed.

The walk to The Yoga Forest was long and steep. But it started off through alleys like this:

Which is definitely a wee bit magical. 

Once I left San Marcos (which didn't take very long), I followed the brightly painted flowers into the forest.

And felt like I was in a fairytale.

Huffing and heaving, I made it up the steep stone stairs and plopped Ellie down in the dining room area. Where about a dozen people seemed to be having some sort of permaculture presentation.

One person acknowledged me, said he hadn't been expecting me, and then left me alone. Sitting in the corner and awkwardly watching a presentation with a group of people who all seemed to know each other.

Oh dear... Did Hayley tell them that she'd asked me to arrive today? 

No one seemed to know much about my premature arrival, but I was still offered a bed in a lovely cabin with a yoga teacher from New York and a vivacious traveler from London.

I attended the yoga class taught by a guest at the Yoga Forest (all the teachers had gone off to a yoga retreat in a neighboring village) and then pined after pupusas during our vegetarian dinner. The meal was lovely... it's just... bacon.

I was in the process of devouring my last chunk of cauliflower when a blonde Scandinavian girl rushed into the dining room, wild eyed and short of breath.

"All my things are gone. They took everything. My laptop, my phone, my money, my passport -- it's all gone. You should all go to your rooms and make sure you have everything."

I literally jumped off of my bench and rushed through the dark jungle back to my cabin.

Just about everything I own is in there. Jesus Christ, what would I do if someone stole all my things? My passport... my laptop... my camera... my money... how would I get home? How would I get help? I don't... whoa. I don't even want to think about that. 

I breathed a massive sigh of relief upon entering the cabin and seeing Ellie just as I left her. One of my three roommates had skipped dinner and opted to read in the cabin instead.

God bless him.

I didn't leave the cabin again that night. I curled up in bed and read a Bill Bryson book Erin had lent me.

I've kept my valuables close all day. It's so disconcerting to be in such a peaceful place and feel so afraid.

Today is my last free day this week. I start teaching yoga and meditation tomorrow morning and will be bound to The Yoga Forest until next Sunday. Thus, two of my roomies and I went on an excursion to the village of San Pedro.

I enjoy the placement of the one-way sign

And as my Skype date with boy is due to start two minutes ago (he's always late), I'll end this post here.

Next time I write, I will probably be significantly more flexible, sore and gassy. From all the yoga, the stairs and the prodigious amount of beans in a vegetarian diet.