Welcome to the Jungle!

We've got fun and games....

Went to the Jungle River Lodge which is located right on the Rio Cangrejal not far outside La Ceiba. Headed there Friday afternoon with Justin, another student from the Spanish school. He was going to go rafting. I was supposed to meet up with a girl named Laura who I had met on couchsurfing.com. She was going to be arriving a little later so we were going to go rafting on Saturday. As well, a guy named John from the Spanish school was also coming up Saturday morning. When I got there I decided to do the canopy zip line tour with a girl named Sam. We had Angel for a guide and had a great time zipping through the jungle. Definitely different safety standards than you would find elsewhere... on several of the lines, if you didn't go straight, you would end up hitting a tree. Fortunately that didn't happen. I did however get stuck on the last line. I didn't quite make it to the platform.. I misjudged how much I needed to brake so I got stuck out over the river. It was a great view!

When I got back from zip lining, Laura had arrived and it was time to hit the water. The lodge is set in the most stunning location... the river is full of huge rocks which make for great jumping! It took me a couple minutes to get the courage to do the big jump (about 20 feet) the first time, but after that it was pure fun.

Friday night at the Jungle Lodge was a whole lot of drinking and dancing. The owner makes some kind of alcohol nicknamed "Jungle Juice" which is full of various local herbs and stuff. Potent!!! After having a few shots of that, I went swimming with Queso, one of the rafting guides who ended up kissing me. Turns out he's only 17!! Things get a little crazy in the jungle...

After my wild Friday night I ended up sleeping in (first time this whole trip) until 9:30 and missed the morning rafting! Laura, John, and another guy from the Spanish school, Matthijs, all debated whether to wake me but decided not to. So I spent the morning just jumping off the rock and swimming. Then I went rafting in the afternoon with Sam and her friend who had shown up from Utila. The river isn't very high at the moment so we actually spent about an hour climbing and jumping off rocks going upriver before floating/swimming back down. There was one jump where you actually had to run off the end of the rock because it sloped down. It was quite freaky because once you started you had to go. The rafting was fun, but not too wild. I still somehow managed to be the only one to fall out! That was on the Spicy Chili rapid.

Matthijs and John ended up staying Saturday night so we had another good night of drinking. This time I stuck to just one shot of Jungle Juice though! Sunday was spent lazing around in the water and jumping off the rock before returning to La Ceiba to start the next adventure...