We arrived in town at about 10:00 PM and after securing a hotel room (I got my own bed this time) headed out for a quick bite to eat. After dinner, we took a walk down by the Catemaco Lagoon (too dark to see much of anything) and then decided to return to the hotel to get an early night's sleep/there was a James Bond Marathon in English showing.
The next day we got up around 9 and headed through the Zocalo and down to the water in hopes of taking a boat tour around the lagoon.
We were able to find a guide and hopped in a boat with another family (turned out to be the Mexican Power Couple with dad as a lawyer, mom as a doctor, and I assume little Santiago seen here being groomed for a presidential run).
I have a ton of great pictures I want to show so I will try and stick to them and cut down on the yap this time. The lagoon is about 28 square miles with islands dispersed throughout and then completely surrounded by a ring of small mountains all covered in tropical vegetation.
Everything started off fairly normal. We visited a small shrine that was erected when the city was founded, got some background info on the history of Catemaco (translated compliments of one of our girls named Malin), and did some bird watching.
After this, things got crazy and our boat was boarded by a girl who wanted to sell us some therapeutic mud. Using our favorite slogan "Cuando en México" (When in Mexico) we all decided to give it a whirl.
Next up, a strange object from one of the island trees was placed in my hand (Dragon Fruit I believe) and we gave that a shot, not bad, a lot like a big white kiwi.
After snack time we spotted a crocodile cruising in the water and then stopped here where apparently the movie Curandero starring Sean Connery was filmed (has anyone heard of this movie?).
It turned out to be a rain forest and for a couple dollars we hopped out of the boat and were taken along a walking path by a guide. There were an assortment of things along said path
including this sauna where volcanic rocks are cooked in an oven and then placed in this hut and people sit for an hour or two to sweat it out (or at least that is what I think he said, Malin took a break from translating).
Overall I was a bit confused (but very impressed with the beauty and coolness) by this odd conglomeration of things. There were small huts and statues such as this jaguar god of fertility who supposedly was married to a beautiful princess (in this case I was the fertile/constipated jaguar and Malin the beautiful princess) all over the place as well as various other things to see and do.
Unable to wrap my mind around it, I decided it had to serve some bigger purpose and chose that purpose to be a wedding. As a result, I had a quick chat with the guide and he felt the best place to do that would be the theater area so upon arriving there I grabbed the closest human being (not picky based on the sleeping arrangements two nights prior) who happened to be Canada Jess and the group performed a beautiful ceremony.
After the vows, another strange statue was found which called for a macho shot
Then to cap it all off we took a shot out of the mineral water well in a palm frond which the guide guaranteed would offer us health and well being (combined with our newly mud moisturized faces we were just about ready to conquer the world at this point).
We hopped back on the boat for a trip to Monkey Island. This pretty much blew me away because as the Biology major and resident expert on all things scientific in a group of business students I had insisted there were no monkeys in Mexico but apparently a local university had done an experiment years before and they now inhabited two of the lagoon's islands. These creatures were fairly amazing, I mean talk about camouflage this photo appears to be of the monkey's sleeping face but actually is his dairy air (imagine the confusion for the predator).
These guys also had some extraordinary fruit catching abilities including this guy who made a full extension snow cone grab for this piece and still managed not to fall in the drink.
After monkey time we headed back to town for our meeting with professional nature tour man Felix.
He presented us with a menu of nature tours and after selecting the water fall circuit we piled into his jeep cherokee and rocked out to Led Zeppelin during the 30 minute drive.
On the way we picked up Royer and Juan Pablo from Guadalajara and together the 9 of us drove down an unbelievable dirt road into the mountains.
We arrived at our first waterfall and after a quick hike came upon this scene (a bit more charming if you can look beyond Juan Pablo in his skin tight boxer briefs).
There were two pools with the waterfall coming down into the top one then spilling over a series of rocks into a calmer pool. We were able to climb the rocks and swim as close to the cascade as possible, it was unbelievable the water pressure coming down from this thing.
After thoroughly exhausting ourselves (3 minutes of swimming and 15 of sitting and looking around, unbelievably beautiful, looked like something out of Jurassic Park with all the vegetation minus the velociraptors) we got out and headed for our next water fall.
This one was not nearly as impressive but did have a large rock formation with a deep pool below it which allowed for some incredibly coordinated jumps. It was tons of fun and again very beautiful and the perfect recap to an awesome day.
After this swim we hopped back in Felix's truck and headed back to town.
After a few minor/6 hours worth of set backs in the bus travel system we made it home. I was dropped off about 5 minutes from my house and went walking up the street just as my home stay mother was pulling out for work that morning at 7 AM. Though exhausted, I gave her a big smile and a thumbs up to conclude one of the best weekends of my life.
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