Back in Civilization!!!

Hola!

Apologies for not being able to keep up with posts, but jungles aren't really conducive to wireless internet access :-p After almost a month in and out of jungles, we are finally on the last leg of our trip in the mountains of Chiapas at the city of San Cristobal de las Casas. Kiuic, back in early February was ....... interesting, and I have decided that there is no way that I could live at a field station for 30 years without any other human contact, the Lost Cities of the Jungle "tour" was truly remarkable! The Mayan cities we visited truly were in the jungles in the middle of absolute nowhere! Then, it was off to La Selva Lacandon, to live in the veritable stick huts for 4 days. There were mosquito nets around the bed, and while there was a door, the other half of the hut was completely open. We had some fun scaring some of the other people into thinking a tapir was attacking their hut in the middle of the night, but no real other mischief. Yesterday, we spent 8 hours on the bus - first to drop off Rebecca, our Mayan professor, at the bus station in Palenque, and then we were off to the winding roads up and over the mountains. I'm pretty sure that just about everyone passed out in an attempt to combat motion sickness. I have to give many many props to Cezar, our bus driver. He was able to get that bus into so many tight places, and make almost 90 degree left turns in the city. It was incredible. My homestay is very nice, and I have a 12 year old "brother" named Aaron and a 16 year old "sister" Cristina who are just too cute. Aaron almost NEVER stops talking and rambling, and Cristina is a little more soft spoken, but we had a very nice conversation on the way to school today. I was teaching her random English words, like how to say how old she is, hello, goodbye and how to say my name. (Btw, in Mexico, I am not KAtie ... I am Kah-ty (phoenetically at least)) I am always worried about how to tell people that I am vegan, but my host mother was perfectly fine with it. Lunch today was AMAZING - I had some fresh vegetables, rice and these incredible rolls that were roasted vegetables in some sort of seasoning. So needless to say, am very excited to see what else she has up her sleeve :-)

Right now, I am at the language institute, Instituto Jovel, using the wireless internet. Tomorrow we have a trip to the Tuxtla Zoo, our Tropical Bio final on Thursday, and then the official start of the Evolution course on Friday. Cannot believe how fast time has gone, and that in 23 days we will be on our way back to the States! Hope everything is going well with everyone, and cannot wait to come home and bombard you all with over 5 GB of photos!!! :-D

I'll try to be better about posting now, since we have wireless and civilization.