Alligators in Lanquin and Heat Injury

My senior year of high school included a very lengthy trip in which I planned to backpack with my uncle. These were the days in which you could visit Barnes and Noble and hunt for a travel agency in the classified to purchase an airline ticket. This method is still quite popular however in my high school days of working at Kroger I was able to save up enough money for a ticket and still have plenty of excess funds. Although, I had many layovers and ended up spending several days in airports due to my ticket being bottom of the barrel I arrived in Guatemala City in one piece.

Guatemala is a safe country when you use common sense much as your supposed to in cities like Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and areas of Missouri. My uncle and I were quite fond of using tourist friendly places only as a base to plan our backpacking adventures due to the necessity of maps, internet, and telephone services. However, both of us were quite fond of venturing to remote areas.

Chicken buses are a necessity for travel if you don't want to be targeted for robbery. Comically, wealthy Americans use shuttles that are marked "American Tourist" which is the equivalent of a bulls eye on a target.

Our bus rides ended us up in a place called Lanquin. It is in the north edge of the Central highlands of Guatemala. Both of us were used to heat in Arkansas however, nothing in which we expected compared to the heat in the jungles. Moronically, we both purchased small bungalows for the next few days to rest our feet. However, we were both enduring the hours of being so exhausted from the heat that we would slide in and out of consciousness. The saliva from my mouth would try and as I would awaken I would gasp, drink water, and find myself unconscious again. My traveling friend finally used his strength to interrupt my sleep cycles and led me to a small river.

The locals were playing in it and as we drank water we began to see them running towards dryland. We were both so exhausted that the feeling of cold water rushing against our bodies bypassed any defense mechanisms. The locals were pointing and shouting "caiman".... After, walking out of the river several minutes later and grabbing a towel he told me that was the Spanish world for alligator.

The moral of my traveling story is simple..... I compared the heat of an Arkansas summer to another location and made a mistake that could have been disastrous. Traveling in a carefree attitude is something one has to acquire however when it crosses the path of ignorance the journey can seem like cheaply made horror movie.