Jungle Adventure

Fife... simply walked off by himself, into the jungle to look at all the things which would continue to exist after he had ceased to. 

There were a lot of them. 

Fife looked at them all. 

They remained singularly unchanged by his scrutiny.

~ James Jones

One night we stayed in cabins (http://www.ecochiapas.com/lacanja) along a jungle river.   

The next day we took a guided walk through part of the Lancandon jungle.  Our guide pointed out the wild life (insects and butterflies) and plants and explained how his ancestors had used the various plants for survival.  

We hiked to this gorgeous, 25 foot waterfall:  

In the U.S., there would have been warnings posted everywhere, liability waivers to sign in blood, roped off areas, etc.  Here in Mexico, we were just told, "Enjoy!"

And so we did.  :)

In case you are wondering if it was a bad thing to do - to expose these kids to some luxuries of civilization such as nice hotels with air conditioning and running hot water and swimming pools - you can feel reassured to know that the jungle "lodge" (with a separate building holding community bathrooms) was the favorite place to stay for at least 2 of the kids and the waterfall was declared unanimously to be the best part of the whole trip!