Tuesday, October 24, 2006

I'm going to be a TV star!

That's right. Guatemalan Television has a new image and it's called called Pablo! Well, not exactly, but I will be on TV tomorrow night on Guatemala's biggest TV station. I am staring in a TV show that airs on Wednesday night and this Wednesday is my debut! Well, that's not entirely true either. But I will be on TV! You see, it all happened on an adventure to the Mayan ruins of Tikal.....
After a 14 hour bus ride with many stops along the way, including awakening to some people authoritatively instructing us to get off the bus. I thought for sure that I was being mugged, but I was so tired that I didn't care! " Take the stuff, just make it fast so I can get back to sleep" was all I thought. Apparently they were fruit inspectors and only took some tangerines from a buddy. We arrived at the island town of Flores where life seemed absolutely dead---this due to the fact that we arrived at 6am and everyone was still slumbering. After finding a small hotel we jumped into a minibus for another hour or so to head up to Tikal.
Tikal is pretty much amazing. It is the massive Mayan ruins located in the northern jungles of Guatemala and is as humid as can be with all the heat to match it. Now when I say jungle, it's not like the jungle, it is the jungle. I realized this after seeing a bunch of toucans fly by, a ton of monkeys try to poop on me, and couple other creatures like Juan the tarantula and a snake we named Pablo. The pyramids are enormous and give quite a stunning view over the jungle canopy.
After tooling around on the pyramids and sweating about 14 gallons of sweat, we headed back to our island paradise of Flores for a nice cool and clean shower. It wasn't until we returned to Antigua that we discovered all the water used on the island was pumped strait out of the lake! No wonder why one of us got sick! But I'm getting off track. Back to TV....
So our final night there we went a restaurant on the water---literally on the water! It rested on top of two long docks tied together, and with a chill band playing in the background, it made quite the location. I enjoyed a glass of wine while gazing at the beautiful stars overheard and playing a card game. It was just about then when a bus pulled up and out jumped a trendy dressed woman and a TV crew. She asked us if we wanted to go to a party on a boat with free food and drinks while she filmed a scene for an upcoming show. We quickly agreed and headed to the boat. However, the "boat" was merely the end of the dock with a 15 horse motor strapped onto it! We all got on, they untied the dock, and gave it a shove. Immediately back half of the boat sunk about three feet plunging the motor entirely under water! After redistributing the weight, we continued on our entirely free, hour-long party boat touring around the lake as we simply kicked it for the cameras. Small dingys circled the boat with camera crews getting the 360 degree matrix shot while other cameras took care of the rest.
And that's how I became a Guatemalan star.....

2 comments:

Mariquita said...

Wow! You're famous! Is there any way you can get a hold of the show and get it to us?

Anonymous said...

haha i just had to read this again for the pleasure of taking a trip down memory lane :) i love the part.... "and that is how one of us got sick" lol. if only the jerks would of told us in the lonely planet!! next time i go to tikal-i'm not even going to brush my teeth! it's not worth the risk!