Suites 9 Puerto Morelos

Moved into an Ashram today - only 60 pesos a night including chanting, tai chi, meditation & yoga - first lesson 5.20am! - thought I might hang out a few days if I can stand the heat - no fans! - but more importantly no beer and no coffee!!!! It's only 15 mins walk to the town of Coatepec, the coffee capital of Veracruz, so I can get my daily fix! Day one & already met the guru & done 1 hour of yoga with him. Reduced program of ...

... m going to keep surfing and possibly host some day. I was hosted by a girl and her family and they accepted me like family. They only let people stay for a day so she said I could stay at her friends house the next day. Her friends house was nice and it had a pool. They ended up taking me out on the town and we had a good time.

... p** Taxi ins Museum. Es ist in d** Tat riesengroß, und beh**b**gt Funde d** Golfkueste von Mexiko, von denen viele einige tausend Jahre alt sind. Die tonnenschw**en riesigen Felskoepfe d** Olmeken sind besond**s faszini**end. Wir lassen uns einige Sachen von uns**em englischsprachigen Audioguide **kla**en und lesen dazu die spanischen Beschriftungen, so dass wir gleich etwas Spanisch ueben koennen. Wir sehen auch viele Funde aus El Tajin, ein** Ausgrabungsstaette weit** im Norden ...

Written from Jalcomulco, Mexico: A phone call was just received directly from Jordan at 19:35 our time. Joel is awake and recognizes his brother as well as other friends and family. He has little memory of the incident but is making jokes and talking about kayaking. One lung continues to labour but the doctors plan to take him out of the ICU tomorrow. The family will be sending us further updates as they come along.

Written from Esprit in Jalcomulco: 15:00hr We have had a particularly good but particularly long night hence the delayed update. Yesterday evening Joel's condition was trending very favorably and many of his vital signs and organ functions had drastically improved. Joel has displayed normal function of his heart, stomach, kidneys, liver, pancreas..... his lungs are drastically improving but remain laboured and potentially susceptible to infection. Although still ...

... cover along the length of the rapid. After this we continued on and made good time to the start of the Pescados section and continued through some of the bigger rapids on the Pescados.



To describe the events which happened next, I am going to use the official statement:



"At approximately 11:30am on November 18th, 2008 Joel, a student participating on the WILD program lost ...

So, after our hectic night with the ants we awoke early the next morning to hike up to Cotelamani - a large hill which sits in the middle of the convergence of 9 canyons and therefore a site of special spiritual importance locally. In ancient times, the dead were carried to the top and buried there with their possessions - a real honour considering that the hike is 1 hour up a steep and difficult path without a load ...

... trade and other essentials. The firstpart of the hike is up a winding footpath leading into the canyon. After a short walk amongst the mango trees, we came to some pools at the start of the steep canyon climb, where we stopped for a snack. To get up the canyonfrom here involved a little more effort. There were a lot of climbs up boulders and through cracks in between. There was a lot of bum pushing and arm pulling to get us all up, and Jim lent a new meaning to foot ...

... my huge fear of throwing myself of high things (crazy, eh?) had decided not to run it. Jim had other ideas and, during a morning shotgun shift on the bus (we all take turns in the fold up shotgun chair so that we can poke the driver and keep them awake), he set about persuading me. Jim is very good at getting people to do things and, by the end of the bus ride, I had half-heartedly agreed to run the falls. The second most scary experience in my life was getting to the falls ...

... phone and computer work arranging tour reservations etc. Will see....then he says I may not go home. Eder also took me to Mega where I picked up a few things for breakfast and lunch. Place is nice although Puerto Morelos was not where I thought it was!! Surprise for me. But nice place nonetheless. Clean and comfortable. Got the Internet set up so I'm in business now. Property manager had to come set it up for me. Nice people.