There are only a few occupied boats here. The smart people do "inland" trips, up to the mountains where it is cool, or go back "home". Mike was only back 3 weeks so we hadn't planned to do any exploring. However, our boat neighbor, Shang (Pat), took us in his boat up the lake. (We are located at the end of the Rio Dulce that empties into Lago Izabal--the Spanish used to group their treasure boats there until they had a big convoy and then they would sail out together, hoping for safety in numbers against the pirates.) Pat’s two daughters were visiting from Florida and so we took them up to the waterfalls off the lake called "Aguas Calientes" (Hot Waters) because--they are hot! They empty into a cold river that curves under and around them. It is about a 40-minute hike up to the falls, so we paid to go in a trailer hauled by a tractor--the 5 of us and 2 Cuban families who are living here in Guatemala.

We got to the falls and it was wonderful. The river and lake are too nasty to swim in--major algae bloom not to mention what everyone and every finca and ranchito dump into them. The hot falls mixing with the cold river in the middle of jungle was indescribably delicious! There was a "current" running through the river just at the falls so we could "body surf" and end up way down the river in front of a black sand beach. There were cutaways under the falls and you could swim under the shelf of rock and have the hot fall water splash around you but not on you. Of course I should have known better than let Mike go to a waterfall again.

The last time we went to one, in Malasia, he went over the top, stopping halfway over only because a 5" piece of granite penetrated just behind his elbow and held him there. THIS time, he decided to explore and saw the "launchero", the small boat driver who brought the Cubans over, lounging up against the backside of the falls, letting it cascade over him. He thought that looked fun and scrambled over some boulders and stepped into the water, thinking that there was a stepping stone or boulder there. He sank down/was sucked down to where only his face was out of the water, and that part was getting splashed by the hot falls water, before he found a foothold. Everyone started hollering and the launchero grabbed Mike by the arms (he was about Mike's size—200+ pounds). I was way down the other side of the river and had to swim against the current up to the rocks and climb over the boulders to get to him. We couldn't pull him out because his hips were stuck and we could only pull from the side opposit the falls. He kept trying to direct us to pull him from in front of him (he was facing away from the river), but we couldn'tbecause there was an incredible suction/current funneling there and apparently around and under his feet. Every time we tried to pull him out, we would only succeed in getting his head under the water and he couldn't breathe. We were yelling for anyone to get us rope or something, but the tractor people had just dropped us off and weren't due back for an hour.

Then an old Indian popped out of the woods with his machete. [I thought he was an angel--turns out his name is Santiago--Saint James!] First he shoved a couple of heavy pieces of wood at us and I tried to manuever them around to block the water off Mike's face and to try to give him something to hold on to or pull himself up with. Then he cut a vine that was about 3" wide and we wrapped that around Mike so that we were able to then hold that and not pulling his arms out of their sockets. A while later, the same old man showed up with a 3/8" rope and we wrapped that around Mike too. But we just couldn't get purchase to pull him out. An hour had gone by and I told him I just didn't know what else we could do. We had been yelling off and on for someone to go get the tractor guys or some men to help pull, but noone showed up.

I was holding the rope and vine behind Pat (who is tall and very thin) and leaned forward to try to block the water from hitting MIke in the face because he was starting to have trouble breathing. My foot got caught in the unbelievably strong current and I got sucked down, knocking down Pat. I remember feet and rope around me but I let go of the rope--or couldn't hold on against the force. My first thought was that I had killed Pat and his daughters would be mad at me. I had my eyes open and I could see light above me, but I was about 4-6' below the surface and could not get out of the suction to go up. It was almost a whole other underground river from the one on top, and I went through what seemed to be passages carved out of the boulders, spinning around on my butt. Just as I was thinking, "this is certainly not how I planned to drown while cruising", I popped up, facing towards the falls, about 200-300 feet down the river, in front of the black beach. One of the Cuban ladies was there and waved me over. I was stunned and didn't see Pat and thought for sure I had killed him. Then I saw him, still up by the falls! I felt better, and then thought maybe I had managed to knock Mike loose too. Then everyone turned and started gesturing for me to come back. I thought then that maybe Mike was dead and I guess I was still sort of shocky. I swam over to the beach to try and climb to the falls from there. Tthe Cuban women pushed a cup of Pepsi in my hand and I drank it, trying to climb, but then I realized I couldn't get there by land, so I walked back to the beach and got in the water to swim against the current back to the place where I could climb to the falls. Everyone started yelling and waving to me again, wondering why I was just swimming around while my husband was dying.

Apparently only Pat's daughters saw me go down--everyone else was concentrating on Mike, so they couldn't figure out what I was up to. I finally got up to the rocks and they said Mike wanted to say goodbye because he didn't think he could hang on much longer. I knelt down beside him and he told me how Pat had fallen and gone under him and popped up right behind him. He figured that maybe he would go ahead and try to let the suction pull him through, even though he wasn't sure he would fit (he weighs about 240 now). I told him I thought he could probably make it because I just did. Neither he nor Pat knew I had gone under the both of them! He had a blank look on his face and then I just said "Let go, I think you can make it because I knocked Pat down and I got sucked all the way down the river. "Where did you think I went?" He said he thought I just went off to think! So he kissed me goodbye and I had to fight to get some of the people to let go of the rope and vine--I realized if they got caught down low he would never be able to get up to the surface. He went down and said the suction pulled him down and slammed him on his knees into the riverbed and then sucked him forward and popped him out where Pat had come up. By then the current had pulled off his shoes, shorts, belt, and underwear and had worn holes into his shirt. But he was alive. He had rope burns under his armpits that looked like raw hamburger meat, one like that on his back and one on his thigh and miscellaneous other scrapes. Also, for days after, we picked out little pieces of rock that had ground into his skin. I had just one major "river rash" spot and bruise--across my butt! But that night I realized I must have bashed my whole left side because every time I rolled over on it to sleep I'd give an involuntary yell. Of course I couldn't sleep anyway, because every time Mike turned over (and he was sound asleep the minute he crawled into the berth) he would moan and groan or yell.

Afterward, we lit candles in every church we passed by, even in little market chapels. As they dried up, the large scrapes hurt him--but I kept reminding him that at least he was alive to feel pain. I would occasionally get mushy, thinking about what almost happened. Then I would smack him on the head and say "Don’t EVER do that again!" He replies,"That hurts!" and I remind him again to just be thankful he is alive to feel it. He is.

We have since found out that we were not the first to have had this problem at the waterfalls--not even the first cruisers. But the others had all been smaller or thinner and were pulled out by hand.