So this past week was easter break here in Guatemala, which meant there was no school (again). So my site mate, two other PCV's that live about an hour N.E. of us, and myself decided we would take an adventure into Alta Verapaz to a place called Semuc Champey. It is about 2 hours north of Coban (the capital of Alta) because about an hour outside of coban the road turns to gravel and winds down into the valley below. We took a micro that had assigned seats, but if you know anything about the micros in latin america that does not mean it will be comfortable! there were 5 of us crammed into the very back seat for the 2 hour ride, the whole time the micro is getting fuller and fuller of people and i just keep thinking to myself...how are we going to get out of here? really? well we ended up climbing out the back window! haha it was crazy!
The Hostel we stayed at was soooo cool! its called El Retiro and if you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it! (it does draw a young crown though) they put a lot of time into decorating the place and the bathrooms have all this mosaic tile and paintings all over them, even the sinks are decorated! the food there was ah-mazing! each night they do a themed buffet and after recently switching over to the veggie side of life, i was a little apprehensive of the fact that i had to pay Q45 a night (which is a lot on a pcv's salary!) but wow, there was so much delicious veggies and sides, i think i had the equivalent of a thanksgiving dinner every night!
Thursday we went to the Semuc Champey pools, which are these natural formed pools over a limestone land bridge. Because of the limestone the water in these pools are turquoise blue and are absolutely breath taking. we decided to do the hike to the top of a mountain so you can see the overview of all the pools first. The sign said it was difficult, but good lord, i think that might have been the hardest hike i have done in a while. it was straight up the mountain and it was so slippery because of all the wet leaves from the rain forest. it felt like it took forever to get to the top, but the view was so breathtakingly beautiful, the pools looked like they were glowing! i have honestly never seen anything like it! when we came back down (which also took a long time, there were a lot of steps, that were definitely made for a 6 foot man! my legs were so sore hahaha!) Natalie (the PCV that lives about an hour away from me in baja) and i found a pool with a lot of waterfalls and not many people and it was so peaceful. there was so much natural noise there, it felt really cool to be connected to it all! Everything was just so peaceful! After that we went to a rope swing, we all thought it was going to be something you held onto and jumped into the river with, but we were all wrong! it was an actual swing that you sat on and then jumped off of when it was at the height of its swing! i didn't want to pay Q10 to do it, so i had the responsibility of taking pictures and cheering people on! Everything was going great until natalie's second jump, she jumped off wrong and ended up flopping on her side. She had a hard time getting out of the river, which was really scary, and is now sporting a huge bruise that goes all the way from her shoulder to her knee! talk about extreme sports!
Friday we decided to see some of the caves in the region. from the description in a brochure and lonely planet, we would be going on a "candle lit tour, with a professionally trained tour guide". In my mind i thought we would be walking through big caverns, that had candles places strategically throughout so that one could see all the neat parts of the cave. well i thought wrong. The "candle lit" part of the tour was a thin candle that the guide lit before entering the cave. there were no flashlights, there were no other candles. we ended up on a tour with a rather large guatemalan family and we were all equally surprised to find that instead of walking along pathways, we were swimming through a river under ground. after the first slippery ladder i climb i was already thinking, this is more than i bargained for! but we pressed on and the cave was actually really neat, i wish i could have seen more of it, but it was a cool experience. well, we get to the end of the tour where you can jump off a ledge into the water. the family all wants to do it, so we wait for them, meanwhile our candles are starting to burn lower and lower. One of the women from the family starts saying that we need to keep walking to get to the exit, but our guide keeps telling her that the only exit of the cave was the one we entered through. she continued to argue with him because she wanted to see more of the caves, but there was no way that we could continue on because all of our candles were about to go out. at this point i am on the verge of a panic attack, natalie who grew up with a colombian family and is fluent in spanish is trying to take charge of the situation. finally after what seemed to be 30 min. the family finally agreed that we should turn back and get out of the cave, it was ridiculous. we made it very quickly through the cave on the way out, what seemed to be like miles, turned out to only be 30 min. it was absolutely loco and not something i plan on repeating when i return!
that night we took it easy and went to bed early. this morning we caught a ride home with the shuttle and i am safe and sound back in my site, with some sort of stomach bug....i am hoping this turns out to be nothing because the coming week is going to be a busy one! the teachers have finally ended striking so we can start working on monday! which although having a month of vacation was incredibly nice, it will also be nice to start to get to know the people we will be working with and start forming more relationships in site. Also i get to move into my room on monday so i will finallllyyy be out of this hotel! the rains officially moved in today which puts moving time on a schedule, but i am excited non the less!
well that's all for now, i think i am going to drink some more gatorade and call it a night. tune in for more crazy guatemalan adventures!
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