One Jungle of Coffee, A few Limestone Pools, A little Giardia and A Huge Ancient City...

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Ok so it has been a while... last time you heard i had just arrived in Cobán...and much has happened since. The following day we spent the day in Cobán. We visited a coffee plantation where our guide spoke english, a super funny old woman who pointed out the different kinds of coffee, bananas, spices, and other fruits growing on the plantation. We saw the whole process of making and roasting coffee, got to eat a ripe little red coffee seed, which was sweet and tased nothing like coffee, and drank some Super fresh coffee. It was the most flavorful cup of coffee i'd ever had. The bag of coffee i bought has since been the Only wonderful smell coming from my backpack every time i open it! We also walked up a bunch of stairs to a church were we could look at all of Cobán. We went around the back neaar some super old graves to find a path/road that covered in beautiful foliage that lead up to a special education center...very strange. Behind this church we also found a soccer stadium where some guys were playing off to the side on a small cement 'field' i managed to join a circle of juggling...a highlight of the day. I'd been dying to find a little pick up game... and that was about as close as i'd come. We then left Cobán for Semuc Champey those pools that i didn't know much about. When we got there we didn't know what exactly to expect but what we found was amazing. We found a HUGE full force white water river coming from this mountain...where it flowed UNDER a limestone mass which has become a sort of bridge. This limestone mass has water trickling down it from other little rivers from the mountain, and has created these shallow and deep pools, above the massive raging river. These two rivers cross eachother over and under a bridge. The system of little pools are clear and blue and beautiful. I followed a bunch of people after watching for a while up a side of the clifflike walls surrounding the pools and jumped into the pools below! It was so fun! Then we folllowed this crazy trail in the rain to the Mirador where we found an amazing view of all the pools, and because we did the super slippery walk in the rain we got the view of the pools with NO ONE in them. It was such a breathtaking sight. We spent the night at a nearby hotel that took us up there as well, this is where we met Squirl whose real name is eric. From Semuc Champey we saw the Final game of the Cup, with a few french people, in Lanquin. After that we saw a huge cave and headed back to Cobán to spend the night. We planned to move onto Flores and Tikal the following day...but at about 530am i realized that wasn't quite going to happen. Instead we spent another day in Cobán drinking water i was loosing to what i think was a little Giardia. We dropped-in at the hospital where after a few questions i had a perscription that had the majority of my issues including burping rotten eggs cleared up. After the extra day we saaw Squirl again at our hotel where he was supposed to be leaving for Xela during his vacation time, Squirl as we called him for his small squirly stature cooks at the hotel we stayed at in semuc champey. Then we left Cobán for Flores where we went to El Remate to spend the night. This is where we saww squirl Again! We spent the night in La Casa Roja in El Remate, this small looking but huge place with individual llittle huts, and screaming monkeys in the morning. everywhere else we've found barking dogs and roosters in the morning, but in the mornings of this Jungle it was Screaming Monkeys that we heard! I think i didn't stop sweating for those whole days even right after we jumped in the lake across the street from the hotel. We also found another girl we'd been to semuc champey with at our hotel. So then we went to the ancient Mayan City of Tikal, with Kate and Squirl the cook. We were now sort of traveling with our cook, as the four of us wandered through climbed up an marveled at the ancient city together. It was a really good time. Those pyramids poking out of the top of the jungle couldn't be more mystifying and impressive. We heard a bunch of screaming monkeys in Tikal also, squirl said it sounded like a puma or big cat but the workers just said monkeys. They sounded scary to me! After Tikal we spent another night in El Remate but we convinced Squirl who eagerly agreed to cook dinner for all of us. We went to a little store got some vegetables, and pasta and he whipped up a meal. Traveling with this cook, and he made us dinner it was strange. He reallly ended up in the same place as us because he had been looking for Kate who he was thinking he'd meet there, to her surprise. Nothing came of that other than surprise and an interesting story. From Tikal Squirl came along to the Rio Dulce by a bus, where we parted ways and he went to visit some friends in El Estor. We took a boat to Livingston this strange little town only reachable by boat. It's the only place of it's kind in Guatemala, a black carribean town also inhabited by the same kind of guatemalans we've met everywhere else. i guess the rest of the country views this place with wide confused eyes. We'll be spending another night here or so maybe seeing an eco-reserve, then moving across to puerto barrios...the rest is a llittle unclear but includes some other ruins and it looks like...another country? Maybe a day in Honduras..! All is very well here accept that in these low jungle areas i don't think i've stopped sweating in about 6days...! We'll see what else we decide to do but interesting sights, people and consequental stories have not been scarce this far. Enjoy!

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