Goodbye’s, Zip Lines and Dance Class

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Today I let myself sleep in for a little bit longer and woke up at 5:30am to pack up all of my things; I got myself ready –skipping the possibly frigid but probably scalding hot shower and hung out in the living room/dining room asking Mama if she needed any help, and as usual she said no. I was getting my camera ready to take pictures of the house and some of outside when Mama gave me the sweetest gift ever; a traditional baby carrier and a gorgeous scarf. I felt so loved and was sad already that I had to say goodbye that I started to full on cry; I tried to hold it together but it just didn’t work. Once I pulled myself together Mama made breakfast and I took pictures. Alejandro and Isabel came in and out of their room every so often but they wanted to rest more because it was Saturday and they didn’t have school. For breakfast Mama made what seemed like a breakfast taco which consisted of a tortilla tomato sauce on top of tortilla and a hard-boiled egg on top of it all accompanied, of course, with coffee. The breakfast tacos were really good, and so was the coffee. About halfway through breakfast Mama told us that it wasn’t actually coffee but a sort of hot drink that they made out of taking tortillas and burning them until black, then submerging them into hot water and that’s what makes the drink look like coffee. That was the best burnt tortillas I have tasted in my life. Once we were all done breakfast Mama brought out the sweet bread that I had bought the night before, even though it upset my stomach with all the butter and sugar mine had in it, it was so delicious!! We were supposed to meet everyone at the usual spot at 7; so I figured we’d have to leave a few minutes earlier because we had all our baggage. Mama told us that one of the parents from another homestay family was going to come get us, thank goodness because I wasn’t quite sure how we’d lug all of our bags through the cobblestone streets. Because we had extra time we got to take some more pictures and have more time before leaving them. It was 7:22am before we really noticed that we were late! Mama hopped on their motor scooter and went to the neighbours to check out why they hadn’t left yet. Once she came back she said it was because another family was supposed to go with them but they never showed up. I thought Mama and everyone else was going to come with us and say goodbye in the park, however, I was wrong; we had to say goodbye before getting into the car and driving to meet up with the group. I was incredibly sad that I couldn’t say much before I would start crying again; we exchanged addresses and emails so we could stay in touch. Once we got to the park, everyone was already packed up and on the bus, they were so packed up that we had to bring all of our bags with us on the bus because there was no room for them on top. We had about an hour or so ride to Antigua to our next hotel. The bus ride went by fairly fast as I took in the last sights of Parramos and the beginning sights of Antigua. Before I knew it we were at our next hotel and getting ready to unload our baggage. We weren’t actually checking into our rooms yet, we were just putting our baggage into a room before we headed out to our next activity: zip lining! I was both nervous and excited…mostly nervous. We had to go to this other extremely fancy hotel which is where we caught the shuttle that went up the steep road to where we would be zip lining. It took a while to get all of us up there because the shuttle only held 12 people, and it was not exactly a short ride up. Once we got the group together Danny (VIDA coordinator and leader) and Xinia (another VIDA coordinator and leader) talked to us a little bit about what was going to happen and then we went to get our gear! I could feel my hands getting clammy as I saw everyone ahead of me get their gear on and head to the top of the structure where the first zip line awaited us. Finally it was my turn and I was outfitted with a harness, helmet, and gloves and headed up the stairs to the top. The harness was extremely uncomfortable to walk in… I felt like I was walking as if I had just gotten of a horse after a long ride. It took a while once we were all on the roof of this structure to get an instructor to come help us; once we got the instructor we were on a roll! I was the fourth one to go; I just wanted to get it over with! I was extremely scared –what if the cable broke?! But I did it and –gasp –actually had fun! The next 8 zip lines couldn’t come fast enough. I would definitely do that again! Once we were done the zip line course we had to wait for the second group to be done before we were able to head back down to town. The zip line course was part of the hotel where we first caught the shuttle and had a second part of the hotel at the top of the hill near the zip line. While we hung out in the sun we were able to enjoy the wifi and I got to talk to my mom and friends back home; I’ll admit that as much as I loved being able to talk to my mom and friends I loved not having wifi. The second group finished just in time as the rest of us were growing with hunger. I managed to be on the first shuttle going down into town and went with some of the others to grab pizza at this restaurant that they had passed by earlier. The pizza was so good, and the horchata was delicious! It was well worth my 45 quetzales. We stopped by a pharmacy for one of the other girls, and then tried to navigate our way back to the hotel. It took a while but we finally made it back to the hotel; we were supposed to all meet at the hotel at 2:30 and it was just past 2:30 so when we made it to the hotel and no one was there we freaked out a little bit. I asked the lady that was working there if the rest of the group had come by and she said a few had, but Danny hadn’t yet. We were all so confused but we eventually figured it out. Apparently there were three parts to the hotel, the main part where we had left our bags, another building on a separate street that was for the girls, and yet another building on a separate street for the guys. This would have been vital information to know before we got there. Nonetheless we figured it out and got our bags and took it over to the hotel where we’d be staying. Brandy and Megan, with whom I had stayed in Parramos, and I decided to room together again while in Antigua. As soon as we got our stuff into the room I was definitely ready to get back out on the street and check the city out! Finding people to go with was the next problem; people had wanted to go out but said they were going out ‘in a few’ which wasn’t helpful as I wanted to head out asap. Finally I found some people that were heading out so I was able to tag along with them; they wanted to go to a café but on our way there we passed by an internet café so I ducked in there to take care of some school business while everyone else went ahead to the café. About 20 minutes later another group of volunteers passed by and stopped in to say hi, they were on their way to the convenience store and asked if I wanted to go along. I paid my 4 queztales and we went on our way. Because tonight was our ‘free night’ some of the volunteers wanted to pick up alcohol before we had to go back to the hotel for our dance class. We went from store to store looking for the kind of alcohol that the volunteers were looking for. We headed back to our hotels to change before meeting at the main hotel for our dance class. There were so many of us trying to cram into the area where we were having the dance class that we were bumping into each other with each step. It was super fun though and watching some of the guys dance was good entertainment. Once the dance class was over all of us went out to the bars and have some fun. The first bar we went to was called Mono Loco, it was super packed but there was no dancing; I wasn’t drinking at all so I didn’t have a ton of fun at the first place. Everyone else was a couple drinks in when everyone was moving to the second place, a nightclub just down the street. This place was more my pace; it had a bar for everyone who was drinking but it also had good music and a dance floor. I enjoyed dancing and having fun then all of a sudden I was being told that we were all leaving to go to the next place. Truth be told, I was kind of annoyed. Everyone seemed to be having a great time at this place and to tell everyone to head to the next place ticked me off but I went because I had no other choice. The next nightclub we went to was right next door to the place we were just at, as soon as we walked in it was completely empty. After a few minutes at this place I was ready to head back to the hotel; I was beyond tired and there was no dancing going on which can usually get me through the night even if I’m tired. Jacqueline and Shannon headed back to the hotel with me, though trying to get back to the hotel proved to be harder than we thought. Our way to the clubs from the hotel seemed like a really easy route, we only made two turns! Apparently that was two turns too many because we got lost on our way back. Eventually we did find our way to the hotel however, and I was able to take a shower before my roommates got home. When Brandy and Megan got back we stayed up for a little bit and talked; it was really funny because Megan was on the very tipsy side and was talking about all sorts of random topics. Ready for sleep!

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