Feb 19 - Mar 4

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Hi everyone! We've been really slacking on the blogging, and I wanted to assure you all we're all still alive and having a great time.

We left Antigua the day after our last entry and headed for San Pedro on Lago de Atitlan, a huge beautiful lake surrounded by volcanoes. The next few days are a blur of volcano hiking, swimming, yoga, massage, tarot cards (there's quite the hippie town just across the lake), and a distinct rotten coffee bean smell.

Saturday afternoon we hopped on a bus to Guatemala City, where none of us really wanted to be, but we needed to pick up a battery charger and transfer to a new bus. Unfortunately all four of us got hit by an awful stomach bug and we were stuck there for 3 days recovering! When we finally felt well enough to travel, we headed North to Salama and the Biotopo del Quetzal, home of the national bird of Guatemala. It was a beautiful park with waterfalls and natural pools for swimming even though it did rain the whole time we were there. Next we headed to Coban, where the girls toured a coffee farm, and headed to a hostel in Lanquin. On friday we took a tour to Semuc Champey. We spent a few hours in the caves there, where we had to climb up and down ladders, and swim through passageways, all holding candles to light the way. After a quick lunch we headed to the pools. Basically Semuc Champey is a 300m long natural limestone bridge that sits on top of Rio Lanquin, and the spring water from the mountain forms swimmable stepped pools on top of the bridge. It was one of the most beautiful places we've ever seen; hard to even believe it was real!

The hostel was full of backpackers from around the world and a group of went tubing down another river in the rain the next day. That night we went to the huge Lanquin Caves. We explored a few hundred meters then headed back to the entrance to watch the bats. The caves go on for 30 Km and there is only one entrance, so at dusk thousands of bats fly out.

We headed to Tikal with a large group from the hostel, and got rooms together in El Retiro, one hour from the ruins. The next day we headed to Tikal for the sunrise tour. We hiked to the top of the tallest temple in the park where it was too foggy to see the sunrise, but we sat and "listened to the jungle wake up," with howler monkeys leading the chorus. Our tour guide was very entertaining and informative and we had a great day learning about all the buildings and the Mayan culture. Exausted after waking up at 4 AM, we swam and spent the evening hanging out around town.

We are making our way south and east to Rio Dulce, where we're catching a boat for a week long sail through the Belize islands. All of us are loving Guatemala and can't wait to see what's next.

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Comments

[Owain Bamforth]

Miss you guys.
Hey guys your trip sounds so awesome. I'm looking forward to your return when you can tell us all your awesome stories. I'm truly jealous. Keep on having fun!