travel journal 4

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Hello again...
I know it hasn’t been that long since I last wrote but too many funny things have happened in the last few days and I don’t know when I will get a chance to write again.... so here goes.

When I last wrote, a bunch of us were trying to decide where to go for the weekend. The place we wanted to go, Semuc Champey, was reported sketchy because of the heavy rainfall. Well, when I got to the hostel I was headed to, I realized they had a direct tourist bus there. This seemed like a much safer way to get there than the public transport system I had planned on using. Figuring it would be a much safer journey, I decided to head out there. It was a long seven-hour trek but the last hour or so was a bumpy curvy dirt road down into this valley to a town called Lanquin. There is a hotel here called El Retiro and it is amazing and always booked but we wound up getting a couple of beds (I was traveling with my friend Dee). This place is amazing; it is set in this steep valley, emerald green and lush, right next to a river. Since it is at the bottom of the valley, it is fairly temperate.... finally. The place is a bunch of bungalows with palm thatched roofs, a standard for Guatemalan buildings, but its clean and comfortable. The next morning Dee and I were supposed to head out to the Semuc Champey pools. It is this huge river, which runs underground, but above the river, are these amazing, crystal blue-green pools of water, large enough to swim in and dive in and float and sunbathe in. We were excited, and our weekend was short.... a day of travel, a day visiting the pools, a day of travel back. Well on Saturday morning, Dee wakes up sick...again. She had fought off a really bad stomach bug last week but apparently it was still sticking around and causing trouble again. So we decided to play it easy and we made a trip into the tiny village, to a medical clinic to get some antibiotics for her. While we were there we realized it was a festival day. They had a small children’s parade during the afternoon, a carnival and market being set up...you couldn’t pay me enough money to ride one of their rides...practically held together with string. Well, we found out that later in the night, they were having their school election. This basically is their school beauty contest. There had been one in San Andres, where I am living, a week ago. They are so culturally interesting, that we decided to go.

So we spent the day relaxing, which we both really needed, and I started to feel a little back in balance, when we decided to float down the river. You can rent an inner tube and pay a truck to drop you off up river a little ways. The river is really high right now because of the rain but we were told it would be fine. The ride down was beautiful.... so tranquil and quiet. We had to dodge and maneuver through branches and logs but it was fairly easy.... until we wanted to get out. In front of our hotel, there is a rope you are supposed to grab onto. Well Dee missed it totally and kept floating down river until she caught hold of a branch, and some workers in the hotel had to jump through a barb wired fence, get neck deep in water, and save her. I grabbed hold of the rope but the current was so strong that my tube left me and I had to use every ounce of my strength to hold onto this rope while a wall of water blinded me. Somehow I used my body to direct the rope to shore and let go, swimming very panickedly before the current caught me again. Now my inner tube was headed down river so one of the workers took off in Dees tube to catch it, while the other guy was kind of freaked out for his friend...and I was feeling sick thinking this guy was going to get hurt saving my stupid inner tube. He turned up a few minutes later, soaked and annoyed, but no worse for the wear. What a wild time, you would think they would have more in the way of an emergency plan for that type of stuff.... ha ha, but then again, we ARE in Guatemala, where they dont so much use tools as ingenuity.


After getting cleaned up and having a good laugh, we headed out for dinner and some fair food. After awhile Dee had to head back because she wasn’t feeling well, but I decided to hang out and wait for the election. I had a couple of hours so I decided to hang out on the steps of the municipal building and write in my journal for a bit. Within thirty seconds, some little boy came up to me and started talking. Within ten more seconds, I was completely surrounded by little boys, all standing over me, asking me questions and pushing each other to make goofballs of themselves in front of me. They were hilarious. After a couple of minutes of pestering me, most of them ran away to play, but about four young boys and two teenagers stuck around, laying on the cement ground like it was carpet, and chatted with me and each other for about a half an hour. They were very entertaining; although they would often ask me questions in their Mayan language.... they for some reason kept forgetting to speak in Spanish. After about a half an hour, my butt was sore from sitting on the concrete and I was getting tired of answering or dodging their questions so I went to the elections.

These were held in a cement courtyard next to their old church, and are apparently used for sports because it had a basketball court outline on it. When I got there, the place was packed, but within a half hour, it was bulging at the seams, I was pressed like a sardine between two Mayan men and had a little baby who kept tugging my hair behind me. All the kids look at you like you are from outer space, its pretty funny. So, the program was like this.... a lot of talking, first in Mayan, then in Spanish, then the kids from the parade came out and did some dances, all exactly the same, all completely irreverent and unorganized, some more talking, maybe some praying, then some more dancing by the kids. Although the songs kept changing, the dances really seemed the same every time. After about an hour and a half of this the contestants were paraded out. There were a bunch of former queens who wore traditional type costumes and then the contestants came out one by one. First escorted by an incense bearer and candleholder, then they walk on their own, slightly dancing, to the stage. They all wore these dark navy skirts, that were similar to the traditional skirts that all the women and girls wear every day here, but these were darker and pleated differently. Then, they weren’t wearing shirts but had a white piece of cloth draped across their chests, which they held in place with both arms strategically placed. It was wild because they are so conservative, but these teenage girls were NOT wearing shirts. They first bow to the four cardinal directions, then dance to the music up to the stage, while an announcer talks about them and their family, and their family's representative animal or plant. After an hour of this I had to leave because the concrete hurt my butt again and it was getting late. It is so wild though because these girls were picked from their school to represent beauty, and they were all very pretty, especially in Mayan ways, but so completely different than our perception of beauty. It was really neat to watch actually.

Then this morning, Dee and I headed out to Semuc Champey. We have had to push our trip back a day which means missing out on a day of work...but somehow we are both ok with that. So we headed to the pools this morning on the back of a pickup truck and I finally realized that Guatemala is a beautiful, amazing place, it is so rich with beauty, wonder and culture. But it is not for the weak of body or mind; it is so hard to get anywhere. It felt originally like it was easy to get around, but the more hard rides I take in overcrowded cars/trucks/buses, the more I realize it takes a lot of patience and hard work to get around here. Well, we hiked in to these beautiful pools. They are so turquoise blue and clear and calm and cool. We walked and swam through them; probably four layers in total, to watch the water exit the earth at the bottom. Very neat. Then we went into these caves. I had swam in some caves a few weeks ago near Rio Dulce so I figured these would be no big deal.... wrong. This time, we swam with candles, had to get through some bats at the entrance and had to climb up a waterfall. Totally sketchy and I was often really scared I was going to slip and fall, or worse, encounter some scary dark cave monster. Ha ha, it was the scariest thing I have encountered down here. Say nothing about the crazy bus rides, sketchy towns and crocodile swimming, cave exploring with a candle is not something I plan to do again.

So now we are back and safe and hoping to catch a bus back to our town tomorrow. There is a problem with money that I am stressed about. I didn’t bring enough with me and I have to weasel something from the bus driver to allow me to stop in town so I can give him the money to pay for my hotel.... yeah, I just hope it works out ok.

Love you and miss you all, hope you had a great weekend too............Sarah

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