12-12-12

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Well 12-12-12 was spent on a bus for a long time driving on some crazy roads to Semuc Champey. It rained heavily for the first time since we left the states. We had a lot of really cool people on the bus with us. I say bus but it was actually just a large van. There was a woman named Elaina from the states who had lived in Guatemala and spoke fluint Spanish so we had are own personal translator for a bit. She was traveling with 3 friends who were natives, they were a fun bunch. There were 4 others from the states and a guy from the UK and a young girl from Germany. We had no idea that we would arrive at Semuc Champey after dark and had no reservations anywhere. It was raining and both my rain gear and lights were all packed up. It was a rush of people asking where we were staying. We decided to go where Elaina and several others from our bus were staying, they loaded up luggage into the back of a pick up truck then we jumped in. Thankfully my fleece was easy to get to so I threw that on and stood in the back with the luggage under a tarp. The road was so crazy, steep hills and rough terrane. As we went up a hill all of the luggage slid forward hitting me and another girl who was quite a twig. I wondered why we were the ones getting smashed by the luggage, surely the men should have been back there! We found out it was like an hour ride, ha ha what an adventure! Elaina and her friends were making Tarzan jokes in Spanish as they held onto a bar in the back of the truck not under a tarp. It looked like so much fun we all scooted to the back of the truck and held on for dear life. By then it had stopped raining and you could see lightening bugs. It was actually pretty fun although I wasn't at all prepared for such a ride to the lodge. El Portal I believe was the name of the place we stayed. We had our own room which was kind of like a cabin duplex. We shared bathrooms with many and there was a common area where you could eat, play games like jenga or dance. It was like a resort in the woods however there was only electricity from 6-10 pm. They had wifi but I think we got it to work exactly once. We saw a guy we had met on Cay Caulker and hung out with his group which was a collection of Europeans an Israeli and an Australian all of which met while traveling except the two girls from Holland. The historic 12-12-12- started out quite boring but ended with a bang!

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