Cliff Jumping and Hippies

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This morning we started a little later than usual… well I was supposed to. I had my alarm set for 7 o’clock because we were leaving by 9:30am but I woke up at my usual 6:30am. After shaving my legs and trying to find a bathing suit I headed downstairs for breakfast. Breakfast was the usual beans, eggs, tortillas, tea and fruit; it was nice to be able to eat normally as my stomach was feeling much better this morning. After breakfast one of my roommates and I went for a quick walk around the street before heading back to the hotel to meet with everyone else. As per usual, we didn’t leave at exactly 9:30, c’mon now, we’re all running on Guatemalan time. We eventually made our way down to the lake and were lead on to this giant boat. The sun was shining and there was a slight breeze; today was going to be great! I had on my pants and tank top, with shorts and a long sleeve shirt in my bag just in case. Once we were done boarding the boat I changed into my shorts and applied sunscreen! I can officially say I have learned my lesson in the sunscreen and sunburn department… I feel like I should celebrate? We had a 40 minute boat ride over to where our first stop was going to be. I was incredibly excited because in our itinerary it said that we were going to go cliff jumping so I was nervous and excited at the same time; plus our entire ride over there reminded me of when I used to go to B.C. with the family each summer. When we were first on our way one of the VIDA coordinators told us that we should put on someone’s iPod; what’s a boat ride without music? Before we put on the music though, the captain went and grabbed the biggest speaker ever and put it right on deck. The tunes began to flow and the sun was out, but soon after began the battle of the songs. Everyone wanted to play their own music and it was extremely hard to find a song that everyone could agree on. After a while of going back and forth we all nonverbally agreed to stop changing the music and just let it be. As we pulled up to the cliff (which was actually a cliff that had a built-in wooden platform jutting out over the water) we blasted ‘Royals’ by Lorde and I don’t think there could have been a more perfect song for a more perfect moment. The boat went around to the loading dock so it could drop us off; all forty-some of us got off the boat and made our way to the cliffs. Well… that’s what I thought we were doing until myself and one other volunteer were about halfway to the cliffs when I looked behind me and saw no one… We decided to keep going because there was only one cliff and everyone was going to be there too at some point –at least that’s what we hoped –so we followed the signs to the cliff. As soon as we made it to the cliff panic started to set in, of course the guy took a look off the edge and just went for it. Yeah, I was not down for that. Slowly one by one everyone came to the cliff and began jumping, and of course hassling me because I wasn’t jumping. As each second went by my heart pounded more and more and my nerves were taking over. With every jump someone else asked me, ‘you still haven’t gone yet?!’ to which I replied ‘haha no’ I was laughing to hide my tears and to stop from possibly peeing myself. Towards the end one of the girls asked me if I had gone yet, once again I said no, heck no, not by myself. I should have stopped at heck no, but I just had to say ‘not by myself’; this was when she said, ‘okay well I’ll go with you’. Sweet jesus, can you say ‘Pressure’?!?!? I knew I had to jump off this stupid cliff, but at least now I would have some support. As we stood on the edge of the little wooden ledge jutting out over the water holding hands I began to freak out all over again. As she jumped off pulling my hand with her part of me jerked back on instinct but then I thought to myself ‘fuck it’; I knew that if I didn’t do this I would kick myself for not doing it. It was the longest 2 and a half seconds of my life; when two seconds had past and I still hadn’t hit the water I started freaking out, I’m pretty sure I said ‘oh shit’ out loud, and a split second after that I plunged into the water. I have to admit that I felt pretty amazing. We swam to the rocks and climbed up to the rest of the group; we grabbed our stuff and made our way back to the boat. We boated to San Pedro where we were going for lunch; the boat ride over was great, we caught some more sun (protected by sunscreen of course!) and enjoyed the warmth. When we pulled up to the dock at San Pedro it didn’t look like much; so far all I could see was the hill that led to the water. We split up into groups of three before piling into the tuk tuk’s (little taxi type motorcycle things?) that were at the bottom of the hill and zipped our way up to where the restaurant was. It was my first time in a tuk tuk here in Guatemala and damn, those things are scary; props to the driver though who has crazy skills maneuvering the vehicle around anything possible, without damage. It was becoming extremely clear who San Pedro catered to as soon as we entered the restaurant/hostel; this was a hippy’s/backpackers paradise. We spread out and sat down on these colorful pillows and relaxed a bit before our food came. The food portions in this place were decently big but the food itself was so filling; I could only get through about 1/3 of my meal before feeling like I was going to explode. About halfway through our meal I looked over to my left and Megan had completely passed out, it was too funny. Little did I know it was my turn next. As soon as I threw in the towel on my meal I caught the ‘itis’ and became insanely tired, in fact, just before I fell asleep I looked around and it appeared that everyone else had caught the ‘itis’ as well because 99% of the group had either fallen asleep already or was lying down. As soon as I laid down I was out for the count; next thing I know I’m waking up and I’m the only one in the restaurant and the group is just starting to walk back from the pool and it’s time to go. We all paid for our food and began our walk down the hill to the lake where the boat awaited us. Our boat ride back to Panajachel was a very cold one; the sun was dipping behind the clouds and the wind was picking up and there must have been a storm blowing in because there where white caps everywhere. We took some more pictures and enjoyed the soothing sounds of Bob Marley while we all attempted to stay warm. Once back at Panajachel we made a cold dash for the hotel, I needed a sweater asap! I changed into my warm clothes and then a few of us headed out to check out the shops. We walked around for a little bit to do some souvenir shopping before grabbing dinner. We hadn’t made it very far in our shopping adventure when all of a sudden a huge gust of wind blew and I kid you not, it felt like the shop shook and was about to fall over. It was crazy, all I could think as I gave an eye-popping-out-of-my-head look to my friend was, ‘holy crap, a hurricane is about to come and destroy this place’. The wind didn’t last very long, thankfully, so we finished up in the shop and made our way to the pupusa place once again and ordered food there. While we were waiting for our food I noticed that a woman and her daughter had come into the restaurant and were trying to sell their textile work. The girl made her way around the restaurant asking if anyone wanted to buy the bracelets they were selling and eventually made her way to our table, I said no to the bracelets instead asking her if she had eaten yet. As I was expecting she told me she hadn’t eaten (and I knew she probably wasn’t going to); I told her that as soon as my friend and I were done our meal I would meet her outside the restaurant to give her some money for food. She said ok and went back to her mom and they exchanged some words outside. I didn’t really notice anything until one of the other volunteers at another table pointed out to me that the mom left and the little girl was sitting outside the place by herself. I felt really bad so I called the girl over and gave her 20 queztales to buy herself some food. The other VIDA volunteers at the table next to us invited the little girl to sit down with them; they pooled some of their pupusas on an extra plate to give to her. This little girl mowed down the giant plateful, I felt terrible knowing that I couldn’t help them further and had no idea what would happen in the future. We ate our meal, paid and then headed out; as we left the restaurant I saw the mom right outside crouched down eating some food that her daughter had given her, the smile she gave us as we walked by was absolutely priceless and still brings tears to my eyes.

The wind started to pick up again on our walk back to the hotel; next thing we know the lights go out and everything is black. This goes without saying, but I’m scared shitless. The lights were down for about 30 seconds and came on again. We regained our calmness and continued on our way, walking a little faster, when we see the generator down the street burst and go up in sparks. The lights a few blocks down from us go out so we have to walk back in the semi-dark, which is still just as scary as walking in the dark because this time instead of not really seeing anything, you can just make out dark shadowy figures…



At last we made it to the hotel and not surprisingly the lights were out there too, the front desk had a couple candles lit to help with the situation. The candles at the front desk were only helpful until you tried to make it up the stairs, then you were on your own. By the way, trying to make it up 3 flights of stairs in the dark is not fun at all. The wind was still blowing furiously at this point, so furiously in fact that the ceiling tiles (the same ones that lined the ceiling throughout grade school) were getting moved around and every minute or so the entire ceiling, frame and all, would be blown upward as if it were about to be sucked up by the sky. This coupled with my knowledge of the rats in the ceiling led to the completely rational fear of rats dropping through the now-open ceiling tiles… It was going to be a sleepless night. Because of my fear of going to sleep I stayed in the lobby-type area of the third floor with a few other volunteers and some translators and doctors. At first we all start having general conversations, mostly surrounding the topic of this crazy wind storm, and then somewhere down the line someone gets the bright idea of telling ghost stories. Don’t ask me why I stuck around and didn’t just head to bed at this point because I really don’t know. At first the ghost stories were pretty basic and nothing too scary, then shit got real and it was downhill from there. We all eventually made our way to our rooms, I had to ask one of the girls to use her cellphone light because I didn’t have mine with me and my room was at the end of a small, dark hallway. Once I got into my room I was on my own; my two roommates were asleep and I was without light and couldn’t even find my way to my bed. I was literally frozen with fear. I stood frozen in the middle of the room and called out the name of one of my roommates until she woke up and passed me her cellphone so I could use the light to find my bed. I was so freaked out that I didn’t dare change into pjs. No, no, no. I slept in my clothes with the blankets pulled up over my ears. Don’t judge, if you were in my shoes you would do the same.

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