Amazing Guatemala

Hola!

Some people told me that I haven't updated my weblog for some time, so here I am again!!!

In the end I stayed a day longer in Tegucigalpa than I had planned to go on a 2day trip with my family. It was great to spend a little more quality time with them. We went to a national park called meambar to go hiking in the forest and swim at some waterfalls. After that we had a late but delicious lunch at a huge lake. We spent the night in Marcala, where my sisters boyfriend lives. The next day he took us to coffee and orangeplantations and he could explain a lot of things!!!

On Sunday morning I left incredibly early to Guatemala, without having slept all night.... I went straight to Antigua, an old colonial town close to the capital and full of tourists and language schools. I didn't think I was going to like it very much, since I tend to avoid the places that are too touristy, but it was great! The town is beautiful, very relaxed, and so are the tourists. It is so different from other tourist places such as Costa Rica. I met a lot of people who were staying in Guatemala for a very long time and I can see why!!! From Antigua I went on another volcano tour to see lava and it was absloutely incredible!! It was a bit of a hike (which was good, beacuse I've been a bit lazy lately), but it was so worth it, walking over the dry lava streams but real lava still running through the holes. People were roasting marshmellows and lighting there cigarettes with it! And we could actually see it move, wow! I also walked a lot in town, exploring small patios, a lovely convent with an inner garden, a very curious market and a lot more!

From here I went to Lago de Atitlan, a huge lake located between a couple of volcanos with a lot of small towns around the lake. I went to San Pedro, which is a real hippie town where people stay for weeks to learn spanish, do massage courses, meditate or just party every day! It was a very cool place, but I already felt a bit of stress that I'm going home soon, so I didn't stay very long (even though I would have loved to do the massage course, but I'll come back!!). I did go to another small village, though, San Marcos, which was adorable, but there was not much to do.

I took a direct shuttle to Lanquin, a place that a Canadian couple I met in Costa Rica had recommended. It was a long drive so I was glad when we finally arrived at the hostel. They only had hammocks available which I didn't mind, but it was so cold that the next day I moved to a nice dorm in a cute cabin. The hostel was great, very spacious, lots of cabins, unfortunately lots of spiders (I have seen some nasty bites), next to a river to go swimming and a great bar with swings as seats. The whole day I relaxed in the sun, and in the river, untill I went for a walk in town with some people I had met. The mountains are amazing!! In the afternoon I went with Canadian Jennifer on a cavetour, only us two. It was pretty cool to see, but the highlight was around 6, when it got dark and when thousands of bats flew out of the cave, right next to us, soooo cool! At night we spent a long time at the bar, enjoying happy hour... and a lot of drinks after happy hour... They were looking for a person to work in this bar for 2 months, which was really tempting.... but I'll come back!!

The next day I was pretty tired to go on the Semuc Champey tour, but as soon as we left I forgot all about being tired and having stomach pains. The road went through amazing mountain views, covered in a layer of green forest. Difficult to explain why it was so different from other mountains and forests, but I couldn't believe my eyes! In the morning we went caving, we only wore our bathing suits and some old shoes and they gave each of us a candle. The whole tour was wading and swimming in the cave, it was so incredible, and so dark. I felt completely happy, it was so exciting and fun. Something like this would never have been allowed in Europe. After lunch we went to the Semuc Champey natural park, absolutely gorgeous with a cristalclear river running through a valley between the mountains. Some terraces in the river have created natural pools, which were absolute paradise, so warm, so clear and incredibly beautiful!

After this very highlight of my trip, I went to Flores. In the shuttle I met Rob, an English/Canadian guy who I had already run into a couple of times in Guatemala. We went to the same hostel together wher they didn't have dorms anymore, but they let us stay on a matrass on a wooden roof. We thought it was really funny and it was even better when 3 girls were also located on this roof. We had such a good time together, swimming in the lake, drinking beers and talking about our treehouse. The next day the girls left and after a walk in town, Rob and I took a bus to Tikal, where the Maya ruins are. If you buy your ticket after 4pm it is also valid for the next day, so that is what we did. In the afternoon we already had a bit of an impression of the ruins, hidden in dense rainforest full of monkeys and birds with strange sounds, and unfortunately also a lot of mosquitos who loved sucking my blood. The next morning we had to get up and leave our rented tent to enter the park at 5am. We walked to one of the hight temples to see the sunrise and experience the forest waking up. The sounds were so amazing, it made me feel like a tiny tiny important person on this planet. That feeling became even more intense when I started to see the forest from above and the dark silhouettes of the temples rising out from the forest. After that clouds took over and we couldn't see more of the sunrise, but only the beginning was already worth getting up so early and face the morning cold. The rest of the morning we enjoyed strolling around the forest and the ruins, hanging around a lot, since we were very tired, and absorbing the atmosphere and the surroundings.

On the way back to Flores that afternoon we decided to stay a day longer to go kayaking, swimming and shopping, but unfortunately the next day my money was stolen out of my locker with a memory stick of my camera (I'm sorry Dailos......it was your present....). Probably someone opened my bad quality padlock with another key and locked it again afterwards. As always there is a positive side, and that is that they didn't steel any of my bankcards or passport! But still, I didn't feel so happy anymore for the rest of the day and we spent quite some time going through papers, see what I was missing and going to the police (I needed the report for insurance), which was actually quite an experience!

Even though my last day in Guatemala was not the greatest, I still enjoyed it and I was extremely sad leaving this amazing country and going to Mexico. I know I will definitely come back to stay longer in Guatemala, a country that impressed me so much.

In two weeks I will be home already, I will write one more time before that!

xxx Selinde