Sigua', Gracias, and La Union

When we arrived in Siguatepeque, we headed to Amy and Anna R’s flat and were greeted by a very homely looking flat covered in decorations and other such things (you could tell Amy had released her creative flare!). That night Eleanor, Anna D, Anna R and I headed out to explore Sigua (as we call it) and we managed to find a cinema showing the new Breaking Dawn film, so we all bought our tickets (for the equivalent of 70p) and all claimed to enjoy the incredibly cheesy film before we headed to the pizza place to order a family size. Whilst waiting for the pizza me and Eleanor made a gorgeous salad and garlic bread and that night we just chilled watching some hilariously crap tv on MTV. The next morning, when Ally arrived (after staying one more night at D&D to go on this bird tour that he wanted to do) we headed out to town to do some more exploring and coffee, before we headed to Amy and Anna’s school to see where they worked, this was great as we got to see how different all of our lives are, and how different all of our jobs are! It really felt like they had settled in well at their school and I have to say I am quite jealous! We also found (not at the school, but in town) a great little pet shop where we proceeded to buy a fish for Anna R as it was her bday coming up soon and Amy was going home, so we thought we would kill too birds with one stone and get her a present and a new room mate in one! After revealing the great present we headed out to a chinese restaurant where we all had a gigantic portion once again before basically crawling back to their flat to crash for the night!

The next day Amy and Anna R had to go to school to do some work so Eleanor, Anna D, Ally and I decided that we would go to the nearby town of Comayagua, a beautiful little colonial town with a gorgeous central square and surrounding streets. This day was spent in glorious sunshine as we walked around town sampling many different Coffee Granitas and buying a few little bits and pieces, before heading back to Siguatepeque for our last night with Amy and Anna R. That night we went to a great little local joint for dinner which was packed with Hondurans buying various different dishes, ranging from Baleadas, Tacos, or Carne Asada!

Next stop was another beautiful town of Gracias with Eleanor and Anna Diamond. Here we spent the night at a recommended hostel/hotel (was quite posh, and we realised more expensive than Eleanor had once thought!) due to Eleanor and Anna having stayed there before! The time in Gracias was much the same, doing lots of exploring and drinking coffee, whilst having the occasional Baleada (god I missed those whilst in Guatemala). In Gracias, we also witnessed an actual Wizards Duel as we were walking down the streets we saw two boys holding bin lids and ‘Roman Candle’ fireworks (these fireworks you hold in your hand as they shoot out little balls of light and sparks!). Much of the next few days was spent (mainly by me) hunting these roman candles down so that we could re-enact this wizards duel and generally make my life!! However, twas not to be as we were told that everywhere had stopped selling them due to New Years having just passed, maybe next time then! :(  However, we also did visit this great castle/fort which had a lovely view of Gracias down in the valley! Was a really pretty place visited with some really great people! I also managed to have a really long skype chat with one of my best friends, Georgina Cook (:D) which was lovely as everytime we had tried to skype before the signal had been crap, anywho, was great to hear about her goings on.

We also bumped into some other volunteers that live and work with Eleanor and Anna Diamond in La Union, who were heading back that same day as we were, so we agreed to meet the next morning and sort out what was happening with bus timetables e.t.c before we headed down into La Union along a very long and bumpy road, classic of Honduras!

In La Union, we managed to see all that La Union had to offer, including some great baleadas, a wonderful school and even a Wi-Fi Tree!! These few couple of days were great as we got to visit another project and see what their life is like! Their house was great, like a proper house, really comfortable (well as comfortable as no-sofas-and-only-hammocks could be, but their school was also amazing, we even managed to sit in on a few classes and watch the very strict Miss Gibson go to work. Was amazing seeing a Bi-Lingual School in action, seriously the level of english in the 3rd grade is better than that of our ninth grade! It really does make a difference out here! No jokes, Eleanor (Miss Gibson) was teaching a 5th Grade Spelling Class and she had to teach words like Physician, Appendicitis, Tonsillitis, and Physiotherapist! BLOODY HELL!! Really ... our kids wouldn’t even know what an appendix is! Was really amazing seeing some of these kids listen and understand a whole class spoken in English! 

I really have to thank all the other Hondies who showed us around their cities and let us crash in their houses, and I hope my food was good enough to pay my way (I made a thing of cooking dinner in whosever house it was that I was crashing in). It really was great seeing the way you all live and work and I cannot wait until you all get yo’ asses out to the main tourist attraction in Honduras ... our home!! (the main tourist attraction in Honduras isn’t our house ... TRUST me ... but the island in general!) So yeah ... hurry up!!

Till next time, 

Ciao! x

Hondie New Years!

We were now on our way back into Honduras, which was in fact a very long journey! We boarded the shuttle at like 4 in the morning, and it was a very packed shuttle! Luckily Ally got a seat, and well so did I, but due to me being sat next to a very large women (who was lovely) I had to spend the whole nigh on 7 hour journey with one cheek on the seat, and the other off! Was very uncomfortable to say the least! However, we soon reached Copan, and rushed around to find somewhere to withdraw some money and also to find a bus to San Pedro Sula. However, the only bus we could find was one bound for Tela (another 2 hours past San Pedro, and so they told us that we would then have to get a bus back into San Pedro to then go on to the lake! We were so not ready to do this that we then grabbed a tuc-tuc down to the Hedman Alas bus terminal (the most expensive bus company in Honduras ... seriously ... more expensive than MegaBus in Britain!) But luckily there was a bus leaving at 2 that day, so we payed that little bit extra and had a couple of hours to kill before our lovely air conditioned bus ride to San Pedro.

When we arrived, we realised that there had been a few delays along the way so we had in fact missed all of the busses to Lago do Yajoa that day, so we had no option but to find a very cheap hotel and stay the night in a very dirty and smelly city! So out came the guide book once more and we found a very cheap hotel room, where we stayed the night, and pretty much didn’t even leave the room for fear of getting mugged, so for dinner we pretty much ran across the road to a chinese opposite where we got served a MOUNTAIN of food, which said it was only for 2 people, could feed 5, not even joking!!

Anyway, the next day we arrived at Lago do Yajoa and found our way to D&D Brewery, a very nice place which serves great flavoured beer and is run by some very friendly staff! The next few days (including new years eve and day) was great fun, the day after we arrived the rest of the Hondies arrived and we all ha a great time catching up on each others travel stories and goings on in Honduras! We also managed to walk down to the canal and do some rowing (which me and Ally tried the first day we got there ... was quite hard, but we managed to get quite far!). New Year’s Eve was spent clambering up rocks behind waterfalls, running away from an owed pizza bill and making our way through the best part of 3 bottles of rum and many many tequila shots!! Was one of the best new years ever and had so much fun! The next day, for some silly reason we decided to go rowing in our very much still inebriated state, but we also did some swimming and jumping e.t.c and just generally enjoying everyone’s company! At the end of our stay at D&D we all had to pay our very high tabs, and Eleanor, Anna Diamond, Anna Ritchie and I headed to meet Amy (who headed back a couple of days before to say good bye to her boyfriend Shaun as he flew home!) in Siguatepeque .... (more to come later!)

D&D was amazing and will definitely be remembered for a long time, only draw back was that it was quite expensive for what you got e.t.c but then after a month of trying to scrounge of everyone, was nice to have some relative luxury, and we were also the only young ones there over New Years, which was a little disappointing, but we all still had a great time and I must say a big thank you to Sarah for my secret Santa present, some great bracelets and lovely bag! Thanks fellow English Vol!! :D

Till next time, 

Ciao!

(P.s Sorry this was quite short, but trying to get all of the blogs done, so don’t expect too much detail, still have a few more to write!)

A christmas abroad!

Next stop, Anitigua, we had to endure around about a 5 hour journey to Antigua, sat on a bus packed with other Guatemalans can get a bit tedious after a while, so we were glad to get off. We soon headed to Calvin’s house with himself and LIndsey, to dump our bags and have a shower e.t.c. His house was great, somehow it felt really homely and was so nice a decorated by his flatmate Alyson (from the states, a very funny a bubbly 30 year old women). Ally and I soon headed out to see Antigua during the day, and so headed in the direction of the Central Square and wandered around for a while, getting something to eat and checking out yet more markets. We also went to this really cool church near to Calvin’s House, which had these really nice gardens next to it, where you could spend the day for a little charge. The church was massive and the Gardens were really pretty with all of their ruined walls from extension plans gone wrong, ....  I joke, I joke .... they are from bits of the church that have fallen down in the past, y’know ruins! You have all been there, done that, got the rock!

Anyway, later that afternoon we headed back to the house, and talked about what to do for dinner. Alyson said that she was more than happy to cook, and sent Lindsey, Calvin and Ally to the supermarket to buy supplies. She also phoned her brother (who also lives in Guatemala) to see if he wanted to come over for dinner, and had also invited this man whom she met earlier in the day, who had unfortunately been mugged the night before just outside his hostel, so Alyson felt sorry for him and invited him to the self-named ‘Dinner for Strays’.

What followed was one of the most hilarious nights I have ever had, so much fun drinking Ice Tea and Vodka, homemade enchiladas and apple crumble style dessert! Alyson and Calvin are just a comedy duo, and throw in Lindsey as well makes it so my sides were burning for about 70% of the evening. One very hilarious anecdote was when LIndsey was telling us about when she goes to the gym back home in the states, an indian women gives her a ‘foreigners nod’. She gets this nod because she is latin american and she said people often think she is foreign, but she was raised in the states. She went on about this nod for ages and had everyone in stitches as she explained what she thought was the reasoning behind this ‘You know/foreigners Nod’.

Moving on, this night was fantastic and will stick in my memory for ever, but sadly we had a reservation with earth lodge to spend christmas and had already payed the deposit, as much as we wanted to spend christmas with ‘The Strays’, we were soon on the back of a pick up truck headed up the mountain to spend 3 nights in this gorgeous eco-lodge looking over Antigua. This place was amazing, so chilled out, so pretty and met some really cool people. There was a great little sauna, and even a massive collection of DVD’s to watch whilst sitting in front of a fire! We arrived on Christmas Eve, which is the big day in Central America, so that night we had a great meal and quite a few drinks before we stayed up until midnight to watch this huge firework show in the valley below us, tell you one thing ... was very weird looking down on fireworks, really strange for some reason. Anyway, christmas day was great, Me and Ally woke up and both headed up to the communal area. We exchanged gifts, I got this great Guatemalan Cook Book (which I am still translating from spanish!) which has some really great recipes in it, can’t wait to get to uni and show off my skill at making ‘Chile Rellenos’. The rest of the day was spent just chilling around, using the sauna, watching a few DVD’s eating, drinking and marveling at the view! It was a really nice day and I even got to skype my family for a very little while, but yeah was nice, but no-where near as good as a christmas spent at home. I missed my family a great deal and wished I could be with them, but was such a day to remember for those reasons. The next day, boxing day, we headed down into Antigua for the day to spend some more time with Calvin and Lindsey, just chilling around, buying coffee, going back to chill at the really nice park/gardens and just having fun really! That night we headed back up to Earth Lodge to spend our last night in the amazing Lodge and to have some of their amazing food! Literally, this place has its own cook book because its food is complimented so much!

Anyway, the next morning, after we checked out, we jumped back in the pick up truck and headed down into Antigua once more t see if we could get out of the country and back into Honduras to go and meet the rest of the Hondies at Lago de Yajoa for New Years eve. However, when we got down into Antigua, we were just a little too late to get seats on the shuttle bus, so they told us that we had to wait until the 5am shuttle the next morning, so there we were at ‘Café Y tu Piña Tambien’ (meaning Café And your Pineapple too) asking calvin if we could crash at his place once more, to which of course he said yes, because, after all we are such lovely people to be around ... no?? ... oh rude!

That night was a very chilled one, watching movies and me cooking dinner and just generally laughing a lot once more!

All in all, I had an absolutely FANTASTIC time in Guatemala and really want to go back once more before I leave! I think I really fell in love a little bit! That country has so much culture, so much fun, and so many different places you have to go and visit! I really would recommend it to anyone, such a great place!

So till next time ...

Ciao (guatemala)!

Xela who?

After arriving at the bus station in Quetzaltenango (a.k.a Xela ... shorter, straight to the point ... I like it!), we quickly caught a taxi and told him to take us to the black cat hostel which we had heard so much about, and read about in the Lonely Planet book. Off we went and we soon arrived at this very run down looking shop with black cat written on it. The driver assured us that this was the place (even though we had our doubts) so we went in and did some ‘talky talky’ with the women sitting inside. This in fact, turned out to be a different place, where they teach people how to weave and also offer accommodation for their students, however, in true bossy guatemalan mother style, one of the women told her son to take us to the place we wanted to go to. After a 3 minute walk we arrived in this gorgeous hostel and checked in to our dorm room (practically a private room as we were the only ones in there) and went for a wash, and were overjoyed to find very powerful and hot showers for our use! (The little things in life eh?) We soon headed out to explore and spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the main square and finding various coffee shops. We also went to the office of Quetzaltrekkers, an organisation which does various hikes and expeditions to the surrounding volcanoes and mountains. Ally therefore signed up straight away and booked to go to Tahamulco the day after next. We soon headed out for something to eat and found a great (and very busy) bar which did some of the best burgers in the world ... good find!

The next day we went to Las Fuentes Georginas, these hot pools about 45 minutes away from Xela. These hot pools were amazing, we arrived quite early so for a while we were the only ones there. Originally the coolest one was pretty hot in itself, and we were reluctant to try the hotter ones. However after a while dipping our toes in and running away screaming we braved it and went into the medium level heat one, which was too much after a while, and by this point, some more people had begun to turn up and crowd our relaxing break in the pools. The biggest pool, the one we had not managed to get into was insanely hot, I am pretty sure you would be able to boil an egg in that bad boy! LIterally after not even a second dipped in the bool, my foot came out glowing with heat (and slightly burned skin!) This whole place was so relaxing and amazing, we both wished we didn’t have to go (they say traveling can be hard work ... I don’t really know what they are talking about ...), but sadly there were now quite a few people there and it began to feel really over crowded.

On returning to Xela city centre, Ally and I split up as we both needed to do a bit of Christmas Shopping and of course didn’t want to let the other person see what we had bought. So after a couple of hours shopping we headed back to the Black cat, Ally then had to set off as he had a meeting about his hike tomorrow so I settled down and watched a little bit of a film before he returned and we both heading out for a curry and an early night as he had to be up at 5 ish in the morning.

The next few days were a little odd on my part as it was weird just being by myself for a couple of days. I had planned to go to all of these museums and Art Galleries (what Xela is known for) which I was really excited for, however when I turned up, all of the museums where shut due to it being near christmas, so I was quite disappointed, but did still have a good time exploring other parts of the city, getting a massage, visiting a lot of cool coffee shops and even indulging in a McDonalds (sorry ...). The second day (wednesday) I needed to go and find out how we were going to get back to Antigua and so was just looking at a map when Calvin and Lindsey walked in, guy and girl who were actually in San Pedro La Laguna watching Pulp fiction in Buddha Bar (see previous blog ... which you should have done already!), after chatting to them for a while, Calvin said he lived in Antigua and they were both headed back tomorrow as well and were about to go and buy some tickets from a bus company up the road, so I asked if I could tag along and they said yeah! So what ensued was a hilarious afternoon, getting to know Calvin and Lindsey (who are both from America, Calvin lives in Guatemala and Lindsey worked in Xela in the past and was coming back to visit and see Calvin, her BFF). These two are (still) great friends and I feel so lucky to have met them, Calvin even offered to let us crash at his place in Antigua for the night which of course I eagerly accepted and thanked him greatly for! SO we eventually bought our bus tickets and agreed to meet up the next morning.

When Ally finally returned from his hike, I had organised a little early birthday dinner (well booked a table) at this AMAZING tapas restaurant, literally the best food I have ever eaten ... ever!! (sorry mum!) So we sat at the table indulging in far too much food while we told each other about our days apart. Ally had a great time on his hike and is very glad he did it, even though did run into a little bit of trouble of the way back as they had to help pull a truck out of a ditch on the side of the road! Of course he was now very tired and so we headed back to the hostel to crash before heading to the bus stop the next morning to greet Calvin and Lindsey and head to Antigua, the ancient city of Guatemala.

Till next time ...

Ciao!

Lago de frickin' beautiful!

After the 9 hour shuttle bus from Lanquin to Antigua, Ally and I had to go and find a hotel to stay in for the night, we stumbled across this place which also had adverts for shuttles to Lago de Atitlan, where we wanted to be the next morning!

We booked in and recieved our key and soon headed for a nice relaxing meal out and to explore a little of Antigua. We headed out at about 7 ish, after our hotel room key broke and wasn’t working in the lock to our room. I had a major panic attack about wanting our stuff back and asking Ally to break down the doors, however, he being his usual calm self said it might be better to speak to the receptionist and see what he could do. Of course, it was the same incompetent receptionist who we spoke to earlier who actually gave us the key in the first place. So after a little bit of ‘talky talky’ he soon headed out back to go and get one of his mates who promptly came and helped him find the right key to our room and giving me sweet satisfaction of getting my bags back :D  Anywho ... Ally and I had both been craving an indian for the past couple of weeks so we headed to a recommended restaurant from the Lonely Planet guide and enjoyed a very nice meal before heading out to the central square for dessert.

We woke the next morning at about 5am to board the bus to Lago de Atitlan, which took all of about 2.5 - 3 hours, so we arrived at the lake soon after sunrise and managed to see some amazing views just on the way down the mountain into our first stop on the lake, the town of Panajachel. We soon found a hostel and managed to bargain the price down before we headed down to the dock to see if we could grab a ‘tipico’ for breakfast. We were amazed by the view in front of us as we were sitting eating our refired beans, eggs, avocado, plantains and tortillas. Just looking out over this gorgeous lake with 3 volcanoes in the distance, however the view was slightly ruined by quite a large number of children coming up to us and thrusting purses and bracelets into our faces and asking us for a ridiculous amount of money for what we were actually buying, however after some fierce bartering and quite a long time, we did purchase some very nice bracelets as we had planned to get one bracelet for every location that we visited. Pretty much every morning was spent like this and throughout the days we did a variety of different things, like visiting a wildlife reserve near to the town, doing lots of market shopping and buying some of the best things I have ever seen, getting an AMAZING massage (was much needed, don’t blame me!), going to one of the biggest friday markets in my life (really a market for locals where they come and buy all of their fruit, veg and meat for the week at discount prices, some really amazing stuff, I even saw tripe and brains on one stall) and we even managed to fit in a wonderful boat tour of the lake, where we basically approached one guy on the dock and said can we do the boat tour, and he took us round the lake and let us spend about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours at a few different towns on the Lake, including San Marcos La Laguna, San Juan La Laguna (where I managed to make a mortal enemy in the form of an elderly woman who refused to give me the price I wanted for some bags until I pretty much begged her ... She gave me the biggest evils I have ever seen as I was walking out of the shop), San Pedro La Laguna (more about here to come later ...) and finally Santiago de Atitlan, where we stumbled onto the dock to be greeted with the biggest gathering of people I have ever seen in my life, literally it took me and Ally about 20 minutes to walk 100m. Apparently there was a huge church service/festival where thousands of people gather at this town on the lake (even people from as far out as El Salvador come to visit), therefore Ally and I didn’t get to do much apart from find somewhere to have some lunch and a little bit more shopping near the quieter end of the dock. This tour was fantastic as I believed we had just the right amount of time in each little town before either one of us got insanely bored and wanted to go back, plus it was great to see the Lake in so many different ways as we winged it around the outside of the lake.

During out stay in Pana, Ally and I tried some truly amazing food, ranging from traditional Guatemalan cuisine to this amazing vietnamese restaurant, where we both sat cross legged on this raised stage like thing covered in cushions and blankets and the odd table where we managed to share a gorgeous curry and soup, was truly ‘out-of-this-world’ good. I have to say, now looking back on my time spent traveling, I do believe that Panajachel was one of my absolute favourite places and could have spent a lot longer there, just enjoying the lake, the atmosphere and the market stalls (seriously, Ally had to drag me away more than once, I mean physically drag me away ...)

After Panajachel, Ally and I headed across the lake to San Pedro, ‘Gringo’ capitol of Guatemala, seriously this place is run by Americans and Canadians, pretty much every bar or restaurant is run by one of them. Ally and I only planned on spending just the one night here as we wanted to do this hike up a local mountain called Indians Nose (a mountain shaped like a well ... Indians Nose ... pretty self explanatory really). So when we arrived at San Pedro we checked into this hostel called Yo Mama’s (yeah ... really!) and headed out to book this hike for 3am the next morning. Therefore, we had the rest of the day to kill, so we headed to this bar called ‘El Barrio’ and took advantage of their ‘Saturday All-you-can-eat Brunch’ for only 40 Quetzals (about £3.30), I think me and Ally spent about 1.5 hours there, maybe even 2 hours, as we had course after break after course after cup of coffee after course of fruit after cup of tea, enjoying a very relaxing setting and good company. Here we also learnt about this place called Los Thermales, this family jun joint where they offer natural hot tubs within view of the lake for a very cheap flat rate, and you can use them for as long as you want, so we booked in to use these pools later in the day close to sunset and went off to find our next stop of the day. Ally went ahead to this place called La Piscina (a bar located right next to a pool) whilst I rooted out the best and cheapest massages around (of which there were many). After a very relaxing hour and a half I joined Ally at La Piscina and we chilled out there for a while, sitting in the sun with a ‘cuba libre’ in hand. The time soon passed by and our appointment with a hot tub was fast approaching, so we headed back to Yo Mama’s to get changed and headed out for one of the most relaxing experiences I have ever had. These really hot natural pools, right next to the lake, watching the sun set and just being in pure bliss (after nearly 5 months of cold showers, you can imagine how nice it was to finally find some hot water to bathe in!) After we managed to literally drag ourselves out of the pools, we headed to Café La Puerta for something to eat and finally got back to bed to enjoy a nights sleep before heading out on our hike the next morning!

When we awoke at half two, we headed to the agreed meeting place where we were expecting our guide to turn up at three so we settled in and waited ... and waited ... and waited ... and waited until finally at 4 AM (!!), an hour later than agreed, someone turned up, asking whether we had booked a tour, of course we said yes and he showed us the ticket he had, sadly it wasn’t us he was looking for, and soon the guy and gal he was waiting for turned up, so we asked if we could tag along with them as we really wanted to go and see the view from the mountain top. However, this guide said that we had to pay him as well, as he worked for a different company so would not get any of the money we had originally payed. Stupidly we said the actual amount that we did pay, rather than saying a cheaper number so we had to couch up again. However we were soon on a bus up to near the top of the mountain in time for sunrise above the lake. This was amazing, watching the sun poke out from between two of the three volcanoes and bathing the lake in its light was just priceless and one of the views I will never forget. 

Soon after walking back to the whole way to the village we where staying in, we headed to ‘Big Foot’ the agency we had organized to do the trip with to see if we could get out money back, however to our horror it was closed and we wanted to be on our way to Xela today. So we hunted around for another travel company to see if they had the number of anyone who worked at Big Foot to see if they could come and meet us. Sadly they called and called but no-one ever turned up and they also said that as it was sunday, no busses would be traveling anyway, so it looked like me and Ally were here for one more night! The rest of the day was spent chilling out, walking round town, going to La Piscina once more to go to their famous sunday BBQ for lunch (and in fact dinner as the portions where so huge we both couldn’t eat it all and asked to take it with us (which everyone does)) and when night came around, we went to a place called Buddha Bar to chill out watching one of their free films, tonight Pulp Fiction (YES!!) Such a great film and was made even better watching it in such a great location.

The next morning we headed to Big Foot once more and they were so sorry that we had been messed about so much that they were more than happy to give us our money back and couldn’t apologize enough, they said that the reason our guide didn’t turn up was that he had probably been drinking the night before and couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed, and that now he will probably be fired for his stupidity!

Soon after we each had our money back in our hand we headed to the bus stop to catch the 11am bus to Quetzaltenango, just to finish I will say that this was one of the most horrible bus rides I had ever been on, I cannot tell you how many times I flew off my seat as we went over a particularly big bump on the very bumpy road! 

Till next time ...

Ciao!

Semuc Champey! Go there ...

After Guatemala City, Me and Ally joined Cindy and her two friends, Gela and Maria, on their way up to a town called Lanquín where the beautiful national park of Semuc Champey resides just about 10 km away. With the recommendations from Manuel (see previous blog post) we had luckily booked into a place called Zephyr Lodge, this beautiful lodge, where apparently they had bought a hill and placed cabins on the top of it, so it literally does have a 360 degree view of its surroundings. The ride up to Lanquín was long and tiresome and had quite a few changes along the way, however, we soon arrived at about 5 ish and checked in, luckily we had Manuel call this place up for us yesterday and make us a reservation, as we got the last two beds available, which were two mattresses up in the attic above the staff room and the restaurant. Anyway, our first impressions of this place where amazing, literally beautiful, surrounded by luscious forest and run by some of the nicest people we had ever met. The night we got there, they informed us that there was to be a trivia night, so Ally and I eagerly signed up, along with the other 3 girls and later that night, after a beautiful dinner and quite a few drinks during their happy hour, we were divided up into teams along with everyone else there that night and enjoyed a great evening of drinking and getting to know everyone through some healthy competition. Eventually, it came down to a tie break between two teams, of course one of which was mine, and the winners were decided by who could chug down a beer the fastest, and one of the members in my team eagerly stepped up and managed to drink his beer quicker than the other guy ... YEAH!!

Anyway, waking up the next morning, Ally and I signed up to take part in the tour to the national park Semuc Champey and explore their famous pools and caves. After about a 45 minute journey along a very bumpy road, standing up in the back of a truck, we arrived at the park and parked up in front of this great view of a river with a path on the right. We were told to walk down the path and drop our stuff off at the office and walk down a little bit further until we reached a giant rope swing over the river. Our guide told us that we should all try it, but obviously we didn’t have to, however after standing on the edge for a few minutes and watching a few other swing before me, I managed to push myself off of the edge and swing out over the river and luckily let go in time to fall into the deepest part of the river ... few .... safe!

Shortly after the rope swing, we walked up a flight of stairs to this cave system where we were handed a candle and then our guide came around a lit them all, and told us to get into the cave system. He led us through this amazing cave system where stalactites and stalagmites where everywhere and bats were flying over our heads ( ... :O ... ), we had to clamber over different rock formations, climb up rock faces with water pounding down on our head, and even swim through deep ‘lagoon’ type pools all the while trying to keep our candle alight so that we can see. This experience was amazing, trying to clamber through this maze of rock, and all the while marveling at these amazing formations as well as having fun trying to keep the candle above the water so that we could see where we are going!

Soon after exiting the caves and letting our retinas adjust to the normal amount of light, we walked back to the office, picked up our stuff and walked back up to where the jeep dropped us off, turned to the right and walked across this huge bridge where we stopped half way across and our guide told us that we could jump off if we wanted to, this huge 12m drop was just a little too much for the rest of us, however, this one guy, called Matt (from London) managed to jump off and after coming back up, reassured us that it was fun, however we were still all a little bit too scared! Next up we had a 30 minute walk up a massive flight of stairs up to the top of this mountain to a look out point above the amazing Semuc Pools, this wonderful place where a river hit a bed of (i think) limestone and formed these pools, of varying depth, which descend at different levels (kind of like steps) until they reach the river which just appears again at the bottom after it disappeared at the top. The pools were relatively still, so therefore we knew the river didn’t flow over the top so it was even more fascinating to see the river appear again. These pools were just like paradise pools really, a beautiful blue, surrounded by luscious forest and the sun just dappling through the trees. One of the best experiences I have ever had, and utterly relaxing, it was a horror when our guide then said it was time to go home, and we had to board the truck again and prepare for another bumpy journey on our way back to zephyr lodge. That night was just a nice chilled out evening, chatting with Matt and his mate Gregg (both from london) who were flying home in about 4 days and just asking them about their time in central america and where they had travelled previously. We just sat there that night enjoying the view and the sunset as we had to get up relatively early the next morning to be in time for the shuttle bus to Antigua, where we planned an overnight stay before we headed on to our next stop, Lago do Atitlan ...