So this Thanksgiving I decided to make the trek out to visit a fellow volunteer/friend who (unfortunately) lives on the other side of the country from me. I woke up at two in the morning on Thanksgiving morning to catch a bus to the capitol, and then caught another bus up to her site - since I was traveling so early and since no spontaneous Guatemalan interruptions arose, it only took me about 8 hours to get there. Then, after hanging out for a few hours and waiting for a few more friends to arrive, we took another 2 hour bus ride to another volunteer's site (well, a site that two volunteers share) and met up with yet more volunteers, most of whom I hadn't met before, to partake in a Thanksgiving dinner that had been 3 days in preparing. Since the power had gone out on Thanksgiving morning in that town, and since a large part of the meal was prepared in one electric-powered toaster oven, we didn't end up eating until around 10pm, but the menu made up for it: we had roast duck (!), garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (of course), apple cranberry stuffing, tamarind chutney, roasted sweet potatoes, wild rice casserole, corn bread, avocado bread, pumpkin bread, apple crisp, and the most delicious of all - pumpkin cheesecake! Beat that, America! Turns out the next night we had another Thanksgiving dinner (minus the turkey though, unfortunately) - the hostel that we stayed at got a little confused on which day exactly was "day of the turkey", and so they had served an Italian dinner on Thursday, and then when we got there on Friday (and informed them that Thanksgiving had been the day before) they were having a Thanksgiving buffet. Can't say I was complaining.
On Friday we headed up to a well-known site in Guatemala called Semuc Champey. Semuc is kind of difficult to describe, since there's not a whole lot of other places like it in the world, but it is a 1000-foot-long limestone "bridge" that goes over a river. You can't see the river from on top of the bridge, which is made up of a series of calm pools, but you can go to the entrance and the exit of the river as it it flowing into and out of the "bridge". The pools are also great to swim in - the water is perfectly clear and dark blue/green colored, very beautiful. The hostel we stayed in was pretty nice as well - it was set on a huge terrain along a river, had hammocks, a great bar/restaurant, and a sauna, and was only $4.25 a night. Yep, dollars!
Pictures.............
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| In the pools on the "bridge" above the river |
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| Getting ready to dive in... |
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| Cocoa pods! |
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| This area is also known for its caves |
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| Hitching a ride in the back of a truck (it's safe, I swear!) |
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| View of Semuc from above |
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| Tell me you aren't jealous of my life... (also, to the right of the waterfall is the cave where the river exits the "bridge" that we were swimming in) |
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