Welcome to the jungle

Olivia and I officially survived our first traveling adventure by ourselves outside of Guatemala City. After a fun day at the hospital where I french braided some hair and had some wonderful conversations, Olivia and got a taxi, then boarded the bus to the town of Flores. Oh, and we also celebrated Don Luis's (a guard) birthday with a real pinata and some cake! So much fun.--> But anyway, we were told that the bus would provide blankets and pillows but that proved to be false... I was about as cold as I was on top of a ski lift in Colorado during a snow storm. Maybe that's a bit dramatic, but I was a resourceful drama queen. I was wearing capri sweat pants, a tank with a cardigan and by the end of the trip I had unpacked my whole backpack by putting gym shorts around my ankles to cover the skin, two t-shirts on, my long skirt over my sweats, two t-shirts as shawls, and then my toiletry bag with shorts over it as a pillow. I actually slept after that haha. It was tricky getting out of my seat to use that bathroom that was basically a bowl with everyone else's pee in it. Yeah, pretty gross.

Finally when we arrived at Flores we wandered around the whole Island until a local walked us to los Amigos, the famous hostile we had been hearing about. When you walk inside the hostile there was a faint hint of incense in the air, legit jungle there was no ceiling but a covering for the TVish room where there were tons of hammocks, and also a roof for the dining/bar area and certain dorms. There was actually a dorm full of hammocks! Literally, a row of hammocks right next to each other. The bathrooms and showers were all communal and directly next to the dining area with no door closing it off. A parrot hung out above the dining room table in a giant cage. There was also a pet bunny roaming, two dogs, a cat and a ton of gekos and bugs. We ended up staying in a dorm area which was identical to a small fraternity sleeping dorm because all guys were in it but us. Mostly all from Israel too. I seemed to be the only one who thought that was a bit abnormal. But by the end I didn't want to leave and sleeping in the racks with dudes (my own bed of course!) and chillin in the jungle atmosphere was so normal.


On Friday we hung out at los Amigos and watched a lot of the world cup with some gorgeous British men. We couldn't really go out and explore because of the rain but I was pretty happy to be confined in that space watching some soccer. The food there was phenomenal! It was a veggie place which was awesome for Olivia because she is a vegan so she had many options to choose from which is a rare occurrence in Guatemala. Later, we met some other people and went walking around the lake. We thought it would be a good idea to head back before dark, so we sat in the living room to have a few drinks. We met some drunk creepers and I knew they were drunk because a guy kept telling me I looked so Cuban. hmmm.. gingers in cuba? The lady across from us was very nice, she was from Norway and said traveling was as addictive as breathing. The guy didn't seem to care for that comparison because in a sense, it really isn't accurate. That somehow led to him talking about how pooping is a natural high and just made everyone really uncomfortable. I still have a second grader sense of humor sometimes so I was the only one laughing.

The next day we woke up at 4:30 AM for our tour of Tikal. The bus took an hour an a half to get there where we got off and began our journey through the jungle into some of the greatest history I have ever heard about the Mayans. Our tour guide's name was Cesar and after everything he would be like, "yeah, you know maaaan." or " shit man. youu knowww what I mean??" Or my personal favorite, "Pardon my language guys, but F* these guys were smart." Very enthusiastic. There were 6 temples that were built and the tops of them aligned with the stars of the big dipper. They were very into celestial things. In front of some of the temples were circular slabs of limestone where they would make sacrifices to the gods. These sacrifices had to involve blood and often times they were people. The vertical upright slabs next to them once had the leaders carved into them and hieroglyphs. We climbed all of them temples and saw a ton of wildlife including tarantulas, spider monkeys, tucans, weird turkeys and interesting birds. The trees were even interesting because they thought the roots were going into the underworld and that the branches connected to the celestial beings. The temples were solid inside and really only served a purpose of power for the rulers.

After the tour, we went zip lining through the jungle with the new friends we made, Thea, (from Utah) Shauo (U.K.) and Stein (Belgium). We had 8 zip lines and I went superman style a few times which was badass. One of the zip lines went over the road and into the jungle which was crazy beautiful. A funny story from the way back, a man next to me who obviously spoke only spanish not saying a word to me just handed me his cell phone. I figured he wanted me to translate something in english, but no. The guy on the other line was his son in law who just wanted to chat so we talked for about five minutes with the general get to know you questions. Then I just handed back the phone to the guy next to me and he didn't say another word to me for the remainder of the trip. Possibly the most random encounter ever. Gotta love it.

Finally when we got back to the hostile, we showered got something to eat and shopped a bit. We even played Jenga at the table with Shou for a bit which was kind of funny because everyone else was engrossed in their intellectual activities but there we were playing Jenga in the middle of a sophisticated hostile. Good times. Our bus left at 9 and thankfully was not as cold. This guy in front of us kept turning around periodically to stare and I just wanted to ask what he wanted but opted to fall asleep and have crazy dreams about not getting off on the right stop which almost happened. About 8 hours later, thank god for Olivia who was paying attention we got off and home safely!

I'm really starting to feeling like this home base is my home and it has only been a week. After traveling for the weekend I feel really comforted to be here with familiar faces again. It shocked me how many people I met that are traveling for a month or year at a time by themselves going from place to place alone! It's a lot more common for people in Europe to take a gap year after college or after high school . I think it's an interesting concept but I feel like traveling for a summer is enough for me.

Now we are just hangin out rehashing the trip and sleeping because tiny bus seats that barely recline aren't the most luxurious sleeping accommodations. We are planning to go to Antigua during the day later to shop in the markets. Olivia has to leave Saturday :(. A new group of 13 kids will be coming this weekend and are staying a weeks a change of pace will be in the near future. So until tomorrow, love and miss you all! XO Carolyn