Sunday, April 8, 2012

Semuc Champey, Tikal and Livingston

Finishing service was pretty wild. I don´t know that it has really hit me yet that I´m not a Peace Corps volunteer anymore. I think that maybe it will feel more real once I´m back in the States again. After spending a relaxing couple of days in Antigua with some other RPCV friends, I headed back to Quiche to translate for the Canadian organization, Hearts and Hands. It was sad to say goodbye at the end of the week because we´ve worked together a bunch of times and there are a good number of people that come every time. I worked with a stove building team for the first day and then spent the rest of the week translating for a dental team that was doing extractions, fillings, and cleanings for one of the aldeas of Uspantan.
My friend Hilary worked as an tourism volunteer in Uspantan and helped develop Laj Chimel, the birthplace of Rigoberta Menchu, as a place for Tourism. Unfortunatly not many tourists make it to Uspantan, but it is a really good experience and definitely worth the visit for people who are willing to go off the beaten track. It was a bit over an hour bumpy ride to Laj Chimel, and there they show you where they hid in the woods when the army came through, killing community members because Guerrillas had used the forest near the village to camp out. We also had lunch in a woman´s house who hid out in the mountains for 18 months and was finally captured by the military. It was very sad to hear her story but also good to get a better understanding of her personal experience of the war. It´s not often that anyone will open up about what happened during the war, it´s still a very sensitive subject.
Sunday a week ago I started on my vacationing, taking the back road from Uspantan to Coban, which I would never recommend to anyone. It was very bumpy, dusty and a bit frightening. From Coban it was a two hour bus ride to Semuc Champey, a series of natural limestone pools and some gorgeous caves (that I didn´t work up the nerve to go in...). I got there mid afternoon, checked into the hostel and read in a hammock until my friends got in from Antigua. Monday and Tuesday we went to the pools and Wednesday my friend Rachel and I carried on to Flores.
Flores is an hour from Tikal, which is the best known and cared for Mayan ruins in Guatemala. It was an incredible experience, hiking up and looking all over the jungle and imagining people living and building there over 2,000 years ago. It was so hot that I think I sweated out several liters. I drank two while I was walking around and three when we got back to the hotel in Flores and were hanging out on the dock. It was Semana Santa all this past week, so we got to see people participating in processions and decorating the outsides of their houses. There were lots of Guatemalans on vacation in Flores since many people had all week off work for the celebrations.
Rachel and I got to Livingston yesterday and spent Easter hiking and eating seafood. I could not be happier. Tomorrow we leave for Belize, and if its not too, too expensive, will be getting our scuba certifications. There are supposed to be whale sharks coming to the part of Belize we´ll be in, which I suppose is a good thing because the guy who told us about it sounded excited for us to see it while scuba diving. Then Mexico, to see Frida and Diego´s work and eat some mole!!

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