Semana Santa

For Semana Santa, which is like the Roman Catholic version of Spring Break (i.e. the "holy week" leading up to Easter) we had a substatial amount of time off of school to be able to once again travel through Central America. I had almost forgotten just how nice Spring Breaks are....especially since I went to college at a school where Spring Break was a 4-day weekend the weekend before midterms. Nicely done deans and administrators.

Anyways, for this trip we had a substantially sized group, consisting of myself, Leah, my roommate and a 2nd grade teacher in addition to 3 almost doctors from the U.S. on the cusp of their residencies (hence the need for Central American vacation). I wasn't too certain what the trip would hold since plans change quite frequently in these sort of adventures (please continue to read on to hear some of mine) and I did not know these 3 guys at all. I knew that it either could be really fun or really terrible, and luckily for me I had a great time and these guys were a great addition to our travel group. The rough outline of the trip looked something like this: Friday, bust out of school ASAP and get on a 5 hour bus to go to San Pedro Sula, and stay at the Hostal Tamarindo for $5 a night. Saturday, get up at 4:30 a.m. to catch a taxi at 5:00 a.m. to catch a 11 or 12 hour bus ride to Flores, Guatamala. All went rather smoothly, and crossing the border was pretty simple....actually too simple now that I think about it.

Shortly after arriving in Flores, we took a bus to Tikal, which was like an hour away. and walked around the largest Mayan civilization in the world for about an hour and a half....just enough time to get a small taste of what lay ahead and have a ticket that would allow us to enter the park the next morning for free. We then made our way to our Hostal Mon Ami, which was this AMAZING Swiss Family Robinson thatched palm roof tree house with hammocks everywhere, outdoor showers and bathrooms, a great little restaurant on the premises and a French ex-pat proprietor running the whole show. We also got to overlook this beautiful, crystal clear lake that was the perfect temperature for swimming, and took nightly swims under a full moon. Do I really get to live this sort of life?...I sometimes feel like all this is some sort of dream that I will wake up from, but then I realize that yes, this is my life and that I want to just make the most of and absorb every moment of it possible.

Our first night in the treehouse hostal there was no electricity, and I think that it made the night even more exceptional. We had a candlelight dinner in this open-air restaurant, followed by a full-moon swim in Lago Peten Itza that was completely undisturbed by modern technology and signs of civilization. All we could see laying out in our floating dock in the middle of the lake was the moon, the stars, and open Guatemalan sky. We learned later that there are indeed crocodiles in the lake, and no one really goes swimming at night. Oops.

After sleeping in the upstairs portion of our treehouse without screens or anything over the windows, we woke up at 5:30a.m. to catch a bus to Tikal to beat the heat in the park and to see the different animals that are more prevalent in the morning than in the afternoon. Before coming on the trip, I took about 10 minutes to pack my backpack and managed to forget my contact case. To make matters worse, my aide in my classroom had my glasses since hers broke and our prescriptions are nearly the same. I only use my glasses to read in bed at night and to find my way to my contacts in the morning, so I did not mind at all loaning her my glasses. However, stars must have been aligned because I managed to have one of the strangest tales of the trip because of these preliminary circumstances. Since I did not have a contact case, I put my contacts into a little cup next to my bed. No big deal really...I have done this before. When I woke up in the morning, I put in my contacts and something definitely did not feel right. I took them out and examined them I saw these tiny little holes chewed into them. I soon figured out that cockroaches, Guatemalan contact-eating cockroaches, indeed crawled into my cup next to my bed and eat little portions of my contacts. My only contacts for the trip. My only lifeline to vision. I also was in the middle of Guatemalan jungle, and contacts are difficult enough to obtain in Tegucigalpa, which is the capital city. My options at this point were to a.) not wear any contacts and try to manage to walk through jungle to come upon gigantic temples where I'd have to climb blindly with nothing to hold onto, possibly plunging to my death, or b.) wear something that had been eaten by cockroaches in my eyes, even though it would painful and I'd have to know that these had been tainted by cockroach saliva and bacteria. So, I put them in, and I cried the whole time in Tikal. I pretty much don't have any pictures of myself for this reason...my eyes were bloodshot and I had a constant stream of tears flowing down my face. After finishing our 6 hour tour of the ruins, we went into Flores, Guatemala and I managed to find an optica where I was able to buy 1 contact that they happened to have that cost as much as a whole box, and was not my prescription. I was so elated to not have what felt like jagged pieces of glass with embedded barbed wire inside my eyes anymore that I didn't even care. I went around the 9 remaining days with one contact that was not my prescription, but oh well. What else was I to do?

Inside the park there were howler monkeys, exotic birds that were unlike anything I had ever heard before, wild peacocks, and of course these gigantic ruins that reached up into the sky. After climbing to the top of nearly every temple (which was pretty demanding on the quads) and looking at the panoramic view, it was amazing to see how even today there were no signs of any human life other than what we were standing on for as far out as we could see in every direction that we looked. Not one telephone pole, electric cable....nothing. However, as I was climbing up these temples that were 12 stories tall with steps that are 1 1/2 times those in normal times (which on a sidenote is interesting seeing that the Mayans were small people) I remembered thinking that if I lived during that time and had to climb up and down those steps daily that I wouldn't have minded being sacrificed myself. One pyramid in particular was pretty rough, and I managed to freak myself out mid climb pretty well. The way up, which was tiring but not worrisome, had you climbing up what is essentially a ladder more so than a set of stairs. Each step was probably only set 6 inches in front of the other one due to the steepness of the incline, but completely worth it as I got up to the top and saw the amazing view over to your left. However, going down was a different situation. Since the steps were so close

together, you had to climb down the pyramids backwards, holding on to dear life as the wind is blowing the the structure you are standing on is shaking with all of the people climbing up and down. About 2 stories into the descent, I was starting to feel weak in the legs because of fear, but I started singing "Eres todopoderoso" (the big praise and worship song here) and somehow made it down without a crippling freakout session. The worst part though was when someone was ascending next to you and you'd have to move one hand off of the railing to allow the other person to climb....yikes.

After a couple of more swims in the lake, both daytime and nighttime, our group headed off once again to Belize City, where we caught a water taxi to Caye Caulker, an hour off the coast. Belize, which was formerly owned by England, uses the Belizian dollar and has English as their official language. Additionally, Belize has many more Black Caribbeans than Latinos which definitely made it feel as though I was completely in a different culture. The island was about 5 miles long, and there was not a paved road or sidewalk in sight....only white sugar sand everywhere. Many restaurants and business did not have real floors either, only sand. We were also told several times while walking to slow down because we were "breaking the speed limit." Truly, this was Caribbean Island culture to the utmost, and we had an amazing time eating barracuda, snapper, shrimp and listening to reggae and Garifuna music.

After a couple days of laying out on the beach, we took a 3 hour snorkeling tour of the local reef and were able to swim amongst all the tropical sea life. One of the more unique aspects of this trip was sting ray alley, where we got out in waist deep water that was so teeming with gigantic sting rays that you couldn't really touch the ocean floor without stepping on one. Once again, I was freaked out but loving it at the same time, and I didn't touch the floor....merely floating like a gigantic buoy in 4 ft. deep water.

After 4 days on the island, we traveled back to Guatemala to stay for the night, and slowly made our way back to Tegucigalpa on about 17 different busses with varying degrees of roughness. Somehow, I seem to be completely backwards in my thinking in that the more rougher my vacation conditions the more my level of joy and elation increases. What?...no warm water? Great! I have to hold your toddler in my lap? Wonderful! Maybe that's why I enjoy it here so much....nothing is really cushy or frilly. Bare minimum simplicity is the name of the game (except when it comes to decorating old school buses) and I seem to just thrive upon it, so much that one backpack for 11 days was sufficient and I laughed over my cockroach story. God knew what He was doing when He brought me here, because everything just seems to be a perfect fit. Bien hecho Dios, Bien hecho.