Return from Coban

We’re back from Coban! It was a very interesting weekend. We arranged our trip through the language school, which also runs tours on the weekend. There were 15 of us packed, and I do mean packed, into a small microbus for the 7 hour trip (instead of 3 hours, as we were told beforehand). Half of the group turned out to be Quebecois from Canada who barely spoke a word of English among them. Four girls were from Britain, and an older man and his Native American grandson from White Cloud, Kansas, also joined us. And of course there was our faithful driver Carlos, a Guatemalan. So as it turns out there was Canadian French, Spanish, British English, American English, and a Native American language being spoken this weekend. It was a very cultural and interesting mix.



My favorite part of trips like this is usually just looking out the window as we drive. I felt like we drove past the “real” Guatemala on our way from one tourist destination to another. The slums of Guatemala City are built on hills on the outskirts of towns, decrepit building on top of decrepit building, and the laundry fluttering on makeshift clotheslines the only real source of color in the bleak grey shanty towns. Driving through Guatemala City was actually not as scary as I was led to believe, however we probably purposefully took the safest roads to avoid going into places like Zone 1, which are practically owned by gangsters who contribute to Guat City having the highest homicide rate in Central America.

Out in the countryside we passed the typical horses (caballos), cows (vacas), and pigs (cerdos) grazing along or in the middle of the road. We saw many indigenous people wearing their tradition dress, and other interesting things, such as a whole family (husband, wife, pre-teen child, and tiny baby) all on the same motorcycle. There was a lot of poverty, but nothing compared to what we saw in Haiti.
In Coban we arrived just in time for dinner, had a nice “cena” with the Brits, and stayed in a hostel for the night. No spiders.



The next day we were up bright and early and went to visit the Lanquin caves—very humid and hot but definitely worth the hour long walk through them. Bats kept flying overhead and because of the echo their screeches were really loud! Later in the day we drove 2 hours into the middle of nowhere to visit Semuc Champey—arguably the most beautiful area of Guatemala.



Semuc Champey is basically a series of waterfalls in the middle of the jungle that empty into ponds on different levels. It is a really serene area and I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of tourists when we were there. We got to go swimming for a bit in the cool waters and even jumped off of a mini-waterfall. The view of the mountains and jungle foliage was just amazing. Definitely worth the trek into the middle of the jungle.



On our way back from Semuc Champey walking to the “Eco Lodge” (aka hostel that was barely a step above camping out on the jungle floor), we met a ton of indigenous kids selling chocolates and other things (Guatemalans know how to play on the whole tourist thing) but unfortunately we had been instructed to bring no money so we couldn’t buy anything from them. One little girl wasn’t trying to sell us anything but she was carrying tortillas to another village, and she wanted to walk with us and chat. She was adorable—her name was Indara, she was 8 years old and was happy to talk about her family, her pink sandals, and other things.

At the “lodge” for the night we listened to a Marimba band and hung out talking, because they only turned the electricity on for two hours at night, and there really isn’t much to do in the dark—it was a taste of real Guatemalan life. Unfortunately, there was also a huge almost baby-tarantula like spider in our “room”—brown and furry and reallyyy creepy. The total count for the night amounted to 3 spiders, 2 cockroaches, a slug, and a scorpion.



(This is me in my "spider gear" (including my sweatpants tucked into socks) to protect myself from those evil, sneaky spiders)

Sunday we headed back to Antigua (now an 8 hour trip) but we also stopped to walk around a Biotepe preserve of the quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala which is on the endangered species list. Unfortunately we didn’t get to glimpse a quetzal, but the walk was beautiful and we took some great pictures of waterfalls and other scenery.






All in all, a great weekend—we got a glimpse of a lot of cultures just from the people on our trip! And I’m glad we journeyed a little bit outside of Antigua into a more typical Guatemalan area. Back to work and school now :)



James enjoys hammocks very much



Pretty waterfall



James Q-ing with his new favorite Brits