yeah,yeah, yeah. It has been far too long since I have updated. Now everything is going to be the shortened version because, once again I don´t have much time and have experienced so much.
The week after my last update was free travel. My group made it safely to Honduras, found a hotel and stayed the night. The next morning we boarded the Utila Princess, a ferry that would take us to the island. The ferry was enclosed and the water was rough... so a lot of people were getting sick. I think my dramamine from the day before was still in my system, because for once I felt fine.
We got to Utila in the late morning, and walked around for probably 45 minutes in the heat of the day with our packs on, trying to find some of the hotels we had looked up. We finally found one for a reasonable price, $120 for the 4 of us for the week, which included a shared bathroom, "hot water", and a kitchen. It was about a 5 or 10 minute walk from the center of town, and 15 minutes from the beach. It was a little far away, but the money we saved would let us do all sorts of other activities, and walking is healthy, right?!
We quickly dumped our stuff in our rooms and took off for the beach. As we were walking around and seeing all the nice hotels that were much closer, we started to regret our choice of being so far away... but there was nothing we could do about it, we´d already paid for the full week.
When we got to the beach we couldn´t quite believe it. There was a short strip of sand, and some clear blue shallow water, but no waves. We kept walking, then, determined to find a real beach, with real waves. We made it all the way to the end of the island with no luck, no other beaches. Everyone was very quiet, and it was a tense walk. I kept thinking to myself... ohh gracious, this is going to be a long week, we are already bored.
That first day we walked almost the entire island, searching for other beaches, and most importantly, waves. We had no luck though, the carribean water was clear and beautiful and calm beyond belief.
That night we returned to the hotel a little disappointed, but determined to have a good time anyway. It didn´t help that we hadn´t yet exchanged money, and were living on almost nothing because we only had $$.
That night we found that there was an ant infestation in my bed, the toilet didn´t flush very well, the hot water was a lie, the sink flooded the bathroom whenever used, and there was a huge rat in the kitchen that ate any snacks we left unguarded.
But it was a good night. We laughed a lot, rigged up some fans on the front porch and played card games late into the night. Every day we basically just relaxed. Tuesday we spent the whole day snorkeling (we even saw a sea turtle!) Thursday we trecked to a private beach that was absolutely beautiful... all other time was spent relaxing in the hotel or on the beach, or eating in beautiful and delicious restaurants. No one else was in our hotel until Wednesday night, and having it to ourselves gave us so much freedom and we felt we had made the right decision with the hotel. The other guests who joined Wednesday, though, really put a damper on our fun, with their loud drunken rants and chain smoking. Every day we hoped they wouldn´t be there when we got back.
Over all though, the week was beautiful and relaxing. Every day was sunny and clear, and every night was filled with journaling, reading, card games, and a lot of laughing.
Before we knew it we were headed back to Guatemala city, bug bitten, tan, and tired.
We spent 2 days in Guate doing laundry, checking email, looking at pictures and catching up with everyone we hadn´t seen for the last week. Then we headed to Chiapas.
Salvador Urbina is a coffee growing community in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, right along the border of Mexico and Guatemala. It is hot and sticky and rainy there this time of year, but it was beautiful none the less.
We lived in groups of 2 to 4 people with host families from the Café Justo Cooperative. They were nervous about keeping American students in their houses, worried that we would be uncomfortable because of their lack of "American comodities" such as showers, toilet seats, flushable toilets, and because we wouldn´t like their food. The family that I stayed with, Hernan and Marquita Cifuentes, were incredibly generous with we 4 girls who stayed with them. We were given the 2 best rooms with the 4 best beds, while the other 6 people living in the house were crammed into the one other room, sleeping on mattresses on the floor.
Almost every day we had activities planned through Café Justo, visiting a coffee parcela, traveling into Tapachula to see an organization called Jesú Christo al Buen Pastor, hiking in a Mariposario to a beautiful waterfall, visiting the elementary school, the clinic, and the library.
All our other time, though, was spent with our families. The Cifuentes family is related to almost everyone in Salvador Urbina it seems like, and there were always people in the house. Our parents were an older couple with 8 children who were all grown and had their own families, 6 of which lived in the community. There were always at least 5 children in the house, all wanting to play games. We taught them secret hand shakes and games like pass the cup, miss mary mack and other games of that sort, we played volleyball, soccer, and basketball, and learned games that they taught us. My 15 year old host neice asked if I could leave Lucas there for her, in return she offered her 6 year old cousin Jhorib to me, since he already thought I was his girlfriend. I jokingly agreed, and from then on there were jokes whenever Lucas came by the house.
We became so close to our family in such a short amount of time that it was really tough to leave. They kept asking when we would come back, asking for invitations to our weddings, whenever they may be, writing down phone numbers and emails. The morning that we left our whole family started crying, which of course started all of us crying too. There were hugs and blessings and then it was time to go.
Now we are back in Guatemala for our last little bit of the trip. We are leaving this afternoon for Antigua for Semana Santa, or Holy Week. There will be lots of processions and the streets will be decorated. I am so anxious to get home though, hopefully I won´t wish this week away. This week also holds final presentations, and mine is tomorrow. Hopefully after that I will be able to focus on where I am, appreciate the beauty, and prepare myself for saying goodbye to this beautiful country.
I am almost done, and I can´t believe it.
I will be seeing you all soon!
Blessings,
Jenn
