Parasites make bad pets.

This past weekend was spent traveling to an exotic gem of Guatemala, Semuc Champey, I have been waiting entire four week trip to see this beautiful place, and it was completely worth the eight hour ride to get there. But before we dive into those details, let me inform you of our treacherous journey. Becca and I left the bus station on the “especial” bus. It is essentially a coach bus that does not smell very pleasant and these crazy drivers that take these windy turns up and down mountains like nobody’s business. If I didn't hold onto the arm rest (the real reason there are arm rests on these buses) I would have been tossed onto the floor or against the window enough to have given me a concussion. I don't get car sick at all, but this was a close call (yes, there are bathrooms on these things, not that you could sit on the toilet long enough to get the job done….sorry, just saying). Around 630pm we arrive in Coban, its pitch black and all I have to get us to our hotel is my broken Spanish and a map of the city. So I approached the crazy driver and asked if he would please please drop us at our hotel since it was on the main road, he obliged very kindly (so now I feel rude about insulting his driving)…anywho he drops us and after walking half a block in this not so great area we find our adorable hotel. Upon entering, I try to talk with the receptionist….after becoming frustrated with his inability to understand me we just go up to our room. He not only tried to get us to pay for two rooms when we wanted to just share one, but he also told us that our tour does not pick up from the hotel (the only reason I got this was because he kept pointing around the corner and other context clues). So we resort to calling our director Virginia to help us understand why we were misinformed. We give the phone to the receptionist, and it turns out this guy speaks MAYAN. No wonder he didn't understand me!!! I cant tell you what a relief this was. Plus we did have a guide coming in the morning to pick us up. Thank goodness.

Saturday was spent traveling another four hours to get to Semuc Champey with a group of about 12 tourists in total from all over. I just love that about traveling. Oh HI Im from Italy, and Germany, and El Salvador….its just fun to mix up the cultures I guess and realize all the differences and similarities. So we go through a 2 hour unpaved journey down into a beautiful valley and then we have to ride in the back of a pick up truck to the actual park of Semuc Champey for another 2 hours, while standing up. Yeah that was fun…especially in 4WD. The trip was totally worth the end result of swimming around in these blue lagoons. It's a giant river that goes underneath a 300m limestone bridge that is covered with four connecting lagoons then at the bottom of the last one, the bridge comes to a giant waterfall that empties into the same river that flows under the bridge. AMAZING. I am pretty sure that was how paradise feels. Surrounded by butterflies everywhere and lush green mountains encasing you, gosh. My favorite part was when our guide grabbed Becca and just started walking off with her, of course I am inquisitively watching this and then she starts to disappear under a rock….what?! “Ummm Becca? What are you doing?!” She tells me there is an mini cave! So of course I swim over and load in behold, there is a tiny cave. And I mean tiny. You have about half a foot of breathing room between the water and the stalagmites. It was just magical, so of course I did it twice.

Next came the Lanquin Cave, all I have to say about that was that I was so concerned with not dying or falling to my death in the grimy cave, that I really didn't look around much. I was not that thrilled with the cave, I mostly wanted to see the bats, which there were many to see…and spiders. Our guide found a “pseudo-scorpion” which basically looks like a crab but is half scorpion half spider…creepy giant thing with 6 legs and 8 eyes….ugh so gross, but still intriguing.

After returning from our long drive to Coban, we were exhausted, however we still managed to meet up with some of the people from our tour and go eat some local grub and had some fabulous sausage. Street food for the win. Exhausted, we wandered back to our hotel and crashed. Was that seriously just one day?The next morning we slept in, obviously. And I managed to get us to the closest bus stop to catch our especial bus back home.

This past week is somewhat of a blur now as I was pretty sure I was going to just die Tuesday night from some sort of stomach bug/parasite. I am assuming I got it from cliff jumping into the water and having it shoot up my nose, all I could think was OMG I HAVE THE BRAIN EATING AMOEBA OR MALARIA! …no no, just felt like I was dying all night, no big deal. It was amazing how fast I came back from that, but my appetite has severely suffered. Its still a challenge to eat more than a couple handfuls. The rest of the week we had our regular dose of Spanish lessons and went to Antigua Wednesday where Becca and I did some browsing and haggling, of which I think we have become quite the team. Most of my purchases I have gotten down at least 40% of their original asking price. We went back to my favorite coffee spot in the plaza (yes, I already am friends with the owner…he’s awesome). There is something really comforting about having a local place where people in a foreign country recognize you and just start making your drink. I absolutely love it. Afterwards we walked over to a little lady making tostadas….enough said. Drank the local beverage of atoll (a creamy corn drink) and just relaxed until the rest of the group met up with us.

 As for Friday, some exciting news happened. I was helping the nurses give the kiddos their daily bathes and washing the burns and the chief of surgery, who is in charge of my placement at the hospital, and I started up a conversation getting to know each other a bit better. I give her the inside scoop on what I want to do as a Physician Assistant one day, for those of you who don’t know, I am really into Nephrology. She perks up at this and informs me that there is actually a pediatric nephrology clinic at the hospital…..WHAT ARE THE ODDS!? They mostly do dialysis but she told me that she really wants me to go and observe one day in the clinic. She also invited me to go observe a kidney transplant this coming week!!! I had to keep myself from jumping up in down in this tiny bath room but I had a tough time wiping the giant grin off my face, I cant help it. It appears my last three weeks here are going to be quite interesting to say the least.