Guatemala!

So after eating lots of food in Roatan, singing karaoke in Copan, and lots of buses. We arrived in Antigua. A colonial style town an hour from Guatemala city and six from Honduras. Having been to Antigua before I new what to expect. Going on my last experience I would be spending a decent amount of my time lost. Antigua is built mostly on a grid system but then it has a few streets that turn it into a maze. It's hard to get your bearings and all the buildings are of a similar style and colour. Nevertheless, with every plaza you stumble upon; you find a new intricately decorated church, a new part to the endless market, or a new pastry shop. So getting lost wasn't always bad.

Having arrived much later than planned on the Monday we couldn't start our language course til the next day, so we found a cheap hostel, made some food and crashed out. Waking up the next morning and looking at my clock it dawned on me that I should've been at school an hour ago. Oops. Not the best start. But once I eventually turned up, more like 2 hours late (there was a few issues in finding the language school) they were happy to accommodate the fact that I'd have to do lessons later that day and an extra lesson at somepoint during the week. And with that I started spanish school.
Throughtout the lessons they test your understanding and speaking ability, reinforce the verb conugations and take you on walks around antigua and go to the markets and make you talk to the people there. It was extremely helpful for me, it gave me the confidence I needed to speak spanish to people because it showed me that I could both understand and form the verbs needed. Brilliant. In addition to having 4-6 hours of spanish each day you are living with a local family who provides your meals and accomodation for the time that you're studying. I was staying with a ovely family of four who housed 6 students in total. There was me, a polish journalist, a german student, an australian traveller, a 60 year old retired american and a swiss guy. It was a good mix of people and from the first night at dinner I could see I was in for a laugh. And good food. After 4 months of living in a country where salad doesn't exist in any culinary sense. I was served a plate of crunchy, green, fresh salad leaves with peppers, onions, crunchy toast and a nice light dressing. I tried not to let on how much this sad pleased me but I think it was obvious to everyone.
The week spent in antigua was brilliant! I learned a lot of spanish, met some awesome people and celebrated my housemates 30th birthday in style. With cake, pinata, fireworks and in true central american style rum! The market is fantastic. I even managed to get a cheap replacement for my broken rucksack!

Early on a Monday morning we left Antigua for Semuc Champey. This would be a 8 hour bus journey and I wasn't thrilled to be doing it but hey, I'd heard so much about Semuc that I couldn't let a bus journey get in the way... Semuc Champey is a national park that has spectacuar limestone pools and an unforgettable caving experience. We eventually arrived in Semuc 10 hours later, after the bus driver ran a few personal errands, picked up his wife and changed a tyre. So we eventually got settled into the hostel, had some food and chilled. The next day we set out, twenty people crammed into the back of a pick up truck for the bummpiest, most uncomfortable journey of my life. The truck moved at such a slow pace due to the amount of people and the extremely steep constant incline. No airflow whatsoever. Combine that with being pressed against many other people. Things get very hot. We were all extremely relived when we arrived at the entrance to the cave. The guide, a small, nimble guatemalan, told us to take off or shoes and strip down to our swimming costumes. We were then all given a candal and asked if we could swim with one hand. The answer was pretty much yes, and anyone who wasn't sure was given a lifevest. And off we went, feeling somewhat bemused and unsure as to what I was geting myself into.. at the entrance to the cave we lit the candals and proceeded with the guide shouting 'heads!!' And then 'left, left'. As the water gradually got deeper we heard, 'one hand up. Swim' and so on. Climbing ladders, sliding over rocks, jumping off things. All into the complete darkness except for this little flickering candal, our lifeline.
After lots of swimming, jumping and bashing of toes on rocks, we reached the end of the cave. The finale was to clamber up this rock in the complete darkness, and jump into, what can only be described as, the abyss. The guide pointed a candal into the pool and said jump here. I was perched on the side of tis rock, looking into blackness a few flickering candals in the distance, safe to say I was a little scared. And I jumped. I hit the water after what seemed like an age and was plunged into complete darkness as I hit the water. Surfacing again into complete darkness, I was pretty adrenaline filled. I was ready to do it again. But unfortunately we couldn't. There was other jumps to complete.
We headed out of the cave and towards the sunlight. From there we walked to a rope swing. This was one of the most impressive rope swings I've seen. Everyone was in awe of this thing. And so eventually the first person stepped up, and then the next. And every person that jumped ended up landing on their faces, bums., stomachs. I was not reassured but I did it anyway. I jumped on and started flying through the air, at what I thought was the optimum point. Turns out it wasn't. I felt myself falling forward and heading straight for a massive bellyflopp. I decided to tuck and roll. And so I ended up doing a sommersault off this crazy rope swing. I surfaced with a stinging shoulder, and to the sond of cheering. The guide shook my hand and called me 'chica loca'. The funny part is that I didn't even mean it. I was simply savig myself from the king of all bellyflopps. We left the swing with some very red bodied tourists. I think only one person managed to land in the water the way we were supposed to..
From there we headed to a bridge. Apparently we could jump off. It must have been like 10-12 meters high. So I jumped. And it was brilliant. So I jumped again. And again. And once more. God it was good fun. We stopped for lunch and then headed to the actual Semuc Champey park. We hiked up for a few hours and were rewarded with an amazing view of a valley with the limestone pools which were filled with the clearest water. From the viewpoint you cold see the rocks, people swimmig and even some fish. It was amazing. We then headed down and cooled down in these beautiful crystal clear pools.
It was fantastic. The only downside was the cramped, unconfortable truck ride home. But even that didn't spoil my day! What a way to end my time in Guatemala.

Next stop the end of the world.