It’s funny, how your mood and perception of things can change so quickly. When I first arrived at this hostel, I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever stayed. For one, it’s like a resort, honestly. There is a pool and a jacuzzi, and they feed you every meal (I mean you pay for it, but they kind of have to—it’s not like food is easily accessible around here). Everything is built beautifully and the very opposite of most hostels I’ve stayed at. And yet…I really don’t like it here.
It’s a party hostel, but nothing like ones I’ve ever stayed at before. There isn’t anywhere to GO, so everyone just parties here. It’s very loud in my room—it’s 1:30 am, and I can clearly hear just about everything people are saying (yelling) downstairs. So I guess that’s normal, but usually people like GO OUT in party hostels. Right now, there are people fucking in the bed across the room from me, so yes, another party hostel thing. Even though I have a group of friends here, they aren’t like, super close friends, and I don’t feel really connected with them. Maybe it’s because there’s too many of us, or maybe it’s just because of my headspace, I’m not sure. Either way, ever since I got here, I’ve felt lonely and miserable.
I tried today, I really did. I tried drinking a bunch to get myself in the mood, but it didn’t work. I even played a drinking game, and made myself stay up a bit even though I was tired. But I was still me, and everyone else was stupid and annoying, and you can’t pretend that this place is a nightclub by turning the lights out and blasting music.
It doesn’t help that I still have stupid drama going on in my life, and one of my friends that I’m with is part of it, and it’s all a huge mess and everything is terrible. I’m like the first one in bed here, because I’m just not enjoying my time hanging out with people downstairs, and I’m also tired. But mostly the first thing.
I’m still awake, and I have buttloads of work to do tomorrow, so I guess I’ll write about the last couple days.
I ended up on a different bus to here from my friends, because apparently I’m stupid and couldn’t remember what travel agency they got their tickets through. Even though they said that there was only one bus, THIS WAS A LIE. THERE WERE TWO. Or maybe even three, I’m not sure. Either way, they were mini buses and I was on a separate one from my friends, and it was way crappier.
Instead of individual seats, we had one big seat, and NO HEADRESTS (the other bus had headrests). This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when you are on a bus for nine hours after having slept only a couple hours the night before, it becomes one very quickly. I was also all the way in the back, and for some reason, the seats back there were up higher than the other seats, so it was virtually impossible to get comfortable. And some pretty shady shit was going on as well. Basically, right before we left Flores, the bus driver went up to a couple guys on the bus and was like, we didn’t get your money for your tickets! And they were like, um, we paid the travel agency! And they were like, but they didn’t pay US yet! And they were like…how is that our problem, exactly? It was so fucked up—the driver made them talk to the agency on the phone, and kept telling them it was their fault, that they should have waited for the agency to pay the bus company (WTF?). The driver was like, you have two options: you can either get a free shuttle back to Flores, wait for the agency to pay us, and then leave. But like there is only ONE BUS A DAY. So, no? And then they were like, or we could go to the gas station where the PERSON WITH THE MONEY MAY OR MAY NOT BE THERE. It was so confusing, and also there was a language barrier (one guy on the bus was translating but still). In the end, some lady at the gas station just handed the driver some money, and that was it. IT WAS SO FUCKED UP.
The good thing about this whole thing was that it bonded our bus pretty well. There were only like eleven of us, and we had become a team. So we spent the rest of the ride just kind of feeling a sense of camaraderie. There was a TV on the bus, but they wouldn’t let us use it for some reason…until like several hours in they changed their minds. And then all of us had a very fun time picking a movie that we could understand that either had English or subtitles, and trying to figure everything out, and it was just like, nice.
Weird Guatemalan thing: we took a ferry over a river. On our bus. I’ve never just driven a car onto a ferry before, but that’s the only way across. We had to wait at least half an hour for the trip in front of us to go to the other side, unload, and come back. It was a little terrifying, because you could literally just drive off the edge of this thing.
Three movies, at least ten VERY near accident, an incredibly sleepless and uncomfortable bus ride, several stops, and lots of laughs later, we’d almost arrived. At this point, we were in the mountains, and the bus ride got, if possible, even more uncomfortable, because we were going up a mountain on rocky, unpaved roads. It HURT. Eventually, we arrived in Lanoquin, which is the town where Semuc Champey is next to. It was like 5:30 pm, and we had been traveling since 8am, and we were all sore and exhausted. I had to split up from my new friends, as I was staying in a different place as them, and a tuk-tuk took me on a very perilous journey up the mountain some more to this place.
I didn’t want to do anything last night. I ate something and tried to do some work but I was much too tired, and I went to bed early while everyone else partied.
Today, I went on a tour of Semuc Champey. They piled us into the back of a pickup truck, which is pretty much how everyone gets around here. There are these bars all around the back parts of the trucks, and you see locals hanging on and standing and sitting in all ways on these things. Which is nuts, because the roads are so bad you could easily just fly right off. It was an exciting journey for us, and really long—almost an hour of standing back there, trying not to fall off.
The first thing we did was go caving. They give you candles, and that’s the only source of light in this water-filled cave things. It was really scary in some places, our guide wasn’t the best, and just kind of went along, not really telling us when it was about to get really deep or anything. You start out walking through the (cold!) water, but soon it gets deep enough in some parts that you have to swim. With your candle. It’s all very odd.
Our first really scary thing was we had to climb a waterfall. There was also a ladder next to it if you wanted, but I’m never one to do the easy thing. There is a rope that’s IN the waterfall, and you go in there so the water is completely splashing your face, you can’t even open your eyes and can hardly breathe. I just grabbed the rope and felt for footholds and CLIMBED. It wasn’t too tall, and I did it pretty fast because it was SO AWFUL.
The other big thing we did was this jump thing. It was scary because the water is quite shallow, but people do it all the time. Again, we didn’t HAVE to do it…but I’m not gonna NOT do it. So we climbed up to this point, and our guide told us individually exactly what to do, and you just DO it. It was so scary, and the water was shallow enough that I hit the bottom and was basically squatting. By this time, we were all frozen and shivery. We had been in the water for quite awhile with no sun to warm us.
On our way back, I ended up towards the back of the group, and a bit behind everyone. There are some very perilous ladder and stuff that you go down, and I’m VERY slow at going down ladders, and I got a bit behind. I was really grateful that a couple people were with me, because we would have gotten left in the cave. Our guide didn’t even really wait for us. Later in the day, we were wondering how many people get seriously injured in these caves every year—what we did, or at least the way our guide led it—wasn’t particularly safe.
After escaping the scary caves, we went on this GIANT rope swing. I was TERRIFIED. It’s HUGE. But I’m not going to not do it. You just jump right at the peak of the swing, but I definitely didn’t time it quite right (as many people do) and landed in the water basically on my throat and chest. It was SO painful, and I was winded for a couple minutes. I didn’t try the swing again. And then we took some pictures of a stupidly pretty waterfall.
We ate lunch at this barbecue run by locals, but I had brought food from the hostel. These little kids come around trying to sell you beer, water, and chocolate. And they are uncannily good salespeople. These little six year olds remember your name and everything. They would do very well selling cars in the US in about 15 years.
After lunch, we went on a hike, which was slippery and very steep and tiring, but we got to an amazing viewpoint. I really need to work out. Also my legs shake when I walk and hike too much, I don’t know what’s up with that. Maybe i should just eat more bananas. And then we went back down, and then went into the lovely pools there!
There are like six of them, and they are all connected with little waterfalls, and they are so blue-green and clear and just STUNNING. It was one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I’ve ever been. I slid down a few waterfalls, some on purpose, some by accident. I’m so glad I’m getting more comfortable in the water. I’m really beginning to ENJOY it and know I’ll be okay. It’s allowing me to experience a whole new world of activities.
Our way back home was just as bumpy and scary as our way there, and the time we picked up another tourist couple, and a local kid ran and jumped on the back for a ride. I don’t know if they even consider things like safety around here.
After eating a very filling and healthy dinner of french fries, I took a hot shower (yes, there was actually hot water and it was GLORIOUS). I then tried really really REALLY hard to be social. And I don’t know, maybe I’m broken, maybe it’s just the people here, maybe it’s the hostel itself. Either way…it’s not working for me. I’m lonely and uncomfortable and just not feeling the vibe. But at least it’s still beautiful here, with nice facilities and a view you really can’t beat. I was thinking of staying here for two more nights, but after tonight, I think I’m only going to book one. No use staying somewhere I don’t feel wanted.
The good news? I think I’m sleepy enough from all this writing to go back to sleep now.