Quetzales and Semuc Champey

So, after leaving Robin at the airport, I began a marathon bus day, spending nearly 11 1/2 straight hours on a bus ( or 6 to be more exact) with hardly time for a bathroom break, finally arriving back in Guatemala at a little hostel called Los Ranchitos up in the mountains in central Guatemala near a national park. The draw of this little stop is that it is one of the only places in the country were it is possible to see a real live Quetzal (national bird, endangered species...). they come to feed in the ttrees around the hostel in the mornings and evenings. I stayed two nights here which was perfect. there were not many other people and I spent most of my time by myself, but it was just what I needed. Saw a few Quetzales, recharged my batteries, read my book, took a little walk through the cloud forest surrounding the hotel and then took off for Lanquin/Semuc Champey. Semuc Champey (A mayan name that means "where the river runs under the earth") is this natural wonder where a 300m limestone bridge (more or less) was formed over hundreds of years, where the river runs underneath the bridge while on top, there are all these natural limestone pools filled with rain water from the mountains. They are blue and green (depending on the time of year) due to the minerals in the water. One of my days was spent on an all day tour here, which was incredible, the tour also included this excursion into one of the many cave system that are found in this area. We were swimming with candles in the dark back into this cave, climbing ladders...it was pretty neat, although quite cold after awhile. The place I stayed at was called El Retiro lodge and is located in the closest little village to Semuc Champey, called Lanquin, and it was pretty much like a backpackers resort. It is located along the river (which we rented intertubes one day and floated down), all the beds are in these bungalow, straw houses with hammocks outfront, and everything (including the food at the reastaurant etc) was just put "on your tab." It was a really great place to relax for a few days and I spent my time with this group of 7 british folk traveling together and another single traveler from Holland, we had a lot of fun. (I taught them my new card game, they were hooked.) One of the nights it was the birthday of one of the girls of the large group, leading to a "fancy dress" party, meaning crazy dress up...who knew the crazy things other backpackers carry around with them...In addition to the day tour at Semuc Champey, I also went to the Lanquin caves, another large cave system that goes on forever. The caves themselves were cool, but only so impressive, what was incredible was sitting at the entrance of the cave at sunset when all the bats began to fly out for the evening. There were millions of them, just swishing by. In the dark you couldn't see them, but when you take a picture, you see bats all around you. Pretty crazy.
From here, I headed back to Antigua on Thursday, spending another long day on the bus, but arriving in Antigua early enough to still get a dorm bed in the hostel I wanted to. Since then, I've been getting things in order for my dad's visit (he's coming on Monday, yay!!!), doing laundry, spending money, and just taking it easy. I was hoping to get to see some of "los chicos de Guate" that always ate lunch and dinner at Lili's house, but they're men and Guatemalans and so far I have not been able to get a hold of them on the phone. Who knows, the weekend is not over yet.
Today I changed my return plane ticket to a week later than planned, I know, a week hardly seems like much, but it's just going to make all the difference! After I leave my dad, I'm hoping over to Belize for some general traveling, but mainly this 2 night 3 day sailing snorkeling trip that is supposed to be incredible (and am hopefully going to run into the solo holland traveler from Semuc Champey there again) and then will make my way back to Utila to do my open water dive and hopefully a few fun dives, leaving myself just enough time to get back to Guate and then home! Crazy that it seems so close now, the return, although I know there are many more adventures waiting for me before that comes!!