Things seem to be wrapping up quickly here. Spanish classes are done, my practicum is done, and Tuesday we will present our marketing plan to Por Que No? Café and thus my marketing class will be done. The fog of all the classes, work, activities and excitement has seemed to clear and all of a sudden I find myself on the last Sunday night of my last week in Guatemala. People keep asking me if I am happy or sad to leave and honestly I can’t answer that question. I can hardly wait to go home and be with my family and friends once again but then, there is also that deep painful feeling of knowing who I am leaving behind and that I may never find myself in Antigua with them again.
On Thursday me and Kyle gave our 25 min long final presentations entirely in Spanish to the head bosses of the hotel. We were both pretty nervous about it since I only formally studied Spanish for 5 weeks and Kyle for 3. However, with some help beforehand, they went really well. Everyone was so kind and excited to hear what we had learned from them. Even Paul Nemecek (our professor here) and Juan Carlos (the director of La Union Spanish Language School) and his wife came to the presentation. It was really cool to know that they cared enough to come and support us and that they were proud of our work at the hotel. At the end of our presentation the general manager of Camino Real Antigua, Señor Abel Murga, thanked us for our work and said that he really enjoyed having us. Then he said something that I wasn’t quite prepared for. He said that the secret to his success and the principal that he has lived by is to never forget those that you leave behind. I was really taken aback by the strength of that statement, not only in a business sense but also in almost a philosophic sense as well. It brought tears to my eyes as I realized that everyone sitting at that table was someone I was leaving behind.
Me presenting
The bosses at Camino Real
Wednesday was a big festival for the burning of the devil. Apparently it symbolizes the battle of good and evil and at the end of the festival they set a piñata on fire to show the triumph of good over evil. This triumph then leads right into the celebration of Christmas.
Angels and Demons
It has been a little difficult to feel the Christmas spirit here being that it is so warm still. On Thursday our group had a Christmas party at Bev and Paul’s. We decorated the tree and made Christmas cookie, broke open a Santa piñata and sang Feliz Navidad. It warmed my heart to be a part of the preparations for Christmas here since we will be missing a lot of it back home.
For our last weekend here a group of 7 of us decided to spend it in Semuc Champey. Other tourists that we have met along the way have continuously told us that we need to visit Semuc before we leave…and they were right. Lake Atitilan has by far been my favorite adventure so far in Guatemala but I have to say that Semuc Champey may have just stolen that title. After and 8 or 9 hour ride we finally arrived at our accommodations a little before midnight. They were cute little cabin/dorms with a shared bathroom. My bed had also been home to 2 2-inch cockroaches. However, the next person to stay in that room can rest assured that they are now much more dead than when I found them. The next morning we rode in the back of a pick-up up and down and back up and then back down again to Semuc Champey. None of us really understood exactly what this place was that we were going to visit. However, we found out that Semuc Champey is actually a cave from which an underground river surfaces and becomes Rio Dulce (Sweet River). We hiked up and down mountains for what seemed like years over slippery and muddy paths almost to the point where I didn’t know how much more my body could take. Finally we made it to a perfect overview of the river. It was breathtaking from above but nothing like getting to swim in it. There is a part where the river splits and part goes underground through the caves and the other part goes over and forms several beautiful lagoons. The cool, clear and vibrant turquoise water was incredible feeling after the sweaty and muddy hike. We swam in the lagoons for a while and then the guides took us to the edge of a huge water fall and gave us the chance to jump off. Before the trip I had pinky promised Evan (one of the guys in our group) that I would jump off a cliff, however I was not prepared for a cliff like this. It was a ten meter drop-off into a fairly strong river. I started shaking and my heart was pounding as I stood by the edge. There was no way. Several people jumped while the rest of us watched in half amazement and half horror. Then the guide said no more could go and we had to continue with the tour. At this point I must admit I was incredibly relieved. Our next task was to propel halfway down a waterfall and then jump onto a nearby rock. Usually this would have been terrifying but it was small potatoes in light of the 10 meter plummet. Most of the group did it and then from the large rock we hopped across another waterfall and into the cave “Semuc Champey” that is the outlet for Rio Dulce. We stood above the raging river for a while and then crossed back over the waterfall onto the big rock. From here we had two options of getting back: we could climb back up the water fall that we had previously propelled down or we could jump off the big rock into the river. Neither option really seemed that appealing. After all the real chickens went up the waterfall, the guide at the top of asked if he could pull up the rope. Feeling the guilt of not jumping off the first cliff I hesitantly told him he could go ahead and pull up the rope. So there I was standing next to a waterfall on a massive rock about to jump off a 7 meter cliff into the river below. At this point I should tell you that I don’t really even jump off diving boards. But there was no going back…literally. So the people in front of me jumped…and even lived to cheer me on from the bottom. From where I had been waiting I really could not even see the jump. When I climbed out onto the edge of the cliff the guide told me not to look down. I was amazingly fairly calm…until I glanced down. I immediately turned around and buried my face in my shoulder. No way. Because of the way the cliff stuck out you could not even see where you would be hitting the water. The guide told me in his broken English to stop thinking about it and just jump…the thinking is worse than the jump. I really couldn’t do it. Then all the survivors at the edge of the river who had jumped before me started cheering and counting down. I stared straight ahead at them…“three”…”two”…….my heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest and I was thinking I hope they don’t say… “ONE!” came the word I dreaded the most and I leaped off the cliff and plummeted into the river below. I did it. I survived! I kept my pinky promise. I jumped off a cliff. It was incredible!!!
This is my new favorite mode of transportation
The view from above
Tell me this is not the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.
Where the river goes underground
This is the big rock I jumped off of!
My "I did it!" picture
Tooth brushing party at the lodge!
I thought that would be my last life-threatening adventure for the day but as it turns out I was way wrong. After lunch and a brisk tube float down the river we went into the caves. We were each armed with one candle and shoes. In the cave, of course, was the river. We walked about waist high in water until it dropped off and we had to swim with one arm holding the candle above the water and kicking with our heavy shoe covered feet. Little did I know that was only the beginning. From there we proceeded to climb up some rickety ladders, swim some more, see some spiders that were bigger than my head, climb down some rickety ladders and swim some more. My candle had about an inch left and I was a little worried since I still could not see the end. Then we get up to this little shoot (which David referred to as the “birthing canal”) with water pouring down it and our guide standing at the bottom in the dark telling us to jump. That was about it for me. I am incredibly claustrophobic and water rushing over my head as I try to fit through a little hole in the middle of a dark cave did not sound like anything I ever wanted to do. However, again there was no backing out now so I faced my fears and once again came out alive.
On the 8 hour trip back to Antigua someone on the bus mentioned that it was exam week. All of a sudden it hit me. It is mid-December and exam week and I had just spent the weekend swimming in caves, jumping off cliffs and staying in open air cabins. Even though this week has just begun, I think that it is safe to say this has been and probably will be the best exam week of my life. I have been so blessed to be able to experience so many incredible things here and meet so many incredible people. Looking back on who I was at the beginning of the semester to who I am now it seems like I have changed so much. As I try to soak up the last few days here I know that I will “never forget those I leave behind.”
Those are some pretty amazing pictures!!
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