Dear mothers, lovers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and beloved pets,
Greetings from Coban! We are staying in a Hostal tonight and taking a lengthy bus ride to Xela tomorrow morning, but, lets not get too ahead of ourselves here. You must know about last week first!
We left San Andres for Coban last Sunday. We stayed in the same Hostal we are staying in now, it is very clean and the people are nice and it has been a great place to recoup.
Monday morning we packed our bags and left for the Cloud Forrest. Our journey began with renting boots and taking a fifteen minute bus ride to another station. We arrived to discover a crammed cattle truck , little did we know it was just the beginning of the crazy adventures we were about to have.
We hugged one another all too tightly and squished together all too closely for the entire two our cattle truck ride. In the end though we conquered our naseau and claustrophobia and began our hike into the Cloud Forrest. It took about an hour to get to the village, Chicacnab, where we were greeted with dinner and accomodations. Our group all bunked in the same house which was one room split into two different sections dubbed the ¨dude shack¨and ¨the GIRLS ROOM.¨
We volunteered for three days in the cloud forrest. The first two days we created an assembly line where we took bags of sand and rocks from the top of a huge hill to the bottom. The sand and rocks will be used to make cement for the floor of a church.
The third day we spent clearing mud and rocks to make level ground where a kitchen will be built next to the house we were staying in. Both work jobs were difficult but we bonded and handled them with the endurance and strength of a carpe group (yeah yeah!!!)
The weather in the cloud forrest was warm most days and cold in the evenings and nights. We woke up to what looked like a thick layer of fog. We were livin in the clouds yo! Pretty tight if you ask me.
The last night we were in the Cloud Forrest we danced after dinner to the wonderful music of the Marumba which was played by three men. Its funny actually, every group we have interacted with so far in Guatemala loves to make us dance. They like to watch us, don´t ask me why.
The second we returned to Coban our achy muscles were all of a sudden fully restored, perhaps it had something to do with the McDonalds we were dying to hit up, thats just a guess though ha ha.
We slept like babies last night and left this morning to go swim in the pools at Semuc Champey. It wasn´t very sunny but still so beautiful and a fun place to relax. The water was pretty and we saw a lot of tourists there from all over the world.
And that brings us to where we are now! Currently the group is scattered throughout Coban, checking email, grabbing a bite to eat or catchin some zzzzzs. Tomorrow we´ve got a seven hour bus ride and honestly we are pumped. We love bus rides, it has become one of our favorite past times.
Now here is a lil triv from Brian-
The Cloud Forrest has about 175 people, a total of 30 or so families.
The Chicacnab was established thirty years ago.
¨Oos¨ means ¨good¨in Mayan.
I think I can speak on the behalf of the group when I say that it was a pretty tough week. The nights in Chicacnab were very cold, the water tasted like it was hickory smoked,we were all dirtier than we had been in our ENTIRE lives and most people we interacted with didn´t speak English or Spanish. I also know though that we created so many fun memories and inside jokes. I think we are also a lot more appreciative of little things, like toilets, and by the way they are TOTALLY a luxury for all of you who might not realize it. We also understand the importance of water and hydration, even if it doesn´t taste like we want it too.
Thats all for now folks. We love you lots and miss you. Know that we are growing, giving, loving and experiencing some really incredible things.
Love, Brooke
