Follow the Journey

After 24 hours of various transfers and flights we finally made it to our destination; Guatamela City Airport. We were promptly picked up by two vans which took us through Guatemala City, Antigua, and up into the surrounding mountains to our current location. The Earth Lodge is nestled high up in the clouds surrounded by a beautiful luscious forest, as well as numerous avacado and lime trees. The view was instantly breath taking, with a perfect view down onto Antigua. We were all quite well spent from our long day of travel, but our new surroundings as well as a welcoming meal gave us a huge energy boost. We have been fed three meals a day, which thus far has included some of the best guacamole, garlic bread, lentil soup, fresh fruit, and quesadillas ever. All eight of the girls are together in one dorm-like room, which is rather small but quite cozy. Brent and Jessica and the four boys are all split into partners and get to stay in little “Canopy Cabins” on stilts. The bathrooms consists of a 20 foot toilet hole , an actual toilet, and a shower. There are two dogs who have free reign over the large property, a german shepard named Rufus, and an old husky mix named Lola. Today we’ve been taking things quite easily. We started off with a nice breakfast, and then got to go do some laundry at the communal washing station. Where we manually scrubbed out clothing on washboards, with water we scooped out of a large pool. There was one native woman there who was washing clothes for 10 people and she did this every three days. The rest of the day has consisted of group building activities , card games, and using the stone built sauna. We are just now starting to get ready for dinner and bring a close to the day.Tommorrow we get to go down into Antigua where we will have a scavenger hunt of sorts.
Looking forward to sharing the rest of the trip, much love to all friends and family of the MAYA group reading this!
Ricky,Sophia, Jared