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Flores to Linquin Champey was an horrific bus journey. We were in these cramped mini vans, very uncomfortable ride. The roads here in Guatemala have to be the worst in terms of pot holes. I really don't know how they could drive in the night. As they have no street lights, and these pot holes are like ditches in the middle of the road. If you drove in one, you would definitely damage your car. Somehow they managed it, I guess they are used to it.
Seb suggested this place as he was told by another traveler to go. I hadn't heard of it so I left him to sort out the hostel. Basically a hostel in the jungle which was a nightmare to get to. The roads are so bad. In my head, we was going all this way into the jungle to go in a cave. That's what Seb told us there was to do there. Expensive hostel and they don't allow any food or drinks from outside. To be honest, there were no shops around to buy anything anyways. But the food was really nice but didn't want to pay the prices. There was no electricity for most of the day, only between 6pm - 11pm. So far, we wasn't enjoying our time here. Although, once we booked onto the only tour they offer at the hostel for the next day, Seb saved himself. It was an amazing tour, so much fun, with really fun people.
Firstly on the tour, we went into this cave with candles, which at first was a great idea. Few steps into the cave we had to walk into water that was deeper than us and pitch black. All we had was the candle, but if the candle went out you had to light your candle with someone else's. We climbed through this small water fall within the cave on a single piece of rope. Jump of this rock inside the cave into a pool of water. Slide down this small gap, big enough for everyone to fit through. But it was so claustrophobic. We all felt near death as at the bottom of the slide it was deep water and only a small gap at the top for you to breath. Very scary experience.
After the horrific but extremely fun experience in the cave. We went onto the rope swing into the lake. It was a big swing so went your body came into contact with the water, it was painful. It was like doing a belly flop. Although, dib dob Kyle did and has a patchy black bruise all over his stomach.
Then a few of use made this stupid attempt to climb up this water fall to jump off it again. The current was so strong, that Seb couldn't do it on his own. Kyle had to take him over. I was s***ting myself as I'm not an experienced swimmer, plus I had my GroPro strapped to my wrist, but I managed it. There was no backing out once you was up there, as it was more dangerous to climb back down, so everyone jumped. And jumped right under the waterfall. All worth the experience to face those fears.
Then we got our tubes and went tubing down the lake for 20 minutes. So cool, and young local boys came in the water with their cooler boxes trying to sell us beers and saying to us we can pay later. The whole morning was so fun and a whirl wind that you forgot about what you had just done. We went back to the hostel and all had a nice lunch before we set off again to go on a 30 minute trek. We trekked up to see this perfect view of the natural water pools below. This is where we all got our group photos (check photos out). We then walked down to the pool to jump in. These small fish kept on eating the skin off our feet, which was annoying. It was raining too but it was warm enough for it. One girl fell down and slipped into the water. She really hurt herself but all of us couldn't stop laughing. Seb fell over a few times, as he wore his Vans trainers, which had zero grip. Most of us did it bare foot. All in all, the tour was brilliant and we were all so tired when we got back. But once we had dinner, some crazy Candian girls invited us to play a drinking game "ring of fire". Well the night ended messy for most. But I sneaked off, as I didn't want to feel s*** for my 6:30am bus the next day. Those days have long gone, for feeling s*** when traveling.
6:30am shuttle was ready for us but I was not ready for this dreadful trip. The estimate travel time was 11 hours but ended up being 14 hours. We finally had dinner at 9pm that day. I was sat next to this really nice Canadian girl who offered me all her food. I originally thought she was Irish. And I wasn't expecting her to be married, she looked too young to be married. We spoke most the journey and we were laughing at this local woman next to me breastfeeding. Didn't know where to put my eyes. It is nice to have friends around the world who you can go an visit in the future. I have so many friends now that I need to visit around the world. Will my traveling ever end?
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Meg