Goodness! I have so much to talk about!

Let's see...The whole adventure started on Valentines Day when Nancy and Allison arrived. They got here super late and pretty much all we did was go to bed. But the next day we had tons of fun; we walked around Antigua showing them the sites, then we had lunch at a small cafe that has the best cookies I have ever tasted. After that we went to a small handicrafts market called El Carmen, then we walked to a travel agency to book a trip to Pacaya the next day. We also stopped by one more travel agency to schedule a trip to Semuc Champey, then we walked back to Santa Rosa. We had a quiet night and then went to bed early so we would be well rested for Pacaya. 

We didn't leave for Pacaya until 2 o'clock so we hung out in the morning. Then at two our driver came to pick us up and take us to the volcanoe. The drive was fine until we got right to the out skirts of Guatemala city and had to turn around because the teachers were striking and the roads were closed. We had an 

extra hour of driving because we had to go back to Antigua and and drive around another way to get to Pacaya. 

We finally got to Pacaya and started to hike, the hike was pretty much the same as I remembered it but much dustier. We finally got up to the lava field; there were tons of people and at first we couldn't see any lava. Then, once we got closer we could see this huge river of lava! We got up to the lava and roasted these disgusting colored marshmallows which was really fun! Then our guide told us that we had to go so we walked back down in the pitch black. We got down to the parking the parking lot, drove home and went straight to bed. 

The next morning we got up super early so we could get on our bus to go to Semuc Champey. At first we thought that the bus ride was only going to be about 3-4 hours but then our guide told 

us that the drive was going to be 8 hours long! We stopped along the way a few times and had lunch at this quaint little restaurant in the middle of nowhere. We got to the hotel which was a really cute inn with ponds everywhere! We walked around the site for about an hour and then our guide took us into the town nearby to have dinner. Dinner was great - we had roast chicken, rice, beans, and homemade tortillas. 

After dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed early. I woke up really early the next morning because our guide was banging on our doors at 6:00am. We had breakfast and then all squished into a truck bed. We all had to stand up and the ride was very bumpy. When we got to 

the park we started climbing a very steep path to a view point overlooking Semuc Champey. After we were all done we started down the other side and arrivedat the Semuc Champey pools. We all got into our bathing suits and then swam for awhile. There was a small cliff on the side of one of the pools and Kelsey, 

Allison and I all jumped off of it. Our guide also showed us a tree that was about 35-40 feet tall and we also jumped off of that! It was so fun except I was shaking pretty hard afterwards. Soon we were all calmed down and we set of to rappel down a waterfall and look at an underground river. The rappelling was easy and the river was really pretty. Apperantly the underground river was formed by the rocks on the cliffs falling down and covering up the existing river. The rocks on top eventually formed a bridge and the Semuc Champey pools developed on top of the limestone. Later we had lunch and the sandwiches that we had were 

disgusting but we were all so hungry that we ate them anyway. After lunch we walked to another place where we would go exploring in a cave. The cave was really pretty and we got to see bacon (a form of stalagtite), but all of us got banged up pretty badly because we could barely see anything. On the way back out of the cave our guide told me were going to take a shortcut through a hole that would put us closer to the entrance. He told me to follow him and then he sat down and dissapeared into the hole. I sat down and it was really freaky, I had no idea how far down i was going to go, if I was going to have to swim underwater or how deep the water was! I let go and was fine but the water was freezing through the hole and I had to wait for everyone to come after me. By the time we started going again I was shivering really hard. We got out of the cave and our guide told us that we were going to go tubing. The river was freezing but it was really nice to just sit back and relax. We made our way back to the hotel after that, had an early dinner and went to bed early again. We had a fine drive back to Antigua and hung out for the rest of the day. 

We were going to spend the weekend just hanging out but on Saturday we decided that we wanted to go to Monte Rico, a black sand beach on west coast of Guatemala, on Sunday. The drive to Monte Rico was very short compared to the one to Semuc Champey, and we got to the beach in no time. The beach at Monte Rico is very steep so the waves are huge and they break really hard. We were playing on the beach and letting the waves crash against us, then Kelsey and I decided to go out over the waves to clean out our bathing suits. Kelsey is a much stronger swimmer than me and she was ahead of me so when she went over a wave and then I tried to go over it too the result was not good. I got tossed under water and all I could see 

was green everywhere. I had no idea if I was upside-down or right side up but finally I saw the surface so I swam up and started swimming back to shore (not a good idea). I was almost back to the shore when another wave broke on me, I got all disoriented again but I safely made it out of the water with a little help from Allison. The rest of the day was very unexciting and it took a little time to get over my shock but after a while I went back and played at the very edge of the waves. For lunch we had fresh fruit smoothies and fish and chips which were really good. At about 4:00 we got on the bus again and came back to Antigua. That night I was exhausted but I couldn't fall asleep because I kept having flashbacks of the waves and the water. So I got up, watched an episode of a TV show with Mom and finally fell asleep on her bed. 

The next day we went to visit Nancy and Allison at the spanish school and it turns out that 

Allison has Kelsey's old teacher. The rest of the day we hung out and did school work. Today we walked down to the spanish school so we could meet Maria Jose, Allison, Nancy and Nancy's teacher Elena to go to a carnaval at Maria's daughters school. The kids at the school were all dressed up in costumes of all kinds: there was a spongebob, a zorro, some belly dancers, and sylvester the cat. All of the kids were lined up in rows acording to there grades and each grade would go out to the dance floor one at a time. Someone would turn on music and the kids would have 15 min to dance while the judges watched. It was so cute and the kids were darling! After that we came back to Santa Rosa and right now we are doing more schoolwork.

Okay my hand is cramping up from all of this typing so I have to stop.

Bye!

Larissa