After an adventurous day on Thursday, it was great to sleep in Friday morning. I started my day with a pretty crisp shower in an outdoor hut, followed by brushing my teeth under a faucet that poured out of an attached conch shell. I was freshened up and ready for a pretty chill day at our hostel.
At two o'clock, we were planning on tubing down the river behind our place. Until then though, we just relaxed under the pavilion. Niki and Ryan (Tennessee Katherine's friend) battled it out on the ping pong table while Georgia, Lee, Paul and I sat around and chatted in the hammocks.
At one point, we went for a walk on a search for a shuttle for the morning. Through discussion, we had found that the Aussie group was headed in the same direction as us, so we would all be riding together. A warm and uphill walk lead us to a small bus office where we purchased tickets from Lanquín to Flores, a small town not far from Tikal ruins.
Two o'clock had rolled around and we, along with about eighteen more people, gathered by the road with the hostel's inner tubes and waited for our ride up river. Just like our transportation the day before, we piled into a truck like cattle and headed up and down hills and around curves to our tubing start. Piling into tubes and into the freezing cold water, we got ready for takeoff. It was cool to watch the river fill with black tubes and happy travelers. Included in our tubing cost was a free can of beer that they handed out as we set down the river. The mob of tubes made their way down the river a lot quicker than I thought and we guided ourselves with our paddling hands to the the guides commands of "Left, Right and Midder". Haha.
We passed our hostel and continued for another ten minutes or so and then paddled our way to shore. They loaded the tubes AND us tubers into the truck, this time twice as squished and unsafe as the ride there.
We returned to our place in time for some more relaxing on the riverside dock. I treated myself to a banana, milk, peanut butter and cookie crumble smoothie and soaked in our time of chillin'.
I also figure that the smoothie would hold me over until another awesome buffet meal at the hostel which totally lived up to its reputation. Dinner was just as good as the last two.
After dinner, Marc, Solange and I, along with some German girls got on the subject of America's gun laws. As many people would avoid this topic because its up for such debate, I genuinely asked their opinions. I did this because I am an open minded person and genuinely curious of what the rest of the world thinks of our country. I did the same thing with Rhed back on Ometepe. I feel that this is one of the best things you can take away from traveling is other opinions, beliefs, stories and more OUTSIDE of your usual environment. If all you hear your whole life is those opinions around you, you will never be able to consider other ideas. I of course learned quickly, through a couple different conversations throughout this six week trip, that the rest of the world thinks our second ammendment "right" to bear arms is ridiculous! Unlike some who would take total offense to these opinions, was so intrigued to hear how their laws work. I was very pleased with our almost two hour conversation about the issue and liked how mature and controlled it was. They complimented my non confrontational ways and said they wished a lot more people could see both sides of the fence on issues like this. I was then, of course proud of myself for representing our country as an educated and open minded person.
It's crazy to me how once you reach outside your nest, how much your eyes are opened to what the rest of the world believes. Some opinions I agreed with, and others I didn't, but the fact that so many people of so many different backgrounds were able to come together and discuss different issues and opinions as civilized and interested adults, was really a cool experience for me.
After our nice little political debate, I joined back up with Niki who had been visiting more with the Australians and their son Ryan, who had arrived that evening. By the time I made it over to their table, the wine had already been flowing and everyone was feeling extra happy! Ryan was an absolute comic, and had everyone cracking up.
The rest of our night was filled with candlelight, a guitar being passed around, and laughter galore. Although we had only known some of these people for one or two days, we hung out with them like we had known them forever.
At about midnight, we calculated the amount of sleep we'd be getting and figured it might be a good idea to get some rest. We had an early bus the next morning to Flores that we didn't want to be miserable on, so we hit the hay in hopes for another great day in Guatemala.
Photos:
1) Tubing!
2) Niki, Me, Georgia, Katherine
3) Riding like cattle
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