Deliverance

The time on the bus breezed by. Both my companion and I had passed out for what seemed like hours. We awoke in a slightly more bustling town as everybody was exiting the bus. We picked ourselves up, took one more look at the sign on the white piece of paper just to make sure it said what we thought it had said and exited. It was a new day, a young day, the sun was out and it seemed that we had all the time in the world to solve our little problem.

The little town was moving. People were out and on a mission to accomplish their daily chores. Cars, tuc tucs, bikes and pedestrians flooded the streets. After our bus took off, we began walking with no destination in mind. We stopped and asked a few pedestrians about the ATM situation and of course, it turned out that the sign on the bus was correct. They didnt exist in Lanqin. On the bright side, we had finally made it to our destination, we just had no money for food or room and board. We continued our hike down the streets to see what spoils awaited us.

As usual, we stuck out like sore thumbs in the streets of any Guatemalan city. Anne with her red hair, my curly locks and of course, our height. On top of that, the backpacks signaled to everybody that we were not from there. As we hiked, a taller Guatemalan man came up and introduced himself to us. He had picked us out of the crowd and began to tell us that he worked for a hostel called hostel ecologico. This was actually the place that the couple from Tecal who gave us the bus route had told us about. They said it was a beautiful little place right in the mountains of Semuc Champay and that it was owned and operated by Guatemalans (evidently there is another hostel owned by some expats that have a pretty crooked business plan within the town). As excited as we were to meet this guy and listen to him sell us on the hostel, we had to break it to him that we couldnt possibly stay there. We told him our problems and he listened with a large grin on his face and then told us that we could still stay there. He said this sort of thing happens to travelers all the time in Lanqin and we could stay at his hostel as long as we wanted where they have rooms, a restaurant and bar.

We asked him how we could pay for all of this without access to an ATM. Simple he told us, when we decide to leave, we would take a shuttle bus from the hostel into a town called Coban where they would take us to an ATM and settle our tab. We asked if there were any other assorted fees along with this transaction and he tried to make it as clear as possible that there werent. This deal just didnt make sense to us. It seemed way too easy to just cop out on the tab and book it from town. On top of that, it also seemed like one of those tricky little scams where due to some language discrepancy, we would end up owing a lot more than we planned. The mans name was Edgar and we went back and forth with him for some time in both English and Spanish trying to make absolute sure that we understood what he was saying. In the end, the deal looked to be legit and we really didnt have any other options on the back burner, so we obliged.

The smile that never seemed to leave Edgars face grew larger and then he told us to follow him. He took us down one of the dirt roads and told us to wait in front of one of the buildings. A few minutes later, a truck came by and Edgar reappeared, telling us to throw our luggage and bodies in the back bed. After that, off we went, on the twenty minute drive up into the mountains of Semuc Champay. The sight was beautiful, it was one of the most well kept nature reserves in all of Guatemala. We passed coffee plantations, cacao trees and a wealth of wildlife as the wind blowing by us slowly woke us up.

We eventually pulled off the road onto another dirt road where bright colored cabinas quickly came into view. The truck dropped us off in front of the restaurant portion of the hostel and it was equally beautiful. Well constructed canopies and wildlife all around. we could hear the sound of the river flowing flowing beneath us, and it looked like we had finally been delivered from our struggles. The place was beautiful, the rates were cheap and we could still adventure and had a sure fire ATM waiting for us when we left.

The rest of the day was spent lounging around the cabinas and in the restaurant. Still fatigued from the past few days, we wanted nothing more than to relax. We ended up meeting an Irishman named Allen who took us down to the river where we found a nice rock to jump off of. This dude was crazy, he would backflip from the rock and then talk about hiking barefoot through the Amazon rainforest. he was also a character, and it had been a while since we had even interacted with any other travelers.

Before we knew it, the sun was down, we had eaten a hearty meal of casado and it was time to crash. We made our way back to the cabina and called it a night. It was the first restful sleep we had had in four days and we knocked out cold. Tomorrow it would be time to explore the reserve.