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oh joy…

// February 19th, 2005 // Guatemala

Ok, so me and paul split off. It´s kinda nice to have quiet for a bit. I left Antigua yesterday at like 11am or so. i got a bus to Biotopia (sp¿) del Quetzal… which is a reserve up in a cloud forrest… just a bit south of Coban. I can´t believe how beautiful this part of the country is… the clouds litterally sit about 100 feet over head, if you´re not actually in them. all the surrounding hills are cloud shrouded… lot´s of rolling hills mountains… its just great. Unfortunately though, i see most of the country by bus so i can´t take many pictures… it´s ok, that´s probably why god (casey) gave us brains…

So i took the bus which was about a 4 hour ride… i got off at what was supposed to be a cheap hotel… $3/4 a night but when i went to talk to the lady there, she told me the place was no longer a hotel… which was just great… this is no city just a highway going through the mountains… so i stumbled through some spanish with her and found out the next closest hotel was 15 min walk back UPHILL where i just came from… joy.

I said bye and started walking… it was starting to get dark, no time to waste… on the way, i met a gringo (turns out to be canadian though) and he told me there was a hotel just 3 mins up the road … not sure why the other lady didn´t tell me that… so i went to the restaurant this guy told me about and luckily i got there in time… they were closing up and leaving…

They took my back to the room… it was actually very nice. 3 beds, 2 singles and a double bed… even nice pillows. .. private bathroom, hot water (via a Costa Rica Suicide shower head)… not bad for $4.50. it´s amazing the quality range in hotels down here… they all run between $2-10 but some rooms are very very nice, and others are complete shit. anyways… as i walked into the ¨hotel area¨ there were these two huge german shepards barking up a storm and not being very nice… they stayed on a path and didnt come over to the actual hotel area though there was nothing preventing them from doing so… more on them later.

So i got comfortable… it got dark and started rainging… i retired to my room to finish reading Battle Field Earth… it´s a huge book (1200 pages) and i almost hvae it finished… well right around the time i get comfortable the dogs start barking… i hear someone start yelling, though nothing i can understand… it scared me a bit… it lasted probably 3 mins or so… there was no way i was going to go investigate and get my self bit to hell by those dogs… eventually it stopped anyways.

So today i got up and there was a man just outside my door, dead from dog bites…. just kidding. i got up and went to the reserve… i walked around for about 4 hours or so… it´s something else to walk through a jungle by yourself… would have been much nicer without the damn road so close… i didnt see much wildlife at all… birds, ants, the largest beetle i ever see´d… no monkeys, nothing remarkably cool… just a neat hike, a nice waterfall or two and thats about it… some time to think.

I did manage to lose a lens cover and a 55mm circular polarizer filter for my camera though… i back tracked about 20 mins and then decided to just say screw it, there was no way i´d find it on the jungle floor anyways… so that was that.

I left the park, packed my stuff and went to catch a bus… i had to just sit on the side of the road for about 30 mins… eventually one came along and i flagged it down… it was a damn nice one too, airconditioned and not packed… i did have to sit on a stool for the first 10 mins until someone exited the bus… it was about 1 hour drive… inanely beautiful country…

Anyways… i got to coban, and got off the bus too early… had to take a cab into the actual town part $1. got a hotel for $4 and came down to check my internet…. well i ran into the kid i saw on the side of the road yesterday… he wasn´t able to catch a bus that night so he was going to just stay at the hotel… well he walked in the wrong gate and the german shepards attacked him…he fought them off and didn´t actually get bit… but that´s who i heard yelling…. silly. he´s ok though not even a bite…

so thats my story… i´m heading out tomorrow to go to some caves (not sure if i´ll actually go to the caves or not… theres some really pretty natural pools and other stuff around it… i have to get back down to guatamala city in a few days so i have to be careful how far off the beaten track i get… the place i´m going to has no buses… only trucks that carry people there… it should be fun!