Weekend Trip to the Jungle!

This past weekend, because we had both Saturday and Sunday free, a group of 10 of us traveled to Coban, which is a region (and a city, too) to the north and to the east of Antigua.   It was actually a pretty impractical trip, because it was 7 hours each way in a little microbus, and we did only have 2 days.  We left at 5 am on Saturday to get there at noon, and then had exactly 24 hours until we had to drive back.  The trip was soo worth it though, definitely the coolest place I've been so far I think.

One of the best parts of the mini-vacation was the place we stayed, El Retiro Lodge. For only 35Q a night too (about 4 dollars!). We slept in little bungalows - they had a great restaurant with a really good Mexican buffet for dinner ... direct access to the Lanquin River, and just a really cool atmosphere.  

On Saturday we went to the Lanquin Caves - a bat cave really close to El Retiro.  (Picture to the left). It was really incredible, to walk through this huge, really extensive, cave system.  There were also Mayan altars throughout the caves which was awesome.  At 5:30 all the bats come out of the cave, which unfortunately I didn't get to see but we did see a couple bats in the cave above our heads. 

The Lanquin River starts in the Caves, and El Retiro offers tubing trips starting at the river and going down to their property.  It was really really fun - definitely something that might not be allowed in the US...no waiver forms, no life vests, likely highly contaminated water, no safety brief ... just sort of like throw your tube in the river and go!  Coban is a jungle area too, so I thought it was really really cool to just be tubing on this river through the jungle!

We woke up early on Sunday morning to go to Semuc Champey - a national park in Guate. It was really beautiful, we did a hike through the turquoise pools and then up a mountain to a lookout point.  I'm in better shape than I thought I was, for not having exercised (except for walking a bunch of places) at all since I left!  Again, just hiking thro

ugh the jungle was really worth it!

After coming back from Semuc, we ordered a quick breakfast and coffee, and then got right back into the microbus for 7 hours to come back home to Antigua.  Definitely worth it! The entire weekend ended up being on the expensive side .. I think I paid a total of like $60 for the entire time, everything included. (Which is actually cheap if you think about it...entrance into 2 parks, tubing, meals, lodging, transportation for 14 hrs, but still, its a lot in terms of quetzales!)

Definitely worth it! If I ever come back to Guate, I would want to go back to El Retiro and spend more time there!