trip to Semuc Champey

Dear Family and Friends:
     Well, we celebrated the New Year in at a party hosted by the Wilson's and the Gardner's.  It started at 8:00 with games and visiting.

President Thompson won this game by sucking up 5 M&M's and moving them to the end of the table in the fastest time. 

 



 We played games until about 9:30, then ate waffles with strawberries, ice cream, whip cream, or anything else that you wanted.  We "celebrated" until about 10 and came home and slept in the New Year.  For a group of Senior Missionaries, that was late enough.

     The Temple was open on Friday and Saturday, 2nd and 3rd and we had some really nice groups of people come.  We are now closed for deep cleaning and repairs for two weeks.  Time for some site-seeing.

     Eleven of us took off on Monday the 5th to visit Semuc Champey.

We hired a 2014 van from Percy Salazar for the trip.  He sent Isreal to drive for us.

Los Roberts, Los Thompson, Los Wilson, Los Gardner, Los Allred y Hna. Guzman.

    To get to Semuc Champey, we headed to Coban.  We left the apartment at 5 AM so that we could get out of the city without heavy traffic.  For the next 10 hours, these are the type of roads we traveled on.

      We did not have a straight road for three days.  We wound around one mountain to another.

 Whenever we had a speed bump, we knew that there was something in the road, or the road was washed off the side of the mountain.  The speed bumps were the only warning.

 We had decided to take this trip in the dry season because of the mud slides, but Monday morning when we left, it rained all day.

 Our driver called this the street sweeper.  Actually they were hauling feed for horses.

 Look close, you can see the hat and foot of the man trying to stay dry under the tarp.  We left the hills of Guatemala City and drove through and around and over mountains.  We drove for 2 hours through a section of country that looked just like Arizona with cactus and brush and very desolate looking land. 

    We went to Estanzuela  and visited the museum.

 The top floor had the bones of animals and fish.

 

                                                 The bottom floor had the Mayan artifacts.

     We drove through some beautiful farming country.  This was melon country and they had miles and miles of fields covered with white visqueen.  In one field, they were harvesting the melons and in another they were planting the melons.  They can plant and harvest year round here.

 Watermelon, cantaloupe, honey dew fields with the white visqueen down so that the fruit doesn't touch the ground.

 Elder Wilson rode shot gun so that he could take pictures.  These are the wagons filled with melons.

 Isreal, our driver.  As you can see, the harvest was in full gear.

   They also grow tomatoes here.  The tomatoes are grown under these mesh black tarps to keep the birds out.  The hill sides were just covered with them.

 We would love to see how many people it took to spread out the tarps and secure them.  It was a fascinating trip.  We ended up at our resort about 4 in the afternoon, tired and hungry.

     We had reservations at the Park Hotel where all of the General Authorities stay when they go to conference in Coban.

  It is about 15 miles before Coban.  The resort had a weight room, swimming pool, three restaurants, a small zoo and walking trails.  They even flew the American Flag.

 

We had a steady drizzle all day long.

 

The restaurant had this big fireplace to warm up the room, again there is no furnaces in any of the buildings and it was 50-60 degrees.  The fireplace was smoking really bad and the men tried to get the employees to do something about it, but they didn't think that anything was wrong.  We found out why smoke didn't bother them on our trip the next day.

 The food was really good and very reasonably priced.  We enjoyed the hot chocolate!  It was chilly.

 Deer in the zoo.  They had a couple of monkeys, a raccoon, and a couple of other animals. The birds were beautiful.  Here are a couple of the peacocks eating with the deer.



 It was heart warming to see the American Flag. 

 The building that we were all in.  The rooms were very clean and the beds had enough blankets on them that you couldn't move because the covers were so heavy but they felt good in the cold nights.

  Our resort was beautiful, and just outside the walls was the real world.

 This man was trying to get his roof put on as the rains just keep coming down.

The cattle were driven to their pasture just under our room window Tuesday morning.

We left on Tuesday morning at 9 for Semuc Champey.  We drove for 2 hours on pavement then hit the gravel road.  Along the way, we saw houses that we thought were on fire.  The houses have no chimneys and the smoke from the fires to cook with just billowed out from the eves of the houses.  The whole valley smelled like a camp fire.  We now understand why the saints who come to the temple from Coban and Senahu smell like they have been camping.  All of their clothes would smell as the houses are filled with smoke.  This explained the restaurant and the employees not noticing the smoke billowing out and not going up the chimney.

We even passed the church where our friends who speak Kekchi attend. 

 Other sights along our way.  These people have been riding in this pick-up for 2 hours.  We were so thankful for our van and the comfortable seats and leg room.

There were 29 in the pick-up.

 It was hard to get real clear pictures out of the van windows but the cemetery was very colorful.  We had venders like this all along the road, some selling fruits and veggies and some, like this man, cooking meals for sale. 

     We reached the gravel road and had an hour of slow driving down and around the mountain.

                         We were so excited when we crested a ridge and viewed this valley in front of us and the sign said 10 kilometers to Semuc Champey.  We had made it!!

 But our joy was short lived when we were informed that our van could not get to Semuc Champey because of the road conditions, muddy and slippery and narrow.  We had to unload and rent a pick-up to get us the next 9 kilometers.  So the 12 of us unloaded and loaded into this pick-up for another adventure.  But first, a potty break.

 It was filthy, had no toilet seat, no paper, a wire to pull to flush and no water so pulling the wire didn't help.  But we all felt better as we loaded into the pick-up.

The men had to bend over to fit under the tarp.

 

Nothing was going to prevent us from getting to our destination. We only had 9 more kilometers to go.  We loaded 8 of us in the back with the other 4 in the front with the driver.  It took about 40 minutes to reach our destination over what would be a wonderful 4-wheeler trail.

 Every now and then, there was concrete to drive on, but most of the way was just mud.  The rains from yesterday had left their mark.

  We followed along this chocolate brown river--

 

 We crossed over the river and reached our destination at last.  We started walking through the rain forest

 The trail into the waters of Semuc Champey.  It is pools of crystal clear water that you can swim in.  We couldn't figure out where the chocolate brown river had gone.

 Only Hermana Guzman was brave enough to take a plunge.  The water was refreshing as it was hot and humid here.  We went upstream a little more and found the chocolate river.  It comes roaring down the hill, falls into a cavern and travels underground, beneath the crystal clear springs.

A clear pool on top with the brown water churning and falling into the cavern.  They told us that in the rainy season, the river actually can cover the clear pools.  We then were led to the other end of the pools where you can see the chocolate river come up out from beneath the pools.

Just wish that pictures could really show how massive this river is.  We all decided that our adventure to Semuc Champey was worth it.

 Elder Allred decided to try out the chicken before we headed back.  We were all worried that he would be sick before we got back to the resort.  Not exactly our kind of a restaurant.
We put all 6 women in the front of the pick-up for the ride back to the van.  We had the driver pull the tarp back so that the men could stand up without having to bend over for the ride back.  It was easier on them.

  We made it to our resort at about 7pm and enjoyed a hot meal and a good nights sleep.
We checked out and headed for home about 9:30am.  We stopped at a bird sanctuary to see where the national bird, the quetzal, live and maybe to see one.  We took about an hour walk through the rain forest, but the only quetzal that we saw was the one in Lon's wallet.  The money here is called a quetzal.  But it was beautiful.

 The Roberts looking for the quetzal birds.  The ground was damp and slick to walk on.

The swinging bridges were very slick and really moved if more than one was walking at a time.

                                        There were lots of huts for picnics along the way

  Even had bathrooms along the way

                                                              Los banos

 We went over the river several times as the trail zigzagged through the forest.

    We drove for a few hours and then stopped for lunch. 

 Our driver was very careful to only stop at some real nice restaurants.  He was very protective and we sure appreciated him.  We had a wonderful trip and were thankful to finally reach our apartments.  Guatemala is such a big country.  It takes a long time to get from one place to another.  What a privilege to be able to travel and experience the sites and sounds and see how the locals live. 

     Well, it has taken me 3 days to get this blog written.  Sorry for no news for a week.  We are enjoying a couple of days off to relax from our adventure before we head out again next week.  We send our love to all.  Dad and Mom, Grandma and Grandpa, Lon and Nancy