Incidents of Travel in Central and South America 2010

Semuc Champey was amazing!!! First of all we got to ride in the back of a pick-up truck to the caves, which was a lot of fun considering the road was bearly wide enough for 1 car let alone when you had to pass someone else. Then we had to traverse a waterfall to actually get the the entrance to the cave, which was an adventure in itself. It had been raining a lot the night before and the water was really high in the cave, and the current was pretty strong also. But, with our sandles tied to our feet, we entered the cave with water right up to our heads and swam through holding candels above our heads. It was quite the experience!! The itself would usually look massive, but because it was all filled with water it looked smaller, but still impressive! The ceiling was so high and there were stalictites hanging down all over the place. We walked/swam through the cave for about 1 km then came to this waterfall which we all got to walk under then jump into the rushing water and it spat you back out 20 meters down the river. It was really fun and i wish i could have done it again and again. Unfortunately our group was really big, so we had a lot of waiting around, but most were all really nice. Im suprised at how many Israelies we meet throughout our travels, there were heaps of them! We met a really nice couple, who were also on our bus back to Antigua. So after we went through the caves, we went to these natural rock pools in the river. It was so nice swimming through, but we ran out of sun after about an hour so it got a littl cold...still beautiful though. The bus ride back to the hostel was not much fun as once again we were in the back of the pick up truck, but this time it was raining and we were already wet and cold, and we all just wanted a nice warm shower. But we made it and it got nice and dry and had a nice relaxing night. We left to go back to Antigua the next morning, and the bus we took was so small and we were all cramped in so tight. We are used to that now though, but its still annoying when there is only 12 seats but they incist on putting 14 people in the car!!! The next day we organised our trip back to the city to work in the archaeology lab for April's thesis. We arrived at the lab at around 3pm expecting somebody to know we were coming, but when we got there nobody knew why we were there...so Richard (the director) hadn't told anyone. Anyways it was really good to see everyone and to meet the people who we didn't know. They were all so nice and acommodating and were willing to try to help with April's research. We are staying at the lab, so it was fun to unpack for a while and settle ourselves. We have a kitchen and everything so we can cook some good food...its like living at home. We are here for the next 3 weeks so there wont really be much to blog about, but if there is i´ll be sure to keep everyone updated.