travel blog - santa cruz

by the time we hit santa cruz
where we´d booked rooms from panajachel
a number of our group fell ill
sarah and mikayla were the latest victims
and of the 3 of us
erin, sarah and myself
who had planned to dive the lake
only 2 went on to do the dives the next morning
the set up at iguana perdita
was much like finca ixobel
with a tab kept
and a lot of foreign volunteer help
and expensive food =P
i found the best hammock i´ve experienced so far in my life
(tho my experiences with hammocks
had only started a couple weeks before)
it was a very nice hammock
the weather was perfect
and i could see people doing yoga on the roof
which was kind of neat
the cool thing about this area of the highlands
is that the lake is immense
and there are many ancient volcanoes around
which makes the vista breathtaking
and impossible to capture on camera
as the distances are so vast
you pretty much have to go there
and experience it first hand
to truly understand the incredible beauty of the region
i won´t try to describe it any further
oh yeah,
this is also the place
where erin found a scorpion on her pillow
and proceeded to have a freak-out session
with some of the local staff
turning out sheets and blankets
which ended with
the scorpion stamped to death
(at least twenty times, according to erin)
i missed all the excitement
as i was lolling about in the hammock
oh well,
can´t have everything eh?

the next morning,
erin and i went diving with our divemaster jop
(pronounced ¨yop¨)
and we did one dive to 72 feet for 51 minutes
the visibility was murky
the water was cold-ish at 68F
and even in the 6.5mm farmer john
(13mm across the torso)
it was a chilly dive that reminded me
why i have a dry suit back home
=P
all in all,
the place was worth diving once
if only to say one has dove it
...it´s an altitude dive at 1560m above sea level
but with nothing super remarkable to see
we left santa cruz promptly after the dive
i don´t know if anyone visited the town
i didn´t
i wanted to return to pana
and haggle with the locals some more
which i did for some trinkets for me mom
and tickets for us to go to antigua tomorrow
then i went off to find an internet cafe
which i did
and i´ve spent the last 3 hours blogging
and i think i´m finally caught up now
whew!
time to go find some food
it´s actually just past 5pm
and i skipped lunch
as it was too hot to eat earlier today
it´s hard to believe
that it´s sunday already
and in 6 days
if all goes smoothly
i should be home in canada again
don´t know if i´ve said this already, but
time is abstract here
the days stretch into each other
and i feel like i´ve been here forever
and yet it´s all passing so quickly
i think i would like to return here some day
we shall see!
adios!