I’m not as sick as I have been. I’m almost feeling great
again. I woke up early and thought about going up to the gym, but I figure I
want to feel great before I start doing that again. I stayed in bed until 7:15
and then got antsy and took my shower and then went up to get a newspaper. The
newspaper on board is an 8 page paper that has excepts from the New York Times.
It really isn’t much about news as a sampling of things going on in the world.
Not much going on in this paper so I read it and then came back and laid down
in bed again. I finally got up around 9 and got ready to go on today’s
excursion to Antigua. Mike and I were going zip lining and then Antigua and
everyone else was going to a coffee plantation and then Antigua. Mike and I said
goodbye to the other 4 in our group, and told everyone we would probably meet
up in Antigua, and we all headed out to our buses. I stopped to buy some jade
for Sarah and Mike and I went on to the bus. There were a whole line of busses
and we were directed to the one for the Canopy Adventure. When we got on we
found my mom, Sue, Betsy, and David on the same bus. The Canopy Adventure is on
the coffee plantation! The excursion I went on was:
Antiguan Culture & Canopy
Adventure –
Today you will begin your fantastic adventure experience by traversing
the forest from the heights of a zip line, gliding between
treetop platforms on 40-foot-high lines ranging in length from 120 to 750 feet.
Your knowledgeable, trained guide will lead you through this section of the
tour that lets you appreciate astonishing views of Guatemala's three main
volcanoes. Upon descending from the canopy, gather at the gazebo for a light
picnic-style lunch. Next, you will head to the historic city of Antigua,
Guatemala’s former capital, for a wonderful taste of Central American culture. Stroll with your guide through the
cobblestone streets, learning interesting history and facts as you drink in the
cultural wealth of this ancient city.
An hour and a half
drive through the mountains and we got there. The thing that impressed me the
most about Guatemala was it was all mountains. I used to think Korea had a lot
of mountains, but not anymore. Korea has some flat areas that they can grow rice,
but Guatemala has only mountains that it can grow coffee in. After dropping off
the plantation group 20 of us went straight up a mountain to the zip lines. We
passed coffee pickers and kids coming back from school, they start off for
school at 6am,as we kept driving up a 45 degree road, more like a track. We
drove about 30 minutes and then got out and were given the safety briefing for
the zip line and were put into belts for the zip line. The zip lines were fun. They were very quiet
and safe. The ones in Mexico were more primitive and we were required to brake
ourselves and this one we didn’t have to worry about that and only had to enjoy
the scenery. I didn’t notice any special view of the volcanoes, but that is ok
since it is easy to see them from the drive we had. The group on the zip line
was great and we all became good friends. One of the women in the group was the
violin player from the ship. After the zip line we had a bag lunch that was
great. The roast beef sandwich was still warm and we also had potato chips,
cookies, and juice. We took the trucks back down the hill past the coffee
pickers to the coffee plantation and met up with everyone else and drove about
20 minutes to an old city, Antigua. This city was beautiful. There were many
street people trying to sell jewelry and clothing and Sue seemed like a magnet
to everyone. She kept telling people she only had two dollars and when the lady
selling shawls came down from $25 to five dollars Sue bought one and I did too.
Now she really did have two dollars and they thought she was pulling their leg
now so she kept being swarmed by these people. We walked through the city and
saw many things. The city had been hit by earthquakes many times and was
abandoned for over 100 years so many of the buildings only had a façade in
front with useable building behind it. One building was taken apart inside
because the Spanish wasn’t everything inside it when they moved out of the city
for 100 years. I liked Guatemala very much and my heart goes out to the people.
When I was in Mexico I felt like they were giving up, but in Guatemala it
seemed like they were trying to improve their lives and I would love to see the
country in the future and I think the people have positive attitudes. We got
back to the ship at 5:30 and we had dinner reservations at 6:00. Mom was still
full from lunch and I really didn’t want to put on nice clothes to eat in the
nicer restaurant so Betsy, David, Sue, and Mike went on to dinner and I rested
a little in the room. I then saw that they had a BBQ by the pool so I went up
there and got some chicken and some roast pig. I then tried to find something
else to do and nothing really interested me. I sat in the bar and listened to
the guitar player for a while and enjoyed that and then looked for the violin
player and couldn’t find her so I went to go watch a movie on the tv in the
room. At 9pm was line dancing and that sounded fun, but the movie was more
interesting. I also wrote a page on my blog about how lonely I was at sea,
which I probably will never publish, but it was good to express to myself. At
11 was a show by the Indonesians that made up almost half of the crew, but I am
still not 100 % and I needed a little more sleep so I went to bed around 10:45.
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