Once more, Sandra covered my bases while I ran off tripping. She’s so nice like that, to quote Vicki. Thursday morning, Hno. José and Sandra took me to the first microbus that pulls out. 4:30 AM. No, I wasn’t allowed to walk the four blocks at such an hour. They would take me. More on that in another post.
We bounced through the mountains on our way to Quiché, where the orange sun ball peeked up between the buildings. The tuk tuk driver wore a mask for the chill in the air. The chicken bus roared between Quiché and Los Encuentros, and not five minutes after I arrived, the básico arbolistas came around the corner.
We found breakfast along the street in Los Encuentros, then wound our way down, down, down, through Sololá and to Panajachel. Ah, my favorite place in the world. We took a boat across Lake Atitlán to Santiago, where we met the lady whose portrait is on the 25 cent piece. Well, some of us met here. Others entertained and were entertained by the drunk outside her house. We lunched there, and headed back across, boarding the bus to head to Quetzaltenango.
We arrived at the retreat center, and after enjoying supper, the facility’s swings, slides, etc, headed for bed. It’s quite a process to put 14 girls through two showers, so “headed for bed” says a lot more than it sounds. It’s nice that they are teenagers and can mostly figure it out for themselves :).
Next morning, we took a short hike through the woods, enjoyed breakfast and a devotional, took some group pictures, and headed for the hot springs “Fuentes Georginas”. The bus could not do the last _____ kilometers, so we piled onto three pickups for some a.m.a.z.i.n.g. scenery.
Psalm thirty-four eight 