Today is both Guatemalan Labor Day and Bevin's birthday, so we all decided to head out for another adventure with Hugo to celebrate!
We started the day by making our own tortillas at breakfast. While it seems like it should be easy, ours were definitely not up to par with the women who make over 50 lbs of tortillas a day. Can you pick out which ones were ours?
After breakfast we went to the Iximche Mayan ruins to experience a little Guatemalan history. While we were there we were even lucky enough to witness some traditional ceremonies asking for blessings and safety for their families.
Next stop was an overlook for Lake Atitlan, which was formed in the crater of a volcano after an eruption thousands of years ago. There are now 18 villages that surround the lake and lots of beautiful scenery to go along with it.
We got the amazing opportunity to zipline through the area surrounding the lake over a series of 8 ziplines. We got a few last minute instructions and then away we went! Everyone was all smiles by the time we got back down.
We even saw a couple of monkeys along the way.
Finally we went for a boat ride on Lake Atitlan. We were promised a swim in hot springs along the way, but after jumping in we found that "hot" was a bit of an exaggeration. In fact, it was quite chilly, with a few warm pockets here and there. Apparently the lake the was about 10 feet higher than normal, leaving the warm pockets heated by the volcano too far down for us to feel. But we had fun regardless.
It was a great weekend, but we're back to work at the hospital tomorrow and several of our students will be giving presentations to the Guatemalan therapists this week!
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