Laguna Lachua

Howdy.... I'm now in Flores but still writing about last week....At el Retiro I made a friend from England....Katie who was working on a really neat project in Guatemala....she was going to villages to help
install mini hydro dams to get them power and have a community business. Anyways she was heading to a place called Laguna Lachua which after reading a bit about i realized I must go. Its a lake in the middle of the jungle that requires a 4km hike to get to and then there are rooms or camping and a kitchen you could use as well as BBQs.
The night before we left I got about 5 minutes of sleep...literally although it may have been 4, and we wanted to get on a ride a 5:45 in the morning! We actually managed to get to the road on time and then started waiting....finally a microbus came by and said he would take us into town where we could get a ride where we wanted...this is after a 20 minute wait... So we get into town and get onto another mini bus and this one starts moving and we have lots of room! Then we proceeded to drive around Lanquin for the next 40 minutes looking for more people until the bus was full...with our final stop being El retiro! where we got on but one hour later to pick up 2 more people! So I could have had an hour and 5 minutes of sleep!!!
The day's journey was ling and fun, it was almost impossible to sleep on the bus....but we were so tired, it was one of those you nod off and get bumped awake immediately for 6 hours or something! we had to change buses once where we bought food for our time at the lake and paid half a quetzal for the bathroom... the funny part about the bathroom is there is no running water...only running people...after you use the toilet someone fills up a bucket of water and then tops up the tank behind the toilet and flushes it for you!!! What I think is the craziest part is that if they would fill it before you go in then they wouldn't need to see what you deposited. One may think hey, why don't you just put the lid down when you are done, but don't get ahead of yourself, before hoping for a lid it would be good to hope for a seat!
So back on the collectivo and now we got to something that would mark me for the next week....its a fine powder that goes in your nose! and your ears...and your hgair and your beard (if you have one....i have been lazy recently so I sure do) and everywhere else...dust! After a fork in the road that i did not return to until yesterday nothing is paved or cobbled or evena lawn! its all dirt and dust! Windows must be open as it is stupid hot and humid but this is balanced by the ridiculous amount of particles floating dancing and playing in the air! Every time a car or truck would pass in the other direction it was a race for everyone sitting by the windows to see who could slide them closed quickest.... it seemed that no one won and eveyone lost! From that moment on until yesterday I have been blowinf all kinds of fun stuff out of my nose and throat non stop!
But it was worth it!

We got to the entrance to the park and saw it was only Q5 a night for camping! less than 1 dollar! Then we realized that the posted price is for locals and we paid Q25 which was still a great deal! I have always thought people with more money should pay a little more but I have never really been a person with more money.... Now that it happened I am proud to say I still believe the same thing....not that it should be proportionally the same...then you get nothing in return for your hard work, but if you can't afford as much you should still be able to participate in what you want....within limits ofcourse....it would be funny if a government would subsidize purchases of lambourginis or something!

Ok digression ended.... so we began our walk to the lake after being squished in a bus for 6 hours and not sleeping....its possible Katie had even less sleep than me...

The hike was actaully super easy, a very well maintained trail with tons of informations signs and labels on many of the trees! there were so many different tree species but stopping for too long would invite a zillion mosquitos to lunch!

After2 km there is alokout on the lake, almost a perfect circle...quite beautiful, and somehow i only managed to get one pic the whole time i was there! the sunset....

When we arrived we were covered in sweat and ready to jump into a nice cool refreshing, revitalizing....BATHTUB!!!!!!!!!!! The water wasnt warm but almost hot! It was unbelievably hot! If i dint know any better I would have guessed it was the worlds largest hotspring! But it is just the normal temperature for alike in the jungle that gets pounded by the sun day in and day out, and it doesnt even get a chance to cool at night! So while without wanting to sound like a putz i will say the lake was not quite refreshing atleat it washed off all the sweat! And the fish!!!! Tons of fish! and evenb colorful ones! They were swimming all around us! Up to 30cm long! some in the lkae are 2 meters but we didnt see any! There was a no snorkeling poicy as it is a park and they wanted to ensure no one would do any spear fishing as that is common along most of the rivers in the area...but the water was so clear almost everything was visible!

One funny thing was that I like to sometimes bite my nails and I threw a peice into the lake and 100 fish competed for it! I felt bad but it was funny! One grabbed it in his mouth....these were the minnows by the way...and would swim away with half my nail hanging out, actually looking very much like a hook....and then 30 other minnows chased him/her all over the place! Even more insane (this is a little nastier) is that the same thing happend when I coughed up one of those dusty loogies!!!

From the cleairng where you could camp and cook there was a boardwalk heading to the lake...and right at the bigeinng was a tree I have always wanted to see! can you guess what it is before reading farther dwon...I will put the answer at the bottom of the post!

That first night I passed out way befre dinner and didnt wake up till the very next morning! what a well needed rest! Chilling at the lake was great, and that night a frined from El Retiro showed up.... and she had spent a night in a place called Playa Grande before and that fact turned out to create a wondeful series of events that led to an incredible week which I will write about next!

The aswer to the mistery tree/fruit/nut....cashew! each nut grows seperately on the bottom of one of these fruits! there is also a yellow variety of fruit..... so maybe that is why they are so expensive....we toasted the nut in the fire and then you crack it open and pull the cashew out from inside!!! mmmm!!!!!!