Monterrico Beach

We went to Monterrico Beach on the Pacific coast of Guatemala for the weekend. The drive there took a little over 2 hours. The place we stayed was right on the beach, which was great. I didn't really go far into the water because the riptide was extremely powerful. Due to its proximity to volcanoes, the sand is black. Saturday night we saw a beautiful sunset and watched 300-400 baby turtles being released into the sea.

While we were eating dinner, it rained really hard. When we went back to our rom later, it was partially flooded. My duffle bag was sitting in 3 inches of water, and all of my clothes were soaked. Even my Bible got a little wet. (The room had a thatched roof, which was also home to a family of bats.) I had really been hoping to finally have a hot shower after about 16 consecutive days of cold showers. As it turned out, the shower water wasn't hot, but it was warm saltwater from the sea instead. Nothing like using saltwater to shower, to wash hands before removing contacts, etc. :)

We had arranged a tour guide to help us look for giant sea turtles at 8 pm Saturday night. They had emphasized that they could not guarantee we would be able to find any sea turtles, but since it only cost a few dollars each, we went for it. Well, you know how walking on sand is harder than walking on a solid surface? Our guide was walking very fast, in the dark, and he would not give up the search. We just kept walking for almost an hour before he finally turned around and headed back, so we had to have walked a total of 3-4 miles on the sand that night. It was crazy: for the entire group, this guy made $50-60 bucks just to give us a good workout and not see any turtles. At one point, 3 guys on 4 wheelers started circling us, and we thought we were about to be robbed.

By the time we returned to the hotel at 10:30, the party with loud music was in full swing. The music lasted until 2:30 am. Between wading through water to climb into my bed and hearing the loud music, it took quite a while to get to sleep. Then, one of my roommates had scheduled a 5 am tour, so her alarm woke me up at 4 am. After that, I never slept more than 30 minutes at a time for the rest of the night.

When we were driving back Sunday afternoon, our van had mechanical problems, so we were hanging out alongside the road in a remote area for about half an hour while our driver and guide repaired it. We also drove through a town having a crazy fiesta, and people in scary masks stood near our windows while someone on the other side of us shot off fireworks that were inches from the van.

So, it was a crazy weekend; certainly less relaxing than anticipated. Yet another adventure to remember.

This morning my teacher, Rosario, started asking me things about the Bible again. I am going to take my Bible with me tomorrow. Please continue to pray for her and for God to speak through me.