Day 3, Jan. 17: Nick & Sarahann

            For our last morning in Antigua, some of us decided to take a walk around the city to watch it wake up and see people going about their daily lives. As soon as we walked out of Donde Monica, the hustle and bustle was right there in front of us. Across the street from Donde Monica is a school where hundreds of young Guatemalan dressed in clean uniforms were heading for the day. We saw parents driving their kids to the school, and got to see the students greeting eachother for the first time that morning.

Following that, we continued walking around town, passing by the Cathedral of La Merced where many devotees were saying a quick morning prayer. We noticed that of the many Catholic symbols, most looked very similar to the American versions of them, except for one. When Mary, the mother of Jesus, was depicted, she looked more like a five-foot tall Guatemalan woman than an Israeli.

After that short trip, we packed our bags and got on the bus to Panajachel. On the way, we saw gorgeous scenery of volcanoes and thousands of agricultural fields and their accompanying workers. We stopped twice along the way at two amazing scenic overlooks, admiring the spectacular geography of this region and the beauty of Lake Atitlan. From a distance, we were able to see Panajachel, where we would be staying and camping that night.

We arrived at La Reserva Natural de Atitlan and hurried to unpack our bags before heading to the zip lines. There were two different zip lining courses: an extreme course and an ultra-extreme course. Most of us opted to try our luck with the ultra-extreme course. We headed out for a very steep and tiring climb up a mountain, seeing monkeys, coaties, waterfalls, and passing over a few too many swinging bridges for our liking. At the top of our climb, we could see the entire lake and the double-headed volcano on the other side where we would be travelling to serve at Los Andes the next day. The view was tremendous until you realized that you would have to be going down- and down- and down with nothing more than a cable to sustain your life.