Special Adventure

Think in the best adventure you have had; now try to remember as most details as you can. How much do you remember? As Miss Kelsey say in the assignment sheet, everyone has had a special time or adventure in their lives. This special moment or adventure could be of any type. Experiences like this ones, are so special that we keep vivid memories of this moments for ever, because they leave a mark in our lives. I want to share with you one of mine.   

When I was eleven years old my father told to us that he had to go to a lawyers meeting in Zacapa and that he wanted us to go with him. About a week before our exciting trip to Zacapa my father sent a letter to the school asking for permission for my sister and me to be absent for three or four days. Have you ever wake up very early in the morning, so early that you feel nauseous and you are absolutely not hungry, you don’t feel anything and also you made everything with your eyes almost closed? That was how early my family and I woke up the day we arrived to Zacapa. We started our trip from Quetzaltenango (the place were I lived sometime ago) at 5:00 am, to Guatemala City.

I don’t remember anything about going to the capital because as soon as I got into the car I fell asleep. When I woke up we were getting out of the capital and start taking the highway to Zacapa. While we were on the car the heat was unbearable, when you opened the window the wind gusts, instead of being cold, were of warm air. The gusts felt like if you had a heater in front of you and when my father turned on the air conditioning, the sound was maddening so the situation turned very unpleasant.

After approximately seven hours of travel, we arrived to Zacapa and then went to a hotel named Longarone. At the reception we waited a little until the receptionist prepared everything for us to enter to our room. We spent a great time at that hotel, while my dad was on the meeting, my sister and I went to the pool. The water of the pool was cold as ice but the heat was so much that we didn’t felt it. I remember that that hotel was where I caught a lizard for the first time. I remember that I was getting out of the pool when I saw it on the floor and easily I took it with my hand. The lizard was brown and very small, about four or five centimeters long and it was very soft and its texture was very smooth. After a while I let it free near the place where I found it.   

I remember that another day my sister and I jumped on the trampoline of the pool and it was very scary for me because it was at a height of about five meters. Also that day I ate a delicious onion soup (it was yellowish and smelled not so good but it was perfectly salty and tasted delicious) and shrimp with garlic (the garlic smelled spectacular combined with the smell of that delicious, big, white with orange strips shrimps). That day was the last one at the hotel but we decided to go to Petén the next day.

At the next day, we woke up early, made the checkout and started a two-hour trip from Zacapa to Petén. We made a stop at the bridge in Río Dulce and the sight was awesome the deep blue and the green of the trees and vegetation around it combined perfectly. After a while when we were about to arrive to Tikal, we saw a few lizards on the pavement taking sun and as soon as the car get closed, they ran away. When we finally arrived at Tikal we spent approximately four hours walking through the grey, stone pyramids, watching monkeys and every kind of insects you can imagine. When we were returning to the capital we saw armadillos in the highway and at the sides. Also we stopped in a gas station and bought two soups and a bag of octopus gummies and after that I can’t remember anything else. At the next day I woke up at my grandparents’s bed in San Lucas.

That experience, I think, is one of the most special adventures for me, also it leaved a permanent print in my life and I expect never forget it.