At peace with the hot and cool

After having breakfast, I headed towards the dock for one last time. We leave Rio Dulce today and head over to Flores. While I was sitting there on the dock, a little turtle came swimming below my dangling feet. I have every intention to make this turtle well known, well Loved, and famous.


We loaded the ferry and on the other side, Marco (our favorite driver) was waiting to take us over to the Natural hot waterfalls. It's exactly how it sounds...the waterfalls come from a natural hot springs and comes tumbling down into a cool river. We got there and I was a mere observer at first. I didn't really feel like swimming - it's not my thing. I befriended the attendant that was working there. His name is Fransisco and his job is to watch people's belongings as they go swimming. He asks me why I'm not going in and I tell him that I just don't feel like it. Across the pool, adjacent to the hot waterfalls, was a little trail going up to the source of the hot springs. He points to me an easy way up (which was farther), and then he points to the fastest way up. I was skeptical at first, I didn't want anymore accidents. After some time mentally bracing myself and thinking it through, I decided to go up the fastest way. I got to the top and Otto and Deborah went up too. Fransisco followed us up to show us around. He took us to where the springs were at and brought us back a different way down towards the cool pool. By this point, I had already gotten pushed (by Otto) into the water so I was already soaked. He had good intentions though, he wanted me to get into the water and have fun. I went down to the cool pool where the hot waterfalls were crashing into and chilled on the rocks. The fish of the river came up and picked at my feet...it was a mini pedicure.

After some time, I decided to dry off where we had left our belongings, near Fransisco. This is when i met an 8 year old Yondrea. She's here with her family who are all in the water. She was cold after being in the cool pool so she came up to wrap up in a towel. Although her favorite class in school is English, she much preferred to speak to me in Spanish. Her speech was fast and fluent. We talked for quite a bit and I did my best at trying to keep up. Her family came up after a while to dry off, as did my group. Yondrea and I shared the snacks that we had in our bags as more people started to slowly come up to dry off. We were getting ready to leave when Sid tells me that Yondrea's mom was trying to get my attention. I went to where they were and she asked to take a picture of me. Yondrea and I got together as her dad took our photo. We said goodbye and I went up to the trail back to where our van was waiting with Marco.


The drive was pleasant as we listened to Bossa and Marley tracks watching the Guatemalan scenery pass us by. We got into Flores and settled in. We said our final goodbye to Marco.
Tomorrow is a 6am start as we go to Tikal to see the Mayan temples. I refuse to sleep before having the chance in doing some kind of town wandering so off into town i went.