Cerr\u00f3 Zankujil nature preserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went to sleep about 9:15 last night. After hiking all over San Juan yesterday I was pretty tired. I\u2019d eaten a big supper right before I came back to San Marcos lo so I wasn\u2019t hungry. I really didn\u2019t feel the need to go out and be around other people. A lot of times when I\u2019m on these trips I just prefer to go to nature and be quiet and enjoy the magnificent views around this place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The restaurants and things don\u2019t really get going until about 9 AM. I spent about an hour and a half studying Spanish, which is my usual discipline. I didn\u2019t really see any reason to stop that habit. I seen all the work I\u2019ve done in Spanish pay off. I\u2019ve had conversations that lasted for hours with the locals. Especially the guys that were driving my taxis. Seem like now that I think about it almost everybody else that I was traveling with were women. They would sit in the back of the Taxi or minibus talking about pretty stupid things in my opinion and I was in the front with the driver the whole time just talking Spanish. That\u2019s the point of why you study so you can have a conversation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had breakfast at Casa Hermosa this morning which I think is going to be my usual place now. I was completely by myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
i\u2019m at the very top of the Cerr\u00f3 Zankujil nature preserve , and it is absolutely gorgeous up here. It reminds me of pictures I\u2019ve seen of Hawaii, another volcanic area with these just straight up mountains, completely lush and then houses riding up the slopes. I\u2019m studying the houses now and I can definitely see where I had breakfast. Nobody was with me there. Gorgeous view of the lake and surrounding mountains. I had eggs with spinach and a kind of tomato base salsa which they seem to use a lot here. Wasn\u2019t really spicy, but they put quite a lot of salt in the stuff. I had a couple of cups of coffee. At the top they also have a hammock so I spent some more time studying Spanish and swinging in the hammock, which was awesome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m at what they would call the mirador, which is the Lookout of this nature preserve. Again I\u2019m by myself which has become a recurring motif. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pretty much every morning and most of the day. It is sunny. Cool. Just perfect weather. But when it gets about 5 o\u2019clock all these big cloud starts to roll in and about five or six it starts to sprinkle and then it can rain pretty hard. That\u2019s the reason why I\u2019m over here with only about 10% of the amount of tourists that are normally in a place like this. They want to be here when it\u2019s completely clear. Which I understand because right now most of the seven volcanoes around the lake, you can\u2019t really see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had planned on climbing San Pedro, which is the volcano I\u2019m looking at right now. The top is completely covered by clouds so I somebody\u2019s hiking that thing it\u2019s just gonna be like a fog up there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The water here is this incredible color of aquamarine. I\u2019ve never seen like it anywhere. There\u2019s a really deep area of water where people jump from a platform into the water. I\u2019m not planning on doing that. I\u2019m at the very top of this little mountain at the nature preserve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve gone past two different little campfires that are Mayan Altars. It\u2019s cool to think about that. I like the idea of being in sacred places. Similar to the vibe I got when I was in Machu Picchu. Of course the views from here I think are even more spectacular than in Peru. I\u2019ve never seen anything like this. This is just breathtaking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I doubt I would like it as much in November when there\u2019s literally ten times more people here from other countries. I know that has a certain fun part to it but I\u2019m really not interested in that at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I decided that I wanted to do a hike using a local road. What my usual manner is that I go near a restaurant or something that I have eaten at and then I can use their Wi-Fi to make a search on where I\u2019m gonna go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve learned how to use Google maps on an off-line map. I didn\u2019t understand until this trip that Google maps can use GPS without having any kind of Internet connection. So I go to a restaurant where I can get Wi-Fi, I download where I want to go next and it\u2019ll give you the path of it. Then I can walk that and it\u2019ll show me as a blue dot where I\u2019m going to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had read about this really good restaurant which is about 2 miles from San Marcos la Laguna where I\u2019m staying. I decided that sounded like a good distance to walk. The place is called Tres Cielos. Which means \u201cThree Heavens.\u201d I walked all the way there and then it had a sign on it that said it\u2019s closed for three weeks! I\u2019m at another place now somewhere in Tzununa. Lots of hummingbird pictures in this little city so I guess that may be their spirit animal or something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It kind of started raining on me at the end, but I\u2019m prepared for it. I\u2019ve got pancho which has worked great. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After I eat, I\u2019ll probably take a tuk tuk back to San Marcos. This is when it usually starts to rain a little bit more heavily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve got a beautiful view of the lake here in the mountains . I keep trying to think of what this area reminds me of. Part of it reminds me of Costa Rica. Some of it reminds me of Nepal. Some of it reminds me of Peru. But honestly, I think it\u2019s more beautiful than any of those places. The sheer vertical slopes on these mountains that just plunge down to this aquamarine colored lake is just unbelievable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cerr\u00f3 Zankujil nature preserve. I went to sleep about 9:15 last night. After hiking all over San Juan yesterday I was pretty tired. I\u2019d eaten a big supper right before I came back to San Marcos lo so I wasn\u2019t hungry. I really didn\u2019t feel the need to go out and be around other people. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17977"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17978,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17977\/revisions\/17978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whirlwindmissions.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}