River

We flew directly from Salt Lake City to Paris in just under 10 hours. It’s a fantastic flight and it was even better being in the comfortable seats in Delta’s Premium Select area. Brett has Diamond Medallion status with Delta and was able to get us all upgraded on the longest leg of the trip. Thanks to favorable tailwinds, we landed in Paris about 30 minutes earlier than expected, giving us about 12 hours to go out and enjoy the city before jumping on our next flight to Cairo. ...

We regrouped after our lunch break. Our guide explained that each of us had a choice about how to get to the turquoise pools on top of the limestone bridge that is Semuc Champey. The hard way is to climb the stairs up to the lookout and then continue and descend the stairs to the top of the pools. He said it might be too hard for some of us and seemed especially worried about parents with kids. The alternative is to skip the cliff completely and just walk up the flat path along the river, similar to what we had walked earlier with our tubes, just on the opposite side of the river. ...

We slept pretty well last night, despite having 3 of us in the room and sharing a double bed with Charmaine. The only time I woke up was when I was freezing and had to adjust the air conditioner so it wouldn’t be so cold. Tessa said something about how she’s glad she brought her blanket from home with her or she would have frozen. That’s a good air conditioner. ...

We got up and ate breakfast earlier than usual this morning. It’s Friday, which means we’re not working – just trying to get our adventure on. Some of our previous attempts haven’t worked out exactly the way we hoped, but nothing stands in our way today. We’re headed to Lanquí­n to see Semuc Champey Natural Monument. It’s about 200 miles each way, but it usually takes 8+ hours due to traffic, construction, narrow winding roads, slow trucks, etc. Our driver pulled his van up to the house at 8:00 and we headed out. ...