Kalya and I started the morning with a trip to McDonald's and Paíz to get our dose of first-world goodies. We were soon a few hundred quetzales poorer, but we had delicious egg mcmuffins in our bellies and several pounds of trail mix in our backpacks.
We headed out to Biotopo Quetzal on the Monja Blanca, a bus line which runs from Cobán to Guatemala City. I mention Monja Blanca only because it has taken on something of a legendary status on this 10-day trip. Not only did our two guide books refer to it as "heavenly," "phenomenal," among other laudant adjectives, but Arthur and numerous archaeologists had similar remarks, all unprovoked.
Needless to say, I was excited to see what Monja Blanca had to offer. Well, it was certainly nice, but more importantly something absurd happened. Kalya and I were sitting in two very normal seats on the rights side of the bus. In fact, they were identical to every other seat in the bus. A Spanish-speaking family entered the bus, wandered aimlessly, and then told us we had taken their seats.
Now, let me make the point that approximately 80% of the seats on the bus were empty. We questioned them, and then they began to explain in English how seat numbers were indicated by the serial numbers on our tickets.
Based on their logic, Kalya and I had seats 50 and 51. Unfortunately, the bus stopped at seat 47. We brought this to their attention, but they persisted and stole our seats. Oh, and one of their tickets was 74. Go figure.
Only later did we realize that these were not Guatemalans at all. They were latino tourists from southern California. This was quite a relief to me, as I cannot imagine a Guatemalan even for a moment thinking that a bus which costs less than two dollars would have reserved seats. I thought they might have had an MTBI or something...
Anyways, back to the day's adventure. Biotopo Quetzal was an absolutely beautiful biological reserve with about 6km of wonderfully designed, fantastically maintained trails through the cloud forest. This was my first cloud forest experience, and I must admit that I've found my type of forest. I spent hour surrounded by damp, misty trees, mosses, ferns, and flowers. It was truly a paradise.
We ate our wonderful trail mix lunch on a ledge just to the right of the upper cascade of the reserve's waterfall. Behind us lay a valley of forested slopes, misty clouds, and the wonderful temperatures that come with an elevation of 1500 meters.
Back in Cobán, we visited a coffee plantation near our hostel. There we learned about the stages of coffee production, grading, harvesting, roasting, and exporting. The tour came with a delicious cup of coffee and the chance to buy many coffee-related goods. I picked up a pound of gourmet coffee and two unused 150-pound jute sacks for twelve dollars. Quite a steal.
Cobán continues to be a very pleasant place to kill a few days in the mountain of Alta Verapaz. Tomorrow we're going caving.
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