My dad, Byron, has always liked adventure. He loves the forest, the ocean, the desert; he likes everything that has to do with nature. Since I was born my dad has been trying to inculcate that same love to me. I remember that we went walking many times to many places, like outside my house or any ecological park.
He loves doing exercise too, and sincerely I do not understand him. I do not understand why he likes it so much if when you are doing it, it hurts! The muscle you are working on begins to ache and burn so much it can turn unbearable, but that is his opinion, not mine. Because of his love for sports, I have done many of them, like swimming, bicycle, running, karate, and he once tried to get me involved in triathlon. However, he failed because I definitely did not like it, it was too much for me.
This love for exercise, sports, and adventure leads us to our little trip to Cobán. Cobán is a part from Guatemala that is not that far from the city. There you can find the “Biotopo Mario Dary Rivera” also known as “Biotopo del Quetzal”. This is a special biotope where you can find many types of birds, including the quetzal, Guatemalan’s national bird, that it is not easily seen.
Since long time ago, my dad and my uncle, Carlos, had been willing to take us, my cousin Jose, his brother Santiago, my sister Luchi, and me, to this biotope. Finally on 2008 they accomplished it.
The trip began one Friday when we all got inside my dad’s car and began that interesting journey. I remember that in the car, on our way to Cobán, we were seated very tightly. My dad and Carlos were on the front seats, and the rest of us on the back ones. On our way there we passed eating in a restaurant, visiting some viewpoints, and all, so we reached Cobán at night. All of us were very tired, but unfortunately neither Carlos nor my dad had made reservation for ANY hotel, so at that time of the night we began searching for a nice one. Finally, after a long search we found one hotel that was good enough. We spent the night there.
The next day we had to wake up early because my dad wanted to go to the “Biotopo del Quetzal”. Again, we got in the car and went to that place. When we reached there, we noticed that there was a restaurant just in front of the biotope and that we had not took breakfast, so my dad proposed we had it there. We found a table and sat, waiting for the waitress to take our orders. When we were looking at the menu Carlos saw that behind that restaurant there was a little path that seemed nice. Any one of us was hungry yet, so we decided to go and explore. Therefore, we started walking and walking. After 20 minutes walking I was already very tired so I asked my dad to please return to the restaurant because I was hungry, but he said that we were almost finishing it. When we finished it I finished crying because I was too tired, and too hungry, but I made it, I finished that “little” path. We ordered our food and ate. When we finished we just crossed the street and we were in the real “Biotopo”. When we reached there, there were not many people, just like 2 or 3 cars in the parking lot. My dad thought this was a good thing because this way we would have almost all the biotope for ourselves.
We began the walk in there and it was beautiful. It was all completely full of very tall trees and the air felt really fresh, it did not have any smoke or contamination like the one in the city does. The weather was a little wet because that day in the morning it had rained. The entire floor was muddy, which made walking a little bit awkward because the shoe sole stick a bit on the floor. The trees’ leaves were wet too so the little raindrops fell on our face.
We kept walking and walking until we found a sign dividing two paths that said:
“ß 5 km”
“à 8 km”
My cousins and I wanted to choose the left path of course, we were already tired, but my dad kept insisting that we should walk the right one. It gave him a “better feeling”. Therefore, obviously, we went to the right one, so more walk for us to do.
It came a time that we were so tired we had to sit in a little log we found in the middle of the way. I felt really uncomfortable because I was sweating and the weather was all wet, so it made me feel all sticky. My hair turned all disheveled because of the weather, and I did myself a ponytail. After 5 or 10 minutes sitting there we decided it was time to start walking again.
Finally, after at least one hour and a half we reached the place were we had started. It felt delicious to sit in my car and finally rest.
I do not remember why, but that night we had to sleep in another hotel. Again, they had not made any reservations. Therefore, the search began for the second night in a row.
I remember that that night I was going to sleep at 1:00am or something like that.
The next day it was the same. We woke up very early because my dad wanted to go to somewhere else, so we packed our things and left.
This was how the whole trip was. Every night we had to search for a new hotel, sleep very late and wake up the next day very early. It was a very tiring trip, but I do not regret anything. I had such a great time with my dad, uncle, sister and cousins, that I would not change it for anything in the world. To date, my dad keeps trying to inculcate that special love he has, to me.
