Vivir en el momento: Earth Lodge

This past weekend was the volunteer’s “salida” aka “going out,” a time designed for the volunteers to simply BE in the same place, without anything else to do and nowhere else to go…basically being trapped with your co-workers for 72 hours. After much deliberation, we decided to head to Earth Lodge, a beautiful avocado farm on the side of a hill about 20 minutes outside of Antigua with an AMAZING view.

We arrived in 3 different shifts between Friday and Saturday. Through a series of miscommunications (in Guatemala? NEVER!) we missed the transport to take us there by a good 30 minutes. NEVER FEAR! That’s why there’s McDonald’s in the middle of Antigua :). After eating the MOST delicious chicken/bacon/lettuce/tomato/cheese sandwich EVER (and of course a McFlurry...), we received a call that the transport was coming back for us – hooray! We arrived around 8 pm that night riding in the back of a pickup truck. It was about 20 below zero and a pretty rough ride, but when it came to an end we were literally in the middle of nowhere. The driver told us all to get out of the truck and pointed towards a dirt path “follow the lower path and you’ll get there…eventually…” Bewildered, we all began the trek down the dirt path. Needless to say I was QUITE happy I had remembered my flashlight! After walking down about 100 very treacherous yards, we came across a sign that said “Earth Lodge 250 more meters.” It was a good thing too, because at that point we had all been ready to call it quits, head back up and go home! We continued walking the ridiculous dirt path further down, down, down, until we FINALLY came upon the lodge.

Situated in the mountains surrounding Antigua, the Earth Lodge has an AMAZING view of Antigua, as well as 3 volcanoes. Built in 2003, it was started by 2 ex-pats who had decided to move to Guatemala and purchased over 40 acres of land with almost 400 avocado trees! They harvest and sell the avocados twice a year, but the rest of the year they make their money through their hostel style rooms include REAL tree houses and cabanas :). VERY cool.

The weekend, which I was convinced was going to be the same as at NPH, just in a new location, turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL weekend away with perfect weather, fun games (including an indo-board – woo!), lots of board games, reading, and DELICIOUS vegetarian food – what more can anyone ask for? Enjoy the pics!