Let's talk about my park

On top of the world So if you look up you will see me standing in a tree house in the highest point in my park: Senderos Alux Parque Ecologico. This place is pretty interesting. To get there you must take a camioneta (this is whats commonly referred to as a chicken bus, I will speak in detail on these busses another time. Suffice it to say they are an adventure every time you board one.) When you get off at the stop in front of the park, unless you look real closely for the one sign, you have no idea its even there. From this inconspicuous bus stop you must hike up a very steep and winding road for appoximately 20 minutes (probably about a mile to a mile and a half). This is exhausting, when I say steep I mean 50 - 60 degree inclines; basically, you pray that a pick-up truck will pick you up and you can ride to the top in the bed.

Vale la pena. This spanish saying means that it was worth the trouble, and that is what you say when you finally make it to the summit, because the park is beautiful. There are many, many kilometers of trails, it took us about 5 hours to tour the whole park, and we basically breezed through the majority of it. There are 3 miradors, viewing points, with breathtaking views of Guatemala City and the surrounding volcanoes. If you look below you will see the view from the mirador that I am standing on in the picture above. The lake you see is Lake Amatitlan, the city is the capital of Guatemala, and in the surrounding mountains there are three volcanoes.

I am told that this is one of the best views you can find of the city and I believe it. Other then enjoying the vistas there are trails blazed all through the forest, where you can see all different types of rare birds, animals, flowers, snakes, you name it...

If you look below you will see yours truly up in a tree.

One of the coolest aspects of the park, or at least the most fun, are the tree swings. There are three of them, where you can hop in and go sailing out over valleys in the forest. If you look down at the picture below it is tough to tell just how far the drop is below me, but trust me when I say if I fell I would not be getting back up for a while.

Here is a group of sheep that just happened to wander across our path.

Here is an example of the flowers you can see in the park.

And here is one of the many informative signs that you can find throughout the park. This one is to educate people on the many different types of birds you can find there.

Each one of these pictures took about 20 minutes to load, so that is enough for now. I hope you enjoy them. Adios amigos.