Barton Creek Outpost

We left Orange Creek a couple of days ago and headed to San Ignacio, the city near the boarder of Guatemala. We were planning on just staying a night or two, so we set up our tent at the Midas Resort, a cute little hotel with cabanas and cheap camping. It was nice and we were there on a Saturday night so we decided to go out. We went to the Blue Angel club at about 9 and were the only two people in a club blaring music like it was jam packed. We found out that nobody goes out until about 11 so we walked around town until then. When we got back there were definitely more people and we were the only tourists there all night! We just danced and had some drinks, the music was not great so we left at about 1 or so and went to bed.

The next day we were reading in one of our travel books about a place called Barton Creek Outpost. It was just a little blip that said that you could plan on coming for a day and end up staying for a week and what really got us was camping was free! So we asked around town and got a ride in the back of a pickup truck 13 miles outside of town through the jungle and unkept road to the Outpost. We had no idea what to expect, but we were blown away at how beautiful this place is! We were thinking it was like a hotel and there would be little shops and stuff to buy, but we are literally in the middle of the jungle! The Barton Creek Outpost  hosts campers so people are in and out of here all the time. There are 6 volunteers working here, cooking and keeping the place up. Everybody is around our age and really, really nice!

This morning when we woke up, we hung out on the hammocks for a bit and then went for a dip in the beautiful river right on the property. There is a really cool rope swing from some rocks into the water, Darren did it twice but Rachel is going to wait until tomorrow to attempt it... :)  Then we went for a hike through the jungle. One of the volunteers was sure to give us 2 machetes that he had just sharpened for the trek. So far, we will be relaxing here for the next couple of days, it is free for us to stay and endless hikes, swimming, waterfalls, kayaking, and even some caving to be done. We will update pictures and more information later, we are just not allowed to use the computers as guests but since we are the only ones here, they said that we can use the computers for today until the group of 9 arrives!
Love you all,

Rachel and Darren