It was amazing, hot, tiring, and fun.
We took a small 20 passenger plane to Tikal and then we had to drive another hour from there to get to the ruins. We were lucky to be able to take a plane, which only took 1 hour to get there, where driving from Antigua would have taken 12 hours. It was an interesting ride because a lot of people thought that we were going to die because we were in this little, tiny, but we are clearly all still alive. The horrible part of this trip was that we left at yes, 4:00 in the morning. We were picked up from our houses at this ungodly hour. Kristin and I woke up at 3:30 thinking we had a half hour to finish getting our things together and what do we hear at 3:45? A horn honking and soon after that a knock on the door. Needless to say, we shoved things in our bags and left. Now you may ask, well, that's only 15 minutes early, why is that a big deal? Well, let me tell you, Guatemalans are always, and I mean always late for everything. So not only was he not late, he was super early. So that's how the day started out.
This is the plane that we flew in.
The jungle...
So when we arrived in Tikal, we drove for an hour and then we were in the jungle. We walked all day and climbed various temples that are located in the jungle. I'm not just talking a little bit of climbing, but a lot. The first temple we climbed was the the steepest. We weren't able to climb the actual stairs of the temple, but were able to climb some stairs that they had built on the side. The normal stairs were either falling apart, or too steep to be safe for anyone to climb.
This is the first temple that we climbed and you can see how steep the stairs are on the left side of the temple.
Here Kristin and I are standing on a ruin that was in an area where there were 5 or 6 other ruins in the same area.
All of the ruins were tall, and gorgeous. It's amazing to think that these people built each one of these ruins out of stone. And I think they told us that there were 38 that people had found so far, but there are still more to be discovered and renovated for people to look at.
So after we were done looking at the ruins, we had a lunch and then went to our hotel for the night. We were able to go shopping in the little shops that were all around and we were on our own to find supper at one of the many restuarants in the town. Then we also had till 3 o'clock on Sunday to wander around the town or hang out at the hotel or basically whatever we wanted to. A lot of people lounged around the hotel and the pool because we were all tired from climbing the ruins and from having to be up at an early hour in the morning on Saturday. But it was a nice little vacation and an experience that I won't forget. I took a couple of videos and I tried to put them on here, but that didn't work :( So pictures will have to do. This last picture is of the first really tall ruin that we climbed.
So other than this trip, nothing too exciting has happened. We're still at our ministry sites and we are there till the end of this week and then next week starts school again. It's amazing how fast this time is going and sooner than you and I know it, I'll be back in Minnesota for a little thing called summer break. It's funny because I'm basically going to have 7 months of summer. Oh the perks of being in Guatemala =)
Anyways, I love you and miss you all!!!
This is the first temple that we climbed and you can see how steep the stairs are on the left side of the temple.
I think this is from the top of the ruin in the picture above. 
This is a picture of a place where something like a maternity ward was located. There were some rooms where the women gave birth. A couple months or years, I don't remember which, the archeologists found a pair of twins and a mother. They thought that the twins were new-borns because they were quite small. So that was interesting to hear about.
We continued to walk around the jungle and see other ruins and temples that for the most part had been restored and repaired by people so that people could go to the top and see what the Mayans saw every day. We didn't find out anything about what the Mayans did in these places, if that was their houses or their place of worship or a place a sacrafice. What we did find out is that the places where we were at were only for the kings and not where the "normal, ordinary people" lived. We also learned that the Mayans had their own culture and a lot of different things had a lot of different meanings for them. There are some trees that had different meanings and also different plants and animals. A lot of what this culture is known for is their human sacrifices, as well as how many gods they had. Can you guess how many gods this culture had? Well, you probably guessed way too low. They had over 18,000 gods. It's interesting to try and grasp this concept, especially being a Christian and knowing that there is only one True God. If you're interested in this culture at all, Mel Gibson came out with a movie recently depicting the Mayan culture. I haven't seen it yet and of course this isn't all true, but to some extent, I think the movie is true, but I'm not entirely sure. The movie is called Apocalypto and is talked a lot about here and I eventually want to see it, especially while I'm here, living in a culture that has been affected by the Mayans and their traditions.
This is a picture of a place where something like a maternity ward was located. There were some rooms where the women gave birth. A couple months or years, I don't remember which, the archeologists found a pair of twins and a mother. They thought that the twins were new-borns because they were quite small. So that was interesting to hear about.
Here Kristin and I are standing on a ruin that was in an area where there were 5 or 6 other ruins in the same area.
All of the ruins were tall, and gorgeous. It's amazing to think that these people built each one of these ruins out of stone. And I think they told us that there were 38 that people had found so far, but there are still more to be discovered and renovated for people to look at.
So after we were done looking at the ruins, we had a lunch and then went to our hotel for the night. We were able to go shopping in the little shops that were all around and we were on our own to find supper at one of the many restuarants in the town. Then we also had till 3 o'clock on Sunday to wander around the town or hang out at the hotel or basically whatever we wanted to. A lot of people lounged around the hotel and the pool because we were all tired from climbing the ruins and from having to be up at an early hour in the morning on Saturday. But it was a nice little vacation and an experience that I won't forget. I took a couple of videos and I tried to put them on here, but that didn't work :( So pictures will have to do. This last picture is of the first really tall ruin that we climbed.
So other than this trip, nothing too exciting has happened. We're still at our ministry sites and we are there till the end of this week and then next week starts school again. It's amazing how fast this time is going and sooner than you and I know it, I'll be back in Minnesota for a little thing called summer break. It's funny because I'm basically going to have 7 months of summer. Oh the perks of being in Guatemala =)
Anyways, I love you and miss you all!!!
1 comment:
homework is great fun!you're just jealous because you don't have that much to do! haha just kidding
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