Tikal is amazing (July 28, 2008)

(reprinted from email this summer)

Hello all!

Life in Guatemala is definitely an adventure, particularly the getting money part. Not only are ATMs more often broken than not, they also run out of money pretty quickly, and most commonly only accept Visa/Plus and both Lacey and I have Mastercard/Star. :P We are learning to acquire a good chunk of money when possible, and not assume that getting it will be easy.

It's all part of the adventure though, and we are having a great adventure. We went up to Tikal 

this weekend, and two hours in the afternoon of my birthday were spent wandering around the "Gran Plaza" of Tikal, sitting on the top of one of the pyramids, and watching dusk come and all the birds fly by and call out, and the insects get louder and the monkeys call too. It was pretty 

magical. At dinner afterwards, a family (from Quebec?) who had heard it was my birthday up on the pyramid and was then sitting at the table next to us, came over and wished me a happy 

birthday and bought Lacey and I "limonadas" (lemonades). It was very nice of them! I had a couple people that day tell me that I would never be able to top this birthday, so I´ll have to come up with something spectacular for my next decadal birthday. :)

We rented hammocks at the campground in Tikal - the campground guy, Gonzalo, set up these ingenious little hammock/net contraptions for us that hung off of support beams underneath a thatch roof that was otherwise open to the world. The hammocks were low enough to the ground that the mosquito nets fell to the cement platform so that those biting bugs couldn't get in. So we slept through the night treated to the sounds of the jungle, and boy was it loud! There are either really big insects that are out there, or little insects that make really big sounds. I expect it's the former, based on some of the insects I saw while I was there: the biggest ant, grasshopper, and unidentifiable giant bug at the very least that I have ever seen! The howler monkeys started up around 3 in the morning, but didn't go for long. They sound sort of like you would expect a high-pitched sea lion screaming in pain to sound like. Crazy.

Anyway, yesterday we traipsed around Tikal for five hours in the morning, breaked for lunch, and then wandered for another three hours, and still didn't see everything. I definitely felt sated though, not to mention exhausted and badly in need of a shower. :P They let you climb on many of the ruins in Tikal, so while there was a little archaeologist part of me that cringed at walking on top of ruins, I couldn't exactly NOT do it, so I tried to fully enjoy every moment. Not that hard really. :) We learned that some of the coolest little rooms and passageways were to be found in the backs of the buildings, so we started really doing some exploring and found several groups of bats!

We got back to Flores yesterday evening, and are staying in a hostel with lots of character, two parrots, and a vegetarian restaurant (the only one in Peten, they say), run by a Dutch guy named Matthias who does yoga in the mornings. We had a delicious burrito last night kind of Italian style, with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese on top, but with the typical beans and rice and salsa on the side. Yum! And I had a $2 cocktail that was basically a strawberry banana smoothie spiked with rum. Also yum. :)

Today we´re taking it easy, but hoping to make it down to Ixobel today, where there is a hostel in the pine forest that's supposed to be a great place to relax, swim, hike, etc. Though my legs are sore enough today I might pass on the hiking for a day. :) From there we´re undecided, though we know we want to go to Semuc Champey (limestone bridge and underground pools), Antigua, back to Guatemala City for the museums, and out to the western highlands. We'll see what order that takes place in!

To those of you who have sent me little messages - thanks so much! It's lovely to hear from you. :) I have no idea if I'll be able to respond to everything, but I appreciate every note.

This has been a fabulous birthday trip so far, and I'm excited to see what happens next. :)

Love to you all.

Arrival in Guatemala! (July 24, 2008)

(reposted from email earlier this year)

Hi friends and family!

Some of you know I was heading off to Guatemala for my 30th birthday with my cousin Lacey. Some of you didn't know, but I thought I'd put you on the list anyway. :) We arrived tonight about 45 minutes late, expecting to be able to both get money out of an ATM, and be picked up by the hostel we were staying at. Well, the one ATM in the international arrivals terminal was out of order, there seemed to be no sign of the folks supposed to be picking us up, and of *course* there was no working phone in sight. So much for that easy-going plan. :P

A very nice taxi-organizing man allowed us to use his cell phone to call the hostel, where they assured us there was someone waiting for us at the airport. But after 40 minutes of looking-and-not-finding, we took his offer of a taxi and made it to the hostel. Fortunately, many places in Guatemala will also take American dollars in addition to the local Quetzals, and even more fortunately we had American dollars on us, so we were able to pay for both the taxi and the hostel tonight. Already an adventure!

It was beautiful flying in, looking at the blue(!) traffic lights arranged in curves and amongst a lot of black. I'm very curious to see what it looks like when I fly out during the day. Tomorrow we are hoping to get out of Guatemala City and take a bus up to Flores and thence to Tikal. If we can manage to get tickets, we'll be going on the $25 "luxury'' bus. :)

It was nice to find internet so easy our first night, but I have no idea how likely that will continue. Hopefully you'll all hear from me a few more times on this trip!

In the meantime, happy July! :)