Lake Izabal and on to Tikal

We continued our trip from Quirigua to Lake Izabal where we found a lovely hotel on the lake.  The hotel had a great restaurant and the flowers were stunning.

Jungle flora around our hotel.  

After we settled into our accommodations, we all set out to go to the castle.  It was a short walk down the road to Castillo de San Felipe which had been built to keep the pirates out.  Apparently it was over run a few times by pirates!

Castillo de San Felipe

Eldon keeping a sharp eye out for pirates.

After climbing all through the castle we decided to go on a tour of the lake where we saw lots of huge yachts and beautiful homes on the island and an island of birds.  It did not smell really good.

Our tour boat.  How perfect!

Climbing into the tour boat.

The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast we headed toward Tikal stopping on the way to visit Yaxha ruins.  There are actually three cities there but we only had time for the one on this trip.  We discovered that not many ruins are actually uncovered but there are large hills all around that have buildings under then that were the city.

Climbed to the tops of a lot of pyramids like this one.

From the top of one of the pyramids

The jungle vines were intertwined amazingly!

Monkeys were throwing sticks at us from above.  They didn't like our company I guess.

Workers trying to clear off the rock and debris from one of the temples

Glyph depicting the creation found at the base of  one of the temples.

Many glyphs and writings have been found under the temples.  often there are two or three temples built on top of each other.  The interior ones give the best histories as looters have not desecrated them quite as much.  After the archaeologists finish exploring they seal the tunnel they made up.  They have found that the interior temples are from about 2200 BC.  Looks to me like the Jaredites did leave their mark on the world.

President and Dawn climbed to the top of this temple to see if the "red hands" painting was really there for Sister Norman.

The view from the top was magnificnet.

Supposedly this is the "Red Hands".  Clear as mud.  And the graffiti doesn't really add much.

Part of the stairs we had to climb.

We left here a little late so had to hurry to get to Flores and Tikal before dark.  We did not have reservations so called ahead to get one at Tikal.  When we arrived there we discovered we had made reservations at another hotel of the same name an hour away back out of the park.  Trusting to luck we checked one of the other hotels and found accommodations.  More on that story to come.

Quirigua

Some day we will get this all figured out.  In the meantime here are some pictures of our trip to Tikal.  If you would care for a full description of the trip please email me and I will send it to you.
Day one: Quirigua

National tree of Guatemala, Ceibol

Glyph  at Guirigan

Head of turtle with man's face in its mouth.

Suppose to be a turtle.  Use your imagination.  Fin on bottom left of pic.

Grand Plaza

Living Quarters.

Eldon on the trail through the jungle looking for more ruins.

This Banana Belt held us up for a bit as we were leaving the park.

Antiqua and Atitlan

Tuesday January 5 eight missionaries went to Antigua, the first capital of Guatemala. It is a colonial town with white stucco buildings. They try to keep it like the Spanish built it. We visited a chocolate factory and learned a bit about chocolate making.
We were given some beans which we roasted and shelled. The husks make a good tea. We ground the chocolate into a paste and made chocolate candies but we did not use near enough sugar.
The Mayas drank the chocolate tea even though it was very bitter. The only sweetener they had was honey but only the royalty used honey because it was so hard to harvest. Remember, the Mayans often ran around naked. Ouch!


A bowl of Cacao beans to make chocolate.

One of the streets downtown Antigua.

We visited a textile museum and saw how the native Mayan made clothes. Mom bought a pretty skirt there. It will be a nice town to visit again.


On Wednesday, we all went to Lake Atitlan, said to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. It is a very nice lake with lots of trees around it. There are town all around the lake and three volcanos around it. We stayed in Panajachel at Mario's Rooms. They were clean.

We hired a boat to take us across the lake to Santiago where we ate lunch and did a little street shopping. I bought a pair of shorts. At first we were not going to go to Santiago because they said it was dangerous but the boat driver said the problem had been resolved and all was well. We were treated well there.
From there we went to San Antonio to a pottery maker. We spent about an hour and a half on the boat. Back in Panajachel we just visited tourist shops and ate dinner.



A receptionist at Mario's Rooms.


Lake Atitlan and the volcano San Pedro.

Thursday morning we left Panajachel and drove to Chichicastenango which has a big market. The GPS took us an hour out of our way but we made it. The open-air market looked like a bunch of fair booths. People were selling food, clothes, souvenirs and lot of stuff. Dawn bought some cotton yarn.


The market in Chichicastenango looking from one church to the other.

There are two Catholic churches at the market. One combines the Catholic worship with Mayan beliefs and the other is straight Catholic. The vendor's shops are under the tarps.  The marketplace is pretty huge.

Santa Lucia

We have arrived at a new mission this year and I am going to figure this out.  We are enjoying lovely weather in Guatemala.  More humid than home but comfortable.  We work Tuesday through Saturday in the afternoons.  But with Christmas and New Years we are only working three days last week and this.

We visited Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa and saw some large glyph stones in the middle of some cane fields. It was fun although very hot and humid. We passed several volcanoes on our 2 hour trip there and one of them, Fuego was spouting off smoke every 15 minutes or so. There are volcanoes all over in Guatemala and most are active.


On Christmas Eve we all went to see Star Wars. Pretty cool movie.