With the exception of the trip to Antigua on Monday which we already talked about, this has been a quiet week.  The temple has not been busy at all for the past couple of weeks except for one night when about 80 patrons showed up for a session at 6 pm.  Our rooms only hold 30 max.  I suppose you could squeeze in a couple more if they weren't very big.  We have benches instead of individual seats so it could vary.
We walk at 7 am every Tuesday Thursday and Saturday and this past Thursday turned out to be a bit of an adventure.  We rode two different buses to get to the southwest side of town as Brother Allred wanted to go to El Carmen as there was a nice cathedral there.  So we got off the bus and headed up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill.  There were some lovely views and nice brand new roads.  Apparently lots of rich folk have been buying and building up here.

View from on the hill looking out over Guatemala

Lovely roads and neat homes.

After an hour of trekking we came to a crossroad, well sort of, and Brother Allred asked if there was a bus or taxi that came this way as it was time to be home.  The gentleman said taxis rarely come this way and there were no buses on this street.  Oh dear!  Well the Lord looks after the dumb missionaries too and at that moment a taxi came by and took us home.  He went back up the street we had walked down and told us that El Carmen was down the road we would have turned on but a few miles more.  Needless to say we discovered you couldn't walk there from here.

Our next adventure was Saturday morning when President asked if we would like to go to the Historical Museum and we are always ready to go and see.  It is in the middle of the city and we discovered that the city used to be a lot of smaller pueblas (well they still exist as their own little communities in the city) which were built on ruins.  Excavation has turned up a lot of sites in the city some of which were discovered and some history saved as buildings were built.  The growth of the city has destroyed a lot of sites.

All the dots etc. show sites of ruins.

Grave of a wealthy ruling class person found as a hospital was being built.

Another burial urn and remains.

Ornate bowl

Jaguar statue

Presenting gifts to the ruler or maybe giving excuses why they shouldn't be beheaded!

Sacrificial Alter.  Makes a good bench don't you think although a bit wide.

Antigua again

Since our last post we have been to Margaritas for pizza for John Prices birthday, gone to a youth conference with President and Sister Norman (they were both positively fabulous), gone to Chimaltenango to visit a terminally ill temple worker and had a fabulous meal to boot.

John's birthday.

Very dynamic speaker.

Great Restaurant.

Designed for four but easily would feed eight.

Restaurant interior.

And now today.

We left with the plan of going to Antigua today but due to a detour we ended up at the Valhalla Macadamia Farm. Their nuts can count.  Very clever!

Very smart nuts don't you think.

Beau, the American who now lives and helps take care of the 5 acre farm (head nut he calls himself) gave us a very interesting and informative tour.  He told us that these trees were from Australia and had never been subjected to any kind of spray.  They were very healthy and adjusted to climate changes easily.  They produce about 300 pounds of macadamia nuts per year and drop them daily.

Beau teaching us about the few banana plants and how they grow.

Beautiful Macadamia trees.

Two young men come in each day and pick up nuts from the ground that have fallen.  They are then put through a de-husking contraption and laid out to dry.  Once dry they are sized.  President Norman tried his hand at sorting nuts.  Not too different than his every day job at the temple!

They also bragged that they had the most photographed bathroom in the country, so of course we had to check it out.

Certainly was pretty.

We then went to a market in another small town and spent our money at several places.

Cute family of one of the vendors at the mercado.

After finding all the stuff we wanted we satisfied ourselves with a late lunch at a beautiful restaurant in Antigua then home.

From the roof top.

Roof top accommodations for lunch.

Beautiful gardens at restaurant.

Homeward bound

I best finish off the trip and report our day of returning home.  We finally reached Coban and found it to be a mass of one way streets.  Sister Norman had made a reservation for us but we could not find the place.  Christine asked a taxi driver where is was and he lead us to the place which was about a block away but we couldn't get there from where we were due to the one ways.  It was a hostel and our room had a queen and two double beds and a nice shower.  The room was large with huge windows right over the street and we could hear the bus boys yelling for patrons until after 10.  We wandered the streets and watched ladies carrying large loads on their heads and watched people scurrying home.

Carrying heavy loads.  Some do not even hold onto the burden they carry.

Beautiful people.

The next morning we were off after breakfast.  It was about 8:30.  Christine had a list of things to see so we headed to Salama to see a popular Cathedral.  The town was packed and the central plaza blocked off due to inaugural proceedings.  We drove by and saw the church on the next block and said good enough.  We headed to San Miguel to see if we might have better luck.  Again inaugural stuff but we found a parking spot and walked to the church.  Closed until 2.  Took a picture and headed on.  We even got a police escort out of town as we were having difficulty believing the road we found was the right one.  It was!

San Miguel Cathedral

The road was a narrow rutted dirt road but soon turned into a narrow smoother dirt road.  Only about 10 miles the nice policeman said.

More downhill than it looks. Believe me!

A bit more than 10 miles of this.

Miles and miles of dusty dirt road going up and down the mountain sides.  We wanted to see the aqueduct in Grandados but due to inaugural stuff yet again, we were detoured down narrow roads with 45 degree hills having to pull in mirrors to scrape by and someone called out "there it is" so we checked that one off the list and kept going.  We finally reached Guatemala City and and made it home by 6:30.  Whew!

Sayaxche and Ciebal

Thursday
We left Tikal with 1 1/2 hours left before dark to make it to Flores.  Doable.  We arrived in good order and went to the smaller town of Sayaxche where we had a hotel.  We had to cross a river on a barge to get there.  A semi parked next to us and had to move forward to get the back end off the dirt so we could cross.  He then backed up again.  A little nerve wracking!

On the "raft" to cross the river.

We found our hotel which was nice and made arrangements to go down river to the ruins of the city of Ciebal the next morning. Remember Gilgan's Island--a three hour tour.

We got on our boat in the morning by stepping through another larger boat.  We settled in the the guide started up the outboard motor and we were off.  We got to the "drop off" site after 1 1/2 hours (no dock) and carefully climbed out of the boat and up a wet clay bank.

Climbing up wet slick clay bank

And then we had to climb for 1 1/2 hours (going was slow with all the old folks you know).  I think dad and I could have done it in 45 minutes but we are in really good shape for our age.

Up slick moss covered steps and over slick roots and clay.

When we got there we discovered we had already passed through a lot of the city and not even noticed as it is not excavated yet.  Only two building and a lot of glyphs were visible.  We were all a little disappointed after all the work to get there.

The one uncovered building we got to see.

We did not have time to get to the second one as it would take us 1 1/2 hours again to get back to the boat and we needed to leave in time to get to Coban before dark.  The river trip was another 1 1/4 hour so we headed back.

Huge Ceiba tree.  National tree of Guatemala.

About 45 minutes downriver we saw a huge crocodile and as the guide turned around to head downriver again after pictures, the engine sputtered.

Huge Croc.

Lovely jungle to watch as we float down the river and the guide tries to make the outboard motor work.

John cleaning sticky stubborn clay from Sally's shoes

President getting flustered as we wait on the side of the bank.  We are still about 15 feet or so from the shore but graetfully in the shade.

President borrowed my charger bank for his phone and the guide borrowed President's phone but could not get hold of his boss.  President called the hotel after calling the temple security to get the hotel phone number Christine had given them the day before and asked them to find the boss.  

After 3 hours the rescue boat arrived and they exchanged motors.  I was sure they were going to lose it into the water.

The guide and rescuers exchanging motors in the middle of the river.

The guide secured the motor poured gasoline into the gas tank measuring how much he needed to get home, started the engine and we were off again.  

We came around the bend finally and with the dock in sight ran out of gas!!  The guide tipped the tank up enough that we finally made it to solid ground.  We grabbed some fried chicken and bottled water, climbed into the car and headed out hoping to make Coban before dark.  It was iffy.

Tikal

When we arrived at Tikal we paid our entry fee and drove for 45 minutes to get to the hotels and main entry spot.  There were road signs along the way for snake crossing, jaguar crossing, turkey crossing and some critter we believe was some sort of critter that lived mostly on the ground.

? Crossing

Snake Crossing

Turkey Crossing

Jaguar Crossing

Deer Crossing

We went confidently to our hotel where we had reservations only to find that the reservations we had made were at another hotel 1 1/2 hours back toward Coban with the same name!  This one did not have any openings.  We decided to try another hotel there and were in luck.  We got three rooms.   There was one outlet in the large room for the table lamp and battery powered light.  No outlets in the bathroom.  All power was turned off at 9:30 (hence the need for the battery lamp) and turned on again at 7:30am.  Since the hot water was electric that also turned off.  We had leaves growing through the window in the bathroom.

Our hotel for the night

Leaves growing into the bathroom window

Turkeys wandering through the yard in the morning 

We hired a guide and a pickup with chairs in the back and in the morning he met us and took us to the "better" place to eat, we all piled into the pickup and were off on our adventure.  

Benches in the back of a pickup

Our first stop, and only stop was at the Pyramid of the jaguar.  We all climbed out of the truck and began our trek.  

Looking up from the back of Jaguar Temple

Looking into the plaza at jaguar temple

View from the top of Temple 4.  Long Climb.  The blue tarp on the temple to the right is covering lightning stick damage.

One of the smaller temples

On top of Temple 4.  Largest of the temples

The archaeologist make small openings in the temples to see what is underneath.  This one had two other temples under it.  They left the opening so you could see the wall of the next temple.  Original wood still is visible in some places.

View of wall of second temple

Original wood beams visible

A model of part of Tikal.   Couldn't fit the entire thing in the picture

Our next part of the trip is Sayaxche and Ciebal.