TIKAL!!

Friday, June 17-Sunday June 19 (written by Heather):

Friday was our last day of language school, wrapping up 3 days of 4-hr lesons. After our lessons got out at noon, we each ate lunch at our respective host families' homes. After lunch the team met at the basketball courts where we met Carlos, a local skate-boarder, as well as the leader of a basketball team for disabled men in wheelchairs. Some team members kicked around a vollyball, some played basketball, and some climbed up te "Cerra de la Cru", a hill with an awesome view of Agua - a nearby dormant volcano. After basketball we had dinner with our host families.

At 7pm, we began our journey to Tikal, an ancient Mayan city of temple ruins. We were picked up at our houses in a van and broughtto a bus station in Guatemala City. From there we took a "greyhound" bus to la Isla de Flores. From here we took a van the Hotel Tikal. After about half an hour, our tour began.
Our tour guide's name was Able Canable. At the age of 17 he helped uncover some of the temples. He was able to tell us some of the process of uncovering the temples, as well as a lot about the plants and bugs in the rainforest. We learned a lot about the history of Tikal and were able to climb 3 temples. We had an awesome view of the top of the rainforest. We hiked back to the hotel through the jungle and were able to experience a little bit (or a lot) of jungle rain. When it rains, it pours, and we got soaked! Once at the hotel we ate the lunch that came with our tour package: Fish, beef, chicken, or pasta.

After eating we made our way back to Flores via a van. Since we had to stay there about 5 hours until our bus left at 10pm, we rented a hostel room with a shower and 4 beds, so that we could rest/clean up and also have somewhere to be inside since it got dark at 7. After showering and letting people read/nap/rest for a little bit, we headed back outside to grab dinner at a restaurant called "Casa Amelia", where we shared 3 pizzas and a "pound of steak" for Heather's 23rd birthday! After finishing dinner, we caught a taxi to the bus station since it was already dark out, and our bus left around 10:20. We tried to sleep during the night, and arrived safely in Guatemala City at about 6am on Sunday morning, where our van driver took us back into Antigua. THE END.

Also, today (yesterday by the time Chad is posting this) we moved up here to Magdalena to our new host families and had a brief orientation with Students International! More to come...