Tikal or bust

June 21, 2013

It was a VERY early morning for us.  We had to be at breakfast by 6:30 and the bus loaded at 7:00.  I was nervous and excited to be crossing into Guatemala to visit these ancient ruins.  We boarded the bus and arrived at the border around 7:45.  Lots of guns and military standing around watching all the hustle and bustle of the day.  It was Friday, so there was still workers crossing over, school buses traveling through and large semis, as well.  Javier (Francisco) had the day off from Windy Hill so he joined us, as did 4 of the seminarians and our bus driver.  Javier took all of our passports and started the process to cross into Guatemala.  Did you know it costs $18.75 to leave Belize every time?

David was able to take care of the ipad at this border.  He ended up paying half of what the original note was going to charge.  He had it removed off his passport, because he was going into Guatemala so it left the country intact like they wanted.  We unwrapped it and opened the box before entering back into Guatemala.  We were never checked at customs for anything, so it was pretty easy.  Fr. Leo was so happy to receive the ipad!

They had 4 15 passenger vans and 1 SUV type vehicle for all of us. Pat, David, Javier and I loaded up in the SUV with Carlos as our driver.  We learned a lot about a lot of things on that trip!  The most important part was that I didn't get motion sick AT ALL!  :)

We stopped along the way to watch some women washing clothes in the Sulphur Lake.

woman washing laundry (photo credit: Wipperfurth)

 We also saw an All Spice  and a Chicle tree.  Did you know that All Spice really comes from an All Spice tree?  It smelled soooooo yummy!  The Chicle tree is what is used to make gum....  That was cool.  Carlos and Javier did a lot of talking in Spanish, but would eventually translate to English (or so we hoped...)

Sign for Tikal (photo credit: Schweigers)

Do you see me?  Kyle made sure I made it ok!  (I'm towards the bottom in the orange.)

Infront of a temple:  Pat and I looking a bit tired.  (photo credit: Schweigers)

The Lost City (photo credit: Schweigers)

Yes, we saw monkeys (right in the center of the pic) (photo credit: Schweigers)

On the way home we stopped at a gift shop/restaurant for a very LATE lunch.  (We had been forwarned to bring snacks, so we were prepared.)  The meal started with a very creamy veggie soup.  Everyone at the table thought it was great.  David mentioned several times that his sure had a kick to it. We all just kept saying that ours didn't and then really thought nothing more about it.  We ate the dinner and were chatting when Jason asked us if we tasted the hot sauce and if we did what did we think of it. We all thought our table had not been served the hot sauce so he brought us a bowl of "thick looking veggie soup".  It had the same texture and and color....  He ate an entire bowl of habenero "soup".  We laughed really hard at how silly we were for not even checking into it more when he kept commenting how spicy his was.  Still makes me giggle a lot to think about it.  :)

David must have felt lucky after that because as we pasted a checkpoint on the road home, Carlos pulled over so that he could get his pic taken with this young man.  There was another soldier who popped up from the ditch next to this little hut.  It freaked me out a bit....

David and Guatemalan military (this was a check point)  (photo credit: Schweigers)