Tikal

This weekend was amazing. Sasha and I, with four other students (Todd, Molly, Loni, and Jacki) spent the weekend in Tikal. The Mayan ruins are only an hour and a half from San Andres, so we decided to make a weekend trip of it. On Friday night we headed up to Tikal and camped out in hammocks, in a campground outside the park. We wanted to be in the park first thing in the morning to watch the sunrise over the temples.

The evening was perfect, sandwiches by the campfire, star gazing, and of course studying Spanish. The night however, was freezing, and the hammocks were less than ideal beds. I dont think any of us got much sleep. We were all a little relieved when the alarm clock went off. It was fortunate that we wanted to get up, because I dont think we could have slept much longer once the howler monkeys began yelling.



Sasha and I watch the sunrise from Temple IV. The view was breath taking, and it was fun to listen to the sounds in of the jungle. After the sunrise, Loni and Jackie left to go see the park on their own. The rest of us proceed to explore the Disney World of archeology. It kind of reminded me of working at Disney World and my experience ¨merchantaining¨ (yes, that was my official job title)



First we chased after howler monkeys...video coming soon

Next we climbed a temple


and then another....



and another....


rested...


then climbed another....



We werent alowed to climb Temple I, so Sasha and I thought would try jumping to the top.



and finally, we climbed another...


The ruins were amazing. I loved explored all the the nooks and cranies.



While exploring the park, we took a detour and discovered ¨new¨ ruins. The ruins weren´t on the park map. At these ruins we saw spider monkeys playing in the trees.


The trip home was complete crowding into a chicken bus, with only enough room to stand on one foot. By the time we got home we were exhausted.