Monterrico beach

The sand here is made from volcanic lava rock. The bartender here told us that if you put a magnet on top of the sand that you would pick up some pieces, because of all the iron. The waves here are HUGE! My Dad and Deklan were out riding the waves when a giant wave crashed on him, he was in the air about 15 feet! (he is still ok, he said all he could see was beach, and sand below him) The waves are on average about 5 feet in the morning, 10 in the afternoon and approx 5-10 feet at night. There are the occasional rogue giant waves. There are dogs that swim in the ocean in the heat of the day because its just so hot! It is very humid here, and even without the humidity it is over 40 degrees. We just got to the hot season here, so my family and I look like pop cans fresh out of the fridge, sweating!! Oh got to go now, it is time to play some beach volleyball!

Holy Week

The week before Easter is called Semana Santa ( holy week). People in Guatemala celebrate this week by having parades, processions and large street celebrations. While I was in Panajachel I saw the parade with baton throwers, and the marching bands. That was the first day of Holy Week. The main celebrations, actually the biggest celebration in all of Central America are in Antigua, where hundreds of people wear dark purple robes and carry icons from their church in daily street processions in remembrance of Christ's crucifixion. Small children carry lanterns burning with incense at the beginning of the procession. The cobblestone streets are covered with (alfombras) sawdust carpets. There were also carpets made out of grass and flowers, or vegetables. I don't know if I've seen anything so beautiful! The people making the carpets are barely finished when the processions come by and walk over them, wrecking them! Right behind the procession is the clean up crew, that sweep all the sawdust into a pile, a loader picks it up and they dump it into a dump truck. They clean up the roads so that the next day a new carpet can be made, and walked over again. On the last day the people wear black robes to signify Jesus's death.

Codamundi & tree

This is a Codamundi, I was able to get quite close to it. It's in the raccoon family.
When we were walking through Tikal, I saw Howler monkeys. They were really noisy, but fast so I didn't get to take a picture of them:(
The tree is the La Ceiba tree, it is Guatemala's national tree. It was HUGE!

Tikal

This is a Maya village which was built in 700BC. It is set in the jungle, and we could hear the Howler monkeys while looking at the ruins. The park is 550sq. km's, and contains thousands of ruins. It's was a long day at Tikal, we spent approx. 7 hours looking around. We saw quite a few different ruins, and many old chambers. It was very neat and exciting to see old ruins, and get to see what took many generations to build. The pictures that I took are of temples, and of stairways to the top of village entrances. The temples are from where emperors would go and sit in there chambers or sit on a throne at the top of the stairs. Some of the stairs would lead you to another village Or different temples. Tikal was an amazing place to visit, I didn't know there were so many old places, or buildings. It was breath taking!

Picture 1 is of Temple 1, also known as the Big Jaguar. It is 47 meters in height, and was built in the year 700AD by Jasaw Chan K'awiil. His tomb was discovered inside this temple.

Picture 2 is of Temple 2, also known as the Mascarones Temple. It is 38 meters in height, and was built in 700AD by the same man. The wooden carved lintel seems to resemble his wife.

Picture 3 is of a staircase in the Grand Plaza, this is the most important part of the park because its buildings show the most impressive of Tikal's architecture. These buildings took more than 1000 years to build.

Picture 4 is taken from the top of Temple 4, also known as the two headed snake temple. It is the tallest temple in Tikal. It was built in 740AD and is 64.6 meters tall. We climbed to the top to get this picture!

Chicken bus

Chicken buses are old school buses that are privately owned and painted with colours on them. The fancier the paint job, usually means the more reliable it will be! There are red buses for locals, but we have been told to not ride them because they get held up often. The green buses are for tourists, they usually have guards on board so they don't get robbed. We see mostly chicken busses, and we want to ride on one! The chicken buses are all shipped down from the U.S.A, the newer ones that are not painted all fancy sometimes still have the school district and the town it came from on it. I saw one that said Carolina school district 60!

A taste of the food here!

These are just a few of the foods here that I love to eat! This first picture is of me drinking the milk out of a coconut. The second picture is of the nachos and guacamole. The chips are baked from tortillas that are made by ladies on the side of the street, they are so good!! The third is of me drinking water out of a bag, by doing this we use less plastic and the bags can be recycled into other things. They are biodegradable. The fourth picture is of me on a boat tour holding mini bananas, they were about the size of my thumb, and really sweet. The last picture is of the lunch we had while staying in a locals house. Soup, pasta, a hamburger patty and cauliflower that was battered and fried just enough that it wasn't soft or hard, it was perfect...... Yum :) the lady of the house cooks like a gourmet chef!!

Maximon

Maximon ( mah-shee-mohn) is assumed to be a combination of Maya Gods. He is a wooden figure draped in colorful clothing, smoking a fat cigar. He stays in people's houses for one year, and then moves to another one. The house is chosen by the president, and it must be a bigger home as Maximon doesn't like little ones. While he is there it is the responsibility of the house owners to get him his cigarettes, cigars, liquor and candles. Locals guard and worship him, sitting and managing the offerings made to him. His favourite gifts are Payaso cigars, and Venado rum. Flashing electric lights and fruit decorate his chamber. Effigies of Jesus Christ and Christian saints lie or stand on either side of Maximon. While we were there, a older Mayan lady was visiting Maximon to have her troubles and problems solved. A Shaman (a representative of Maximon) was healing her by spitting liquor on her and shaking a smoky can around her, as well as covering her head and hitting her with a smoky cloth. In one of the pictures you can see the lady on the left side.

Bead store

First off I want to say I took this picture for Allyssa because I know you like to make jewellery. This bead store was full of everything you could think of, there were bookmarks, bracelets, necklaces, anklets, and even paperweights that looked like horses and birds! This store was an artsy craft persons dream!! The people who worked at the store told me that everything was all handmade by the villagers that lived in different villages around Lake Atitalan. This was the coolest place for jewellery in all of the villages I've been to! I would have taken more pictures and some close ups for you, so you could try to make them, but the store owners wanted money.

Parade

At our hotel in Panajachel we heard some music and drums. We went up onto the roof to see what is was, and we saw a parade going down the main street to celebrate the start of Holy week! We listened and watched for awhile when we remembered that we should take a few pictures. The parade had Miss Guatamala, two marching bands, cheer leaders, baton throwers, schools, and finally princesses. This was all happening outside of our hotel on the street below us! How lucky of us to be at that hotel at that time!!

A day at the volcano

This was our day at the volcano. We woke up early and took a bus to the Picaya volcano, near a small town. We hiked to the top, it took us about an hour and a half. In one spot the lava was so close to the ground that we were able to roast marshmallows. They were cooked instantly and better then on a fire because there was no flames to burn them! This is the picture by the little cave of lava.

The picture of the volcano, looks like a mountain, but it was exploding and releasing ash the entire time we were there. The last time there was a huge eruption was 2010, all the lava rock you can see is from then.

The entire time we walking back our guide told us to watch out for a mystical creature, half vampire half sheep, he said it was "no bueno" (not good!) we didn't see it :)

Laundromat

This is the Laundromat. You take some water from the little pool of water in front and put it into your tub. After you do that you have to put in some soap and bang your clothes around. This seems a little bit weird and a lot of work to me considering that we have laundromat where you have all your clothes washed, dried and folded. It was pretty cool looking, on the outside it had old siding like the churches have here, and the inside was cement. This laundromat was in the middle of town in the middle of the road where people were walking and driving. There was a lady washing her laundry there. We watched for a little bit! We have to be careful when we are taking pictures on our iPad, there are not many people in Guatemala with enough money to have them, so it makes us a little bit of a target to be robbed if we flash it around. Bye bye or Adios!!

Hi from Guatemala!

Holã

This is the view from my hotel in Antigua, Guatemala! It's a volcano that you can only see in the morning when the clouds and fog are not covering it. This volcano is one of the volcanos that you can not climb, because it is to high and would take several hours each way. The picture of the fountain is in central park. The park is a gathering place for locals and tourists. The picture of the building is the old church that was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1700's and then a volcano eruption (not the one in the other picture!). So far the weather is really hot and we have made lots of plans. The people are nice and try to communicate with us even though we can only speak a little Spanish. So far we are having a good time and the food is great!