Reflection

We arrived to Tikal at around 3:00 in the afternoon and set up our tent underneith an enormous tree. Sitting in the rather large tree was what we've dubed the "all in one bird," which makes such a strange call that you can't believe thats its only one bird. I'm going to post a video with the sound on facebook so that everyone can hear what I'm talking about. We then headed to the Tikal Park entrance to pay our entrance fee and climb one of the numerous temples to watch the sunset. We climed the building called simply "the Pyramid" and waited a top the temple for darkness to come. The views from these temples are nothing short of awe inspiring and no words I could post here would ever do them justice. Along our way we bumped into a fellow Canadian traveller and spent the evening together over a beer and some nahos! The walk back t our tent was just as amazing as the views with so much noise from the wildlife. We slept in as much as the sun would alow us and got up in our own time, taking our sweet ass time. We had a quick breakfast of peanutbutter and jelly sandwhiches and headed back into the Park with our ticket from the night before and did a four hour tour of the different plazas and temples. We climbed the highest temples and also hit the only temple which has writings on it "the temple of inscriptions." We were boiling in t-shirts and shorts, which by the end of our trek were absolutly soaked with sweat. After all that walking I felt that a cold shower was an absolute necesity and headed to the stalls directly. We sat down to play some cards and have some lunch after the showers. At around 4:00 we started packing up our gear and getting ready to take the shuttle bus back to Santa Elena. Once in Santa Elena we had to search for the bus station which turned out to be one of the longer walks we've been on with our packs because the guidbook was slightly outdated as to the location of the bus terminal. Once we found the terminal we purchased our tickets to Guatemala City, we headed across the street to eat at one of the 'Comedors' which are super cheap resturaunts and the three of us ate for just over $3 USD a piece. We then hung out at the bus station, played some cards and waited for our overnight bus, which left at 10:00 pm. Overnight buses, as I may have mentioned before, (Possibly only in my journal) are like trying to sleep in refridgerators. Your absolutely always too cold and the limited square footage is a huge downfall. The only real benifit is that you don't have to pay for a night in a hotel. We arrived over an hour early in Guatemala City, entirely due to our bus drives lead foot. At one point we were speeding in the opposite lane passing stopped vehicles and, as one might expect, a car was driving in the opposite lane heading straight for us. (As I see it, I just plain expect that the lane which is designated for on comming traffic... will have just that! ON COMMING TRAFFIC! Apparently the bus driver thought otherwise.) I was really wondering how we were going to go any further because beside us in our own lane is a solid line of traffic, STOPPED! Unduanted, the bus driver swerves onto the opposite shoulder and continues to speed! Menwhile, I'm stuffing my stomach back down my throat, and rubbing my eyes because some sort of white light blinded me. Once in Guate, we read that we were in one of the more dangerous parts of two, which happend to be the red light district. We took the books advice and splurged for a taxi ride to the other bus station. Some how, along the way from the first buss statin to the second we managed to lose the only phrasebook we had. I'm not point any fingers, but Craig was the last one to have it! We took the first bus too Panajachel and arrived there at around 12:00, just in time for lunch. We found a fellow gringo (local talk for white boy) who suggested a place to eat and we dinned with him. His name was Bill, and he was getting dental work done. Apparently he was saving money that way. EKK! After lunch we got enough money to stay the week in San Pedro, switched bills into smaller increments, and got a giant bottle of hand sanitizer. From there it was off to the boat docks to get our ride over to San Pedro, we let a couple boats go by trying to get a lower price, even had a few gents from the UK in on it with us, but it was all for not, the boat company has a monopoly and we needed to get to San Pedro. We paid our fare and headed acroos the lake.

Happy trails everyone,

adios,

Ryan.

P.S. Hope everyone made it through the blizzards alright and are safe and sound!

Miss you all.