Hi everyone,
Were in Guatemala city right now. We did the walking tour of downtown yesterday, which included the palacio, cathedral, and a huge shopping street (la sexta) filled with street vendors and clothing stores. Apparantly this street is such a big deal, theres a verb for window shopping along it: sexteando. Today were going to visit Brenda and then going to Antigua for 2 nights before going home on the 5th. Love you all cant wait to see you! Also, Conor lost his camera card reader, so youll have to wait till we get home to see more pics. sorry!

Estanzuela

We're in Estanzuela now. It's really hot here. Everyday at 1 they have a Siesta. Everything closes up and everybody goes home for an hour or so. We're staying with Christena's host family. They are really nice and very excited to see us (especially Christena) when we came, the grandmother rushed out to the Tuk-Tuk and proceeded to carry Christena's 30+ pound backpack inside shouting to our host mom ¨Ruth! Your daughter is here, your daughter is here!¨ They have two little 5 week old puppies that we can play with whenever we want. Later today we're going to the pool, we tried to go to this cool little museum that has lots of dinosaur bones and giant sloths and stuff, but they are closed for remodeling (it's okay, we have both seen the museum before on previous GTA trips.) On monday we plan to go to Copan, yet another Mayan ruin, this time in Honduras. It's only about an hour or so away from Estanzuela so we thought it couldn't hurt.

We return to Seattle on December 5. Only six days from now.

Hi everyone, were in Livingston right now, the Rastafarian town we visited with GTA. Its garifuna national day tomorrow, a big party with lots of music and dancing. Also, our hostel is doing a Thanksgiving dinner. Yum! Before this we went to Rio Dulce, a town on the river. We had really good coffee and bread there, which was great. The best part was these hot waterfalls we went to. The waterfalls were actually like a very hot shower. We just sat in them for hours! It was very relaxing. Then we did the river tour to Livingston, in the rain unfortunately. Our hostel here is great, we can watch the office anytime we want and they have fabulous pancakes and dinner for like 5 bucks! The best part? the room is only like 15 bucks! hooray. Nest we go to visit my host family in Estenzuela, then Copan ruins right by the Honduran border and then Antigua, Guatemala city and HOME! Miss you all lots!

Photos and Tikal

Today we went to Tikal. By far the most impressive Mayan ruins we've seen yet. More pyramids and stone temples than we had time for really. We spent a good 5 hours at least wandering through the jungle, and climbing pyramids. About 100,000 people lived there at its peak. There were tons of pyramids and stone temples that possessed incredible views looking out over the jungle, above the canopy. The only thing you could see was a sea of green, and the tops of other pyramids poking their heads out. Lots of the bigger pyramids at Palenque and Chichen Itza have been closed off. Too many tourists have either died tumbling down (usually 3 or 4 at each pyramid until they decide to close it) or they don't want the foot traffic on ancient buildings damaging them. A good alternative we found in Tikal was large wooden (and often very rickety) staircases leading to the top, but it was well worth it. The peaks of Templo IV (second largest Mayan pyramid ever) and Templo V (scariest pyramid to climb ever). Templo V was more like a wooden ladder, that went almost to the top of the 190 foot tall pyramid. Looking down from the top, I had more than a little vertigo. The whole time we were there, we heard odd growling or howling noises, sometimes pretty loud and close by. On our way back, only about 15 minutes before we left, we saw a group of monkeys in the trees above us, swinging back and forth and hanging from their tails. Coatis (not anteaters apparently), lots of lizards and geckos, and about 10 types of birds, including an odd mix between what looked like a turkey and a peacock were also common. We were definitely in the jungle. Unfortunately, we've given up on attempting El Mirador, the only Mayan city larger than Tikal, as it involves a 5+ day hike, quite a bit of cash, and about two million mosquitos. We get to see a lot of other cool stuff though, including (hopefully) Garifuna National Day in Livingston on November 26.

Here's a few photos, some are several weeks old. Sue me.

Candy Skulls! Left over from Day of the Dead.

Market in Merida.



Chichen Itza.

Yum! Pyramid.



Johnny Rockets! 1 Peso per song.



Tulum. Packed with tourists.

Christena at Tulum ruins.



Sunset at Flores.



Gran Plaza. Next picture we are at the top of the pyramid on the right.

Conor and Christena on top of a pyramid in front of the Gran Plaza in Tikal.

Coati. A mammal that eats ants. Not an anteater.

View of Gran Plaza from Templo V. (Tikal)

Stairs up Templo V.


More Templo V.


That's right. We saw monkeys.

Guatemala

Were in Flores, Guatemala right now, but Im a chronological person, so Im going to write about Tulum first. We stayed right by the entrance to the ruins, which was really convenient. Our first day in Tulum we went to a cenote. It was so cool!! Its hard to describe; maybe Ill get a picture from the internet to post. We didnt take any. A cenote is basically a cave with water inside. The first cenote we went to had a a ceiling that was about 30 feet high at the highest and the stalagtites sometimes hung as low as a few inches from the water. The water was as deep as 30 feet and as shallow as 2 feet. We snorkelled all throughout the cenote. It was really well lit and the water was perfectly clear, so it was really beautiful. We swam between stalagmites and had to watch out or we would hit our heads on stalagtites. There were tons of little translucent fish which we could see really well because the water was so clear. The only downside was we went on kind of a cold day, and the water was freezing! Even though we only paid for one cenote, they just randomly took us to anther one. This one had a much lower ceiling and instead of just swimming around in a big cave like the last one, we snorkelled through all these little labyrinth path things surrounded by rock.

The next day, we went to Tulum ruins, which were really beuatiful, because theyre perched on this cliff overlooking this incredibly beautiful white sand turquoise water beach. That afternoon we got on a bus to the border town of Chetumal, where we stayed the night in this gross little hotel by the bus station ($10 per night) and got on a bus bound for Flores via Belize at 6 the next morning. The Belize Guatemala border was kind of a disaster, because you have to pay about 15 US dollars each to leave Belize and then about 3 dollars each to enter Guatemala. We didnt know this, and all we had was 200 pesos (about 20 bucks) and there was no ATM, so we had to awkwardly borrow money from some other tourists on our bus and then pay them back in Flores . Yes parents, I know youre making some joke about Christena the eternal mooch. Sometimes when youre stranded at a border you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Flores is great, tons of yummy restaurants, nearly all of which have views of the gorgeous lake, because Flores is a small island. We saw a beautiful sunset over the lake tonight, and watched the US beat Guatemala in a world cup qualifying round. Were glad they won, and also that we didnt get beat up for cheering for the US in the bar we were in. Were going to Tikal tomorrow morning; and I'll try to persuade Conor to post some pictures.

Tulum

We're in Tulum right now, we ended up staying in a hotel in Tulum rather than daytripping from Playa del carmen. We're going snorkeling at a cenote today. Cenotes are these big underground fresh water caverns where you can swim and jump off rocks, etc. We will see the Tulum ruins tomorrow morning, then we'll move on to Guatemala via Chetumal, MX.

We'll post some more pictures soon.

Travel updates in chronological order:
Puerto Morelos- nice relaxed beach town where we went snorkelling and swam at a lovely white sand turquiose water beach. We saw a big eagle ray while snorkelling and our hotel had a juicer to squeeze your own oranges in the morning, as well as a chess set (we played in the evening a lot) We also found some truly good coffee.
Cozumel: SUPER touristy island where 2-5 cruise ships stop everyday. There are tons of diamond and tshirt shops here, but NO bookstores. Its only virtue is the bet scuba diving in Mexico which is the reason we went. Conor did three dives, but when the instructors found out I had asmtha, they wouldn't let me go. I ws super disapointed and jealous, but I had fun snorkelling above the scuba divers. We both saw big sharks and sea turtles; Conor just got a lot closer to them than I could.
We didnt head straight to Tulum after all. Today were in Playa del Carmen, which feels more like the US than Mexico (starbucks, McDonalds etc.), but the beach is nice, and we found a cheap hotel. Its also a good place to daytrip to Tulum ruins and other cool stuff. We'll try to upload more pictures soon.