After we were done with that we decided to go get some lunch. We ate lunch then walked around the town a little bit, while walking around we learned that Flores is and island and that we didn't much like the town. We walked into a small Internet cafe and spent a few minutes checking our emails, then it was time to go back to the travel agency to catch our bus. When we got back to the travel agency we had to wait about a half an hour before the bus came, we got on the bus and made our way to Tikal. We got to Tikal and walked to our hotel, the hotel was very cute and our room actually had nice beds and hot water for a shower. Kelsey and I decided that we wanted to go explore the ruins before it got too late, Mom was not feeling very good so we went by ourselves.When Kelsey and I got into the park we didn't really look at the map much, so we decided to go down this path without even looking where it lead. Once we had been walking for about a half an hour we decided that maybe we should look on the map to see if we could find where the path was going. I had seen a sign on the trail that said we were going to Temple VI, we looked on the
map for Temple VI and we couldn't find it. After looking at the map for about three minutes I
found the temple and it turns out that were were going as far away as we could from the main ruins. We immediately turned around and ran back to where the entrance to the park was, where we turned onto a path that led to the Grand Plaza. When we got to the plaza there were two huge temples (Temple I Temple II). We were only allowed to climb one of the temples, which we did and it was a spectacular view from the top. After coming down the temple we walked some more around the plaza, there were tombstones, faces made of rock, and lots of smaller temples and buildings. After awhile looking around it started to get late and we went back to our hotel. After cleaning up we went to dinner at the restaurant at the hotel, Mom came with us but after about five minutes she gave up and had to go back to the room and lie down. Kelsey and I ate dinner by ourselves, then went back to the room and read for awhile, and then fell asleep.
In the morning Kelsey and I got up early so we could go and see the mist and animals that are usually roaming the ruins in the morning. Just as we were walking out of the hotel we saw about 40 animals called Coaties, we also so occelated turkeys and a few other kinds of birds. When we went into the ruins we decided to go to the highest pyramid where you can see over the tops of the trees and also see the tops of the other temples. We walked to the temple, which was
Temple IV, and climbed to the top. The view from the top was amazing you could see about six temples sticking up out of a sea of green, the forest went as far as we could see all around. When we got back down the temple we saw a sign that said "Mundo Perdido" (Lost World) so we decided to go look at what it was. After about five minutes of walking all of the sudden this noise starts going off (we suspected that it was part of the Mundo Peridido becuase it sounded like electronic jaguars). (I am going to post a video that has a recording of the noise, please do not watch the movie it might make you dizzy.) We immediately left the Mundo Perdido because at first we thought the noise was an alarm (later we figured out that the noise was Howler Monkeys which was very surprising). Once we had gotten out of the Mundo Perdido we made our way back to the entrance of the park because Kelsey and I were getting hungry and we wanted breakfast. We got back to the hotel and had breakfast, Mom actually ate which was a good sign, and then we went back out (with Mom) to the ruins. When we got to the ruins we ended up doing a big
loop, first we went out to Temple VI (when Kels and I had turned around the day before it turns out we had been about a minute away from the temple), then we went to Temple V which had a huge ladder system for getting to the top, then we circled back to the Grand Plaza and then went back to the hotel. None of us were very hungry so we never actually ate lunch that day. The hotel had a pool in the back so Kelsey and I decided to cool off with a swim. The water in the pool was freezing and we definitely cooled off. After about an hour or so Mom decided to go back out and look at Temple IV, Kelsey and I stayed behind because we didn't really feel like going back. We swam for about another half an hour and then got really cold so we got out. While we were sitting there waiting for Mom to get back, there were two spider monkeys that were playing in the trees, I got a pretty good video of them but it's kind of hard to spot the monkeys unless you look really hard.
When Mom got back from the ruins we checked out of our room and caught a bus back to Flores. Once we got to Flores we booked an overnight bus ride back to Antigua then we checked our emails at the same Internet cafe as the day before and had some dinner. After dinner we went back to the travel agency and waited for our bus. When the bus finally arrived we got on and got comfortable, turns out we were the only ones on the bus which was kind of worrying but we didn't give it much thought. About five minutes later we stopped at a different bus stop and the driver told us that we were on the wrong bus and that the right bus would be coming in about 15 minutes. So we waited for the right bus in a very small bus station. When the right bus finally came we got on and tried to go to sleep. At first I was really comfortable because I had a seat all to myself, then the bus stopped and about 20 more passengers got on, a lady came up to me and told me the seat I was using was her seat. So I got up and went and sat with Kelsey. After that none of us slept good at all and when we got to Antigua the next morning all we wanted to do was sleep. The hotel we had stayed with before we went on our trip gave us a room and all of us went to sleep. At about 9:00 a.m. we got up and went to fetch our bags we had left at the hotel, we got our bags and went back to our room. Instantly, Kelsey started getting all freaked out and ripping apart all of her bags, she was freaking out because her computer wasn't where she had put it
and she couldn't find it anywhere. After we had looked everywhere and still hadn't found the computer we went and talked to the manager of the hotel (unfortunately it wasn't very effective because it's really hard to get mad in Spanish). We finally gave up on the manager and my went to get the tourist police. She was gone for about an hour and then she came back with two police, that didn't really help either but the rest of the day was running around and trying to find a confirmation number for Kelsey's computer. The next day was spent the same but in the afternoon we went and saw our Spanish teachers. We told the teachers about Kelsey's computer and they got all pissed at the hotel and took us to the tourist information office where we could file an official report against the hotel. After we were done with that we went and got pizza at a small restaurant. We goofed off a ton and then Kelsey and I went back to the hotel. The next day we switched hotels and went to a new cafe near the square.
The cafe was a kind of place that you would find in New York or any big city but not in Antigua. It had great paninies and soup so we ended up going there two days in a row. Our last night in Antigua we decided to go to Fridas (our favorite Mexican restaurant). About 10 minutes before we left for dinner the power went out. We thought it was just the hotel but we figure out that half of the city's power had gone out. We went to Fridas anyway and half of our meal was eaten by candlelight. After dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed early.
The next morning (which was Thursday) we got up at 4:00 a.m. to catch our taxi to the Airport in Guatemala City. We weren't sure we were going to get on the flight to Dallas but we went to the gate anyway because it was worth trying. In the end we did get on the flight and then had a
four hour layover in Dallas. Then we caught our flight to Jackson Hole. Our plane landed in Jackson, we got our baggage and went to the house in Driggs. The next few days were spent packing for our drive down to Boulder on Monday. On Sunday night we went over to our friends house and had dinner with them then we went home and went to bed early. (Oh yeah! I forgot Kelsey and I got bored Sunday afternoon so we made cookies and Kelsey has figured out the best recipe for Ginger Cookies.) On monday morning we got up and found out that the road may get ugly around Rawlins and Laramie, but we decided to try and make it anyway. We did make it through the ugly patch and we went to Fort Collins to see Grandma and Grandpa. It was really good to see them and we hung out at their house for a little while. Then we left their house and CAME HOME!! The next day Kelsey and I went to Summit and saw all of our friends. The past week or so has been spent doing schoolwork and then seeing friends when school is out at Summit. Right now I am doing schoolwork and I am ready to be done typing.
Larissa
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