Sara's Adventure in Guatemala: Home safe and sound

Deep in thought about the Mayan ruins of Tikal "Hmmm....Mayans...."

Mom and I returned to the States late last night after a long day of traveling. We spent the last 4 days in Guatemala in the northern region at the Tikal National Park, which is the largest of the ancient Mayan ruins. The ruins are set in the middle of the jungle and were pretty impressive. We woke at 4:30 AM the first day to take a sunrise tour of the ruins, saw many different birds and monkeys and watched the sunrise from the top of one of the temples. It was extremely hot so we spent most of the day at the pool, then returned to the park for dusk. We stayed at one of the 3 hotels in the national park, so we were able to hear many of the animals at night and in the early morning, but it also meant only 4 hours of electricty and ltos of bugs. An adventure more for mom, as I was used to roughing it by then.

Overall, Guatemala was a great experiene. It has an amazing amount of geographic diversity for such a small country and an equally amazing history. Their civil war (which more or less equates to a US backed ruling of the Guatemalan army that engaged in repression, discrimination and genocide of the Mayan people) ended only 12 years ago and much of the country lives in poverty. About 60% are illiterate and live in extreme poverty, which when you see the living conditions and futures of the children is pretty depressing. An extremely

interesting country and adventure. As for my Spanish skills.....I am definitely a Beginner, but I speak enough to get around traveling and hold basic conversations with people. It may not always be pretty, but I function well enough I guess. Hope to keep the skills up!