Our Guatemala adventure back to Scott's mission.
This is in the capital while we were looking for a post office,
but nobody seemed to know where to find one.
And nobody knew where to get stamps.
We came across this pile of trash and found Ariel!
[This is Scott signing on to the blog now for some caption writing.]
Since the capital (Guatemala City) is a weee bit dangerous, we had planned to stay in a nicer hotel for the first 2 days of our trip, and also the last day of the trip.
The picture below is breakfast at the hotel!
Antigua, Guatemala is a pretty popular place to go - and since it was outside of my mission (Guatemala City North), I never had the chance to go there. So we had a taxi guy take us there the day after we arrived to Guatemala!
This picture is in the main center of town in Antigua:
If you ever see pictures of Antigua somewhere, you'll probably see this yellow archway; it's within the town, a couple blocks from the center.
Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see this giant volcano nearby. People like to go hike up to the top of it actually -- and if I remember right, there's even a lake that has formed on the top!
We tried to get a picture of it anyway from the center of town:
We tried to get a picture of it anyway from the center of town:
We left Antigua after about 3 hours (and it started raining right as we left), then got ready to go to the bus station that night to catch our 8-HOUR BUS RIDE
up to the Northernmost region
of Guatemala: Petén. (That was the bus ride I took on the first day of my mission, November 4, 2003...except on a MUCH lower-class bus).
This picture is probably about 6 hours into that journey:
We finally arrived to Flores, Petén, which is a small island (that you actually drive onto), and got settled into our hotel called Casona de la Isla [translation: the big house of the island].
This is the view just as you step outside our hotel room door:
And this is the same spot, just looking to the left. For around $20 per night, it was quite the setup!
This is at the end of the balcony outside the hotel room door, looking out over the lake (surrounding our island) called Petén Itzá Lake. [Lago Petén Itzá]. Really warm water, great for jumping off the dock and swimming!
[And now this is Cristy writing!]
Scott and I made it to San Luis to spend the day with the Morales Family.
We went to church and found out that the church had been moved
to where Scott lived while serving in this area.
See that doorway the two men are standing in front of?
That was his house!
We had so much fun spending time with these guys!
The mom, Arelia, was Scott's cook while serving in this area.
She is an amazing cook and made us a wonderful meal that consisted of
flour tortillas (that were to die for!), chicken and black beans.
This was after we said goodbye to Brother Morales.
He had to leave to go do something for his calling in the Bishopric.
When Scott was serving there, he was not a member.
We found out that Scott was really influential on him and he was later baptized!
And he is such an awesome member now and a changed man!
One thing I wish we would have gotten pictures of was our ride back from San Luis on a microbus.
It was such a funny experience.
Basically you get in this van that is going to a certain destination, but all along the way,
they are picking people up and dropping people off.
There would be times when I would say to Scott, there is absolutely no way one more person can fit in here, and then 5 more people would get on. It was insane but I loved it!
It was amazing because when people would get on the bus they would tell a guy, called "the caller", where there destination was and he would always remember where everyone needed to be dropped off. It was amazing that he could remember everyone's destinations!
We were able to go to Tikal! It was amazing!
See the guy on the bottom row, second from the left?
Well, his name is Lorne Peterson and he was the chief Modelmaker for the Star Wars movies.
He also was the Modelmaker for Goonies (he designed the Pirate ship), Men in Black, E.T., Indiana Jones, and seriously so many it's ridiculous and awesome! He is a really big deal.
He was in Star Wars: Episode IV as a Massassi Base Rebel Scout
He told us that the reason he got to do that part was because he was the
only one who didn't have kids.
This was his first time back to Tikal since the 70s.
It was really awesome to meet him and he was so nice and talkative.
Here are two links about Lorne in case you are wondering more about him:
It was so hot and humid my hands were swollen and so
I had keep raising them to get the blood to drain.
Next, we stayed at Mario and Shawin Yat's house in San Cristóbal.
While Scott was on his mission he got a photo with a couple of these kids so
we went back to their house to see if they still lived there, and they did!
They were so nice and gave us some Tampico to drink.
I got to hold a teeny little baby who was just a couple days old.
Mario and his wife Shawin have the cutest daughters ever.
It really made me wish I knew Spanish because it was so hard not being able to communicate with them. They seriously melted my heart.
This is Allison and she has such a fun little sassy personality.
The other cute little girl is Ashley. It was wonderful being able to stay at their house and playing with these little girls! We both love and miss this cute little family.
Our next stop was to Semuc Champey!
It's a big river that forms a lot of blue pools.
And it is INCREDIBLE!
We ate a lot of McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell and El Pollo Compero.
We really didn't want to pick up any parasites and thought this would be the safest way to go.
After staying with the Yat family, we went back to Flores and stayed at the Casona de la Isla again.
We went swimming in Petén Itzá Lake.
Scott was so glad I was able to experience Guatemalan rain and so was I!
It was like nothing I had ever experienced before or since.
In this picture it was just barely starting to rain.
And then it turned it to a pretty crazy downpour I loved it!
It was raining so hard, we were completely soaked, we just decided to jump in the swimming pool.
We needed to get some shopping in, so we put on our swimming suits, got ourselves some ice cream and went shopping!
These were some of the villages we past while driving.
Everything is so green and beautiful!
This was on a little ferry to get across this river.
This is a very common sight in Guatemala. I cannot believe how strong Guatemalans are!
You will see women and children also carrying water, corn, and pretty much anything else.
The red bus is the bus we took to get back to the capital.
This time we sat on the bottom and it was a lot better than sitting on the top level.
We loved our trip to Guatemala. It was a great experience to get to see Scott's mission. It was also a great experience to see the country my little brother and sister are from. I've always wanted to go to Guatemala and am so glad I had such a great tour guide.
There is such a beautiful spirit about Guatemala.
I fell in love with the people.
They are so nice and so helpful and such hardworkers.
