If you remember from the Thurs/Fri post, I was very sick all night between Thurs and Fri and into Friday morning. I was wiped out all day and continued to sleep through the night! Luckily, Saturday morning found me feeling much, much better. The queasiness was all gone and I was just a little worn out still and definitely hungry (since all I'd eaten on Friday was a couple soda crackers)! Encouraged by my good turn of health, I was back on my feet for another Saturday in my orange adventure pants! For those new to the blog, Saturday and Sunday are our "days off" each week. Additionally, throughout our 6 week stay, we get 2 additional "vacation days" which I have not used yet (but a certain commemoration approaches this week that may merit the use of such a day...). We often use our Saturdays for exciting adventures here in Central America! Yesterday was no exception and indeed had another purpose as well. We needed to renew our passport visas. This can be done in two ways: go to the embassy in Belmopan or leave the country for at least a few hours. Since we live ridiculously close to the Guatemalan border anyway, we chose the latter and spent the day in Guatemala!
Here I am in the "no man's land" between Belize and Guatemala. Click the pic to see the blue "Bienvenidos A Guatemala" sign!
Basic thoughts on Guatemala:
*Much more militarized. Lots more cops with big guns than Belize has. Sorry, didn't think it wise to take pictures of Guatemalan cops with guns.
*The same poverty I see and fight in Belize also exists in Guatemala. Very similar, in fact. However...
*Though they have the same degree of poverty in many areas, they also have much more development. Let me illustrate these two points:
Besides being a sweet (albeit poorly lit) gangsta pic of me, if you look behind me at the river's edge you'll see some crude little huts with rock on little tables. This is where the women come to wash clothes, beating them against the rocks with other smaller rocks and rinsing them in the river. This is just like Belize, where I see the same thing in Succotz every day. In fact, in Succotz I've never actually seen little huts like this--just the big rocks and the women pounding away. However...
Guatemala clearly sets itself apart as more developed than Belize with shopping mall complexes like this one. I have never seen any shopping centers like this at all in Belize or even a building this modern for any purpose! It was actually quite an awakening seeing buildings like this in Guatemala and realizing that I haven't seen a single building in Belize that looks younger than ME, except for the LDS chapel in Succotz. Even other buildings I've seen which I know are relatively new still LOOK very old as they rely on old forms of building and architecture. Many of them are not hurricane proof and many are falling apart. It may seem like a delightful little splurge of romanticism at first to come to Belize and feel like you've traveled back 40 years in time, but as reality sets in it's just downright sad. These are very smart people who want the same opportunities we have and yet are held back by immense lack of resources to get them there. Anyway, this is a weekend post, so I'll get off my soap box now because weekend posts are supposed to be about adventures!
We started our day in the island-city of Flores, Guatemala. This is a major tourist town that is fun because it is its own little island and is filled with lots of little restaurants and gift shops. I felt a lot richer in Guatemala since the Guatemalan Quetzal is worth a lot less than the US dollar. Where the Belizean currency trades at a simple 2:1 with US currency, Quetzales trade at 7.5:1, so a single Quetzal is worth about 13 cents (or about a shilling in Belize money, but not if you trade Belize money straight to Quetzales as they trade at a lower rate than US dollars). So, if you come with $100 US, you will be given Q750 and feel a lot richer! Furthermore, the prices at the little shops are a little better than those in Belize and the people are a little easier to talk down in price. I felt pretty good about some of the price negotiations I managed to pull off when buying some souvenirs for my family members.
The mainland from the island of Flores.
In a photo that is unfortunately victim to poor lighting choices, Maren and Ashley pose with this interesting statue thing.
Guatemalan grub! I actually couldn't eat all of it since my stomach was still somewhat recovering from a day of weirdness. Also, the flip-side to seeming a lot richer because of the exchange rate is that the prices also seem much higher. For example, this burrito is Q44. If you think in dollars, that's outrageous, but in Quetzales it really isn't that bad for a nice meal (especially since it originally had these yummy spicy chips with it that were devoured already before I thought to take a picture). In US money it would be slightly less than a $6 meal altogether and it was from a really nice restaurant, so it was a good price.
Anyway, from Flores we headed to our primary destination: Tikal! We first did a little zip line adventure in the jungle area just outside Tikal. Most of the pictures from that part of the day are on other cameras I haven't taken the pictures from yet, but I have a few:
Here I am in full zip-line gear!
These little orange centipedes were everywhere in the jungle!
Can you find the spider monkeys?
After our zip-lining jungle adventure, we entered the Tikal national park, which is also in very thick jungle. This was absolutely indescribable! I took nearly a hundred pictures, so I clearly can't post them all, but I'll put some of my favorites up. Basically, when I visited the ruins at Xunantunich a few weeks ago, it was pretty awesome, but this is a whole new league! Let's just say that Xunantunich is to Tikal as the theme park rides at the county fair are to Disney World! In fact, Tikal is nearly as big as Disney World altogether and you'd have to be there a week to really see everything. We saw most of the major temples and lots of the smaller ones and other ancient city buildings like the acropolises where the royals lived and had their political offices. The entire time the eerie haunting cries of the howler monkeys echoed through the jungle--I must say that they make the most unsettling growls I've ever heard! But now, on to a sampling of pictures:
So, five major temples have been excavated so far at Tikal. They are numbered by order of excavation. This is "Temple 2." Several hundred smaller buildings and temples have been excavated either partially or completely and TONS more are waiting to be excavated. You can see lots of mounds with trees growing out of them and bits of building sticking out all over the place, awaiting future attention from the archaeologists.
Temple 1, first excavated and shortest of the 5 major temples.
One of the sacrificial altars, against the backdrop of other monuments, perhaps with ritual significance.
Detailed view of one of the monuments.
View of the North Acropolis from the top of Temple 1
We spent a good deal of time exploring the Central Acropolis--a complex of housing and offices for nobles and leaders. In the second picture above, Temple 2 looms in the background. Originally, additional wooden and thatch structures would have been build on top of and around these buildings.
In one of the rooms of the central acropolis, presumably the bed chamber of some nobleman.
He had a nice jungle view through his window!
Originally, all the buildings were painted red. This is one of the few spots that still retains any traces of that ancient red pigment.
Like I said, there is still lots of excavation going on and tons of mounds that haven't been touched. Here is a project currently underway.
Finally, after a few other fun diversions, we made it to the base of temple 4. At first we didn't realize this fact because it just looked like a big grassy hill with a staircase:
I'll let that picture serve as an adequate conclusion to my adventure in Tikal. From there we headed back to Belize, which ironically feels like "Home Sweet Home" even though I'm just as much as foreigner here as in Guatemala! It felt like that moment near the end of The Emperor's New Groove where they're trying all the potions on Kuzco. After changing into a bunch of different animals he is changed to a llama--like he has been most of the film--and says, "Yay! I'm a llama again! Wait..." We were all like, "Yay, we're home to Belize again! Wait..." And yet, Belize becomes part of my home more and more each day that I'm here. As someone who's moved around a lot in my life, I always am unsure what to say when people ask "Where are you from?" Do they mean currently or recently or where I was born or where my family currently lives or where I've lived longest? All those questions have different answers! I think I've come to conclude that throughout my life I've simply acquired multiple "homes." Now, I don't use the word loosely enough to mean anywhere I've ever been, but certainly to describe places my heart is especially attached to. Provo, Orem, Washington, Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Belize... they all collectively represent home to me, some more than others. Even specific buildings resonate as "home" to me, like my house here in Belize, or my high school, or my family's house in Longmont, or BYU campus. On the other hand, there are plenty of places I've visited and absolutely loved--such as Guatemala--but they aren't home.
So, that was my Saturday. Sunday, in a nutshell, was relaxing. Church was great and in the afternoon I did a lot of blog catch-up and scripture study. In the evening the team all got together in the lounge/family room and sang hymns. It was great. Also, this week I remembered to take a picture of the the little building which serves as a chapel in Santa Elena:
The wooden structure to the right of the building was added on to serve as the chapel and also is used for Sunday School and Elder's Quorum. They are trying very hard to increase attendance so that they can qualify for a real chapel like the ones nearby in San Ignacio and Succotz. The one in San Ignacio was the first real LDS chapel built in Belize back in 1987!
One of the exciting topics discussed Sunday was the upcoming dedication of the San Salvador, El Salvador temple which will occur my last Sunday here. This will be the new temple for saints in Belize. Even though Guatemala City is closer, political relations between Belize and Guatemala are tense so it is easier to make extended temple visits in El Salvador. They will be broadcasting the dedication at the San Ignacio building and I'm going to be talking with President Pinelo (the Branch President in Santa Elena) this week to get the special dedication recommend required to attend. Very exciting!
