I’m on the airplane as I’m writing my last entry. I can’t wait to get to America!
The night that we took a motor boat to Livingston, we had a great dinner, and there were dancers and music with African influence. The culture is different over there, but they’re just as Guatemalan as anybody else. Besides, there’s really no ONE Guatemalan culture. Anyway, as they were dancing, one cute little boy who was probably about 4 came up to me and tried to bring me out on the dance floor to dance in front of everybody with him. Ummmm…..no. There was no way that I was gong to go and try to dance African style. The poor kid…I broke his little heart, but I pointed out other people that I knew would dance. Oh, and later that night, I went out on our balcony to see the awesome view we had, and the first thing I saw was a big old scorpion climbing the wall. I’m so glad it was outside.
The next morning, we took the boat back, but we made a stop on the way to someone’s home/store. The first thing I saw was this little creature that this man was holding. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like a mix between a raccoon and a rat, but it was really cute. They also had a baby monkey there that was seriously depressed. They had taken him away from his mom, and he was just sitting there, laying on the ground all curled up with the saddest eyes ever. It was so sad. I wanted to take him home. The rest of the boat ride was pretty entertaining. One of the people in our program was standing at the front of the boat with her arms out like in Titanic. The ENTIRE ride. It was pretty dangerous, and she almost fell out of the boat a few times. But this woman is a little off her rocker…very strange.
After that, we headed off to Tikal, way north in Guatemala. Tikal was a Mayan city from a few thousand years ago, and it’s pretty incredible. We stayed in the only hotel that’s inside the national park. Many people weren’t so lucky with having scorpions outside of their rooms, rather, in the bathroom sink and in the shower. The crazy boat lady even got stung by one I believe. We only had some kind of lizard in our bathroom, but he was cute, so we let him be. The next day in Tikal was the day to visit the ruins. It was soooooooo hot and humid. I couldn’t even believe it. I didn’t feel so bad about how much I was sweating because every single person that I saw was pretty much completely soaked in sweat. Since I knew that would happen, I wore a shirt that you can’t see sweat through. It just stinks that in all my pictures from Tikal, we all look so gross. The Mayans really fascinate me though. It’s so hard to wrap my head around the fact that they built all of that. I would love to go back in time to see how it all looked in all it’s glory.
After visiting the ruins in the blazing hot sun, we couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel and jump in the pool. Of course, the second that we got to the pool, the sun went away and it started pouring rain. From this whole trip, I only got a little bit tan on my arms and chest, but my tan lines are ridiculous. So disappointing! We still swam, and it felt so good. We decided to go in and eat a little lunch, and guess what? The sun came out again for about 1 hour while we were eating. So once again we put on our bathing suits, and when we got to the pool, it went away and starting raining again. And when it rains there, it pours. One of the most fun parts of staying there was watching the monkeys. There were monkeys all over the place swinging like crazy in the trees. I have a cute video of them that I’ll try to upload on facebook. We probably watched them for about an hour. They were so entertaining!
During this whole final trip after our classes, the head professor kept saying that there were going to me multiple surprises along the way, so as I wrote before, we were hoping to fly back to Guatemala city. On Tuesday, we got on the bus, and we were told that a normal bus ride back to the city without stopping would last 9 hours, but obviously we were stopping. Well, we definitely didn’t take a plane. And we only made one stop to eat lunch for an hour and another stop to use bathrooms for 20 minutes. Guess how long it took us to get back? 14 and ½ hours! This is no joke. It was the most miserable trip ever. Soooo many people were sick. A couple were throwing up in the bathroom when we stopped for lunch, and poor Esther was still throwing up after arriving to the hotel in the city. I wasn’t feeling the greatest either. We were zigzagging through mountains almost the whole way back. At the end, everybody was extremely grumpy, sick, and hungry….not a good way to end the program. From a certain point, we had cops escorting us from behind. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I felt safer I guess, but nervous at the same time because that must have meant that the route was unsafe for tourists.
De todos modos, I’m alive, and I am now back home in Michigan finishing this entry. It’s great to be home. I will always have fond memories of Guatemala, and maybe one day regresaré, because I would love to know Livingston and Flores more!
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