arriba arriba!

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well. this is my first entry. so i guess em caught all y'all up on most of our travels. its been really awesome. maximon has been one of the most amazing experiences thus far. that blind faith, gets me every time.
SOOOO.... we did tikal this morning. we got picked up at our hotel from this dynamic guy Cesar that we met at the train station in guate city. he immidiately knew we wanted to go to tikal and so when we got to flores (where we are staying) he actually took us around to different hotels to see which one we wanted to stay in. we were with two other american girls and a couple from france. we were all a bit tired from the traveling for 12 hours on a bus. we booked out trip to tikal ate and called it a day. (we ate black bean soup for dinner like Erin told us to! it was que rico!!)
so we wake up at three in the morning to catch our minibus to tikal. it is dark and we are tired. we are with the people from yesterday as the two girls from america are staying in our hotel. we arrive and it is still dark. and we hike through the jungle in the dark to climb a mayan temple to see the sunrise. (sounds glorious doesn't it?) well it was foggy and we didn't see the sunrise. it just got lighter... wah wah waaaah... but amazing nontheless
the area of tikal is made up of a bunch of different temples built by several rulers of the "empire" that was the Mayans. we climbed every one we could and took pictures of them all. (we are working on the uploading)(if anything we can do it when we get home). it was good that we got there so early because the weather here is outrageously hot. i guess it ins't hot per say but we just find ourselves dripping in sweat from the humidity. the afternoon today is quite overwhelminly uncomfortable. so our tour with cesar was an interesting one because he kind of took over a couple other groups tours. that dynamic little guy! but it was informational and amazing. mostly cuz uh hello mayan ruins!
my only complaint is that it was very parky and was very mapped out. but it was beautiful. we saw spider monkeys and tucans and leaned alot about the restoration project that they are undertaking. its nice to hear that the guatemalan people are now in charge of the excavations. whereas there was a lot of german presence in the initial excavations.
after the tour, we had breakfast (which felt like lunch to us since we had been awake since three and it was now only 10:00 am. we all enjoyed conversation and a long, hot trip back to flores. once we got back to our hotel it was definetly nap time for me! crashed out. washed some undies and came down here to check the email and write to y'all.
i miss all of you mucho. talk to you soon.
peace out!

Cam

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