Guatemala City, Guatemala Mission: More From the Trip to Tikal

Okay, I am going to give a little description of our little trips during the break. Our temple was closed for three weeks in January... Normally it would be only two weeks, but a crew from the United States came to install fiber optic cable in the temple, so they closed an additional week. It is always a flurry of activity at the temple... They wash, clean, repair, scrub the outside and power wash the grounds, put in new carpet where needed, wash the slanted roof, etc.

January 13th: We flew to Tikal with The Pitchers and their 4 kids and a grandson who were visiting here for a week. Here we are boarding the plane for our 1-1/2 hour flight. What? I hate small planes! What the heck am I doing? But we made it okay!

Here is a great view of what we saw... Classic and Pre-Classic Period (600 years BC) if my memory serves me right. Yes, they are as huge as they look, and are so beautiful and majestic. Look up Tikal on the Internet for a more complete description.

They used to let people walk up this one, but they don't anymore! I am glad I don't have to climb the steps of that temple to go to work every day haha!

This is one that we were able to climb up and down. Dad stayed at the bottom the get good photos!

This is the spectacular view from up above the acres and acres of trees and ruins.

This is the view from our boat trip from Rio Dulce to Livingston on Lake Isabel. We were on the water for a couple of hours each way and saw so many species of birds along the way. These are some pelicans lounging around!

This is what it looked like all along the way... Beautiful rain forests. It poured on the way back and we were soaked clear through, but it was still fun. Oh, did I mention that one boat ride had no life jackets? What?! Good thing I can swim and save dad haha!

Here are some postcards of our airplane trip to Tikal... Yes, these ruins ARE that big! It was a very interesting park with so many unearthed ruins that is ongoing.

These Mayans really knew their stuff! This was amazing to see.

Here we are, all geared up for the ride of a lifetime, high above the rain forest. And yes, we did hike up there ourselves... Suspension bridges with little wooden slats and all! Jace (the Pitcher's grandson) photo bombed us royally. We didn't know until we looked at the picture haha!

Do you think it's loaded?

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This is not the hotel that we stayed at, but it was a nice one. We should have just stayed at the temple housing, it was much nicer than the hotel we were at!