El Mirador!

What a week. Kir and I decided to hire a guide (Adonis and his son Alan) to take us to see the Mayan ruins of El Mirador! It took us 2 days to hike in and then we spent a day exploring the ruins and 2 days back out.

We left at 3:30am last Wednesday morning and arrived in Carmalita (the town right next to the trails leading in) about6:30. Where we ate breakfast. Kirsti REALLY did not like what the guides gave us for breakfast and tried her best to put it down, but after a lot of gagging she gave up. Luckily they were not sitting near us and had no idea how grossed out she was. I finished it, but didn`t like it. It was a fear before every meal that we would be served the same thing but luckily the rest of the meals were amazing!!

We hiked in to the Camp Tintal for the first night. There are a lot of men who work in El Mirador year round watching over the area and they have set up camps and rotate shifts -- which were the camps we stayed in.

The city covered a lot of land and there are ruins all over the place and so many of them have een dug into by robbers. Supposedly it was a huge problem in the past, but with more people working on the projects there and tighter guarding of it has gotten a lot better. So much of the ruins have yet to be discovered there which was a really cool part about it is we saw a lot that was freshly discovered and in the process. It was so amazing to think that there was a thriving city there!

My favorite parts of the trip where hearing and seeing the animals and we spent 2 of the nights on top of temples watching the sun set and moon rise and laying under the stars for a while! We saw soooo many monkeys! We saw some tucans and other birds, but heard a lot more than we were able to see.

The third day we climbed the temple Danta which is one of the highest pyramids in the world!

The trip ended great to with us running out of gas about 30 minutes form San Andres. In the middle of the day too which was roasting hot. So we all found shade and sat on the side of the road while poor Alan had to walk into the neares town to get gas!

It was fun to practice our spanish on the trip as our guides only spoke Spanish and all of the other people who work in El Mirador did too. And we only saw a handful of other tourists which was nice.

And when we got back, being especially dirty and dusty and roasting hot we went for our last swim in the lake...... AND I have more mosquito bites than I have ever had at a time before!!! Thank goodness for malaria meds!

This morning we said good-bye to our family. Which was a lot sadder than I thought it would be. I am in love with San Andres and with our family there! I could spend a lot more time there, but think for learning Spanish I am ready to head to Xela to meet new people to talk to and try out a different school. And the weather is a lot cooler there which will be really nice too. I plan to head back to San Andres.. hopefully not too far in the future. Genesis will turn 15 on March 21, 2001. If at all possible I would LOVE to head back for her celebration!!