Our next stop on our inland adventure was San Ignacio, where we had an extremely busy three days of tours. Our group went caving first, which was terrifying for me because I don't like feeling so confined. However it wasn't nearly as confining as I thought it would be, but the way in was challenging because we kept stopping to listen to our guide, which was very interesting, but the more often we stopped the more nervous I got. Caving included swimming, squeezing ourselves into unbelievable tight spaces, and climbing. Once we got to the end of the cave it was so worth it! After a challenging climb up to the next level We saw some incredible Mayan artifacts from the sacrifices they left to the gods, mainly including clay pots and skeletons.
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| Liz and I on the top of a temple at Caracol |
On Saturday our group went to Caracol, another Mayan archeological site. Getting to Caracol is an adventure in itself. The last 20 minutes of the road is extremely rough and twisty, and requires military escorts because in the past they've had problems with tourists being jumped by Guatemalans trying to cross the border illegally. Since the escort started Caracol is so big that only 10% of the site has been excavated. We climbed up 197 extremely steep steps to the top of the major temple. The views were beautiful. It is incredible to me that the Mayans built such magnificent structures with no modern technology or power tools!
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| Ziplining through the jungle in Guatemala! |
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| Soooooo scary! |
Sunday was our free day, and we chose to go to Guatemala for it! This time, 14 of us + Dr. C got on a bus to the border, which was only 20 minutes from San Ignacio. After a long wait we crossed the border (it was most of our first border crossing by land, and my firs in Central America) into Guatemala! Suddenly, everything was in Spanish. First we went zip lining at the base of Tikal, which is another Mayan site. Zip lining was amazing, once I got over the height! We skimmed through and over the jungle on 8 different lines. After zip lining we went to Flores, which is a beautiful town on an island in a lake. In Flores we had an amazing lunch accompanied by even more amazing cocktails. We did a mad dash around the shops, because shopping is way cheaper in Guatemala than here on San Pedro. I got most of my presents…ahem…so certain people can get excited :).
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