So I got to sleep in for the first time since I got here... til 7! I then had breakfast and got ready to head into town. I met up with Sascha whom I will be teaching English with starting Monday. We discussed a little bit about what we are going to be teaching next week. We will be teaching body parts and clothing. After that we checked out this trip for New Years- we are going to be going to El Salvador and learning to surf. Two of her roommates will be coming as well, I just don't really know who they are. I then went to the super market to get some stuff for this weekend. The supermarket was so crowded- like the ones in Israel... America seems to be the only place where the aisles are wide enough and people aren't in such a complete frenzy. I then headed back to pack and then walked back again to sign up for another week of Spanish and to go put a deposit down for the El Salvador trip. It should be so much fun. There is an older couple (early 60s?) and they are from upstate NY. The husband walked into the office and started speaking with me in Hebrew... apparently they spent 8 months on a Kibbutz a few years back. It is really nice being able to practice my Hebrew, but I keep getting it confused with Spanish. After that I went to
have lunch and got picked up to head to the North. The drive was extremely long, and we didn't get to Flores until after 11. For dinner we went to this place in Rio Dulce that was right next to the water. It was really nice. In Guatemala it is a tradition to set off fireworks/crackers at midnight of Christmas, so that's what we did.. the streets were so smokey, but it was a lot of fun. What was annoying though is that the firecrackers went off all night, making if difficult to fall a sleep. It was strange... this is one of my first Christmases not eating Chinese food and watching movies... that said half of the people on my program at the moment are Asian- so I figured that was good enough :)Saturday:
We had breakfast at 7 am, which overlooked the biggest lake in Guatemala, lake Peten
Itza. Then we drove to Tikal, which is a Mayan ruin city in the middle of the jungle. Only 30% of the city has been excavated. We climbed palaces and walked a lot... there were 3 temples to climb. The first two I could not climb because the steps up were too steep and terrifying. The 3rd though, which was the tallest I was able to get all the way up because the stairs weren't as bad. The picture shows the view from the top. In the jungle we saw lots of animals, including spider monkeys. 
I felt like I was in Petra again except in the jungle not the desert. After Tikal, we went to lunch which overlooked the same lake. After lunch we started the long 3 hour drive to Rio Dulce. Once we got there we cleaned up and then headed to dinner. But to get to dinner we had to take a boat because it was on an island, which was wicked awesome- the restaurant was Mexican/Aussie.
Sunday:
Again breakfast overlooked the water, and directly from there we went on a boat tour. The first stop was a castle near Rio Dulce called Castillo San Felipe de Lara, I think, which was used to stop pirate attacks. We then went to look at bird island, which was literally just an island filled with birds. We then just rode on the boat for about 20ish minutes until we reached the hot springs. The boat ride was amazing, it was so pretty and great to be able to look over the water and see houses on the edge and all the scenery surrounding us. The hot springs were really nice, except at times they were too hot. Some people swam in the river as well, but I stuck to the hot springs. We then were on the river for another 20 minutes until we reached the Caribbean Sea. We went a little farther until we reached this area in the jungle where the 7 pools are. The name 7 pools reminds me of this place the used to exist (still does maybe?) in Minneapolis, except this one was much much bigger. Because it is not the rainy season, many of the pools were low, but there was still water in most of them. Pool number 7 is the deepest and there people jump off a cliff about 10 meters high. I did not think that I was going to do it, but after some other people in our group did, I decided to climb up there. Again, it took me a while to be able to jump,
but I was so glad that I did, it was so much fun. After the seven pools, we went to Livingston for lunch. Livingston is a town on the Caribbean, that can only be reached by boat. It is also the only place in Guatemala that you can see black people- and they speak a mixture of Spanish and a Creole language. Lunch was delicious, I had a seafood soup, except it was very difficult to eat because there was whole seafood in the soup. After lunch we got back on the boat and headed to the hotel to change before driving back to Antigua. The ride back was long, but again I could watch the scenery forever. Guatemala is such as beautiful country. We stopped for dinner at Pollo Campero, which is Guatemala's version of KFC. Now I am back in Antigua, extremely exhausted- time for a good night of sleep and tomorrow I start teaching English, so I will update this blog later in the week.Buenos Noches
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