8/24/15
Today was boring. We woke up at about 8am and made pancakes.
We then did school until about three and I worked on my blog and journal until dinner. Afterwards we went out to eat and shortly after went to bed.
8/23/15
This morning instead of being able to sleep in I had to get up early. I woke up at 6:30am and took a quick shower before I did my devos. For breakfast we had these cinnamon rolls that we had bought from this lady who was selling them in a basket on the street yesterday, I didn't want to get sick so I passed. Afterwards we left and met up with this guy who ran a shuttling business, however the shuttle was full so he agreed to take us in his pickup truck. So the six of us crammed into a 4 person area for the two hour drive to Chichicastenango (try saying that 5 times fast) market. The market was massive and totally packed. As people were walking through with their goods they didn't even care about the fact that you were walking there, they would just elbow you out of the way and not care one bit. We then decided to do a guided tour, we found a tour guide and started at the Roman Catholic Church.
The church that we toured was used as both a Mayan and Catholic Church, it had alters to the Mayan gods and also had pictures of the Catholic saints. It was used in harmony in between them. If you were Mayan then for you this was the temple of the sun god, it faced north, and you would come here to pray for good things and to make requests. They also had another temple that faced south, this temple was used for evil things and black magic. For example the Mayans don't believe in police officers, but because of them they can't physically harm someone, therefore they go to the temple, talk to the priest and use black magic to harm their enemy. After learning about the different churches/temples we then went to a mask makers shop where we learned that there were two different kinds of Mayan masks the first one is just used to scare away evil spirits and protect you, and the second kind is worn in traditional dances. Afterwards we went up to a Mayan alter which was on the top of this massive hill, we were all sore from our hike yesterday but we persevered anyway. At the top there were two Mayan men making sacrifices, they were praying for good things and so they were sacrificing something sweet, brownies in this case.
After this we went out for lunch, and then headed back to the pickup truck.
The road to Chichicastenango is one of those sketchy mountain roads that is full of potholes and if the driver makes one wrong move we all go off the edge of a cliff. We were all praying on the way down because the driver's gas gauge was below empty and we still had two hours to go, also we weren't sure if the engine died if the brakes would work on the super steep road that we were going down. Thankfully God kept us all safe and we made it safely. When we got back to the house we were all hungry so we went to eat at this restaurant named Chile's, however we sat down and had no service for 15 minutes and when a menu did come it had about 5 things on it. We left and went to the nextdoor restaurant called Nick's Place. We all ordered pizza and it was delicious. Afterwards we came back and went to bed.
8/22/15
Today I woke up at about 8:30am, I did my devo's and then I read for a while. For breakfast we had this chocolate cake thing that we found at one of the local stores. At about noon we decided that we were going to go to San Juan (one of the many towns on Lake Atitlan). We went down to the docks to catch a boat and ended up finding this guy named Nicholas who spoke English and was a tour guide. At San Juan we decided out of the blue that we were going to hike a mountain named the Indian Head.
We got up to about 6500ft which was only halfway, but it was going to get dark soon and my sister, who had hiked the entire thing, was exausted. After we got back down we walked to a weaving store where the workers were making cool patterns in vibrant colors. We then crammed the six of us into one tuk tuk and took it back to San Pedros where we were staying. Shortly after we went to a restaurant called Budda's Palace where I ordered a massive 1/2lb burger. After this everyone besides Dad and I went back to the house. Dad and I went went to go find an ATM as he was out of cash. The first one didn't accept his card, the second one was out of cash and finally the third one that we found worked. On the way back we missed the turn and ended up taking the scariest path that I have ever been on. It was like this backalley kind of path but it was through cornstalks and a sort of garden. There were stray dogs all over and we couldn't see a thing and were stumbling over rocks and roots as it was pitch black. At points you could make out shacks and huts and I was expecting someone to come out with a shotgun at any moment. After we made it through both Dad and I agreed that we were not going to go on that path again. We then came back to the house and went to bed.
Today I woke up at about 7:30am to finish packing, everyone else was still sleeping by the time I was done so I just went out to the ocean and layed in a hammock for about an hour. After my family finished packing it was about 9am and we ate a quick breakfast. Mom really wanted to take a photo by the ocean with all of our packs on and so we asked Ishmael (the owner of the El Paredon Surf House) to take a photo for us.
Shortly after it was time for us to leave, we said our goodbyes and headed to the shuttle. Normally the shuttle is a van, however it was being used for something else, so the six of us crammed into a four person space in Ishmael's friend's jeep that he had managed to borrow. It was roasting inside the tiny jeep, we only had one problem, the jeep wouldn't start. The driver hopped out and jingled the wires connected to the battery, he discovered that the nut holding the wire to the battery was loose. We didn't have a wrench though so we couldn't tighten it. Finally we managed to get it started by having dad hold the wire while the driver started the car. About 30 seconds later the car died again, it continued doing this the entire way. We stopped after about 5 minutes at the river. We didn't know what we were doing here but we just went with it. Ishmael had arranged the entire thing, but we thought that we were taking a direct shuttle to Lake Atitlan. At the river we boarded a boat with our backpacks. After about a 10 minute boat ride we made it to the other side of the river where we jumped on a shuttle. We were on the shuttle for about two and a half hours and for the most part the roads were decent. Both Dad and I have a painful case of swimmers ear so when we arrived Dad went to the hospital to get a prescription, while the rest of us went to meet Cynthia (the owner of the airbnb house that we are staying at. Here is a view from the deck:
Besides breakfast we had not had anything to eat so we went to a restaurant right down the road where we had quesadillas and met up with Dad. Afterwards we came back to the house and read for a bit. We then went out dinner, and then went to bed.
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