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Tuesday July 29th.
My roommate Kristen took me to the airport. I found Caroline right away and we were able to get to our flight with some time to spare. Our flight left on time and we reached North Carolina at 3 am our time.
Wednesday July 30th.
Caroline and I had a layover at North Carolina airport 6 hours. I know pretty much sucked. We tried to sleep on the ground until we were asked to move. Sleep deprived we got on our next flight at 11:30am and reached Costa Rica at 1:30 pm. Then it was another layover to Guatemala City where we took a shuttle to Antigua. It is beautiful here. We are surrounded by mountains and volcano´s. On our way to Antigua we met 3 girls from Spain and a boy from Israel. One of the girls has lived in the area for 6 months so she was able to tell us some good places to go. Care and I found a hostel for the night for about $7. We had an ¨Orgasmic¨ dinner. The food is sooooo incredibly delicious here. After dinner we hit the hay.
Thursday July 31st.
Care and I woke up, had another amazing Guatemalan meal or should I say breakfast of eggs, re fried beans, fried banana´s, salsa and bread. We made a decision to take a bus to Lago De Atitlan in Panajachel and take a boat ride to (San Pedro) to stay the night at the Mikaso hotel. Then we will come back to Antigua around 3:30pm. At 6:30pm, we will be taking a bus to Tikal, Mayan Ruins, which takes 10 hours over night. This way we will not have to pay for a hotel. On our way to purchase tickets we saw men with M16 guns protecting soda trucks. Yes crazy!! We are safe so far. I will try to post pictures sometime soon and will be taking mucho. I will update soon. Mom, by the way the Guatemalan women are so tiny and short. You would love it here, probably just like Oaxaca when you stayed with your host madre. We are having a blast. Defiantly an adventure and completely different then anywhere I have traveled thus far.
Carrie and I took a shuttle to Lake Atitlan. It took about 2.5 hours. We met an incredible family from Britian. When we reached the lake we took a boat ride to San Pedro which took about a half an hour. After reaching the lake we got a hostel and paid about $4. I asked for towel and the guy said ¨sure would you like yo buy weed?¨ Yes drugs are all around. It is interesting that people at restaurants do not know what salsa is but they know what cocine is. Care and I met some great people at the hostel, even one from SD. We went to bed late.
Friday August 1, 2008
Carrie and I woke up to this beautiful view of the lake. We went to the mercado and got bananas and breakfast. Then went kayaking, so muy lindo. Then we left for the boat and a lady was supposed to pick us up but didnt. We got ripped off. We had to rebuy a ticket to Tikal and we are about to get on a 14 hour bus ride to Tikal Mayan ruins. We took a shuttle from the lake to Antigua to Guatemala City. At 9 pm we got on the bus, supposively firt class. The bus ride was really bumpy and it was really hard to sleep, due to the fact they had the AC on us and all I had on was a sweater and capri´s. I guess you could say Carrie and I got about 4 hours of sleep.
