It´s officially our last day in Guatemala- we´re off to Nicaragua tomorrow. Although we will all miss Nicaragua, we are also excited to explore a new culture.
We definitely made the most of our last few days in Guatemala. On Thursday, we bought some paint and headed out to a rural community to help paint the basketball court at the local school. We worked alongside the students to paint the lines and our resident artists Allison and Jessie even painted an awesome Tazmanian Devil in the middle of the court (in case you were wondering, the design was chosen by the teachers at the school). In the meantime, Ana and Jana also joined in a futbol game with some of the local men- we think we showed them that girls can play too!
On Friday, we went to Tikal, Guatemala´s number one tourist site. Tikal was one of the great Mayan sites, and the ruins were awesome to explore. Besides the numerous temples and acropolises that were helpfully explained by our guide Edin, Tikal is teeming with wildlife. We got to see crocodiles, rare tropical birds, and the bravest among us even held a tarantula. However, the highlight was definitely the howler monkeys who ¨enjoy defecating on the heads of tourists in order to prove their dominance.¨ While we avoided that treat, we are definitely all convinced that they are really the second loudest animal in the world. Their howls sound more like a lion than a primate!
This morning we did our early morning exercises for the first time and exchanged goodbyes and gifts with our host family. It is always so sad to say goodbye to people who have treated you with such kindness and caring. We took a bus ride out to Yaxha, a more remote Mayan ruins. To be honest, most of us liked Yaxha as much or better than Tikal- it´s definitely not as humid and there aren´t as many other tourists. We spent a relaxing day walking through the jungle and climbing among the temples, and now we are back in Flores to spend the night before our flight to Nicaragua early tomorrow.