Tyler and Rachel do Tikal.

These past few days have been really fantastic ones. Tyler and I left Coban, December 24th, to visit one of the most beautiful places we've been thus far. After fueling up on with a delicious cracker, black bean and avocado breakfast we caught a bus out to Lanquin, Guatemala! We found a hotel that wasn't accomodating a single other person and stayed upstairs stealing an awesome view of the mountains and plantlife surrounding this smaller sized town.

It was cool to walk around. We enjoy walking around looking for the absolute cheapest beer(comparitive with fluid ounce, of course!) sold in each town...even though we hardly buy one. 17 quetzales for a liter of the Brahva.. We cheaped out and bought a couple 60 cent beers and stared out off the balcony together.

Amidst our second brew the very kind lady that owns the hotel came upstairs and invited us to eat tamales with her family. We thought they had invited us for Christmas...turns out they are all Jehovah's Witnesses and don't celebrate the holiday. These were the absolute best tamales to grace the taxing country of Guat. DEEElicious. The kids in her family shared fireworks with us, after dinner. The country blazes the sky with fireworks the whole month of December in celebration. All hours of the night, even if you can sleep through the roosters plagued with insomnia, you can hear these bombs of firecrackeresque pyrotechnics exploding in the streets. It was fun to join in. We loving eating and playing!!

Christmas morning we woke up and took off hiking for Semuc Champey. This private paradise is known for its 300 meter limestone bridge. Instead off bridging across the river, it bridges directly over the river, spanning its length downstream, diverting the flow underground and creating swimming holes on top of the bridge. Luckily we were picked up by a truck, saving us a 3 hour walk, and made it in before many people showed up. We had an awesome slippery(TRIPPING) hike up to a beautiful view point and swam around on the bridge getting nibbled by little fish. Tyler also raised me in the air like Patrick Swayze in Dirting Dancing...a personal highlight for me. hah. We eventually had to leave and stuffed our gullets with our new favorite street food. Masapan. Cheap fried fruit. It was a warm holiday this year. Bam.

We bussed all day yesterday to El Remate where I am writing from now. The main attraction here..Parque Nacional Tikal. It's one of the largest archaeological sites and centres of pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It was fantastic. We were lucky enough to grab a 6 am colectivo bus to the Park, avoiding alot of the tourist traffic that pooled in the early afternoon. We actually had alot of the sites practically to ourselves. We did a few laps around the site and eventually the sun came out for a final viewing of the Grand Plaza. Glancing back at these historic marvels one last time, as we were walking out of view, you lose that dent between your eyebrows that was created when paying the insane entrance fee. This is 6x the price for foriegners than nationals. But..at the end of the day you are just happy to be a witness. Lucky to be present, and seeing it all, in the company of the person next to you. Tikal. Check. Mexico. You're next. - rachel.