Matt's parents are serving a full-time volunteer church assignment in the Guatemala City Temple. It is a beautiful building. We went to visit them at this specific time of year because the temple was closed for maintenance, so his mom and dad had some time off from their service in the temple.
Our first full day in Guatemala, we drove to the city of Antigua, which is filled with history and beauty. They have a huge market, several old cathedrals, and an iconic archway over one of the city's roads.
Our second day in Guatemala we headed to Lake Atitlan. It took several hours of driving on windy roads up and down the mountains, but the sight when we arrived was breathtaking. We took a boat ride across the lake to a city called Santiago. We walked through some of the tourist markets quickly so we could walk through the real city. Homes and shops line narrow streets where little red 3-wheeled taxis zoom around.
Day three we headed north to the Mayan ruins of Tikal. It is amazing how these buildings are completely surrounded by dense jungle. Throughout the park there are hills covered in trees. The cool part is that the hills are really temples underneath! We climbed pretty much every structure there, and enjoyed the gorgeous views. On our way back to the entrance, we saw spider monkeys and howler monkeys. Tikal is beautiful. We climbed to the tallest temple, which was a pretty steep climb. I was proud of my pregnant self :)
Two spider monkeys swinging!
We spent the next day in Guatemala City exploring the central market. There were tons of beautiful flowers, and delicious looking fruits. We had no idea what some of them even were. We walked around the central plaza in front of the capitol building, and enjoyed the beauty of an old cathedral. We also went to this relief map in a park that showed how huge the volcanoes really are.
After our day in the city, we were off again to explore another part of the country. We drove out to the beach city of Monterrico. These beaches on the Pacific Ocean have black sand because of all of the volcanoes in Guatemala. One really cool part of our visit was seeing baby sea turtles. There are a couple of animal preserve facilities that work to increase the sea turtle population. They keep the turtle eggs, let them hatch, and then release the turtles at sunset every saturday during turtle season. When we got back to Guatemala City, we ate at a beautiful restaurant up on a hill that had a gorgeous view of the city.
On Sunday, we went to Matt's ward (congregation) that he attended when he lived there before. Church was all in Spanish. There was a man who offered a headset to me when we went into Sacrament meeting, and he translated the talks into English! Then we were able attend a Sunday School class in English. The third hour of church was all in Spanish, so I only caught bits and pieces. But the people were so nice, and had me introduce myself and someone translated what I said into Spanish. They were all really excited that I am pregnant, and said to tell Matt's parents to show the church members pictures when she is born.
Guatemala was awesome!!
So much of that reminds me of Dominica, especially the black sand beaches, crazy trees, and colorful buildings. I'm glad you got a chance to visit a new place!
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