Saturday, January 10, 2009

Friday, January 9, 2009

January 9, 2009...nashville, tn

Hello--not much to blog about from nashville, but did want to write about our last days in Guatemala...December 19, we flew from Guatemala City to Flores..which seems to be the staging area for visits to Tikal Mayan ruins. After seeing the beautiful markets at Chichi and Atitlan, Flores had little to offer..glad we had only an overnight there.
Although you may not know it, you likely have seen Tikal....scenes for STAR WARS were shot there. 600BC--900AD is the period of Tikal; 90,000 people lived here, covers 50 sq. kilometers--6 temples have been excavated and based on the hills we saw, there is more excavation to be done. The major excavations began here in l956. The temples here mark the tombs of the kings who ruled. Wooden staircases have been built that allowed us to climb to the top of some of the temples..90-125ft high...fantastic views across the jungle from one tomb to another. We weren't surprised to find out that building the temples took hundreds of years...and in this heat!! Parrots, currassow, great kiskadees woke us with their morning songs....and howler monkeys startled us with their gruff howls...yes, we were in the jungle.
Back to Guatemala City the night of Dec. 22 then home for holidays...
I will write next from Chilie in early February...