pain in shins, but it's worth it!
awe, lets see, i haven't updated for about ... four days? eeh, whatever. but the vacation is awesome!
~:Friday:~
we got lost friday and ended up on the otherside of the country than from where we were heading, then when we figured we'd make the lost-trip a worth-while one, the riverboat to the Lehi... i forget how to say it... Lemhia... something, anyways, that boat ride was closed till the next day, so we turne daround and drove for hours on the Belize HIGHWAY that had more potholes and random speedbumps than a dirtroad in montana. but it was fun ;) and i've NEVER seen so many random, wandering horses on the side of the road before! i'm serious! people just let their horses wander and roam... kinda like thier dogs... heehee. my brother asked my dad "do they milk thier dogs here?" because half the dogs are female, none of them are spayed or neutered, and of course dogs will be dogs and puppy are soon to follow and all the nipples on the female dogs just dangle like a cow's utter. .... sorry, i found that amusing.
we did go to Atuna ha (i remember that name because it's spelled like Tuna) and we were looking around and we suddenly had a guide, who knew nothing, and he said "here, let me show you this pond the Mayan's built. there are stones there you've never seen before." so we wander in the jungle for about 20 minutes, and through mud and crud, and then when we get there... it's a mud hole and nothing really too see, but he kept trying to get my dad to go 'over here' and of course i was back helping my mom and i called out to my dad to wait... then my dad says, "naw, we better get back, it's getting late." and we headed back to the ruins... turns out the guy was going to rob us. if my dad hadn't of changed his mind we would be out a few hundred dollars right now. gotta love my dad's intuition. it's better than a woman's sometimes. teehee.
then we finally made our way to the other side of the country where our next hotel is. we got lost again!!! and we ended up on the border of Guatemala. heh.. turns out we just missed a turn about 12 miles back so we headed back and found the turn, and it was worse than the Belize highway. we've become airborn a few times on this road just in the last four days... so yes, it's that rugged and hard. but it was soooo worth it! When my dad was telling us we'd be staying in a Treehouse, i was thinkin' "12 years old flat boards, sleeping bags and candles with no room to move in" treehouse. Noooooooo. this thing is like a bachelor pad it's so nice! it has electricity, running hot-cold water, shower, toilet on the 'third' flood, a double bed on the 'second' floor (four steps up) and on the 'bottom floor' there are two futon type beds. and we have a deck that overlooks the river and all the jungle and we've seen iguanas in the trees outside out window. and a hot tub (which we haven't used because it's sooo humid). it's very nice.
Saturday: ... for some reason i have no clue what i did saturday... i'll get back to you on that...
Sunday: we found a mormon church here in Belize and we got up early to go to it. We got there early and ran into some Missionaries. The guys told us it was a spanish-speaking ward, but there was one across the river that spoke English and they gave us directions and sent us off. so we nearly got lost trying to find this house with the members meeting upstairs in their attic, but we asked a local boy and he pointed us in the wrong direction, but we just reversed his directions and got there okay ;) there was about 20 people there, 2 of them were american, and another 2 were Missionaries who translated during the lessons. the ward was soooo small! i was amazed! but it was really nice and a lot of fun. they were REALLY ncie pepole and they wanted to know everything about us and my mom and dad wanted to know everything about them. so it was all good ^-^
but the Missionaries, Elder Van Sickle and Elder Deskwin, they talked to us for a while and before we knew it, we were planning to spend monday with them because it was their 'P' day (or Play Day. the once a month day they get to themselves) and so that was that. then we went home and changed then ran back because on the way there my dad had this brilliant idea to bring them horseback riding at the hotel. well we couldn't find them so we went to ... something Peck... which means "City of Ticks" ruins and -THAT- was awesome! there were more cubbies and tunnels and arches and residential homes uncovered than at any of the other ruins we'd seen yet. we had a lot of fun there and we were running around like ferrets on crack!
but my dad still wanted to know if they wanted to horseback, so we 'stalked' the Missionaries outside their home for about 2 hours in the car. We had locals coming up and asking if there was somthing they could do...they told us when they normally came home... they were watching us... .then we paid a guy twenty Belizian dollars to leave us alone... i swear that guy was going to pull a knife on us and then he asked us to HIS church. it was kinda funny ^-^ but anyway... nothing, so we finnally headed home at about 8 and then my dad went back at 9 and caught them. well Missionaries aren't aloud to ride horses for some odd reason, so we couldn't do that, so what we decided instead was to go to one of the other ruins and they were going to bring along 2 other missionaries as well.
Monday:
We got up early and went into town to get some breakfast and while we were waiting (we do that alot here for food) my dad glances up, and saw two young men in white shirts walk by and he jumps up and dashes across the street after them... into a bar... he came back and has this grin on his face "Guess what! Four more Missionaries are coming with us!" so that's up to 8 men now! so we finish breakfast and go back into the bar where the missionaries hang out (i know, seems wrong huh? it's because they have these HUGE breakfast burritos for like 50 cents in American so the Missionaries go there to drink orange juice, Fante, and eat burritos, teehee. the bartender says they keep him in line and turns out his daughter is a member of the church so it all works out.) but anyway, we hung out with them till they finished their meal then they caught a cab (and all 8 of them fit into this tiny lil' car that could carry about... 3 people...heh) and we got in our rental and went down to the river to cross by faery (i have noo idea how to spell that). my dad told the guys that they could pick out something at the booths down at the river and so all 8 Missionaries got something of Mayan ruin look-a-like souvenier and my dad bought them for the guys.
then we crossed the river and it was still about 2 miles to the ruins. so we opened our trunk, opened all our doors and we piled all these men onto our car. it was soooooo funny! i'll post pictures or send them as soon as i can! but we drove with all these guys hanging on. and one of the guys who was in the back standing on the bumper in front of the other who was in the trunk... they undid his belt and was teasing him that now his pants were next to go, so that poor guy had to suffre for about 2 miles of an uphill ride with his pants nearly falling around his ankles XD (and all of them were cute! teehee!)
we got to the ruins and they suddenly started jumping from this moving vehical and we were freaking out -turns out there was a police man at the top and they would have been written up if they got caught heh. well my dad paid for all of their entry (oh yeah, and he paid for their breakfast too) and we went to the ruins. they were running around like ferrets on crack and doing handstands at the top of this giant ruin and 'preaching' from the top where the others would pretend to throw stones at them and then they posed as if in the victoria secret magazine. i was giggling like mad. this was just so funny... these 20 something men acting like 12 year olds on a field trip again. (which isn't too far off the mark ;) )
well after the ruins and after i finally crawled off the ruins (i hate heights, toooo high!) we took them to lunch and we laughed and talked and just enjoyed the afternoon. my dad drove the guys home in pairs of 4 and when he finally came back for my mom, my brother, and me, he told me the Missionaries never stopped thanking him for all he did. he paid for their entire day off. they even addmitted that they had needed a boost and he had done that for them all. they were really relaly nice though. Elder Kahn, his father is from Pakistan and his mother is blonde and blue eyes (he looks like his dad..) he told us he's the only member in his entire family and he's only been a member for aobut 5 years (so 4 years when he started his mission when he was 19) he was the sweetest, most polite and he was fun to talk too but not over bearing... and Van Sickle, he kept pestering me about the new Zelda game coming out! XD i had a hay-day talking about that! i even admited i was a huge comic book nerd and i love games and reading and they all wanted to know about my book. so it was fun to talk to them and learn aout them too. Van Sickle is from idaho! it was sooo funny when we learned that. he started freaking out and sayin "ha! see! THEY know where i live!" and he was all triumphant. 4 of them were from arizona, 1 from Utah, 1 from Missouri, and 1 from cali i think. yeah, that was fun if you haven't figured that out yet ;) (and hanging with all those cute guys didn't hurt either ;) teehee)
Tuesday: we went to Guatemala to go to Tikal. HOLY COW! if you go to only one Ruin, go there. and it cost us like... 300 in USA money to just get across the border! >.< yeah, needless to say it's expensive. and we did more souvenier shopping there in that country than we've done in Belize. but it's funny, the people are like night and day. The people of Belize act like they don't want anything to do with us, the poeple of Guatemala are ALWAYS smiling, happy, enjoying life... over all i think we liked our 1 day trip to Guatemala the best so far.
ooooh, that poor rental car! it had rained the night before and the road to Tikal was MUDDY! but not just mud, CLAY mud! so it just got EVERYWHERE! bleh! but on the way back we had some local boys wash the car and they were just lauhing and spraying each other and loving life, and my mom got their photos and they giggled because they were embarrassed... but they were just so nice! my dad gave them a tip for their hard work and as soon as they saw the extra money, they went at cleaning the car again. it was like they had to give us our money's worth.
but goll, Tikal is huge! we walked about 3 miles and that was just to the major ruins, we didn't have time to see the outside houses. and yes... i did climb the HUGE temple which is the tallest of all the Mayan temples found so far. i swore to myself i wouldn't, but i did... i didn't stop hugging the wall, or the steps, i swear. and our tour guide was awesome. he actually knew things, he actually has studied this before. he told us things that just explained everything we had heardor read about, he even could read the Mayan glyphs and read to us the history of the 29th king of Tikal. he was the best. i really enjoyed learning from him.
it's getting late and I'm going to horseback ride tomorrow! wee!! horsey!! *bounces and giggles* i'll update when i can! but it might not be till i get back. the new hotel we're going to tomorrow doesn't have internet if i heard right... heck, probably doesn't have electricity either... but the next 4 days are more for relaxation... except for that swim with sharks! >.< the one thing i hate MORE than heights, is sharks! i'm sooooo nervous. i know they're just nurse sharks that don't hurt anything and only eat planqutin, but i'm still freaking out about it. oooh, a lizard just ran past me on the wall... anyway, i'll talk to ya'll soon!
~Mel
~:Friday:~
we got lost friday and ended up on the otherside of the country than from where we were heading, then when we figured we'd make the lost-trip a worth-while one, the riverboat to the Lehi... i forget how to say it... Lemhia... something, anyways, that boat ride was closed till the next day, so we turne daround and drove for hours on the Belize HIGHWAY that had more potholes and random speedbumps than a dirtroad in montana. but it was fun ;) and i've NEVER seen so many random, wandering horses on the side of the road before! i'm serious! people just let their horses wander and roam... kinda like thier dogs... heehee. my brother asked my dad "do they milk thier dogs here?" because half the dogs are female, none of them are spayed or neutered, and of course dogs will be dogs and puppy are soon to follow and all the nipples on the female dogs just dangle like a cow's utter. .... sorry, i found that amusing.
we did go to Atuna ha (i remember that name because it's spelled like Tuna) and we were looking around and we suddenly had a guide, who knew nothing, and he said "here, let me show you this pond the Mayan's built. there are stones there you've never seen before." so we wander in the jungle for about 20 minutes, and through mud and crud, and then when we get there... it's a mud hole and nothing really too see, but he kept trying to get my dad to go 'over here' and of course i was back helping my mom and i called out to my dad to wait... then my dad says, "naw, we better get back, it's getting late." and we headed back to the ruins... turns out the guy was going to rob us. if my dad hadn't of changed his mind we would be out a few hundred dollars right now. gotta love my dad's intuition. it's better than a woman's sometimes. teehee.
then we finally made our way to the other side of the country where our next hotel is. we got lost again!!! and we ended up on the border of Guatemala. heh.. turns out we just missed a turn about 12 miles back so we headed back and found the turn, and it was worse than the Belize highway. we've become airborn a few times on this road just in the last four days... so yes, it's that rugged and hard. but it was soooo worth it! When my dad was telling us we'd be staying in a Treehouse, i was thinkin' "12 years old flat boards, sleeping bags and candles with no room to move in" treehouse. Noooooooo. this thing is like a bachelor pad it's so nice! it has electricity, running hot-cold water, shower, toilet on the 'third' flood, a double bed on the 'second' floor (four steps up) and on the 'bottom floor' there are two futon type beds. and we have a deck that overlooks the river and all the jungle and we've seen iguanas in the trees outside out window. and a hot tub (which we haven't used because it's sooo humid). it's very nice.
Saturday: ... for some reason i have no clue what i did saturday... i'll get back to you on that...
Sunday: we found a mormon church here in Belize and we got up early to go to it. We got there early and ran into some Missionaries. The guys told us it was a spanish-speaking ward, but there was one across the river that spoke English and they gave us directions and sent us off. so we nearly got lost trying to find this house with the members meeting upstairs in their attic, but we asked a local boy and he pointed us in the wrong direction, but we just reversed his directions and got there okay ;) there was about 20 people there, 2 of them were american, and another 2 were Missionaries who translated during the lessons. the ward was soooo small! i was amazed! but it was really nice and a lot of fun. they were REALLY ncie pepole and they wanted to know everything about us and my mom and dad wanted to know everything about them. so it was all good ^-^
but the Missionaries, Elder Van Sickle and Elder Deskwin, they talked to us for a while and before we knew it, we were planning to spend monday with them because it was their 'P' day (or Play Day. the once a month day they get to themselves) and so that was that. then we went home and changed then ran back because on the way there my dad had this brilliant idea to bring them horseback riding at the hotel. well we couldn't find them so we went to ... something Peck... which means "City of Ticks" ruins and -THAT- was awesome! there were more cubbies and tunnels and arches and residential homes uncovered than at any of the other ruins we'd seen yet. we had a lot of fun there and we were running around like ferrets on crack!
but my dad still wanted to know if they wanted to horseback, so we 'stalked' the Missionaries outside their home for about 2 hours in the car. We had locals coming up and asking if there was somthing they could do...they told us when they normally came home... they were watching us... .then we paid a guy twenty Belizian dollars to leave us alone... i swear that guy was going to pull a knife on us and then he asked us to HIS church. it was kinda funny ^-^ but anyway... nothing, so we finnally headed home at about 8 and then my dad went back at 9 and caught them. well Missionaries aren't aloud to ride horses for some odd reason, so we couldn't do that, so what we decided instead was to go to one of the other ruins and they were going to bring along 2 other missionaries as well.
Monday:
We got up early and went into town to get some breakfast and while we were waiting (we do that alot here for food) my dad glances up, and saw two young men in white shirts walk by and he jumps up and dashes across the street after them... into a bar... he came back and has this grin on his face "Guess what! Four more Missionaries are coming with us!" so that's up to 8 men now! so we finish breakfast and go back into the bar where the missionaries hang out (i know, seems wrong huh? it's because they have these HUGE breakfast burritos for like 50 cents in American so the Missionaries go there to drink orange juice, Fante, and eat burritos, teehee. the bartender says they keep him in line and turns out his daughter is a member of the church so it all works out.) but anyway, we hung out with them till they finished their meal then they caught a cab (and all 8 of them fit into this tiny lil' car that could carry about... 3 people...heh) and we got in our rental and went down to the river to cross by faery (i have noo idea how to spell that). my dad told the guys that they could pick out something at the booths down at the river and so all 8 Missionaries got something of Mayan ruin look-a-like souvenier and my dad bought them for the guys.
then we crossed the river and it was still about 2 miles to the ruins. so we opened our trunk, opened all our doors and we piled all these men onto our car. it was soooooo funny! i'll post pictures or send them as soon as i can! but we drove with all these guys hanging on. and one of the guys who was in the back standing on the bumper in front of the other who was in the trunk... they undid his belt and was teasing him that now his pants were next to go, so that poor guy had to suffre for about 2 miles of an uphill ride with his pants nearly falling around his ankles XD (and all of them were cute! teehee!)
we got to the ruins and they suddenly started jumping from this moving vehical and we were freaking out -turns out there was a police man at the top and they would have been written up if they got caught heh. well my dad paid for all of their entry (oh yeah, and he paid for their breakfast too) and we went to the ruins. they were running around like ferrets on crack and doing handstands at the top of this giant ruin and 'preaching' from the top where the others would pretend to throw stones at them and then they posed as if in the victoria secret magazine. i was giggling like mad. this was just so funny... these 20 something men acting like 12 year olds on a field trip again. (which isn't too far off the mark ;) )
well after the ruins and after i finally crawled off the ruins (i hate heights, toooo high!) we took them to lunch and we laughed and talked and just enjoyed the afternoon. my dad drove the guys home in pairs of 4 and when he finally came back for my mom, my brother, and me, he told me the Missionaries never stopped thanking him for all he did. he paid for their entire day off. they even addmitted that they had needed a boost and he had done that for them all. they were really relaly nice though. Elder Kahn, his father is from Pakistan and his mother is blonde and blue eyes (he looks like his dad..) he told us he's the only member in his entire family and he's only been a member for aobut 5 years (so 4 years when he started his mission when he was 19) he was the sweetest, most polite and he was fun to talk too but not over bearing... and Van Sickle, he kept pestering me about the new Zelda game coming out! XD i had a hay-day talking about that! i even admited i was a huge comic book nerd and i love games and reading and they all wanted to know about my book. so it was fun to talk to them and learn aout them too. Van Sickle is from idaho! it was sooo funny when we learned that. he started freaking out and sayin "ha! see! THEY know where i live!" and he was all triumphant. 4 of them were from arizona, 1 from Utah, 1 from Missouri, and 1 from cali i think. yeah, that was fun if you haven't figured that out yet ;) (and hanging with all those cute guys didn't hurt either ;) teehee)
Tuesday: we went to Guatemala to go to Tikal. HOLY COW! if you go to only one Ruin, go there. and it cost us like... 300 in USA money to just get across the border! >.< yeah, needless to say it's expensive. and we did more souvenier shopping there in that country than we've done in Belize. but it's funny, the people are like night and day. The people of Belize act like they don't want anything to do with us, the poeple of Guatemala are ALWAYS smiling, happy, enjoying life... over all i think we liked our 1 day trip to Guatemala the best so far.
ooooh, that poor rental car! it had rained the night before and the road to Tikal was MUDDY! but not just mud, CLAY mud! so it just got EVERYWHERE! bleh! but on the way back we had some local boys wash the car and they were just lauhing and spraying each other and loving life, and my mom got their photos and they giggled because they were embarrassed... but they were just so nice! my dad gave them a tip for their hard work and as soon as they saw the extra money, they went at cleaning the car again. it was like they had to give us our money's worth.
but goll, Tikal is huge! we walked about 3 miles and that was just to the major ruins, we didn't have time to see the outside houses. and yes... i did climb the HUGE temple which is the tallest of all the Mayan temples found so far. i swore to myself i wouldn't, but i did... i didn't stop hugging the wall, or the steps, i swear. and our tour guide was awesome. he actually knew things, he actually has studied this before. he told us things that just explained everything we had heardor read about, he even could read the Mayan glyphs and read to us the history of the 29th king of Tikal. he was the best. i really enjoyed learning from him.
it's getting late and I'm going to horseback ride tomorrow! wee!! horsey!! *bounces and giggles* i'll update when i can! but it might not be till i get back. the new hotel we're going to tomorrow doesn't have internet if i heard right... heck, probably doesn't have electricity either... but the next 4 days are more for relaxation... except for that swim with sharks! >.< the one thing i hate MORE than heights, is sharks! i'm sooooo nervous. i know they're just nurse sharks that don't hurt anything and only eat planqutin, but i'm still freaking out about it. oooh, a lizard just ran past me on the wall... anyway, i'll talk to ya'll soon!
~Mel