Tikal

May 28th.
The school we currently work at in our town invited us to go with them on their annual school trip. Apparently their school trip was to none other than the Tikal Ruins in the department of Peten in Guatemala. For those who are not familar with the Tikal ruins, they are the ancient ruins of the Mayans that ruled the Guatemala north east about over 3,000 years ago. They were an advanced civilization who had knowledge of Mathematics, Agriculture, Astronomy ect.. The group of Peace Corps Trainees in San Bartolo were thrilled after the Peace Corps gave us the Permission to leave with the school for a two day trip. We left on Thursday night May 28th with approxiatelly 110 students and 12 teachers in 3 buses and arrived that Friday to Tikal. The trip was awesome but also wet and humid. There was a tropical storm brewing that day around the area so it rained all day.








We left Tikal at about 4 in the afternoon and camped at a sports recreational center for the night. That Saturday Morning we got up at 4 Am to go to The Castle of San Felipe located in el Rio Dulce, Department of Izabal Guatemala. We arrived at about 11AM & stayed in the area til about 3PM. During our stay in Rio Dulce, we took a boat tour with the kids and visited the castle. Apparently this castle was used by the spaniards in the Late 1500´s as a trading poast as well as a jail. According to history, the castle suffered many attacks by Caribean pirates throughout the centuries. It was recently restored and made into a tourist attraction by INGUAT.












I arrived to San Barolome at 9PM that night exhausted only to have to repack my bags for the next day trip with the Peace Corps for our Field Base Trainig. The PC scheduled us for a week long trip to El Chol, Department of Baja Verapaz for our Training. Field Base Training is hands on training the Peace Corps sets up with current volunteers for hands on experience. That Sunday we headed off early and arrived in el Chol at about 4PM. we met with the volunteer and were assigned to stay in el Chol´s main hotel locted in ts municipality building. El Chol is a rural Ladino town located on the edge of some beautiful mountains in Baja Verapaz. It is a romantic little town with very warm climate and warm locals. We were all assigned talks of an hour and a half to two hours to give to the children in the local schools. My Talk was scheduled last for that Wed in a neighboring town named Granados to 9th grade students. My session with the children was a success and that night being that we were all done with our Talks all 15 of the Youth Development Trainees celebrated by watching a movie and sipping on some beer.

El Chol...




The folloing day we left to another town by the name of Saltan to visit another Youth dev volunteer by the name of Michael.


In Michaels house we were honored to have been served SAMPOPOS. SAMPOPOS are a special dish served in Parts of Guate but are not for everybody's taste. SAMPOPOS are a type of flying Ant that is considered a delicacy in Guatemala. They are usually stirred fried with oil and served alone. THEY WERE DELICIOUS! Their taste is a mix between fried pok and popcorn. YUMM!

Sampopos.



The next day the whole YD crew headed towards the town of Pachalum where we stayed till the next day to receive a charla from a counterpart who works with volunteers in that area.

After Pachalum we headed towards the Mixco Viejo Ruins in Chimaltenango. This was a site were a famous battle between the Spaniards and Mayans took place.

Indiana Rene and the Temple of Mixco Viejo.