Other Highlights

Tikal
We went on the sunrise tour to Tikal, which was amazing! In order to go, we had to get up at 3 in the morning for the sketchiest trip ever... some stories just can´t be written, they have to be told. We just barely made it in time for the sunrise, we were sprinting up the stairs at Temple 4, but it was an incredible experience watching the sun rise over 2 other Mayan temples and hearing the jungle come alive with birds and howler monkeys that sound like lions. The architecture is incredible, and they´ve only excavated 20% of the site. We got to climb 4 of the temples.

Rio Dulce
The town itself is not that special, but it´s on Lake Izabal, which is beautiful and much warmer than Xela! Our hotel consisted of little cabana/bungalows, and everything was up on boardwalks. It was way back in a cove off the lake, so you felt like you were completely isolated out in the jungle, but still had relatively easy access to the town. We had little miniature canoes that you could take out to the dock in the main part of the lake. We saw our first tarantula, which they caught and kept under a margarita glass at the bar.

Finca Paraiso (Paradise Farm)
Definitely a highlight of Guatemala, Finca Paraiso is about an hour from Rio Dulce and has a hot waterfall! The pool itself was pretty cool, but there was steam coming from the waterfall, and you could swim up to some rocks and sit under it. Yup, my second truly hot shower in Guatemala was a waterfall. I´m not sure why it´s so salt, someone said it had something to do with the sulfur content?

Livingston
It´s a small town on the ocean, with nothing truly special, but ít´s the trip there and back that rocks. We took a 2 hour boat tour down the river, stopping to see a Spanish castle from the 1500´s, one of the bird islands, the Grafiti Wall (supposedly from the 1700´s but which can only be proved to go back to the 1950´s) and a couple caves, one of which was a natural sauna.

Guatemala City
Normally nothing special in Guate, but as we were driving back from the bus station, we noticed that Volcano Pacaya was erupting. Usually that just means it´s smoking, but this time we actually saw lava!! I´d been thinking about meeting Sabrina in Antigua to hike Pacaya on Saturday, but the lava put an end to those plans.