Tikal and the Clinic

Hello again... I'm back in Antigua. I went to Tikal this weekend. It's the site of a huge Mayan temple complex. It was really interesting to get out of the city. I don't really have any pictures of the countryside, but think third world, with the pigs and the dogs grazing outside the houses. And lots of horses and motorcycles for trasport... We (the tour I was on) stayed at the Tikal Inn, pictured below.


The temples are located in an area which does not have enough rain to be called rain forest...it's called a high humidity temperate zone or something like that.,,but that means monkeys! We saw spider monkeys (see the one below) and heard the howler monkeys. We say lots of toucans, and not just on the fruit loops boxes!

Below is a picture of what a structure looks like before it is excavated. It is an amazing site. Probably only a third of it has been excavated. You walk down trails where you feel as if you are alone in the world except for the animals ...oh yeah...and the clouds of mesquitos!

We flew there on a prop plane that was small, but inside it was normal sized. On the way home, we flew in this plane that was probably 40 years old...no armrests, just a double bench seat on one side and a single on the other. There was no flight attendent. Instead, there was a bottle of water (or in our case 2 bottles...there were two seats after all!) It was TINY! But what a beautiful flight home. There was no way to take pictures, but think of the pictures of China where the mountains float out of the haze and the clouds, and you have an idea!

It's really hard to get a sense of how massive Tikal is. This is one view of the main temple square.
Here is a temple with some of the stellae in front. The Maya had one of the most accurate calendars in the world. It was a combination of 3 calendars, and using the combination, each year repeats once every 52 years. The stellae have stories on them that are still visible to some extent.
There is one temple you are allowed to climb. It's Temple 5, and from the top the other 4 temples are visible. Temple is 5 in the back of the park, about a 2,5 hour walk from our hotel. I did all the stairs, walk, etc. fine, but by the time we got there, and had a ladder we had to climb up and down, I ran out of gas. One of the guys on the tour took my camera to the top, and soooo, here is the best picture of the lot as seen by my camera!
Below is a shot of Lord Choco's temple.
All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip. The most amazing thing to me was my ability to do it!

The last two weeks I worked in a clinic. One day this week I took some pictures, and here they are. Below is the reception area....

one of the examining rooms....

La Doctora's office ..... La Farmacia.....
And the "trauma" and wound care room

I decided this week I'm going have to stop working in the clinic for a couple of weeks. They really didn't want me to start so soon. They were worried about my spanish, and they (the folks at school) were right. When I'm working in the mornings, then going to school in the afternoons, I really don't want to study at night. So I'm going to keep going to school in the afternoons and that will leave my mornings free to study. My priority is to learn spanish, so I really need to focus on that. I haven't made much progress in the last week, so I need arrange it so I will.

It was sort of an interesting week. I was so excited when I got back from Tikal. Walking, etc., had been so different from the last few years that I was estatic. Then I got home and was putting cream on my bug bites and realized....I CAN TOUCH MY TOES....EASILY!!!!! It has been years, and wow, I really didn't realize I was moving so much easier. Then....disaster....I fell really hard at school Monday afternoon. By yesterday I was really having problems with my knee hurting and being sore and was really bummed! When you've been hurting for so long, starting to hurt again is scarry, and you wonder if it will stop, or just keep on going like it used to. But today I'm fine, and marveling again at the difference 6 months and a new hip make.

Events of the week: Martin is now officially 32, after having a birthday Monday. A bunch of us went out and celebrated. Then tonight we had a "tour reunion" and Nick from DC and Grace from NYC and I went to dinner. We made a good group on the tour, and enjoyed ourselves again tonight. Tomorrow really early I head to Belize to snorkel on the second largest barrier reef in the world. John Watson (brother John to you who know the confusion) is meeting me there. It will be nice to see someone from home. Miss you guys and love you lots!

Earline