This was a very busy month for me. In the
beginning, I was all alone at the house. Katia was off to
Guatemala, learning Spanish and so forth. I hung around Seattle,
rock-climbing, socializaing, the usual, for a week. Then I flew
to Vail, Co for a week of skiing and visiting with my second
parents, the Gillespies. Here is a photo of my bro', Shawn, at
Vail with me.
We had a really good time skiing together for one day. I'd already skied the previous two days, so I was pretty wiped out already. It was enjoyable to have someone to talk to on the lift, and especially so because it was Shawn.
So, here I
am, in my very cool attire. Dunno about the hat, tho. The color
seems a little out of sync with everything else. :-)
Another reason to for my visit was that my little sister, ok,
well, Shawn's little sister got married last August, and
Katia and I were supposed to meet her and her new hubbie in
Jamaica. Well, we didn't make it, as our boat was laid up for
repairs. So, I finally got to meet all the family members. 
The Detroit Red Wing
alumni were also in town to play a charity game against the local
hockey team, of which the aforementioned hubbie is a member. Here
we see the locals getting spanked.
Dunno who this
guy is, but he played 23 years for Detroit, and put on quite the
exhibition for us. Scored, I think, three goals himself.
And here is what we all do best......(and I don't mean
smile)....
After a week of that, I needed a rest, and so headed down the mountain to visit The Allisons. I forgot to take a photo, so here is a copy of their Christmas Card.
So Colorado was over, and I went back to Seattle for a quick stop. Only to leave a few days later to Guatemala. I spent 10 days in down there, and it was pretty fast. Katia and I spent three days in the town where she was going to school, Antigua. We then went to a volcanic hot springs waaaay up in the mountains, Fuentes Georginas. It was a paradise... We then went to Chichicastenango, where they have a very famous market. My Little Shark (aka, Katia) did incredible bartering, and we got a great wool blanket for nearly nothing. Off to Panajachel, which turned out to be extremely touristy. Too bad, but the really kewl news was that it is also a sort of hangout for British Hippies. It was like some of the population that used to follow the Dead around had relocated to Guatemala and affected English accents.... Very neat-oh. Then it was off to Tikal.... which cannot be explained -- simply a must see. So let's see some photos, eh?
This is the
flag of Guatemala, just thought I would throw it in.
On the right
what you see is the view from our hotel in Antigua. The church is
La Merced, which is one fo the few building to have survived the
big earthquake that knocked down most of Antigua in the late
1800's.
This is a
typical cafe in Antigua. The open air, and flowering plants are
gorgeous...... This cafe is "The Rainbow", and it
speaks mostly english, because a lot, a lot, of students hang out
here.
Now we are off to Fuentes Georginas, and here is the main
pool......
Not too bad, eh? The tables to the left are served from the kitchen, so you never have to leave the area. The prices are very cheap, which you won't find me complaining about, the food is excellent and cervesa is served ;-)
So, we are staying in this rustic little cabin, up near the top of some mountian, and it is time to leave. What does Katia do?
Yes, that's right. Gotta have that
makeup, never know what sort of wildlife you just might meet
while descending a mountain.... Speaking which, check out the
view....
I'd buy that for a dollar, but I would be paying too much in Guatemala, because everything there is pretty darn cheap. Katia and I ate dinner for two in a market place for $0.86. Which reminds me that the local currency is called Q, short for Quetzala (sp?), and 3Q will buy you a good sized pineapple. So Katia change units to pineapples. So, it turns out that our dinner cost us about 1 and a small pineapples.
This is now Chichicastenango, where we bought our blanket for a mere 68 pineapples. What a bargain!
You cannot
help but laugh at this. This is the entrance to a military base.
I know it looks like the entrance to some theme park, which I
guess it is in a way....
Below we see Katia framed by dogs playing cards. Pat eat your heart out.
Enough with the towns already. Let's see some cool ruins... Off to Tikal! Here is a panoramic I created by merging several photos....
Now the ruins
were actually uninhabited for several centuries, so the jungle
still has possession of many of the ruins. Here we see a Mayan
temple that the jungle still owns.
After you remove the trees you get something like this:
Then they dig very carefully and end up with this thing that looks like this:
or this....
After a little Mayan StairMaster(tm), I feel like a little Smackeral of something
Darn, back to work now.....
The last photos are from a little dinner place/bar nearby. We got really lucky on our last night, as the locals spontaneously decided to start playing a local instrument. Now, Katia has seen as many as 12(!) people play this instrument at once (obviously a bigger one than this one). Pretty keen.
and this last photo is what Katia's
do best....
