Among the Mayan ruins

After four incredible but pretty grueling days in clinic, our group was ready for some downtime. And true to form, our Lions hosts stood on hand to make sure we exhausted ourselves with fun during our last few days in Guatemala.

They pulled out all the stops to show us a good time. We enjoyed a gourmet lunch at a fancy country-club restaurant, and afterward a few rounds of bowling in the resort's state-of-the-art lanes. The next day, we had an absolute blast running around Guatemala's newest and arguably best water park (Xocomil), and its associated amusement park (Xetulul).

We toured a macadamia nut plantation, and ate and bargained our way around the tourist haven of Antigua- which I'll talk about in the next post.

But I think my favorite part of our "fun tour" in Guatemala was a visit to the small, newly excavated Mayan ruin, Tak Alik. It was authentic....and downright creepy:

Volunteer guide at Mayan ruins:


Mayan stela:


Alligator head carving:


Traditional Mayan rites:


The sound track to this park was pretty creepy: thousands of cicadas "sang" from way up in the tree branches as we walked around the forest floor. I couldn't help but imagine we had somehow stumbled onto the set of Rambo, or Apocalypse Now....

Creepy cicada noises: