June 30

Yikes! Time is flying, and we have less than a week. Some kids are in panic mode about Spanish... I have told them they should be getting in about two weeks' worth per day. Bueno.
What have we been up to - Friday afternoon we took a bus to Antigua - got dinner on our own, in the rain. Saturday we woke at 3am to take the bus to Guatemala City, the plane to Flores, another bus to the Mayan ruins at Tikal. Our guide, Pavlo, gave us a great tour of a few of the temples and pyramids ....I know the difference now.... After lunch, many of us went back to the ruins to wander around the Grand Plaza. Some sat still up on the steps there and were joined by four spider monkeys. It is a sub-tropical forest... beautiful for the birds, flora, fauna... but some little nasty thing bit some of us to smithereens. It looked like a sweat bee, stung like a horse fly. I've heard the name a dozen times but I need to have it written down. Our hotel had a pool, and some took advantage of that, the museums, the visitor center... some went on the canopy tour - the zip line through the forest, albeit with more of those nasty insects...
Sunday night in Antigua again, more rain... it was a treat to see it in the light and sun today. Then back to classes this afternoon.
Tomorrow we visit a high school. Wednesday is a Habitat project, working on three different houses, and Thursday we play soccer - fotbal - and basketball with a high school group. Thursday we will give the soccer equipment that we gathered from friends and from the SOCA donations.