Market Day

One Saturday Neil and I went with an couple who were living in Guatemala to see the main
market called, La Terminal. This is the place where all of the farmers bring their produce to be sold in large quantities for stores. The colors were wonderful! There would be almost a whole block of people selling just tomatoes---then almost a block of just bananas---and so on.


These roma tomatoes are the main type that are grown in Guatemala. There were boxes and
boxes of them in La Terminal.


We saw these beautiful, yellow sweet bell peppers along with some red and orange ones too.
We bought a few to take home. You had to buy some portions from the vendors on the street part of the market. The vendors on the inside part of the market only sold in very large quantities.

These huge baskets held several different varities of little hot peppers. I don't think I would like to find out just how hot they were! But they were really a beautiful green color! We also found
herbs and spices set out like this in these big baskets.

On the inside part of the market (in one of the blocks) there were vendors who sold all sorts of meat. Whatever kind of meat, or part of the meat you wanted, they would get it for you. We also found crabs, lobster, shrimp (tons of shrimp!) and many different kinds of fish.

This is one of the street stalls with different kinds of vegetables---lettuce, corn, onions, and these
little green squash (I don't know their name). They all looked good enough to eat! One thing,
though, about going to La Terminal---you need to go with a Guatemalan. It isn't a very safe
place to go. We were glad to have our Guatemalan friends with us. It was a great experience.

Jocotenango, Guatemala

Last Saturday (15 August) we went with some friends to visit a town on the outskirts of
Antigua, named Jocotenango. Little did we know that it was a holiday---Day of the Ascension. So when we got there we saw all of these carnival rides and food vendors like you would see at a county fair back in the States. Notice the colorful front of the church that was built onto the old part of the church behind it.

On special religious holidays the people lay out designs on the streets made out of leaves, stems, and flowers. They call these "carpetas." We found these being laid out on many of the streets where we walked---as we looked for certain woodworking shops.

The artistic abilities of the Guatemalan people are amazing. This man has worked with wood most of his life---probably just as his father and grandfather did. He turned this chunk of wood into a beautifully smooth pear. You can see the wood chips flying in the air. Would you believe that he started the motor of his lathe by touching a curved bare wire wire to a nail?

Here is the finished product. It's too bad you can't really see the fine, smooth finish of the pear and the wood grain. Neil and I bought a couple of these that had been stained and polished.

This is the store at the back of the woodshop. The pear on the left is one of the pears that we bought. We learned that this woodworker used several different kinds of wood like cedar, coffee, and others. Notice the interesting piece of wood in the center of the photo above.
The photo below shows some of the fruit and vegetables that we bought at one of the wood shops. The unique bowl was made of highly smoothed and polished coffee wood.

Tikal

On July 16 we drove to see the ruins of Tikal with the people in this photo (left to right): Bro. and Sis. Tilley, Sis. Barney, and Sis. Thibault. After 8 hours of driving (and our stop to see the ruins at Quirigua) we stopped in the town of Santa Elena on Lake Atitlan to stay at Hotel Casona
del Lago for two nights. It was a very lovely hotel looking out over Lake Atitlan and out toward the picturesque town of Flores.

This is a "close-up" view of the tourist town of Flores just across the lake from where we were staying. Flores is a very unique and colorful little town on an island connected by a causeway to Santa Elena. Many tourists like to stay in Flores and there are plenty of tour and adventure companies that use Flores as their base.

On the 17th we drove from Santa Elena toward Tikal National Park. Once we paid our entrance fee we started seeing these signs along the road. Can you figure out what kinds of animals these signs were warning us to watch for??

You probably can tell that this photo was taken from our van as we arrived at Tikal. (We were in a van where the doors opened on both sides, so we just drove along in the park with the doors open. It was great!)

Yes, there are still Mayans wandering around the ruins of Tikal---getting their pictures taken!
Well, maybe he wasn't quite as old as the ruins, but he looked pretty authentic to us!

We were very fortunate to have the luxury of a ride in a truck to the farthest part of the ruins---Temple IV. It is still under restoration, but there are wooden stairs on the other side where people can walk up to the top of the main steps. The view from there is incredible! Some of you may remember the shot in one of the older Star Wars movies where they were looking out over the jungle and the tops of the ruins of Tikal could be seen.

This is Temple I at the Great Plaza. The ruins at Tikal are extensive and are undergoing constant excavation and restoration. The original settling of Tikal took place between 900 - 700 b.c. The temples, palaces, and other buildings at Tikal today are dated at about 670 a.d. and were built on top of the earlier civilizations. By the end of the 10th century a.d. Tikal had been abandoned and the jungle began to reclaim it. It was not discovered again until 1848.
This photo gives you an idea of just how steep the steps are on the temple and how hard it would have been to climb them. We loved our time in Tikal and found it hard to go home again.

Quirigua

On July 16 Neil and I went with some of the other senior missionaries on a trip to see the ruins
of Tikal. We didn't know that they were going to stop at some other ruins on the way. These
ruins were called, "Quirigua" and they were amazing.




Quirigua is one of only 3 Unesco World Heritage Sites in Guatemala. It is a small site nestled among miles and miles of banana plantations and was built up about the same time as Copan
(about 100 a.d.) just over the border in Honduras.

There are several stelas that were carved by artisans sent from Copan. The stelas are incredibly tall with wonderful carvings of faces and animals on them. It was amazing to see how well-
preserved they were.

I know that some of our "blog viewers" have mentioned that they never see Neil in any of the
photos----well, here he is. This gives you a idea of just how tall the carved stelas are.



This beautiful, huge tree was in the middle of the site at Quirigua. One of the caretakers was
working with a weed trimmer to cut the grass (he is just to the right of the base of the tree).


The carvings were so very well done. There were about 7 or 8 stelas at Quirigua to be studied
and admired by all of us. As we continued walking through the site we came to some large
ruins as can be seen in the photo below. There is continuous excavation and restoration going on---and only part of it has been uncovered.