Cruise Day 3: Guatemala... Part One

Guatemala was by far our favorite stop! As you can tell from the pictures, it is beautiful! Normally we took a picture each morning of what we awoke to, but this time we did a video.

From the ship, we boarded a speed boat to take our tour. We went everywhere by boat that day! We never got in a car! In fact, the school we went to could only be reached by boat! We had a wonderful tour guide named Carolina. She spoke terrific English and was a lot of fun.

After an hour in the boat, we reached our first destination, Ak'Tenamit. This is a school that teaches young people tourism, business, and ancient crafts. They also do a lot addressing health needs too. Check out their website. It is literally in the middle of the rainforest! We had to hike to get from one place to another at the school. I absolutely fell in love with the school and didn't want to leave! I told Jeff I wanted to move there and teach English and he quickly reminded me that it was 86 degrees with about 99% humidity in FEBRUARY! And they had no air conditioning! I think I'd adjust!

Yup... that's a machete! They all were using one to break down bamboo!

They had a shop with products made at the school that you can buy. They also had two local artisans that were selling their handmade jewelry. I bought a pair of earrings from this guy!

The students also gave us a demonstration on how to make corn tortillas. All of the students were very sweet and looked like they enjoyed their school and having us Americans walking through their classrooms! Our guide, Annie, was 16 and studying tourism.

This is the first of two Guatemala posts! We took about 80 pictures that day, plus some video so I thought I'd spread it out a little!