Annviersary In Tikal!!!

Hi everyone! We made it back from our Tikal trip safely and are now back working at the home. We both said that we never would have believed that we would be standing on the Mayan ruins on our two year anniversary! It was such a neat experience.
Our first night we spent in Antigua (the colonial city near us where we take the teams). We spent a wonderful evening dining at a restaurant we’d never been to before called Las Palmas. It was so beautiful (flowers, fountains, etc.) and the food was delicious!
We left bright and early the next morning, 4:00 am to be exact, to hop on our shuttle to Guatemala City where we would catch our plane to Flores (an island near Tikal). When we got to the city we didn’t leave from the main airport, we instead left from a smaller airport near by on a 30 passenger propeller plane! It was so cool! After about 45 minutes in the air we touched down in Flores. We landed in the same airport that the cast of Survivor Guatemala landed in, which as you can imagine we loved! 
There our guide met us and we drove about an hour to Peten, where Tikal is located. I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful this was. We have pictures to post, but they won’t even do it justice. The ruins are located right smack in the middle of jungle. As you drive through the rainforest to get to the park you pass “jaguar crossing signs” and the guide is telling us about the snakes, monkeys, birds, and other creatures that we might run in to. We got to see lots of animals while we were there. We saw both howler and spider monkeys up close (a spider monkey actually about jumped on Scott’s head), tons of cool looking bugs, a special kind of animal to this area (it is like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater, if you can imagine), pretty much everything but the jaguars!
Also in the greenery we saw two very interesting trees. One was a tree that was used to make paper by shaving thin sheets of the bark. The second tree was the tallest in the entire area that to the Maya represented the underworld, the world and the superworld (heavens). It was truly breathtaking. You could see perfectly the representation that the Maya saw. This tree also instead of producing leaves, produced cotton which was used for clothing by the Maya. Again, we have pics of these to post later.
Then there were the ruins…
The ruins were SPECTATCULAR. We saw and climbed temples; we saw the living quarters of the wealthy; we saw the main plaza, which included an underground mask; we saw the arenas where they would play their famous ball game; we saw stages where they performed; we saw burial sites….all it absolutely amazing! We both climbed the tallest temple, temple 4, which was where one of the Star Wars scenes was filmed. The view really and truly took your breath away. We also climbed a temple in the main plaza. Scott then got really brave and climbed temple 5, which happens to have a teeny tiny foot space at the top, (he learned this upon arrival at the top). Keep in mind no safety railings, or signs warning against falls…just wooden steps and my prayers from the bottom!
Everything about the ruins was so interesting. It was amazing to see how everything lined up certain ways with the rising and setting of the sun. Their monuments and altars were well thought out with beautiful decorations that held tons of historical information. Standing in the grand plaza you could instantly travel back in time and just see them going about their daily life. It was all spectacular. We would walk from area to area in total awe. We cannot wait to someday go back with Levi and admire alongside him the remarkable work of his ancient ancestors.
After seeing all of the amazing sites we learned that only 20% of the ruins are uncovered! We were blown away! Plans are not to uncover all of them because the maintenance would be too hard and it would be such a tragedy to uncover them and then dishonor the Maya’s hard work by letting them get destroyed.
At the end of our tour we ate a restaurant right in the rainforest and then headed back to the Island of Flores to our hotel. Our hotel was nice and we spent the next day just relaxing at the pool. Thursday afternoon we headed back to Antigua where we met up with the team again and came back to Agua Viva.
We were so thankful for the break and chance to celebrate our anniversary. It was such a blessing. However, one of the best things about going to Tikal was coming back to Agua Viva. The second we stepped out of the van little voices whispering “Scott y Sophia” started popping up and the kids came running up to us saying that they had missed us and asking when they could look at pictures. Each child that greeted us had their arms wide open and didn’t reject our kisses in return. It was a warm, warm welcome and it reminded us why our Father has us here.