More Mayan Stuff (No More Puns)

Yesterday, I went to Tikal and didn't get bitten by a single mosquito! Last night, our dormmates left the door open long enoughfor every bug in Flores to find it's way into our room. Did Whitney get bitten? No. Did the three French girls get bitten? No. (Well, possibly, they didn't really speak English). Did I get bitten? Yes. It looks like I was the mosquito equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet. I was the seven course meal. I was the two-for-one cocktail at Happy Hour. Who needs to be popular with parole when the bus love you this much???

Now, we can all agree the mosquito bites are lame but do we all have a mosquito allergy that causes these bites to swell to the size of an apple? Because I do and I'm miserable. Maybe not Whitney-with-a-sunburn level of misery but one big bit the back of my leg and it now looks/feels like I have a third butt cheek. I also got four bites surrounding my pinky finger on my left hand so it's a good thing I'm a righty because otherwise I would not be typing this. I have special cream and Benadryl for this situation but, infuriatingly, it's mainly a wait it out scenario.

Because I am a rock star and refuse to bow to pain, we still had a pretty exciting day. We spent the morning looking for postage stamps because it appears to be harder to find them in Flores than it is to find postcards in a town of 200 people in the States but eventually we did it (never underestimate me when it comes to postcards. Or anything in general).

And after that, we left for a tour of Yaxha. For starters, it isn't pronounced Yax-ha like we said when we originally asked about it but more like Yawk-shaw and it is another site of Mayan ruins. It is definitely less well known and visited than Tikal but that made it more intimate in a way. The cool thing here was that only about 10% of the ruins have been excavated and the rest are now covered by trees and other foliage, so you see these GIANT mounds and you know that there is a temple under them and that that temple was once used for something! One thing that wasn't as cool was when it started raining, but as I said glibly "It isn't called a dry forest."

We were in the minority of non-Spanish speakers on this tour so we didn't get as much of the history lesson as we did at Tikal but we still got to climb up some really old buildings!

When we got back, we had dinner at our hostel because it was late and convenient. I wanted a burger but they didn't have any straightforward options so I just went with the first one called the Crazy Mayan Burger. It WAS crazy but I don't know what avocados, pineapple and barbecue sauce have to do with Mayan culture...