Welcome to beautiful Guatemala

     A lot of my friends are from Guatemala and have been asking me "when are you going to post about Guatmala?"  Well here it is, beautiful Guatemala.
     La Ruta Inka was ahead of schedule and got to Guatemala a day early so the tourisum department INGUAT(Instituto Guatemalteco de Turismo) wasn't ready for us and we had to stay in the community hall in a small town near Los Esclavos.  The next day INGUAT picked us up and took us streaght to the captale, Guatemale City, where we were to attend a ceremony for us in El Palacio Naciona.

     At the ceremony a musical group made of artist from different parts of Guatemala played la marimba for use.  La marimba is the national instrument and has been played by Guatemalans threw out their history.

     In the next part of the ceremony they demonstrated el jugo de la pelota. An ancient game played by the Mayans that is kind of a mix of basketball and soccer.  Read more about the game here.

    The last part of the ceremony was the changing of La Rosa de la Pas(the rose of peace).  The changing of  the rose is a ceremony that beening going on every day since 1996.  The ceremony consists of a white rose that is changed every 24 hours to symbloze the renewal of peace every day.  The rose is normaly change by an every day Guatemalan that has the honer to do it but this day they had honered La Ruta Inka by chouising one of the members of our group to change the rose.

     After the whole ceremony was over we had a chance to get a tour of El Palacio Naciona.  They had some much beautful art there, but here was a huge mural that caught my attention the most.  The mural is about 10 feet high and 30 feet wide and it symbolizes when the Spaniards came to the Americas and concered the Mayans.  It had to be one of the must beauitful things I have ever seen, I wanted it for my house.