Finished Book

Ruben and a RoadtripBy Megan Horrocks

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Copyright: BYU PressDecember 2012

Pictures by: Megan Horrocks

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Contents•

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Villahermosa

Palenque

Yaxchilan

Guatemala

San Cristobel

Tuxtla

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Ruben and a Roadtrip

Vacation is so awesome! Yesterday we had to wait forever for everyone to get to Tehuacan because the Puebla teachers couldn’t get tickets on an early bus, but it worked out because then we could drive when it was cool at night. Ru-ben, our driver, would pull over every once in awhile. We got to Vil-lahermosa sometime in the early morning.

Audrey, Anne, Steph, Kayla, and I went out to explore because there was water and we hadn’t decided if we wanted to visit the museum or not. The water was a little lake so we walked around it and climbed a random tower. There were these weird little animals that looked like lemurs or monkeys so some Mexican guy bought Kayla little treats

to feed them. She ended up surrounded by these little guys and one stole the hand sanitizer from her backpack. They got so aggressive she finally freaked out and chucked the whole bag at them. Then when we got back we decided the museum would be worth it so we walked around in there for a few hours. They had a zoo and then a bunch of sculptures and

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stuff, it was pretty awe-some. Then we got back on the bus and drove for a couple of hours to a water-fall called Misol-Ha. It was so beautiful! We got to go swimming and cliff jumping and there was an awesome cave. We spent most of the day there and it was so awesome. Then we came here to drop off all our stuff before we dispersed for din-ner. We went to a ran-dom taco place and it was good. Then we went to get ice cream and walked to the park. All of us ended up be-ing there so we danced

around because there was a Mexican band. We totally drew a crowd it was hilarious. People started filming us and everything. By the time we moved off to the side there were at least 100 people standing around watching us. Then other people started to re-ally dance and Audrey danced with a Mexican man. Finally when we left we danced across all the way across the little square and people ac-tually applauded us and followed for a minute until they realized we were re1ally leaving. It was super funny.

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Today was rad! We woke up a little before eight and drove for a little while to the Palenque ruins. It was super cool. We got a rad tour guide named Edgar and he was so awesome! He told us all kinds of cra-zy things, mostly what I remember is this: The whole ruins include 15 km, more than 1400 pyramids. Pelac was the main King, his tomb

their hands and feet cut off and bled to death. They had a cool tree that they considered a tree of life and I hugged it. There were other cool things, but that’s all I re-member. He took us all over the pyramids and he showed us a ruin that the Mormons believe means, “and it came to pass.” I totally felt like I was in a Nephite land it was so cool. Then we

was the pyramid of in-scriptions, his son had six toes so he got to be King. The tomb of the Red Queen was named that because when they found the bones dyed red because they paint-ed the buildings red and the dye leached into her bones. In the ball games, the winners were sacri-ficed so they could fight demons in the under-world, the losers had

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walked all through the jungle to get back to the bus which was fun and we saw pretty little waterfalls. Then we got back on the bus for a few hours and drove to agua azul. It was super funny because the wa-ter was totally not blue, it was really brown, but the falls were huge and awesome looking. We

walked to the top with no intention of swim-ming but when we got to the top we couldn’t resist. We crawled out on a log to get a rad pic-ture and got all dirty so we ended up in the wa-ter anyways. It was kind of cold and super dirty water, but it was still su-per fun.

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Yaxchilan:A lot of driving yes-terday and Ruben for-got his pone so we had to go back, luckily we weren’t very far. So we drove forever and paid a bunch of random road fees. Apparently reb-els have some control down here so they just pick random pieces of road and charge you to cross it. We finally ar-rived at Yaxchilan and

jungle. Then we loaded on a little beach and walked up to the ru-ins. They were cool but nothing compared to Palenque. I don’t think they’ve really been re-stored like Palenque. So after we walked through them all we went back and chilled on the little beach. Audrey buried Anne’s legs and I got a special bottle to fill with

it just looked like a random collection of pink huts. Anyways, we walked down a little hill and found a huge river. On one side was Mexico and the other side was Guatemala. The sand felt like beach sand and it was awesome! Then we piled on long boats and road for about 30 minutes. It was super pretty right through the

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sand. When everyone got back we took our boat ride back. We drove for awhile and stopped for super yummy que-sadillas that made me happy. Then we drove for FOREVER! We got stopped a lot which made everybody super nervous. It started to get really foggy outside and

girls were started to get car-sick. We stopped in this random little village to use a scary bathroom. We ended up just stay-ing here. Our hostel was pretty crappy and we were all a little freaked out. Dogs barked all night and the roosters started at 5 a.m. but we survived!

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Guatemala:Today was beach day la-goon style. We drove to a random lake that was super blue and beauti-ful. When we got there Ruben informed us that Guatemala was only a few steps away so we climbed up a hill and into Guatemala. We took lots of pictures by the border marker and I bought a rad keychain that says Guatemala. Then we shopped a lit-tle on the Mexico side

San Cristobel. Everyone was super sunburned, including myself, but I was one of the lucky ones because I was tan before started sitting in the sun. Then we drove a few hours here to San Cristobel and left to eat. We went to a restaurant and had awesome ham-burgers with fries and I made fry sauce! It was super good and I’m su-per happy about it.

and I bought two cute little hats. Then we went swimming. The water was icy cold like Bear Lake or Redfish at home, so we weren’t in the wa-ter long. We sun tanned for a few hours and then drove to another little lake, it was super pret-ty but had no beach at all so we vetoed it and went to another one. Repeat of the first beach. By the time we got back on the bus to drive to

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Today was kind of a to-tal loss other than we slept in. We didn’t leave the hostel until like 10 a.m. We got super ran-dom stuff for break-fast and then I walked around San Cristobel with Audrey and Becca. I got a few cool things and a Mexicoan blanket which I wasn’t expect-ing to get, but I love it. A bunch of us went to a rad restaurant that had hamburgers and yummy fries. While we ate we decided on our April Fool’s prank. When we got back to the ho-tel Camille had given us the key to their room

because Cort’s com-puter was in there. So we cleaned their room and hid their bags un-der the bed. We all paid for the second night in our room so when they got back we told them the maids must have cleaned out their room because they hadn’t paid yet. We let them freak out a bit before we told them the truth. After that we found out we’re going home to Te-huacan and then taking a bus to Veracruz. I’m super excited about it.

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Tuxtla: April 2, 2010 Today has been insanely hot. We drove to Tuxtla which is like the Grand Canyon of Mexico. We took a boat ride along the river that runs at the bottom. It was pretty, but very long and very very hot. We got to see a crocodile, which was

cool and at the highest point the canyon wall was a mile high. It was an amazing sight. Af-terwards we were sup-posed to stop in Tuxtla city but everyone was ready to go home so now we’re sitting on the bus boiling.

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Index of Pictures1. Pyramids at Palenque2. Warrior costume at San Cristobel3. Agua Azul: Kayla Chamberlain, Courtnee Crockett, Cassie Campbell, Megan Horrocks, Anne Hurst4. Hamburger stand in Villahermosa: Kayla Chamberlain, Stephanie Welch, Megan Horrocks, Cortnee Crockett5. Crazy monkey creatures: Anne Hurst6. Museum entrance at Villahermosa: Megan Horrocks7. Misol-Ha waterfall: Megan Horrocks8. Misol-Ha walkway9. Villahermosa museum: Megan Horrocks, Kayla Chamberlain10. Bridge at Villahermosa11. Pyramids at Palenque: Top Row: Anne Hurst, Kayla Chamberlain, Stephanie Welch, Camille Lee, Meagan Rojas, Becca Eldredge, Audrey Covington, Sara Condie, ?, Liza Ladd, ?. Bottom Row: ?, Megan Horrocks, Hannah McCord, Cortnee Crockett, Cassie Campbell, Jessica Miner12. Pyramids at Palenque: Megan Horrocks, Cortnee Crockett13. Old pyramid at Palenque14. Tree of Life: Megan Horrocks, Cassie Campbell, Cortnee Crockett, Jessica Miner15. Waterfalls at Palenque16. Pyramids at Palenque: Megan Horrocks, Edgar (our guide), Cortnee Crockett17. Pyramids at Palenque: Megan Horrocks18. Inside pyramids at Yaxchilan: Megan Horrocks19. Trees at Yaxchilan: Megan Horrocks20. Ruins at Yaxchilan: Megan Horrocks, Liza Ladd, Jessica Miner21. Pointing to the shores of Guatemala: Meagan Rojas, Audrey Covington, Kayla Chamberlain, Stephanie Welch, Hannah McCord, Camille Lee, Anne Hurst, Cassie Campbell, Cortnee Crockett, Megan Horrocks22. Ruins at Yaxchilan: Audrey Covington, Stephanie Welch, Sarah Condie, Cortnee Crockett, Becca Eldredge, Cassie Campbell, Megan Horrocks23. Boat number 4 at Yaxchilan24. Boat driver at Yaxchilan25. Café: Megan Horrocks, Ruben (bus driver), Anne Hurst, Cortnee Crockett26. Lagoons in Guatemala: Megan Horrocks27. Border of Guatemala and Mexico: Megan Horrocks28. Central America license plate: Megan Horrocks29. Lagoons in Guatemala30. Markets at San Cristobel: Megan Horrocks, Cortnee Crockett31. Streets of San Cristobel: Megan Horrocks32. Coyota boat at Tuxtla33. Crocodile at Tuxtla34. Boat docks of Tuxtla: Stephanie Welch, Megan Horrocks, Cortnee Crockett

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