Getting excited

Jeff and I have been so bogged down with things like malaria pills and sorting out who is bringing the toothpaste, that I haven't spent time simply considering about how awesome this trip is going to be once we actually hit the ground in Managua. I started looking through some of my photos from the last time I was in Central America. I realized that they're some of my favorite memories:




This is a photo of the Maya ruins in Tikal, Guatemala. It was so hot that day we could barely move. I was completely light headed from the heat and the smoke from field burning in the area. We had to walk quite distance on cement paths through the jungle to get to each site. There are so many ruins of this type in Tikal that they've only been able to restore a portion of them. We'd walk on the paths and see these huge mounds among the trees -- other pyramids that hadn't been uncovered yet. There was also a crew working on restoring the face of one of the pyramids. Every single one of those guys was wearing long, heavy work pants and most had on long-sleeved shirts as well. They were hauling stone up the face of the thing. I couldn't believe it. You can't really tell from the photos, but the pyramids are extremely steep. It was all I could do to climb up ten or fifteen steps without getting freaked out about the height.





I started talking to these girls when we passed them on their way home from school. We were on a little island off the coast of Belize. All the kids I encountered on that trip loved to have their photos taken. Some of them would ask me to take a picture of them, which was funny since obviously they'd never see it. I love this photo, despite the fact that looks like it should be a part of a cheesy brochure for a Caribbean cruise.





This is Stacy, my consistently calm and collected travel companion for that trip. Stacy is a lot braver than I am when it comes to just about anything. She was amazing to travel with. We decided to go check out this cave in the jungle in Eastern Belize. A guide took us a couple of miles down into the cave, swimming and wading through an underground river and doing a bit of bouldering in the dark. There was quite a bit of scampering around on hands and knees in the mud. You don't mind dirt at all when you can't see it. We had to be appropriately geared up for the excursion, thus the helmets.





What was in the cave, you ask? Well, there were bats, blind fish, spiders, a lot of pottery shards, some unbroken pots, and several dead bodies (or parts of them) that had been laying around in there for a couple thousand years. The most interesting bit was the full skeleton of a young woman who they think had been killed as a sacrifice. I have no idea why we were allowed to get so close to all this stuff. The only thing we couldn't do was touch any of it.





Looking through these old photos has helped me realize that as long as I can get Jeff to loosen up and enjoy himself, this trip is going to be fabulous. No matter what happens, the experiences will be new, the company good, and the country beautiful. I'm ready for whatever the travel gods bring me. As for Jeff... I found out that you can buy super cheap valium over the counter in Nicaragua. Maybe I'll have to get my hands on some and slip it in with his malaria tablets.