Don't Cry for Me..... Belize

My first clue should have been when we registered at the hotel and were given Room #13.

Picture this: San Ignacio, Belize, April 26, 6:30 am. It's our first morning in Paradise. The day before we'd met Brian in Dallas, and flown down together to ShangriLa. After spending our first night in the jungle, I awake to the sounds of birds. And I mean Birds. Hundreds of birds with distinctive, beautiful songs. The sun is shining and it must have been 70 degrees already. Like I said, Paradise.

Steve and Brian are still sleeping (big surprise!) and I decide to not waste a moment of this perfect day. After spending 30 seconds getting ready (you'll see from photos of my hair that this is a true statement. In my defense, when the humidity is 90%, me hair no likey), I'm walking quickly down the trail to the river. After going approximately 1/3 of a mile, I begin to descend down a hill with stairs carved into the earth to help gentle the sleep slope. I've gone to great lengths to protect my feet, throwing on flip flops (otherwise my prep time would have increased by 75%!). I take the second or third step, feel something going horribly wrong with my ankle and then feel myself begin to fall.... and fall.... I'm not sure how many steps I went down before thankfully I was stopped. By a low concrete wall. After coming out of shock (there are several moments of which I have no memory), I begin to assess the damage. Which is worse? This is a tough call. Right ankle appears to have a baseball growing out of it, but left knee and shin have deep gouges with bright red North American blood flowing from them freely. A half hour later I'm delivered to my room (yes, boys still sleeping) via wheelchair! I spent the first day and a half of vacation propped up on pillows with ice on ankle and knee. Initially, after recalling a vacation in Vegas where I spent 24 hours vomiting while poor sisters quietly ate crackers in the corner and another one where I couldn't move because a virus had entered into my joints (also with my lucky sisters), I began to feel a little sorry for myself... but nobody really wants to cry for you when you're laying around drinking limeade in paradise, so I decided to get over myself and enjoy the downtime. Anybody who is a goodreads.com buddy can easily see how I filled the time.

After 36-hours of good old fashioned laziness and hearing Steve say the words "Lucky 13" about 74 times, I decided I could waste no more time. A wheelchair was traded in for crutches and then the crutches were switched out for a walking stick: my dearest friend for the trip. With that in place, we hiked, canoed, tubed, ziplined, para-sailed, dove, snorkeled through Belize and a bit of Guatemala. The trip was incredible. The jungles were amazing and the people so gracious and in justifiably proud of their beautiful countries.

If I had to pick a highlight of the trip, it was the 24 hours we spent in Guatemala. We had an incredible tour of Tikal, a Mayan city. They call it ruins, but after 1000 years, it certainly didn't look ruined to me. There were so many strong, beautiful buildings. Tikal means "echo" and it really seemed to echo of a mighty past. I kept waiting for Captain Moroni or Abinadi to come around the corner! Truly magnificent.

A few pics below...

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The view from our room on the island.

True Story: Steve initially wasn't happy w/ the view.

Too Many trees. I HATE being his travel agent.

My happy boys Para-Sailing

Yes, we landed on this runway... Prayer is good.

A toucan came to join me while I read on the deck

one morning.

Look at the color of that water.

The Rowley's Do Tikal.

Leaving a Cave by Canoe. The Mayans

entered these caves, got stoned, and sacrificed food, pottery and children in them.

While my visit wasn't quite that exciting, I did see remnants of their "celebrations"

Steve wouldn't let me bring this souvenir home...

p.s. I have firmly fallen into the trap. This is SO why I didn't want to start a blog. I told Steve 100 times, no one wants to look at someone else's vacation pics.... now, it has just become another price my family and friends must pay to be linked to me in this life. May you each be blessed for your patience. And if you do feel even a touch of envy, you should come look at the tan lines on my legs. Bandages make for a really interesting test of how much sun you've taken in. Because the band aids got progressively smaller throughout the trip, my left legs closely resembles a jig saw puzzle. Like 44 and chubby isn't unattractive enough....