Travel Tales

Learning to Canter--sort of...

While my horseback riding fantasies were fulfilled, M. 

was kind of nervous on his stubborn horse (who kept biting his feet, stopping to consume 

large quantities of grass, and snapping at my horse when she tried to pass him) 

and preferred to sit back and film! 

Well, I am back from a little traveling. While it is always nice to return home to the comfort of your own bed, I do love traveling and can never quite seem to get it out of my system. This trip was a short, essentially three country jaunt, with just brief glimpses into three very different places. The itinerary began in the borderlands of Guatemala and Belize, followed by some time in the islands of Belize, and ending with a trip up the Yucatan Peninsula through Mexico. It had all parts adventure and relaxation that my kind of travel requires and was an awesome trip.

Purchasing extremely last minute tickets, M. joined me and he has never been to the countryside of Central America before; the contrast of poverty and wealth is always somewhat overwhelming and eye opening when one first experiences it. After arriving in Belize City, we immediately headed west towards Guatemala. This portion of our trip included a death defying car ride (that we definitely could have skipped but provided lots of fodder for laughter retrospectively!), eating lots of plantains, rice and beans, taking in the sights of a world far different from our own and visiting with people, hearing stories that both change one's worldview while confirming the similarity of people everywhere, consuming much delicious coffee, crossing a wide river on a hand cranked ferry, eating a local meal in the middle of the jungle with a parrot as our table companion, watching monkeys swing from branch to branch above us, an amazing eight mile horseback ride through the jungle, and a majestic hike up to the sacred Mayan site of Xunantunich where we were nearly the only visitors and had the place pretty much to ourselves.

From here, we crossed the entire country of Belize to the coastline and jumped on a boat to get to Ambergris Caye. On the Caye, we biked, relaxed on the beach, drank a lot of ice cold Belikans (the beer of Belize), jumped off docks to swim and observe the famous reefs of the Caye, and enjoyed a wide variety of delicious meals. It was extremely relaxing and the perfect way to counter the hiking and horseback riding of the earlier part of the week.

While Belize was highly relaxing, we knew we wanted to be complete beach bums for the end of our trip and so, from here, we crossed the border via a water taxi (that I would incidentally never recommend to anyone else ever--I actually have bruises on my right arm from the incredibly bumpy ride that ended with machine gun laden Mexican police and their trained dogs sniffing our luggage--little stressful...) to Chetumal where we made our way up the coastline to spend a few days in Tulum, Mexico.  Tulum was probably our favorite place and both of us agreed that we would definitely go back. It was an incredibly easy place to travel and was so relaxing. We spent our days under palapas in lounge chairs reading, ordering fresh guacamole and mojitos, and stirring only to swim in sparkling turquoise waters--not bad. At night we would venture out to eat and stroll on a moonlit beach. I am already thinking about returning in the cold stretch of northeastern winters to go to a yoga retreat! 

From here, we made our way to our last stop in Mexico--Playa del Carmen. Perhaps because we fell so in love with Tulum, Playa was fun, but had we planned differently we might have skipped it. Life in Playa was analogous to my conception of life in Miami. Living in New York City, where we travel to get away from busy, appearance-conscious living, and have the constant opportunity to eat at glitzy restaurants, it was just not exactly what we were looking for, but, nevertheless, I can't say we didn't enjoy lounging on the white sand beaches and swimming in the crystal clear waters!

We returned via Cancun, with this little Dia de Muertos trinket to serve as a lovely little reminder of a wonderful little summer trip.

And, most exciting about the whole trip was the news that my lovely friend delivered a healthy, happy (nearly ten pound!!!!) baby on my birthday! So excited to share this day with the little one of someone so special to me.