In a effort to get current with our blogs Maya enlisted my help. I oly hope i can measure up to the high blogging standard that you have grown to expect. Thanks James Feeling a little 'village people' i strapped on the alpaca fleece chaps and donned the poncho and swaggered out to where the horses were tied. I think i was missing the cowboy hat and the clink of the spurs but we all looked the part as we prepared for our ride up in the highlands of Ecuador. I fel...

After reconnecting recently with a very good girlfriend (Paige) that I lost touch with several years ago, I received an email saying that she was interested in visiting Guatemala at some point. I forwarded her the info on the Las Sirenas boat trip from Rio Dulce in Guatemala to the Belize Cayes in the hope that she may want to join us... So here we are, sitting and sweating together on the deck of the Rio Bravo restaurant in Rio Dulce eating Mojarra (a local fr...

The clock ticked 4 am and I could barely contain my excitement. The electricity was out as it typically was between 9pm and 8am but we had set aside our headlamps so we were ready. We were going to see the sunrise on top of Temple IV in Tikal. (Tikal is the largest of the ancient ruined cities of Mayan civilization). Although we had been through the archaeological site the day prior we had been looking forward to the sunrise tour since we started planning our ...

Standing on top of the thirty foot bridge with my feet hanging over the edge, I peered over my toes to the running water beneath me... Mark had already jumped (which means very little since he is the daredevil of the family and will do close to anything), Sam pinched her nose and jumped and now it was my turn "@%*&". Being as considerate as I am, I let another couple of people on our tour of Semuc Champey go before me. Again, it was my turn. I had d...

CONFESSIONS OF A CIGAR SMOKER IN GUATEMALA... With Cuban contraband in hand I pursed my lips, created the perfect ring of smoke and thought how funny it was to be smoking a cigar with my father, the same man who once told me that if I smoked cigarettes I would have to pay my own health insurance. I suppose he has become a little more mellow in the years since we left home. I looked around at my family, each with a cigar in one hand and glass of wine in the ot...