Because We Can

BAD BOB It was a good start to the day, first Richard informed me I had misspelled the name of the volcano we hiked which should have been Pacaya. Don’t why I did that because every time you have to smile for a photo in Antigua you say Pacaya. My Bad. The other error can be seen below. You may have noticed I posted the blog for the 29th on the morning of the 30th (today). Since I am still a bit under the weather I wanted to get caught up so I can post on the same day if possible. That made it a short post which made it a very big problem for me. I hadn’t even closed the door to the room when she rules like a Mayan female god creature or something on that order (she is picking up pointers every time we learn more Mayan history) wanted (I use the term loosely) to know if I had included the bird head photo she took. Conceding I had not and groveling at her royal feet did little good. So: I am so very sorry for not posting your fantastic photo of the bird head dear. Please forgive my griev...

Short night, up at 4:45 to go on our first ever birding outing. Our guide is one of the top rated birders in Guatemala. To jump ahead, his passion for birds made the time fabulous. And lest I forget, he was familiar quite with our Retama neighbor, Bert Frenz’s book on Birds of Belize. One additional note, Linda and are not photographers. Most of what we saw was through the spotting scope. The photos below are to give an idea of what we saw starting at dawns first light. Big black bird with yellow crest not often seen. Bird on tree branch. Toucan with something on beak through spotting scope. Big colorful turkey like bird. Guide and beautiful birder. Water bird. We took many more bird photos but these were the ones I was able to positively identify. Non-birder Bob. Typical scene when Mayan temple first comes into view. Testing out a Mayan bed. My preference is for a very firm mattress. This takes the term “extra firm mattress” to an entirely new level. An...

Caught a little bug, nothing bad, just coughing, but the other side is my energy level is down. That means shorter posts. The family medical practitioner has brought along enough medications to stock a small pharmacy, so healing is occurring as I type. Luckily. Linda is as fit a ?. My mind short circuits at the thought. and my fingers tire, so on to that short post I promised. Verbose Bob. Best breakfast buffet of the trip. For some reason Linda does not partake of the salsa with the jalapeno on top. There has been hot chocolate available every morning and we hadn’t noticed it before. Two cups for Linda and three for me. I was flying higher than a kite on caffeine overload. Maybe that was were I caught the cough bug. Artist at work. He made this hummingbird out of clay while looking at us most of the time and not what he was doing. Someone asked him how he could do that and he replied, “Experience.” After I is fired he inserts an orange tree thorn to make the bill This a toothpick that...

There was an optional tour this morning to climb Pacaya Volcano. It was cancelled because only four people on the tour wanted to go and the minimum was six, so Richard arranged a private climb for those that wanted to go. You can see how excited we four, Pat, Linda, myself and Tom were before we set out on the upward climb. With our guide, Marvin, in the lead, off we went. As we climbed I observed that older groups had an older guide and younger groups had younger guides. Marvin set a good pace at first, but eventually he was seriously sweating and we seemed to have more frequent rest stops. We never did decide if he felt sorry for the mountain goatless that is my spouse, or he was doing it for himself as well. Ten minutes unto the 3.4 KM climb and the strain is already showing on this athletic young woman’s face. I hadn’t heard a “Are almost to the there yet?”, but let’s just say that the rest stops were becoming more frequent. We had begun the climb at 6,000 feet and would cli...