Monday, February 5, 2007

3 More Weeks






Hey everybody I'm back from vacation and I've got 3 weeks left until I leave for D.C. for my Peace Corps orientation. We have orientation from the Sunday the 25th- tuesday or wed. the 27th, then we head off to Johannesberg , South Africa in a 15 hour flight and stay the night then leave the next day for Lilongwe, Malawi where I will be in training for about 2 months until April 26 when I will be sworn in and head off to my village for 2 more years.

There's a Family Guy maraton on right now, so I'm a little distracted at the moment. But basically I've been working and kickin it with my friends before I leave.

My trip to Mexico, Belize and Guatemala was sooooo amazing. Here is a breif recap...
Started in Playa del carmen where we spent the night playing drums with locals on the beach
Spent the next night in Corazol, Belize, the northern most city, didnt do to much
Went to San Jose on Ambergris Caye, pretty boring really, way too many tourist
Then off to Caye Caulker, the coolest little hippie/rasta island, I ended up spending the next 4 days there biking, snorkling, kickin back with the local rastas
Then we embarked on what could have been the coolest part of the trip, a 3-day sail to Placencia, Belize, which is close to the south part of Belize
There were 11 of us total and we sailed down the barrier reef stopping throughout the day to swim and snorkel, and spent 2 nights on tiny islands in tents. The most beautiful place I've ever been
Once in Placencia we spent 2 days there on the beautiful beach during the day, and karyoke at night.
Then we took a long bus ride and 2 boats to get to Livingston, Guatemala, a gorgeous town that is not very touristy and where a friend I met earlier, Akeelis, lives. He use to be a tour guide there so my friend Chi and I spent the weekend there hanging out with the locals and dancing all night fri and sat. We listened to garifuna drumming everynight as well as some really good carribean food for cheap. My hotel room cost 3 U.S. dollars.
Sunday we left on a boat to Rio Dulce, it was a ride through a deep canyon with thick jungle and mayans bathing and doing laudrey along the way.
We went straight up to Flores, Guatemala, a deserted but very pituresque town that is in the middle of a huge lake, so its like an island. Basically Ice Cream Heaven. Really all there was to do was eat Ice Cream.
We then headed north to Tikal, the most bad-ass mayan ruins set in the middle of a beautiful rain forrest with howler monkey that roar like lions throughout the day. Chi took off in pitch dark to play drums at the top of a temple and had a runin with an armed guatemalan cop. It was funny.
Then I went back to Caye Caulker and spent a few more days there. I love that island.
Then I headed back to Cancun and did my last night in an all-inclusive resort.
So I'm leaving soon and I could not be more excited. Please write me letters and if you really want to, you can send me care packages. I would apprieciate it more than youll ever know. And if anybody is interested in coming out to Africa, that would be cool too. Yall are all welcome to. Well, back to the marathon.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes Jamie, alot of 'funny' things happened on that trip that seem to be strangely missing from your post... Like what I saw when the armed Guatemalan soldier escorted me back to our tent :O lol
I can't believe playing drums ontop of a temple is illegal and what you were doing WAS legal, geeesh, what a strange country.
/giggle