Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A little bit of home

Betsy and I have spent much of the past five days with my parents, who traveled down to Belize for the first time to visit us and vacation. It has been a great visit, and a nice diversion from the everyday routine of our lives here. Back home we take having an automobile for granted. Here we only have our feet and our bikes, and it's often ninety-plus degrees, so we don't wander far from home. Having my folks in town with an air-conditioned rental car gave us a chance to see Cayo District from a whole new perspective.

It was a little disorienting at first to spend time with my parents. After two months of gradual adjustments to life in Belize, I was surprised to notice how different our pace of lifestyle is from my parents'. We are accustomed to relaxed conversation, a casual sense of punctuality, and never being in a hurry to go anywhere. That naturally clashed with the objectives of a couple tourists focused on maximum enjoyment in a short time period.

After a day we adjusted to each other's internal schedules, and we took some cool side trips to the Mayan ruins at Tikal in Guatemala (I'll write more about that later) and the beautiful, isolated forest of Mountain Pine Ridge. It was great for Betsy and I to escape the mundane for a few days, and to spend some quality time with my family. And I think in spite of the bugs, the heat, and the third world-quality roads, Mom and Dad had an enjoyable time that they won't soon forget. All in all, it was great to share a little bit of our Belizean experience with some of our people from back home.

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