Inspiration to write this post hit me this morning after I started thinking about what items I always put on my packing list for travels,…
The one thing that made me happy in the Bahamas: Conch! I love the way the word sounds so dirty and I love the way it tastes! 
…..Oh Ireland. I love thee. I especially love thee men. The warning my aunt gave me before I flew over to Ireland from London was, “Irish men are charming. But, remember they’re charming to all women..not just you”. Being a flirt…I couldn’t wait.
The situation at Guatemala City’s dump is so dire that there are coffins spilling out from the earth into the dumpsite; some of the coffins are deliberately pulled out and thrown into the dump with the rotting corpse inside – based on if the purchaser of the coffin has paid for the plot, which they have to continue to pay every year for what seems like eternity, regardless if the family is living or dead.
…..Another, grotesque fact [in New Orleans] is that the graves are designed to be like ovens and suitably called “oven crypts”, because of the humid heat the “oven crypts” helped decompose the bodies faster, hence, allowing family members and others to reuse the tomb in the future.
Tikal, home to exhibitionist Spider Monkey’s (who gave me the spread eagle every time I took a picture of them), scary Jaguars, growling Howler Monkeys, Toucans, a random Ceiba Tree, and to the Massassi Outpost as seen in Star Wars IV: A New Hope. Yup, Tikal was an eye-opening, wonderful personal experience, but also a perfect learning experience about one of the first cultures in the world that left me thinking I had visited Yavin and I had been instilled with a rebel spirit that led the rest of my trip with wild abandon.
While we were zigzagging all the way south through dusty streets, which really should be one way streets for chicken buses, we drove through a town advertising boots! As you can imagine, my eyes lit up. Every store we passed by was painted a bright bold color with images of colorful handmade cowboy botas!
All of a sudden yesterday I had a craving for a combination of black beans and chocolate (not as disgusting as it sounds). Rellenito’s are small platano cutlets with a chocolate and black bean filling. It’s a very rich desert that will definitely satisfy the surprise chocolate craving.
This an unedited video I took of the workers in the Copavic Glass Blowing factory in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.
was sitting at the bar the other day with Alyssa and Laura (the two friends I made through a cooking class I took at Frijol Feliz) when Alyssa says the one thing she read in her travel book about city of Antigua, a UNESCO world heritage site, is that street dogs go missing mysteriously in the night.
I asked an old gentleman at the door for the number to a taxi company and he had non. Right as I was asking him if he had the equivalent of the yellow pages – in broken Spanish – he ran to the gates gesturing me to follow him. He whistled to cab and it whished past him. He then gestured for me to run to the other side. So, I’m basically running around the large museum buildings after this old man who is yelling things in Spanish. By this time a group of boys and men have gathered on the museum steps and are whistling and laughing at me while I am running after the old guy.
Ok so here’s what I have on my list of things to take to Guatemala:
1. 100% Deet bug spray 
2. 3 pairs of jeans and 2 linen pants
3. Back pack and sleeping bag
4. Travel size toiletries
5. Espresso trail mix
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