and we're off!

I went back to the doctor today. It wasn't so much that I was convinced that something was wrong, I just wasn't convinced that everything was alright. This is what happens when every plan falls through over and over again over 8 months. I am not trusting my body as I should. My body hasn't been behaving as it should. We must spend some time reconnecting. My plan is to leave this coming Saturday for Guatemala, head to Belize for the Garifuna Settlement Day festivities, back to Guatemala to meet mom and venture south through El Salvador, where she will fly home and I will continue on to Nicaragua for another 3 or 4 weeks. No return ticket purchased yet, but somewhere around the first week of January.

Doc said everything really was fine, that my pain is healing and muscle related, and moving in the right direction. No abscess, no infection, just a tender scar. This good news pumped me up, and I began closing the circle on the inquiries I've made. And within an hour, this is what happened:

My friend Athena's cousin, Carolina, who lives in Guatemala City, has offered to pick me up from the airport and transport me to Antigua.

My friend Pauline made arrangements for me to drop my extra bag of cold weather clothes and other gifts and necessities to be shipped by the luggage fairies to the city (Quetzaltenango) these things need to be in so I no longer have to carry them. I haven't met these fairies yet, but I already love them.

The crazy treehouse with volcano views is available to me at Earthlodge. Comes complete with a bathroom with HOT water, on an avocado farm during avocado season. And oh yeah, by the way, we have a visiting Americana musician playing music and we are having a BBQ that day. Guacamole music fest in a treehouse. You can't make this stuff up and I love it!

That's just day 1.

The Santiago and Sumpango Sacatepequez Kite Festival for Dia de los Muertos is on Nov 1, and Carolina also wants to share this with me. I equate this with someone from New Orleans sharing Mardi Gras. What an amazing experience with someone from the area.

More is in store. This may be the most planned trip I've ever taken, but so far this is working in my favor, so this is good. I am hoping Carolina will also join me for the weekend at Lago de Atitlan.

Quetzaltenango plans will be it's own post.

In all honesty, the fact that I can actually envision myself getting onto a plane for an adventure is enough to be grateful for. I've been working on that lemonade for some time. It's time to move forward on this adventure I've been seeking, regardless of the order it's presenting itself. I am a little homesick for NOLA, and thinking about a stop there en route to Bahrain in the spring. But that's another story I just can't jinx again. If ever there was a time to embrace being in the moment, this has been it. All year.

Tenga un buen noche.