the back end of a year

One should never get too smug about people being seasick. Just as Aunt Bette started to get better on the way to Santo Tomas de Castillo in Guatemala, I got covered with what looked like bites, but now appear as Poison Ivy or Oak. It is aggravated by being in the sun and wind, which I have been for the last two days - perhaps my favorite days of the trip.

At anchor in Roatan, we went ashore in our first Garifuna commmunities of the visit. Garifuna is the name given to the cultures of the Afro-Caribbean peoples, many of them escaped or mutinied slaves, many of them also pirates. They are a wild and colorful people, and a significant minority along the Caribbean coast of Mesoamerica.

But I, along with several friends, went to 'Fantasy Island,' to swim and snorkel. I had not been swimming until this day, so I looked forward to seeing the fish on this gorgeous Caribbean reef, and to just plain swimming around. It was glorious.

The next day we arrived in Santo Tomas de Castillo in Guatemala, which was also a total pleasure. I went to visit the Mayan ruins of Quirigua, and then on to Rio Dulce, a town at the mouth of Lake Isabel. There, we boarded river boats which reminded me of fibreglass versions of the river boats of the Mekong Delta, except the ones in Guatemala were much faster. On the boats we zoomed down the Rio Dulce, to a restaurant on the waterside. Under thatched roofs and on decks over the water, we ate whole fish and rice and beans, drank beer, and thought about swimming like the little kids that paddled around in their small dugout canoes. But the water was pretty muddy and I don't really like muddy water when I don't know what's in it, so no swimming yesterday.

After lunch, we got back in the boats, and went zooming off again, down through a dramatic river gorge, on past the village of Livingston and out into the sea and back to our ship. It was a glorious day, beginning with ruins and ending with a long boat ride.

Now it is December 31, and I am taking it easy today because my skin is telling me to go home, stop being so much in the sun and wind, that there is a reason I live in the cooler climes. So I'm not going ashore in Belize City to find an old friend Julie Babcock...who lives on Caye Caulker not far from here. I am letting myself recover from the days of sun and wind, getting laundry done, and letting the drugs the doc has given me do their work. I HATE feeling so fragile, but I guess I'd better get used to it.

Celebrating the New Year will go on for a while aboard ship, and I have no idea whether I'll make it to midnight, but I do not regret much of this past year, so I'll be celebrating both the finish of this year and looking forward to the New. In the meantime, HAPPY NEW YEAR!