Forming a Redoubt

Feeling like being more meditative and keeping up with my blog a bit more, so hoping to post more often. Some events the past couple weeks have made me think of this opening and closing of our lives in friendships and I went in search of this poem by e.e. cummings.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond by E.E. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Backpacking Adventures

My new tent on its first trip.
Around the campfire.
Vuyo in the rain with his pack.
The people that kept hiking in the rain at the end of the trip.

I have started backpacking this summer. There is a group in Albuquerque that plans trips at least once every month during the season. I have been on three trips so far and heading to Colorado Labor day weekend for a 3-day hike. It has been a blast! Certainly interesting going on a trip with people one has never met. The last trip we went to San Pedro Parks and it poured rain. Some people decided to camp where we stopped to formulate a plan about the rain and 5 of us continued to the campsite. We then continued for another 3 miles for a day hike and saw lots of elk.

Finishing the Travels in Central America

Lake Atitlan
Lake Atitlan
Santo Hermano Pedro
A view of Antigua

Ok, I am going to wrap up the travelogue. We traveled to Guatemala City with grandpa and then Nathan and I continued to Panajachel and Lake Atitlan by chicken bus. We stayed with a friend in Pana. Nate and I arrived at the beginning of a long deafening downpour of rain and so we settled into a restaurant with a bottle of wine and way too much food. We spent Friday wandering around Panajachel and hanging out with our friend - Dave. Then on the shuttle to Antigua, where I took Nathan to dinner at the Casa Santo Domingo, a hotel built around an excavated monastery. Dinner was all we could afford there. :) But it was wonderful!

Saturday we wandered around Antigua, it was nice to return to Antigua and show Nathan some of the little spots where I use to spend my time. Saturday evening we headed back to Guatemala City and spent the night with relatives and flew back to the states on Sunday.

Coban Imperial

We spent two days in Coban and wandered around the city. The rains fortunately only really came after we had returned to the hotel for the night. Nathan wanted a Coban Imperial soccer jersey and so after much wandering we made it to the team office and they only had youth jerseys. However, they did have a player jersey laying on the table that they were willing to sell for about $15. Then we took a bus with grandpa to Guatemala City and headed to Panajachel.

Getting Back to the Mayan Ruins

Lots of parasites on a tree.
Views of the temples in Tikal

My brother Nathan in front of the Gran Jaguar

After the wedding in Mexico City, Nathan and I headed to Tikal in northern Guatemala. We started there, in order to make sure that nothing kept us from visiting the ruins. :)
We spent 6 hours wandering through the jungle in search of all the temples, there were paths, but we didn't get a map and a few of them are rarely traveled. We stayed in Flores, which is a tiny island on a small lake. From Flores, we moved on to Coban to spend a few days with our grandpa.

Wedding Fanciness

The groom's family.

In the garden after the ceremony for cocktails.

Mexico City Wedding

My brother, Nathan, one of the groomsmen.
A photo of me!
The chapel where the wedding was held.
A view of the convent where the wedding was held.
The groom's son and best man.

Nathan and I had a friend get married in Mexico City 28 June, 2008. We traveled there for the weekend and Nathan was in the wedding. The wedding was at 12oo at a convent in a national park and there were cocktails in the garden next door afterwards. Then we moved to the reception at a Museum in the city. A 4-course meal was served, the band played for 5 hours and then the mariachi band started at 10 pm after a light snack. We left the reception at 11 pm. An impressive long party.

From there Nathan and I moved on to Guatemala.