Margaret

We just finished a weeklong visit with our old (well, SHE is not OLD, we just have been friends for a long time) and dear friend Margaret from Virginia. She just earned her MBA and reached a milestone birthday, so her friend Billy gave her tickets to visit us in Belize as a congratulatory gift. We gave her a place to stay and, we hope, a week where she had as much fun as we did. We just received an email from her that she’s home, exhausted and sore, but nonetheless coming off the high of a great week in the Caribbean.

We’re really not surprised that she was tired and feeling the muscles in her legs when she got home, because we didn’t give her a break. Her brother David and his family were here in December, and they told her what they thought she would like to do, and we agreed. Unfortunately for Margaret, Dave and family were here for two and a half weeks, and Margaret was here for only one week, so while we were able to intersperse a few kick-back-and-relax days between activities for Dave, Tamis, and the kids, for Margaret it was one adventure after another through the entire week.

We picked her up from the airport and stopped at the Belize Zoo, where we toured the whole Zoo and then had a Junior Buddy encounter.

The next day it was off on a full day tour to ATM and the Handprint Cave with Gonzo, followed by a half day at Barton Creek Cave with Selwyn and a shopping expedition into San Ignacio in the afternoon.

On Wednesday we spent the entire day at Caracol with Selwyn, and were lucky enough to see a Great Curassow, also known as a Punk Rock Chicken, on the road on the way into the site. On Thursday, Tom and Margaret took off for Hopkins for the day, where they swam in the Caribbean and walked the beach.

Then, it was back underground on Friday, when we went to Chechem Ha Cave and had a delicious traditional Belizean lunch prepared by Gonzo’s mother at her house.

Yesterday was the tearful goodbye at the airport, with Tom and I glad we’re living in Belize so our friends and family can come visit us and we love it here, but sad because seeing such a good friend after almost two and a half years and realizing that we probably won’t get together again for a long time made Belize seem very far from our old life in the US. But, we’re now getting ready for our next round of guests where we know we’ll make new friends, we have more good old friends already scheduled to come in August, and we’re hoping that we’ll have a few more visits from friends and family scheduled in the next few months. In the meantime, we won’t have any trouble keeping busy!