Central America bound

Guatemala, here I come! After easily snagging a Business Class seat from Portland to Seattle tonight, I'm about to board the next leg of my standby journey: Atlanta. My Atlanta to Belize flight in the morning looks too full to score Business Elite class, but I should at least get an Economy Comfort seat.

(Update as I leave Atlanta: I'm sitting in a Business Elite seat to Belize, after all!)

From Belize City, I'll hop a bus to Guatemala to spend the evening and next day in Tikal. The jungle bungalow near the entrance to the Mayan ruins still had one more vacancy, so I jumped on it.

Follow my photo journey on my private Instagram Story!
(When I have WiFi)

On Monday night, I'll bus it back to Belize to meet Kathy in Caye Caulker (we're doing separate vacations, really). We're splitting up the next day so she can lounge on the beach while I do Garth stuff: Jungle hiking, swimming, snorkeling, and cave tubing.

Next Time- Central America

Several friends who read last weekend's post about leaving for Ecuador (link) on Friday have been asking left and right:  What's up with the Garth sightings all over town this week?

The answer:  My plans to climb Mt. Cotopaxi over the weekend were foiled by full flights out of PDX.  Plan B, a Chinese weekend in Beijing, also hit a snag due to last minute troubles with documentation.  Such is the life of a standby traveler.

No regrets.  The weekend was freed up to catch up with friends, groove to some live music, and go on a couple of local hikes/trail runs.

When a bachelor weekend of climbing Ecuador's Mt. Cotopaxi falls through, sometimes you've gotta settle for a treacherously icy trail run on the Lower Macleay trail up into Forest Park.

But I also stayed home and knocked out some of those travel-time projects I mentioned on Friday, like a responsible adult?  Right?  (Coyly clears throat).

The only bummer was the timing.  Kathy and Lena were out of town for our sister Cheryl's bachelorette party, so I was a bachelor for yet another weekend.  This cute little face was desperately missed:

Lena bangs on an old laptop keyboard, makes a mess, and flashes another variation of her scrunchy-faced smile of excitement for Daddy.

Rescheduling another international weekend getaway will be a breeze.  My extra vacation days (for flight "bump protection") at Delta were easily cancelled.  Who knows where in the world my next mini-trek will be? Central America? Asia? Europe? South Africa?

If it's South America, then Ecuador or Belize would really hit the spot.

Coming this Friday on BlogSpot...

Crash! Do Jeep Wranglers really have nine lives?