This is us on our honeymoon at Machu Picchu. What a way to kick off our lifetime adventure!

February 2023

From the time we booked this trip in 2019, we could not wait to go, but you know what happened next. (Thanks C-19!) After such a long wait, this experience did not disappoint! This is a private post and not an advertisement, but I would be remiss not to mention that our tour experience was planned and executed by Adventures by Disney (ABD.) Our deepest thanks to Liz, Mostafa and Kareem from ABD who all helped make this trip truly a once in a lifetime experience! 

Cairo is a modern and bustling city where traffic and pedestrians co-exist and intermingle in hair-raising, adrenaline-spiking ways. The people were lovely and the food was amazing. 

Here is a view of Cairo Tower and the views of the Nile from the top of the same.

There is a lot of anticipation for the Grand Egyptian Museum, aka The GEM, but it was not yet open at the time of our visit. Instead, we got the "classic" visit of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo where there was a special exhibit of King Tut's artifacts including his jewels, headpiece, and sarcophagus. All of these things are copyrighted for photos, so you won't see images posted here, but it was absolutely astonishing to see the capability of these ancient people to do intricate gold and jewelry work. 

King Tut's innermost sarcophagus is made of 260 pounds of gold! 

Dated to around 1200 BC and attributed to Ramses II, this temple was the unexpected treat of our trip. It is grand in scale and full of gorgeous images.

To get here, it's a 25 minute flight or a 4.5 hour drive. Worth it!

This is why King Tut is so popular, even though he didn't reign very long and died at the age of 19, likely from Aphrodite's disease.

The fact that this tomb was found intact and didn't see the light of day accounts for why the paintings on the walls are still so vivid. Nothing has been restored - it's all original...

And we'd like to thank our fellow ABD tour group members who also helped to make this trip memorable and fun, and with whom we shared laughs and experiences that we will always remember.

As is typical for long-haul international flights, we left late at night to catch our 2:00 am flight and begin the journey home. This is one last view of the Nile from the Ritz Carlton Cairo.

November 2022

Chris and I spent another Thanksgiving in paradise as I successfully avoided the weeklong stress of planning, shopping, and cooking a holiday meal that would be over in less than 20 minutes and leave me exhausted.

This is us at the little Italian restaurant hidden away in a corner of the airport in Belize City. At this time, it's the only place where you can sit down to eat and drink and watch a television. We took this selfie as we waited for our flight and you san see how happy (and tan) we were at the end of this trip. The blue orb in my hair is a bonus. It's not an earring or a berry. It's just there. An inexplicable extra. But we take it to mean very, very good things, because after all, look at those smiles!

Thank you to the people of Belize in San Pedro and Caye Caulker and Belize City. We are grateful for our experience and for your hospitality!

Special thanks to Jefferson, our cave tubing and howler monkey tour guide,  the owner at Frenchy's who made sure I had the most deliciously unexpected French meal in San Pedro, and to our week-long personal driver Rigoberto Patt who helped us get from place to place safely, confidently, and on-time, and who shared stories of his life with us.  We are eternally grateful.