THE GRAND ADVENTURE: NOVEMBER 2024: GUATEMALA

Saturday, November 30, 2024

NOVEMBER 2024: GUATEMALA

My second time to Guatemala, but the previous trip was 18 years ago. I am particularly drawn there by the Mayan culture and the colorful dress of the women who put in a lot of time with backstrap looms and intricate patterns.

What has changed since I was last there is the advent of cell phones, now ubiquitous around the world.

The highlight for me was an animal market in San Fracisco el Alta where farmers brought all manner of animals for sale, predominated by squealing pigs, but also included: cows, sheep, goats, ducks, chickens, geese, rabbits and even puppies.

MY BUCKET LIST

The idea for the "Life List" comes from the above link, and accompanying book: No Opportunity Wasted by Phil Keoghan:

TRIP WISH LIST: (Not necessarily in order of priority)

1. Bali

2. Mongolia

3. San Christobal, Mexico

4. Machu Pichu

5. Orangutans in Borneo

10. Chile

11. Back to my ancestral home: Scotland & England

12. Bhutan

13. Polar Bears in Churchill

14. Mexico City to see the Lucha Wrestling'

15. Goroko Sing-Sing in Papua New Guinea

16. The Western New Guinea Tribes on the Indonesian side.

17. Carnaval in Columbia

18. Snow Monkeys in Japan

19. Jaguars of Pantanal, Brazil

I haven't been everywhere but it is on my list!

"The average person in the United Kingdom has visited 10 countries. The French, on average, have visited five, whereas only 23% of United States citizens have ever been abroad."
12/2019: InternationalLiving.com

WHERE WE'VE BEEN

1. USA: Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, California, Washington, Washington D.C., Florida, Oregon, Minnesota, New Mexico, Utah, Texas, Georgia, Hawaii & Alaska

2. Canada

3. Mexico

4. Honduras

5. Guatemala

6. Nicaragua

7. Ecuador

8. Peru

9. St. Lucia

10. St. Vincents

11. Cuba

12. England

13. Scotland

14. Wales

15. Portugal

16. Amsterdam

17. Spain

18. Russia

19. China

20. Myanmar

21. Cambodia

22. Vietnam

23. Laos

24. Thailand

25. Singapore

26. Tibet

27. India

28. Papua New Guinea

30. Germany

31. Fiji

32. Ethiopia

33. Botswana

34. Namibia

35. Kenya

36. South Africa

37. Tanzania

38. Belize

39. Zimbabwe

40. Nepal

41. Australia

42. France

43. Japan

44. Switzerland

45. Uganda

46. British Virgin Islands

47. Costa Rica

LIFE
is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming,
"WOW, WHAT A RIDE!"
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"When I was five years old my mother told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down, "Happy!" They told me I didn't understand the assignment. I told them they didn't understand life."
John Lennon
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"Consider finishing your business before your lease is up."
Stephen Levine
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"Not busy being born, your busy dying."
Bob Dylan

LIFE

The greatest failure is not to live badly, but to not live at all.
Joseph Campbell
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Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on children than the unlived life of their parents.Carl Jung

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Many people die at twenty-five and aren't buried until they are seventy-five.
Benjamin Franklin
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If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms on life,
you must accept the terms it offers you.
T.S. Elliot
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Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.
Anonymous
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Don't avoid living now for what might happen in the future. We don't know the future, but we can determine the present.
Stephen Levine.
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Life is a way of traveling, not a station to arrive at.
Paul Pearsall
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What matters most is what you think about yourself. You must find the part in life that fits you, and then give up acting; your profession is being.
Quentin Crisp
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People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, make them.
George Bernard Shaw
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When we are finally honest with ourselves our lives are all that really belongs to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men and women we are.
Caesar Chavez
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LIFE isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.
Anonymous
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LIFE is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
George Carlin
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"The life we live is not cast upon us like a net, it is magnetized by our attitude."
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"Sometimes the obstacle's the path."

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"LIFE isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain."

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"I cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from passing over my head but I can keep them from building a nest in my hair."

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LIFE is like a camera. Focus on what is important, Capture the good times, develop from the negatives, and if things don't work out, take another shot!

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PHOTOGRAPHY

“At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is great and more interesting than we are. We never accomplish this perfectly---------”. Robert Adams

“A photograph is usually looked at—seldom
looked into”. Ansel Adams

“A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he is wearing or how he looks”. Richard Avedeon

THE GRAND ADVENTURE

A Philosophy of Radical Aliveness

LIVE LARGE & LONG!

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Saturday, November 30, 2024

NOVEMBER 2024: GUATEMALA