Good afternoon https://goo.gl/V4vsCF Lisa Roell Turano

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Home in Asheville

Well, we're back for one last entry. This blog wouldn't be complete without photos of our new home in the mountains. It's truly wonderful to have a "home" again, after three and a half months of wandering!

For those of you who know Asheville, we are in the Montford neighborhood, which is a gorgeous area filled with 1920's mansions (clearly we are not living in one of those!), and is walking distance to downtown. We have this million-dollar view of the mountains, and the sunsets are spectacular! (If only we could remove those darned power lines....)

In addition to a great front porch, we have a sweet deck that wraps around the side and back of the house, and a nice size back yard. I can't wait for summer - I may never go inside.

We're mostly unpacked, and dealing with the challenges of a tiny house (under 700 square feet) with only ONE tiny closet. We're having to get a little creative............

Our next challenge - we'll have to begin the job search after the holidays. It's sad, but the time has come - after four months of "playing", the bank account is looking a little weak. We'll keep you posted on any news on that front!

Well, the last quarter of 2007 has been an adventure. Here's hoping that 2008 brings health, happiness and peace to us all........

Happy holidays to everyone and thanks for "tuning in" to our blog!

And the Journey Continues......... (Lisa)

Hello to anyone out there who is actually still checking our blog!

As some of you may know, we are still on the road. We spent a week in Asheville, finding the perfect rental house, but it won't be available until sometime during the first week in December. So, in the meantime, the vacation continues!

We've had time to visit some wonderful old friends (the Shaw family in Atlanta, Sean in Milledgeville, GA, and Stuart in Atlanta) and some wonderful family (Anthony's sister Elizabeth and her kids in Milledgeville). We are currently visiting Anthony's mother in New Orleans, where we'll spend Thanksgiving!

Today we had the full New Orleans experience, starting with a streetcar ride to the French Quarter, and Cafe du Monde (a coffee stand dating back to 1862) where we had beignets and cafe au lait. We walked through Jackson Square, and admired all the gorgeous architecture in the quarter. We had lunch at Johnny's Po Boys, a New Orleans institution. (Click here for info on Johnny's and the po boy.) It's all about the food, isn't it?

On our way here, we stopped to catch the LSU vs. Ole Miss game in Oxford, Mississippi. That was an experience (especially for someone like me who doesn't even understand the game). It was actually a lot of fun, and I kind of got into it! (By the way, LSU won - that's "our" team.) For those of you following such things, LSU is currently ranked #1 in the SEC. Yay LSU!

After Thanksgiving, we'll be leaving New Orleans (and the nice warm weather) heading for Indiana (and my family). Brrr. We're hoping to squeeze in a visit to friends in Chicago (why not?) also. We will be ready to settle in and never leave our house once we move in, let me tell you!

About that house: It's tiny (only one bedroom), but very cute. It has a front porch, and a deck that wraps around two sides of the house. It has a woodburning stove, and a view of the mountains! It's in an awesome neighborhood called Montford, which will be great for walks. It's walking distance to downtown Asheville and Greenlife Grocery. It's about a thirty second walk (literally) to the park where the Montford Park Players perform plays in their Shakespeare Festival from June through October. And there's a handy little nook in the house where our inflatable mattress will fit nicely, when you all come for visits.......... Oh yeah - it's on Gay Street. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) We'll post photos soon.

Stay tuned - we'll update you on our wandering soon!

Back in the USA (Lisa)

Well, we made it back to the good ol' US of A. It was a mostly uneventful journey - well, with the exception of our taxi in Belize City breaking down on the way to the airport. (A good samaritan picked us up and drove us the rest of the way and all was well.) It's a bit weird readjusting to the pace here after six weeks south of the border! But, we're doing our best to re-acclimate slowly. In the meantime, here's a list of some of the things we'll miss, and others we're happy to be done with:

Things we'll miss:

• $15 hotel rooms
• the turquoise waters of the Caribbean
• CD's being sold on the street for $2 or less (yeah, they're pirated)
• the sound of grackles (bird) in the morning
• fried plantains!
• fresh fish dinners for $6 or less
• meeting interesting people from all corners of the world
• Mayan ruins
• hearing the wacky Kriol language of Belize ("bwoi, you daag oagli!" = boy, your dog is ugly)
• candlelit dinners on Turneffe atoll
• howler monkeys!
• strolling through the streets of 500-year-old colonial cities like San Cristobal de las Casas

Things we're okay doing without:

• sand flies
• language barriers ("No hablo bien el espanol.")
• the constant worry about food and water making us sick
• having to put used TP in a trash can instead of flushing (Guatemala & Mexico)
• always having to track down a waiter to ask for the check (we were given the check without asking exactly TWO times in six weeks)
• milk from a box (very little fresh milk available)
• having to "do math" to figure out what things "really" cost (pesos, quetzals, and dollars, oh my!)
• really crummy quality TP and napkins
• worrying about botflies (go ahead, click on the link!) and malaria

Anyway, I'm sure there are many more things for the lists, but you get the general idea..... Overall, we're kind of happy to be back, and a little sad, too.....

We'll keep posting to this blog, as the adventure will continue. Phase one of our adventure is complete, now comes phase two: creating our new life in Asheville! Stay tuned.....

Turneffe Atoll (Lisa)

Hello all! Well, we have been absent from the blog for a while now. We've been on a semi-deserted island for several days, without electricity and running water - and it was awesome!

While we were in San Ignacio, I became re-acquainted with my friend Maria's uncle Elias, who owns a dive camp out on Turneffe Atoll. He offered us a sweet deal to go out to the camp for several days, basically paying only for his boat fuel. We couldn't pass that up!

We left the dock in Belize City, and two hours later we were on the island, in our little cabana on stilts. The camp is in fairly rough condition right now, post-hurricane (Felix). Normally they have a generator to provide power and pump running water, and a butane stove to cook with, but both were stolen after they evacuated for the storm. So, we cooked over a fire, and bathed with a bucket. We lit our room with candles. It was all good. There were only four of us out there - Anthony and me, Elias, and his helper Victor, who lives out there and guards the place (when there's no hurricane).

The food - well, it was beyond awesome. Victor whipped up a fresh batch of coconut rice daily (made with fresh coconut milk). We snorkeled for conch, which Elias turned into a magical stew. We ate fresh mutton snapper and fresh hog snapper, caught by Elias' fisherman pals (he ran us around in the boat to visit various rickety old fish camps and meet his friends - and scavenge a fish or two). We ate like kings.

Besides the snorkeling for conch, we also snorkeled at a reef called Coral Gardens, which is gorgeous. The reef there is very alive, it's amazing. Lots of fish - including one very inquisitive barracuda, which made both of us nervous when it made a beeline for us (I'm sure he was just curious, but damn, those fish look mean). Anthony helped Elias clean the bottom of the boat, and a good time was had by all.

We also stopped by the Blackbird Caye Resort (fancy resort, closed right now), and the staff who live out there fed us some lunch (rice and beans, slaw, and pig tails for those non-vegetarians among us). Elias is quite good at scrounging a free lunch, as well as fresh fish! (These folks out on the remote islands seem to help each other out and share whatever they have. It's nice.)

The first cold front of the season blew through while we were out at Turneffe - that was exciting. Our little cabana was shaking in the wind gusts - it was quite an adventure. (It wasn't really cold, just windy as heck.)

Anyway, this morning we came back in to civilization, and hopped a boat out to Caye Caulker (a pretty well developed island with all the tourist amenities). No cars, just golf carts and bikes. Nice..... We're at the Tropical Paradise Hotel , for just $20US a night. Beachfront, private balcony. We're happy! We'll be here for another few days, and we'll fly back to the good old USA on Halloween.

Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave (Lisa)

Hello from Belize!

We made it safely back into the land of English speakers! (Although you hear as much Spanish and Belizean Kriol here as you do English.) My friend Maria (from my 2000 and 2001 visits) has rolled out the red carpet, and we are staying for free at one of her hotels here. Incredibly sweet deal. That has allowed us to do some more expensive tours such as:

ATM Cave: I'm not sure I can describe this place and do it any justice at all, but it ROCKS! We drove about an hour into the bush, mostly on a very rocky, bumpy road. We hiked about 40 minutes through the jungle, feeding the mosquitos and wading across the Roaring River three different times on the trail. Then, the fun stuff. We put on our helmets with headlamps, and jumped into the (very deep) pool at the mouth of the cave. We swam through the entrance, and crawled out inside the cave. We then began a half-mile journey into the depths - not an excurison for the faint-hearted or out-of-shape! The river runs through the cave, so we alternately swam, waded through rushing water, climbed and clambered up boulders, wedged ourselves through crevices - all in complete darkness with just our headlamps for light. (There were only the three of us, Anthony, me, and our guide Juan Carlos.) The deeper we got, the more stalactites and stalacmites we encountered, glittering in our lamps like diamonds. Incredible.

Deep in the cave, we came to the "dry chamber" where we continued walking in stocking feet (so as not to damage the limestone with the oils on our skin). We began to see pots everywhere, just lying around. The Maya used this cave for offerings and sacrifices, and the pots contained food offerings over a thousand years ago. There were bowls there which they had used to collect the blood from bloodletting ceremonies (piercing penises and nipples, according to Juan Carlos). Ouch. We were allowed to walk freely among the artifacts, which is incredible. (Tourists have already crushed a few pots in the 8 years or so the cave has been open.) Then, we were walking among some skulls. Again, walking freely around them! (That would NEVER happen in the US!) These were the bones of the sacrificial victims the Maya offered up to Chac, the rain god. The archaeologists can tell that one of them died with hands tied behind his back, facing the wall. Definitely an unwilling victim. We were standing at a 1200-year-old murder site.

The grand finale was at the end of the dry chamber. We had to climb a very high ladder up to a ledge, and there lay a complete skeleton, frozen in the limestone. They call her the "Crystal Maiden". The skeleton is a female, about 5 foot 2, according to the archaeologists. Another murder victim, frozen in time. (It almost feels like you can still hear her screams echoing through the chamber.) Creepy. According to Juan Carlos, these sacrifices were most likely performed during times of drought, and the victims were often prisoners captured from enemy tribes. (Although it was also considered an honor to be sacrificed, and they sometimes sacrificed one of their own.) Either way, the Maya were kind of a rough bunch, in my opinion!

Anyway, we spent about two hours underground with the bones and whatever spirits remain. Pretty incredible experience.