Goodnight America

Austin, Texas, isn't trying hard to woo me in my last few days in its arms. The weather has been grey and rainy and generally unTexas like. There's been no impetus to get up before eleven. The girls in the house I'm staying are all systems go, getting back into a new semester, reading, learning, homeworking. It's so odd to observe it and not be involved. It feels kind of wrong.

Instead, I'm reading my Central America Lonely Planet, children's books about the Maya, and my Spanish textbook. I'm making lists, trying not to be worried about descriptions of tropical diseases, and getting excited. On Thursday morning, early, I fly out to Cancun, Mexico. It'll take me a few days to get from there to Belize, where I'm going to be volunteering at Barton Creek Outpost, somewhere in the jungle. Mmmm, jungle. I feel like there will be lots of jungle in the next couple of months, mixed with volcanoes and Mayan ruins and white sand beaches.

This is the trip that will turn me into a veteran backpacker. All my traveling before has been in lots of about three weeks before returning to somewhere familiar. This time, it'll be two or three months before I'm back in the States. Finally, I will earn my stripes.