19 APRIL (Saturday)
In the morning we took a taxi to the airport, and left on a 8:35am flight to Mexico City. We changed planes in Mexico City, leaving there at 1:15pm, arriving back in Tijuana (Mexico) at 3:45pm. A taxi took us across the border into the United States, where we called my sister, who picked us up and asked all kinds of questions about how the trip had gone.

20 APRIL (Sunday)
The last day of my vacation from work was spent on resting and recuperating from the rigors of the prior two weeks. It was nice to have a "buffer zone" between the unrelenting schedule of the trip and the everyday grind of the job. If I had to do it all over again, I might have used it instead to squeeze in one last of exploring somewhere during the trip. All in all, though, I was very pleased at how everything had gone.


Slumped in a chair sleeping after the exhausting vacation.
(Actually, this is me dozing in the lobby of the Tikal Inn during the trip.)

We have guidebooks, fourteen hours of video (twelve hours shot by me, two hours of video purchased pre-shot), sixteen rolls of 35mm film (including 70 panorama shots), stacks of postcards, and assorted souvenirs to show for our efforts. The memories will of course last a long time, and when they start to fade, I can just review the pictures, videos, books, and audio tapes to bring it all back. It was an awesome experience, and will be hard to top, but that doesn't mean I won't try. As a matter of fact, I recently completed a two week trip to see all the ancient sites in Egypt. I had a great time, but I still think I enjoyed my Central American trip more. I also have a trip to go see Teotihuacan and the Aztec ruins coming up later in 1999. After that, it's off to South America to see the Incan ruins and Tiawanaku....

THE END (?)

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