Sat reflecting on the wedding and what we had learned over the last week, we found we had a new respect for nature, for living not only off the land but seeing that the land produces what we need. Small things that would never normally cross our minds had become perfectly acceptable. On our way to Belize to collect Maya we stopped at a cave for a walk and alongside it was a beautiful blue pool.
Whilst in PG we had told Reyes we had booked into a hotel for a shower and he incredulously looked at us and said ‘why not just bathe in the river?’.
Why exactly?
Well because there aren’t so many rivers suitable to wash in where we lived for one, and secondly we didn’t know it was acceptable to wash in the river!
So here we are at this crystal clear pool which joins an underground river…and we get in for a wash!
It makes complete sense. Where there is clean running water, refreshed everyday in a stunning tropical setting instead of behind a filthy plastic curtain, why not?!
Because we have never had to thats why not.
Once Reyes had offered this suggestion it was as though we had been blind before and as we drove along we saw women doing their washing by the river edge, people soaping up their hair and dipping the babies in for a good rinse!
I’m sure you will all be wondering what we will come back like and we laugh ourselves but don’t worry, give us a warm shower and a fluffy towel any day and we are restored like a transformer back to our usual westernised selves!
With this new found excitement Alex decided tonight was perfect for going fishing with his stick. So I got covered in insect repellant, Alex however mistakenly got covered in fly killer (!!!!) and we set off just before sunset to the river which is apparently 20 minutes away…long story short…it must have been 20 minutes away by plane as it wasn’t an hour away on foot!
A muddy hour in we decided to give up and started walking back. Bickering away trudging through the mud we heard a rustling noise in the bushes. I stopped and listened but Alex was still on a rant and carried on a few more steps before he heard the rustle and stopped in his tracks. A split second later a wild pig ran out into the path in front of us…followed by another one, and then another one…and another one!
4 knee high, hairy black hogs ran across our path from one bush into another. They ran according to size in a row, big one first, smallest last. It all happened so fast but the funniest thing was Alex realising what was happening and aiming his stick in the pigs direction after they had run past. We stood there with our slack jaws for ages and finally laughed that we had just seen 4 wild piggies. What does it mean when a black pig crosses your path? Bet there’s an old wives tale for that one?
With the start to the next day in mind, I would say that having 4 black pigs cross your path means you are in for a whole world of crap!!!!
We woke up covered in bites…bed bugs or sand flies?
Peggy wouldn’t start!
We had an email from our agent to tell us they can’t do what we asked them to even after 6 months so have to deal with that and become our own agents overnight!
I try to submit our wedding to an online magazine which takes 4 hours over 2 days instead of 10 minutes.
We have a major scare when the blog wont allow us to upload images, it turns out that our host had changed our server…Thanks for letting us know…we spent a joint 6 hours trying to ‘fix it’!
Our route for the day is to San Ignacio and we are kindly imformed by Maya that the road is most likely to be closed as they have unearthed Maya ruins under the main street THAT VERY MORNING!!!

So the moral of todays blog post is…avoid pig paths!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!