Susan C: Now comes the start of the fun part. Always frugal (cheap) and usually broke, we started looking at airfares. $536 r/t from Seattle to Belize didn't seem too bad. That we can handle. But came the day to book the flights and we got the scare of our lives! The prices were up in the $1500 range. Well! That wasn't going to work. We checked everything online of course and then called the airlines. The least expensive we could find was American for $618. This just seemed too high so...

We went to priceline.com and what a treat that turned out to be! We naturally started low - one third less than the advertised price and were rejected. Oops! So we tried again. And again. After four tries we hit the jackpot. $425 r/t. Admittedly it's a red-eye flight but what the heck. We figure we will have time to catch up in a hammock on the beach somewhere. Three days later, our tickets were delivered to my door by FedEx. "Guess what!" I instant messaged (AIM) to Susan. "What?" "The tickets are here - whoo hoo."

From then on it's been difficult to think of much else. We've ordered our books Lonely Planet Guatemala, Belize, Belize : The Rough Guide, Explore Belize (Adventure Guide Series) and a Belize Travel Reference Map of the country. Now the dream is becoming reality.

Jan 30. Last night I was checking on e-Bag for a backpack to carry my laptop and digicam on the trip. I found a good one and they have a really good assortment. Again, being extremely budget minded, I think I will get a fairly inexpensive one. It's big and looks like a normal backpack. As we will probably be traveling a lot by bus, we won't be taking much with us and a backpack makes sense. I am also going to check if I can find a less expensive car rental than I have seen so far. $80 a day is a bit much, I think.

I also need to make sure that Chelsea is taken care of while I'm gone.

Notes: Check on digicam prices. Car rentals. Sort out clothes - what to take - not much!

A digicam will be such a cool thing to have so we can upload pictures while we are on the road. Apparently there are some internet café's and I think that some of the guesthouses will allow us to log on to upgrade the site and do pix of the trip.