Let me first start off by saying, IT’S HOT HERE IN PUERTO BARRIOS, GUATEMALA. I mean REALLY HOT. The kind of heat that you walk outside and it’s like being mugged. Before you know it, you feel like somebody’s knocked the air out of your lungs and you wanna fall over immediately from heat exhaustion. Honestly, all you wanna do is crawl into some AirCon… as they refer to it overseas. Sadly, there is NO WAY OUT. The only relief you can find is to either walk to McDonalds to sit for a while, or find a watering hole somewhere to take a quick plunge. Even then the water is lukewarm. I feel like I need to wash my bed sheets daily due to the fact that during the night I wake up and feel like I’m laying in a puddle of water… Only to realize, it’s my sweat. Yep, it’s that hot.
I’ve had some down time this week to reflect over the past couple months. It’s crazy to think that a little over 3 months ago we boarded a plane from the unforgiving plains of Africa, only to find ourselves 12 hours later, in the frozen mountains of Romania… Complete with nearly 4 feet of snow in some place! It was nuts! I’ve never been so cold or seen so much snow in my entire life!
I’m quickly realizing though, that it’s very important to learn to be content no matter where you are or what your circumstances. Here on the World Race you learn that sometimes that means dealing with incredibly harsh climates. Haha, ironically, about 12 hours into being on the ground in Romania, we were all thinking back to our 110 degrees in Mozambique. The hottest we’d ever experienced. It was brutal. I think mostly because on Christmas you’re suppose to be looking outside at the snow, not laying under a bug net sweating your butt off.
My point is, we’re never really happy, are we? If it’s too hot, we wish we were in the snow. If it’s -1o degrees outside, we wish we were laying on a beach somewhere soaking up the sun. It’s a vicious cycle and we all fall victim to it.
I couldn’t help thinking back though to our month in the mountains of Romania. We couldn’t really do anything, none of us had winter clothes upon arrival, and you can’t really get very far in 3 feet of snow. The majority of the month, our 2 teams were cooped up inside, and before the end of the month the term “Cabin Fever” made COMPLETE SENSE to me and the others.
Here’s a little video I’ve compiled to give you a glimpse of what “Cabin Fever” on the World Race looks like. Hope you enjoy.
