Engagement

Compromiso

Marc and I were engaged on the 27th of August 2010 on top of a temple in Calakmul, Mexico. We had been backpacking the peninsula for almost two weeks, and he wanted to go into the bioreserve, which I was not crazy about, and take a bus to this "truck stop town" and then take a taxi two hours in the jungle. Well, I went along with it because I knew that he would always regret not seeing the Ruins as Calakmul, and I soon found out why he was so persistent about it!

Calakmul was an imperial city in the hayday of the Mayans, it housed about 50,000 residents and was discovered by Archeologists in the 1930's and is still to this day only 20% restored. It's largest temple was built to rival (and to be able to see) the largest temple at Tikal in Guatamala. It's such a fresh site that just walking around you could find pottery shards everywhere. Howler monkeys that sounded too close for comfort, and my goal to see the ever illusive, always present Tucan!

Marc and I climbed to the top of the largest temple (did I mention that there was pretty much nobody on the site the whole time we were there?) and we ate our queso and jabon sandwiches. It was a perfect day! By perfect I mean it was intensely cloudy which really helped with the muggy heat. After we ate I heard Marc breathing really heavily, like he just had reclimbed the temple. I asked him what was wrong, and he got down on on knee and asked me to be his wife. Literally the moment I said yes, it started to mist/rain, which is a sign of luck. And when I was hugging him, a keel-billed tucan landed in a tree that was still growing at the top of the temple trying to check us out. Pretty perfect!

The ring he proposed with was handmade from a Mayan tribe, I did get another one that I got to pick out, but this was a pretty awesome way to do it, because I have this great piece of jewelry with a great memory attached, and I got to get what I wanted afterward. Please note that it was incredibly hot during the trip, most toilets had no toilet seats so don't judge the pics of me, lol!