waiting & wishing

Have you ever seen the national bird of Guatemala, the Quetzal, it's magnificent? Lately I've become obsessed with them. They're so gorgeous with that long colorful tail and cute little beak. But of course just like everything else in nature, it is the male quetzal that has the striking good looks. Sadly though, the quetzal population is dwindling due to deforestation. Through the years, the birds have also resorted to moving higher up into the mountains, making it harder for them to be studied and for tourists to appreciate them.

Did you know that the cute bird on our blog header is a Quetzal? Although it has a bit more of a fairly tale look to it than the real thing, I'm dreaming about having a painting made (that looks like the bird in my header) so that I can have this beautiful bird grace the walls of my home forever. With any luck one of my talented painter girlfriends will also think the Quetzal is inspirational too! (Tamara, Debora, Kayla....who's feeling it too? Just kidding!)

Unfortunately it's super rare to actually see one here in Guatemala (we hear they are much more common in Panama & Costa Rica), but we've got our sights set high. Aside from becoming perfectly fluent in Spanish (ha!) our goal for our year in Guatemala is to see a Quetzal in the wild. We hear there's a possibility of a sighting in a biosphere outside of Coban, so one of these weekends we're going to give it our best shot. Wish us luck!

What do you think.....should I?