The Good Ol' USA

My trip is not yet over. It was supposed to be as of six hours ago, and it will be by the time I publish this post—when I get home and have Internet. (And for artistic purposes, I am going to post this as is, as written in the early morning, delusional from the lack of sleep and food and warmth). It is 4:03 am and I just woke up from the only two hours that I will be able to sleep in the absolutely freezing Houston airport. Under normal circumstances, I would have gotten into DIA around 10 pm, met my beautiful parents at the top of the overseas return escalator around 10:30, and enjoyed the car ride with my chicken Chipotle burrito that I have been thinking about for the past week straight since I emailed my request to my kindly obliging mother. Of course, these are not normal circumstances.

But enough lamenting; I am in this pickle mostly because of my own carelessness. I couldn’t have done it alone though, and I am here with one of my best pals, Shannon Conk, who is lying next to me looking like this:

We don’t have much to keep warm, but when I came back from changing into the long underwear and sweatpants I happened to have in my carry-on that is otherwise host to souvenirs and books, she had cracked into my luggage. She is wearing a pair of cloth shorts over her jeans, the tapestry that hung on my wall in my house in Xela, some woven pants wrapped around her head and neck, and some mittens. (At the time this picture was taken we had not found that beloved last treasure).

So anyway… it is mostly (not entirely) our fault because we failed to check the flight board and notice they changed our gate. We waited at the Dallas-Ft. Worth gate until 8:55 when they started boarding. When we got up to board ourselves, the scanner didn’t work and we were told we were at the wrong gate. And 8:55 was not boarding time for our actual flight, but the scheduled take-off time. Of course, the flight was on time, making it some ten minutes after departure when we finally got to the correct gate.

The other not-my-fault part is that the wrong gate was printed on our tickets. We were also late leaving from the Costa Rica airport because of a rain storm, and my checked luggage didn’t come through, so we spent some time waiting around and working that out.

Having to break it to my parents was hard, and met with the expected response from my dad, relayed to me through my mom (“she can take a taxi home when she gets here”) and greatly disappointing my mom who wanted very badly to see me. (I’m not just saying that… she really did, I swear).

So we were guaranteed spots on the 5:45 pm plane, but we are obviously hoping to make stand-by sometime before that, preferably on the next flight out. The last few days have sucked. After five months of being gone, I was just waiting to leave. I hardly feel like I was in my last destination, Monteverde, Costa Rica. I was too focused on changing my surplus of Nicaraguan money over to dollars, which I couldn’t successfully do because some of my bills were “too feo.” And from there, I knew it would just be to San Jose and then the airport.

These last days were funny. Quite reverse of my first few days of post-semester travel when I was financially dependent upon everyone until I worked out some banking stuff. I suddenly became the group mom, or at least the group sugar momma. With my excess money, I was able to bail many people out, whether it was sharing some of my dinner of tortillas and PB&J, paying for our last hostel, or paying the exit tax of $26 (maybe the most money I have spent in one place at one time since being here). It made me feel better about being such a leech the first week.

The good thing is I don’t have to take a taxi home. My mom cancelled her bridge playing to come pick me up. And my dad cancelled his men’s retreat to see me more than the hour it would have been if he otherwise went. I also have Chipotle waiting for me, which I might just have as a second breakfast, assuming I make it stand-by on the first morning flight. My first breakfast I am hoping will be Panda Express, which may or may not open before we leave.

I am incredibly excited to see everyone, although it will surely not be enough time, being as I leave for Minnesota in just a few days. And here I am wasting my first precious moments in the Houston airport, unable to sleep, which will undoubtedly catch up to me around noon today.

In the meantime I have two books of Sudokus, Ender’s Game, a promised slide show for the Eley family to prepare, and a lot of new music and stand up comedy courtesy of my friend Doug to keep me entertained.

Anything goes...

The last few days of my travels have been a bit hectic--even more hectic than it would normally be with seven 21 year olds with hardly a plan and hardly a dollar (or in my current case, a Cordoba) to spend.

We left beautiful Utila, Honduras early Sunday morning, after missing the afternoon ferry out Saturday while discussing whether or not we should actually pack up and get on it. I, of course, was happy to stay in Utila an extra night. We hopped on the morning ferry at 6:20, which was to start what would be a very long day of traveling.

Angela, who had been having trouble popping her ears while we were diving, did not feel too hot on the ferry. She is never one to complain, but just as we were about to buy our bus tickets from the coastal city of Ceiba to the capital city of Tegucigalpa, she suggested that she might need to go to the hospital instead of board the bus. Travis stayed back with her, while we forged on with our four months of luggage plus some of theirs, and without any guidebook (Angela had the only Central America-specific book). We agreed that one party would e-mail the other party as soon as possible, but Internet availability being what it is here, we had no idea when that would actually be possible.

So we made the 7-hour journey to the capital, took a taxi to a hotel, and were basically on lockdown until the morning. One guidebook (borrowed from some other gringos in the bus) said that certain areas of Tegucigalpa (such as the one we ended up staying in) are “dodgy during the day and downright dangerous at night.” Great. At least we managed to sweet talk the hotel workers into letting the five of us stay in one room with two double beds to save money. Although the beds were at least made, there were piles of freshly chewed sawdust atop them--evidence of termites in the ceiling. There were also pubic hairs beneath the sheets. The TV was locked in a cage.

While looking for Internet, a bank (aforementioned banking crisis was still not figured out at this point) and food, a nice man standing outside the hotel told us that one way was dangerous, and so was the other. He recommended the three chicken restaurants that surrounded the hotel and saving the other two errands for the morning. We ended up cooping ourselves up in the hotel eating beans and eggs inside the hotel cafeteria.

On the way to the bus station, I stopped at a bank and it was closed. It was pretty important that I get to a bank before the bus as my parents had wired me money to a bank that was only on the mainland and I was heading to Managua, Nicaragua as soon as I was in that bus. So I went back a second time and by then it had a huge line. After waiting in that line, I was told that they didn’t do money wires. At least I had Mike, who is the only remaining person who hasn't had any banking problems since our journey. All of my friends were very kind and generous in my times of need.

We rode seven hours in the bus, then were met by a taxista who assured us he could get all five of us plus our 20 or so pieces of luggage into one taxi for ride to Granada. Sensing our doubt, he pointed to Mike and me and said, “two skinny ones in front,” as if that would convince us that this would be possible. The trunk was open with our luggage tied in and down with a rope and we all had our smaller bags on our laps.

It wasn’t too bad, but I did have to shift my weight every time the driver shifted into fourth gear, which was under my left buttocks. While we were stopped at a light, police officers came up to the car and mentioned the possibility of our luggage getting robbed. Our taxista, Edy, said that he would avoid dangerous areas. Then the police officer pointed out that it was totally not legit to have so many people in the car. He justified it by saying we were tourists, and that we was just driving us a few minutes away (it’s an hour ride) and that he would drive “muy suave.” He gave us the latter line again when he insisted that Mike and I did not need to buckle up. No one uses safety belts here, so I think it is somewhat offensive to the driver if a passenger does so, but we did anyway, saying we trusted him but it was just for safety. His response was that we should trust in God. This was a battle he would not win either way.

We took advantage of the second part of the ride by using Edy as our guidebook, asking him about Granada (oldest colonial city in Central America, according to him) and the surrounding area. While pulling in, he thought it was necessary to point out the “turistas,” who he previously characterized as people wearing shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops, as if that was something only tourists wore in 90-degree weather. He pointed to two gringos, and identified them as tourists, and then pointed to a bum and identified him as not a tourist. Thank you, Edy.

Without a proper guidebook, we were left to ask Edy for suggestions on where to stay. He suggested one that was popular for “people with backpacks,” which ended up being full, but the one next to it had many vacancies. The beds were mere thin foam pads set upon metal and wood frames, and there wasn’t a sink. They did offer 10 free minutes of Internet at the Internet café across the street, which I needed since I didn’t even have money to pay for that. When we finally got connected, we found out that Angela and Travis had already managed to beat us here. We took a later bus and blew a tire along the way. They managed to get to the hospital, hop on a bus to Tegucigalpa right after ours left, and get on an earlier bus to Managua and Grenada.

Angela has a very nasty ear infection. She has to walk around with cotton in her ears for the next few days until all of the yellowness drains out.

Wednesday morning, we met up with the other two, ate waffles, switched over to their superior hostel, which has unlimited free Internet (although I couldn't connect to it most of the time), a free daily 10-minute phone call to anywhere in the world but Denmark, and much comfier beds, in addition to being set in a really charming colonial building with sweet murals. I used a computer to contact my mom, by which I found out that she was able to change my 10,000 Lempiras into 10,400 Cordobas. This is $500—money that I had asked for the week before when I needed half of that amount to pay the scuba classes and dives. I am trying to survive on $25/day for the rest of the trip, so needless to say, it is more than enough money.

Grenada was a really charming city, not unlike the two other colonial cities I have been to in the past four months: San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico and Antigua, Guatemala. But here, poetry is king. It is the birthplace of poet Ernesto Cardenal, some of whose works we read for my Liberation Theology class last semester.

On a primary school: "Poetry is the conscience of the earth."

Between two residences: "Poetry lives."

So now I am on the island of Ometepe--and island formed by two volcanos in the middle of Lake Nicaragua--reunited with the whole group and with my own money (albeit too much money) to spend. We leave for the beach of San Juan del Sur tomorrow morning, maybe to learn how to surf.

On a different and previous note… we rented an underwater camera our last day of diving, and took a lot of really crappy pictures. They are seriously awful. We couldn’t concentrate on both the photo-snapping and maintaining our buoyancy, but to prove to you all that I did it, that I have breathed 60 feet under water...

The group all together. I'm the third [full] human from the left.

Alex, me, Shannon, and Jordan after one dive and before another.

Our group with our dive instructors.

Dive Gear lined up in a row (photo by Shannon Conk).

Aprovechar- v. to take advantage of.

This is my new favorite verb. It can be used to sum up a lot of my time here in Central America.

In Xela I took advantage of cheap classes. I took 15 hours of weaving classes for the equivalent of $30, went to two weeks of unlimited aerobics classes with my host mom for $6, and took advantage of free public and relatively cheap private salsa dance classes.

Now I'm just taking advantage of being down here. I have no idea when I will have the opportunity to come back here, if at all, and that is why I am spending some time traveling around Central America. It is also why I was in absolute disbelief when my two original traveling compañeras (who also happen to be two of my roommates from last year and for this coming year) independently decided that they did not want to travel at all, but rather return home right after the semester ended. But either way, I am grateful not to be traveling with two people who would rather be somewhere else. I know it would be good to be home and good to see my family and friends, but I recognize that they will all be the same home, same family and same friends when I see them three weeks later! (No offense, homies).

So I was obviously forced to change plans, something that I am [still slightly bitter about but] also trying to take advantage of. My original plan involved traveling throughout Guatemala on chicken busses; visiting fewer sights but spending more time in each place. The upsides of my first plan: I wouldn’t have had to spend the money to change my flight out, I wouldn’t have had to spend so much money on transport in general, it would have be easier to meet people traveling in a group of three, it would have be way easier to make decisions as a group of three, we would get to practice our Spanish almost the whole time, and I would get to know Guatemala a little better.

But I am beginning to see the upsides of my new plan. Now we are in Honduras on the Bay Island of Utila, a colorful little place where almost everyone gets around by electric scooters, golf carts or bikes, with most of the children preferring a skateboardish contraption with two wheels and a swivel in the middle. There is a lot of diversity among the Hondurans--some are white descendants of the early settlers, some are Black Carib/descendants of the slave trade, some are native to Honduras, and many are ex-pats and diving fanatics from all over the world. Utila has some of the world’s best (and cheapest) Scuba diving, which is what brought my travel group here.

I initially foolishly thought that I would save the $250 and just bum around the town for the week while my friends got certified and did their open water dives, but then I reminded myself of my new friend “aprovechar.”

(My penny-wise mother might not appreciate this next part…)

One of our diving instructors, Oralion, reminded us that money comes and goes. We will most likely have the money in two months, but in two months we will not be here. We will be in the United States, where getting certified is more expensive and diving is not nearly as worthwhile.

Until a couple of days ago, that $250 was money that I did not exactly have access to, due to what I will sum up as “major banking complications.” (But thanks to modern technology, we have got it all figured out, right Mom?)

I traded in my $15/hr job as a day camp counselor with Denver Parks and Rec where I would live rent-free at the ‘rents house for a $10/hour job doing similar work up in Minnesota where I will have to pay rent. My parents seem to be worried that I don't have much money now nor will I make much money in the summer. I told my parents that this is the last summer that I will be able to get away with such "non-adult" behavior. I feel really great about what I'm doing now, and about what I'm doing this summer, though my parents might not. But I am going to go ahead and aprovechar this opportunity as well.