Re-Entry

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If “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step,” then surely it must end standing in front of the baggage carousel at the airport. There was something disheartening about seeing the backpack I’ve carried down dirt roads and across towns and thrown on and off countless buses, emerge from the conveyor belt to be dumped with all the other luggage—the roll-ons, the Samsonite look-alikes, the suitcases with no stories to tell. Though, to be honest, since this was a flight that originated in Guatemala, there were several cardboard boxes held together with tape and string. Looking at … Continue reading →

End of the Road

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I’ve spent the last few days back in Guatemala, on familiar ground around Lake Atitlan. It feels good to be back, and even more so, perhaps, because the time left is so short. I’ve been in Central America—Guatemala and Nicaragua—for nearly three months, but I don’t remember ever feeling less inclined to go back home. Just before Faye and I left Nicaragua we began thinking about our next adventure. Maybe someday we will leave home and not come back. But not just yet… It’s been a trip.

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Beach Bumming

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The first couple of weeks in Nicaragua we took the roads less traveled—by foreign visitors anyway. There were always plenty of locals. For the last two weeks we abandoned the search for culture, hidden hotspots or something of even moderate interest, and instead went to the beach. Actually two beaches, just about as different from each other as possible, one on the ocean, the other on a lake. There are a string of nice beaches all along the Pacific Coast, mostly undeveloped or barely. Some stretches, mostly in the south, near Costa Rica, are being developed into instant communities marketed … Continue reading →

Pissin’ in the Wind

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One of the challenges of bus travel in Central America is making it to your destination without having to go to the bathroom. It is agonizing to be bumping along with a full bladder, playing mind games and calculating the seconds before the next stop. It is a problem all passengers face, of course. I don’t know how the locals cope with it; on travel days we try to limit our fluid intake before getting on the bus, then hope for the best. But there are times when that just doesn’t work out. There are more options for men than … Continue reading →

Room with a View

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Our two weeks in Costa Rica, after we got out of San Jose and up into the mountains of Monteverde, were idyllic, about as good as it gets. Our friends Michael and Janet lent us their comfortable guest house with gloriously hot water in the shower, a full kitchen, king sized bed and a million-dollar view out over the Pacific lowlands, the gulf of Nicoya, and beyond to the Nicoya Penninsula. (The picture does not do it justice.) As I mentioned before, the three of us went to journalism school together. We all worked at it for a few years, … Continue reading →