Due to unfortunate time constraints (alas, the end of my trip is in sight, I cannot even begin to think about that for fear of a nervous breakdown so we will gloss over that one), I found myself on a bus from Panama City to Guatemala City. Am I really going back to the US? I don’t think I will believe it myself until I see myself get on the airplane. I remember my mom picking me up from the airport after Eastern Europe and her saying she was worried I wouldn’t really come back, now, to be honest, I fear the same thing here. But, vamos a ver.

It was actually a rather strange experience to be traveling through countries that I have already been to, I visited Central America about four years ago for Christmas and New Years. I saw familiar sights and the familiar borders, most of which were pretty dreaded. Crossing through

Central America this time was a rather uneventful trip, once again with everything working out somehow. For example, a guy on my bus sitting behind me asked me what hotel I was planning on staying in (mandatory 5 hour stop in El Salvador) and I told him and he said it was one of the more dangerous hotels in the city, suggested another, so I went to the other one with him and another guy (which I know sounds sketchy, but it wasn’t, there was nothing remotely strange feeling about it, it felt like genuine concern) and that worked out well. Then arriving in Guatemala City, I wanted to get right out of there and was a little stressed about getting to Antigua, but I met someone else who told me he was renting a car and driving to Antigua and invited me along. So that just goes to show how things ALWAYS seem to work out in amazing ways while traveling.

It was nice to chat with people on the bus too and tell them that I am going to Guatemala to study Spanish and have them say I don’t need to study Spanish I can already speak it, even though I know they were lying through their teeth and I was only pretending to understand what they had to say!

But it was a nice journey through the past to watch the world go by and think about all that has happened between my last trip to Central America and now. I mean, think about where you were 4 years ago and all that has happened, the things you have done, the places you have been. What a crazy ride! I am amazed at how much can happen so quickly. So I thought I would wax nostalgic (surprise, surprise) and write about a memory from each country from my last trip.

Costa Rica: I went here with my mom and it was so great to travel with her. I even got her up surfing at one point and she was a natural. We took mud baths in a river in the rain forest with huge blue butterflies, went to Christmas Eve church service in a little church in the mountains and had a great time. Funny how much shorter anecdotes on tamer parts of the trip are, looking at the length of the other countries, but not to diminish how much fun I did have with my mom.

Nicaragua: I was in Granada for New Years, and worried how it would be since I was alone, but met up with a great group of people, including a German, Stephan who wound up traveling with me for the rest of my trip. It was a little funny to travel with him though because he was so freakishly good looking that I couldn’t carry on a conversation with him. He would be talking to me and I would just have to stare at his face, completely miss what he is staying and try to abstain from touching his face and saying, “ Wow, you’re pretty.” But distracting hotness aside, he was a great travel companion, always up for adventure and always with a smile on his face.

We sat on a wall for the countdown in a huge field with a random horse in it that I tried to make friends with. Nights in Granada were spent playing with the local street children, watching guys drum these amazing and huge drums and setting off fireworks. It was all so random but worked out in such a great way. Later, arriving in the city of Leon, Stephan and I got swept up in some parade with the Bishop of Nicaragua, or something like that, all the craziness of the random festivities that seem to erupt on Latin American streets was positively contagious.

Honduras: I pointed at Honduras at a map to find a random city that no tourists would go to that I had never heard of. In fact, I almost wound up off the map which is how we ended up in the city of Amapala on a little island just off the coast of Honduras. Definite adventures ensued.

We got lost on a volcano, which sounds difficult, I mean, you think, you just hike up right? Not that simple. Or maybe we were just that slow. But we finally, made it to the top, literally bleeding all over from scratches of brambles, only to be met by a guy with a machine gun; pointed at us. That was the first time a gun was ever pointed at me, come to think of it, and we were terrified. We were obviously trespassing, nobody would have known if he shot us, and when we turned and walked away, the man still with his gun aimed at us, both of us were terrified we would be shot in the back.

We were a bit of an oddity on this island since it doesn’t see many tourists so news traveled quickly and local kids rode their burrows over to say hello. The family we were staying with invited us to another island nearby for a picnic. This was quite the affair, lots of kids and family members and sports equipment, but I couldn’t help but notice the lack of food being taken on this picnic. This was because over the process of the day on the island we caught our own food. There were all sorts of fish, muscles, crayfish, etc. It turned out to be a spectacular picnic. They did buy beer especially for us foreigners too. And we had so much fun playing with the kids, playing soccer and burying everyone in the sand. Our Spanish was a bit weak, their English nonexistent, but it was one of the most fun days I have ever had traveling, even at this point.

El Salvador: Not until I made it to Africa did anywhere ever rival how unsafe I felt in El Salvador. We had several horrifying instances that I won’t go into, also got stuck at the border, nothing about that was really good. A pretty country, yes. Some nice people, yes, but I have nothing good to really say about my experience there.

So I will reminisce about our sick night. This was the first and only time I have ever gotten food sick while traveling. It hit me before it hit Stephan. So remember, I have this huge crush on this guy and we are sharing a room. This room contains a bed and a bathroom. The room is small and the bed takes up almost the entire room. Which means that the bed is about 5 inches from the bathroom. This is bad enough, but there was no door to the bathroom. There were walls that didn’t even reach the ceiling and a flimsy curtain. So basically, there was no privacy in this bathroom.

I don’t know if it was the sounds or the smells that were worse, but getting traveler’s diarrhea is no laughing matter, except until you look back on it, where this hellacious time converts into hilarity, because let’s face it, these stories are golden if you survive them. So anyways, it strikes me first. And am I wrong to say that I was happy it got Stephan too so I wasn’t alone? I did enjoy the camaraderie and it made it all a lot less embarrassing, but then when you are both fighting for a toilet, it adds a whole new element of annoyance to the equation.

I was definitely more sick than Stephan and I just wanted it to all be over. I had a fever and felt horrible, so I decided to take some Nyquil. There was no way to measure and it tasted horrible so I took a few big gulps and saw after the fact that I had drank almost ¾ of the bottle. You know that rumor that Nyquil makes your trip? Well, it’s true. Stephan drained the rest of the bottle and we were quite the pair.

I was colder than I have ever been in my life so I had put on every piece of clothing that I owned and half of what Stephan owned. I had the blankets and was huddled in a little ball tripping and almost enjoying myself if I didn’t feel so horrible. Stephan on the other hand swung the other way and was so hot that he had gotten completely naked. In his delusional state he became convinced that there was a vicious mosquito in the room. For all I know there was, but I am huddled in this ball on the corner of the bed watching him, butt-ass naked jumping around the bed (remember it takes up the whole room) trying to swat at a mosquito. Ah the joy of Nyquil.

And that way my first foray into Central America. Now I am in Guatemala trying to learn Spanish and come to terms with the fact that my grand world adventure is coming to a close, which is rather strange when this is what I have been waiting my whole life to do. But it has been worth every moment so far, and hey, I still have one month left to make the most of. I think one of the best parts of traveling is how it encourages me to make the most of every moment, take advantage of every opportunity and really be there and appreciate everything. It’s funny how we live with this sense of permanency, when really all of life is as fleeting and temporary as a journey is. So travel, in essence, reminds me how to live.