On the Bus

And on the plane. Three months of travel coming to an end. I´ve been from Nica to NYC and around the States to Mexico and Guatemala and now I´ll soon be heading home to Cusmapa. In the states I saw many old friends some that I had not seen in years, and family when we got together to see my little sister graduate from UNLV (!).

The couple months through Southern Mexico and Guatemala that I was planning to do alone changed just weeks before I got on the plane when my dad accepted an invite to come along. We weren´t sure how long he´d stick to it, maybe a week, maybe two, maybe the whole two months, whatever it would end up to be I took it as a good sign he was up to going without a plan. Seven weeks later he´s still with me and we´ll fly together to Managua in a few days to meet my mom there before we all head up North to Cusmapa.

And so the trip really started, Dad and I flew to Mexico City. We spent a couple weeks there and nearby before heading South to Oaxaca, then to the beach and East through Chiapas before crossing into Guatemala. Mexico has always been for me a land of colors and magic, a place that somehow sits high in the land of my imagination, and a place that rarely disappoints on the delivery of stimulating experience. So it was in those weeks; Mexico delivered in full with all its shouting and crumbling sidewalks, its overwhelming odors and loud colors, its living history crashing through its tumultuous present all inside its vast and varied landscape.

In week five we moved on into Guatemala, straight to Flores and Tikal then to the Caribe and down to the volcanoes around Antigua, the black sand beaches on the Pacific and on to Lake Atitlan. I was surprised at all the little things that reminded me so much of Nicarauga right away (all of you in Nica will apreciate some of these). To start, the chicken buses that seem to always be playing either Michael Bolton (Central Americans just love that guy, it must appeal to their Latin romance) or ¨Baby te quiero-o, Baby te quiero-o-o-o...¨, and also that I am constantly hearing ¨puchica!¨in the streets (I haven´t heard the word chunche yet though). The diet is more maize, beans and rice, and they use vos, which I didn´t know until I got here.
It is a beautiful country, the textiles are amazing though the abundance of them is overwhelming. I wish I had more time here to explore the rural areas, I imagine I would enjoy them more than the more touristy places we´ve been. I have been really surprised at how touristy it is here, overwhelmingly so in many places.

The trip has been great, I have enjoyed it all, but I am ready to be home in the quiet mountains of our North Nica home. All my pics are on my flickr.com page, search for people, my name there is logoody.