Back in the US(SR)

So now I'm back home and back to work. Not an easy transition, but the prospect of having a new company and new code to learn is heartening and makes it a little better. I just wanted to take a little time to disect what I did on the trip overall, how I would do it better next time, and what this all means for the future.

In the end I traversed five countries in a month. 8 of those days were all day bus rides and several more had rides that were at least a few hours long. I spent my time checking into hostels or small hotels, meeting gringos, and either hanging with them for the night or meeting up again the next day to do some excursion. I never did any serious traveling with another group because I was on a shorter time schedule than they and I couldn't afford it. Aside from that, I also did a lot of day trips to different places and really enjoyed all of them. I have to admit that I had some fears before I started my trip. I was afraid that i wasn't prepared, that I would be lonely by myself, that I was covering too much ground in a month, that I didn't set aside enough money, and that my Spanish would fail me when i needed it. I'm very happy to say that I was wrong on all accounts and that I now believe that solo travel might be the best kind, though a good travel partner is a thing of beauty too.

I have a bit more to say about what i would do differently next time. First of all, let's talk about the quality of the destination. Central America was a great pick because it's cheap, close to the same time zone, I speak a little Spanish, it has a well developed tourist industry, easy/fast transportation, no shortage of activities, good weather, and it's fairly safe. On the other hand it's not as cheap as many other parts of the world like SE Asia and Africa, my Spanish isn't that good that I could have meaningful conversations in it, I heard lots of stories of tourist crime, the bus seats are too small for tall people, and the food isn't that great. Overall I'd say that it was a solid choice but I might have changed my route a little had I more experience. For instance, I would have visited the Bay Islands in Honduras instead of crossing the interior or it would have been worth it to just fly from Guatemala city to Nicaragua since it's like $50 and to skip all of Honduras alltogether. Also I would have spent less time in Antigua as it is highly overrated.

As for travel gear, I tried something different and it worked out ok, but I would do it a little differently next time. I wanted to pack super light so I bought all acrylic clothes, only had 2 pairs of anything, and did a wash in my sink every night. This did allow me to have the lightest pack of anyone I met but it also looked rather unfashionable compared to those around me and sometimes I couldn't do a wash and I'd have to wear the sweaty clothes from the day before. I ended up buying a couple cotton t shirts and they dried fine in a wash and looked better than the shirts I brought initially. If I had to do it again, I'd just bring whatever was comfortable and light, bring a few pairs, and pay someone to wash them for me. It usually costs $5 or less to have it done and I would have only had to do that 6 times or so for the whole trip. Also, I brought Teeva sandals and they were a little too bulky and inconvenient to slip out of so I should have brought some light thong sandals instead. Before I left Samantha put some hidden pockets in my pants for holding my credit cards and that was a great idea, but I had no place for my passport and I wish that I had a pocket for that too. Next time. All the rest of the gear was great, but I also should have only brought the guide book of the country I was starting in and bought the others from people in line at the border crossings. Surely that would have worked. If it failed however, I know how difficult if can be to find an English Lonely Planet at a 3rd world book store... because there aren't any! I couldn't find one for Costa Rica in the 5 days I looked. I should have just brought the Shoestring version and covered the whole region in one book.

Overall I felt very well prepared and never had to buy anything important that I had forgotten. As for what this means for the future... that's a more murky topic. I mean, I enjoyed traveling for a month... really enjoyed it. It makes me think that I simply must do another long trip again but even longer next time. I'm picturing 6 months for a start, and maybe an even longer one after that if I feel so inclined. So then, the question is how to fit a six month trip into my life, relationship with Samantha, and career. The career that I have chosen (computer programmer) requires a lot of skill and that skill can get stale if left unused for too long. It also involves long projects that I can't leave in the middle of if I expect to get a job at the same company again. My current project is going to wrap up around a year from now so that would be the absolute soonest that I would be able to do anything. My estimate for the cost of a 6 month trip to SE Asia is around $7300 with a $35 a day living expense and $1000 plane ticket which sounds reasonable given what I've seen on this trip where I was living for $45 per day before I met up with Sam. I believe that I can get my finances in order so that I could do the trip. A more significant question for me is how Sam fits into all this. I mean, I love the girl and I can't just leave her for 6 months. The only thing that I can make of it is that in a years time we'll either still be together and I'll take her with me or not go... or we'd not be together and it would be no question. It's a tricky subject to discuss. Anyways, 'Future Steve' can deal with that one.

As for now... I guess I need to put my nose back to the grindstone and do a great job at work and play and just make the most of life until I can get back out there again. I'll update this blog again only if I make it back out on the road. ttyl (I hope)

The Island Life

Hi guys... I hope you aren't too cross with me since I've not been updating so regularly since I met up with Sam. I've been packing my days full of activities and time has been scarce. Thankfuly we've both got significant sunburns and need to catch up on the great indoorse so I have plenty of time for this today. So then, what have we been up to? Well, we hooked up with Sam's sister Alex and her boyfriend John and headed down to the Bocas del Torro islands in Panama. Another country to add to my list.

Alex is an energetic type... she's been in Costa Rica for a month now to improve her spanish a bit (not that it's lacking in any way) and spent a week on this very island that we're at now. She was living with her cousin Tanya and Tanya's bf Gabriel. Since we've got the local's perspective we got into a sweet vacation routine very quickly. First thing we did was to rent a cool cottage on the other side of the street from Tanya's home. It's $40 a night and has a living room, kitchen, and a huge bedroom all painted blue and yellow with lots of beach themed bickabrack all over the place. It also came furnished with a could beach cruiser bicycles with big baskets on the front. Super fly indeed.

The first day there we spent the whole day at the Aqua lounge seen in the pic above. It's a bar built on a pier and we spent the time swimming, drinking, and playing dominos/uno. Being the pale ghost that I am I naturally got a little burnt on this first day in the sun, but that didn't discourage us from spending the second day on the beach. We chartered a boat out to a small island that happens to be a national park. I set up a hammok and we enjoyed a cooler of beer, rum based cocktails, and lunch meats. You can see in the picture how low I set up that hammock and with some inclament weather rolling in we started getting big waves and rain after a couple hours and I started getting wet from above and below. After that we took the boat to some other dock based bar on a remote island and spent the afternoon snorkeling.

Panama strikes me as an odd place. The first thing you notice when you come into the country is that it's primarily non hispanic unlike everywhere else that I've been. It's mostly populated by black people which was a great relief to me beacuse I finally got some real reagea music instead of reageatone and there is a lot more english on the signs. Tragically the food is pretty weak, but that's ok since I've got a kitchen and can take on some seafood + garlic dishes whenever I want. Another odd thing here is that US currency is used. The govt prints some immitation quarters and dimes but the bills are all from back home. All costs are rounded to nickels so pennies are not used at all; I think that we could learn something from that. Of course Panama has a similar history to the rest of Central America. Chiquita bananas owns most of the land, the US army and CIA shoot anyone or any governments that object to their not paying propper taxes or wages, and then there's the whole canal business. I had heard that the US gave it back to the Panamanian people after their lease expired last year and I thought that surely this would be a good thing for Panama. It turns out that the canal cannot fit the newest classes of ocean cargo ships and must be made wider. The US wisely gave the canal back to Panama under the 'agreement' that Panama will do all the work and foot all the costs of such a venture. So the people got screwed again. I've been reading a book by Gore Vidal that has an essay advocating the disolusion of the Federal Government. I'm starting to see at least some sense in that.

Today is our last full day in Bocas and I think the plan is to celebrate Gabriel's birthday at some restaurant that his friend owns. Should be a good time if I can get over the extreme sugar hangover that I recieved last night. We threw a small party at my cabin where we made Pina Coladas from fresh ingrediants and I also made Bananas Foster with ice cream. I fear that this could be my last post as tomorrow we're doing the LONG trip back to San Jose to catch my early flight home on Thursday. After that it's back to work and I gotta be honest... i'm really craving some steaming hot code!

My Baby's Back

So, when I last wrote I was in Santa Teresa and was getting some beach time in. The next day (monday) I set off to go to San Jose so that I could pick up Sam the next night from the airport. I got there, checked into a pretty cool Hostel called Pangea that has a couple cafes, free internet, a bar, and a club. I hung out with some college students I met there and had a loud evening, but at this place everyone was loud. Suffice it to say that it was not a quiet night's sleep, but I guess that's to be expected in the big city.

The next day I walked all over the city finding some cool jewelry, flowers, and misc stuff in preperation for her arrival. Later in the day I called her cousin who lives in town and met up with Sam's mom and sister who also happened to be in the country on vacation. Sam was fetched from the airport and out entourage was complete. We hung out with the fam for a little while before retiring for the night. The plan is to finish up the trip with a big group trip to some islands in Panama called Bocos del Torro so I figured that we should start our conjoined trip with a little solo time up near Arenal volcano. We left the next morning.

The trip up there was fairly long and hot in a cramped bus without AC but I was with Sam so I didn't care about any of that anymore. We got a cheap cabin to stay at and relaxed in town for the rest of the day. The next day was pretty eventful. We got up early and caught a bus to a canopy tour company called Mundo Adventura. Canopy tour involve glidings over great distances by means of steel cables and pulleys attached to your belt harness. It's really fun and helps you get over any fear of heights that you may have once had. Either that or you don't get over them and shell out $60 for nothing. In the picture of Sam here, you can see some of the lines that we rode over a waterfall. The longest one of the day was over a kilometer long anfd there were several that were nearly as long as that. After all that fun we visited an indian village that 3was transported there to sell tourists their handicrafts and also rode some marginaly malnourished horses over a dissapointingly short distance. All in all it was a kickass time. At the end we also got to visit a frog and butterfly habitat for some macro photo opportunities.

To top off the volcano trip we splurged on the second nights's lodgings and checked into the Los Lagos resort and spa. I don't have any great pictures of the place, but I have got a lot of great pics of the wildlife there. We saw a bunch of those lizards that can run across water... they're called Basalisks. This is a pic of one of them but there were also iguanas, turtles, crocodiles, and leaf cutter ants. That was a fun day made more fun by the beutiful hot springs we basked in later that night complete with waterslides and a pool bar that served drinks in carved out pineapples.

The next day, today, sucked in comparison. We went back to San Jose and did some inspired souvenier shopping. Tomorrow morning we go to the islands, but for now I'm getting kicked off the internet so I guess this post is over. cya!

Waiting in San Jose

Santa Teresa turned out to be a good choice of towns to get washed into. It´s a very famous surfing destination (though I´d never heard of it) and I only met a single person who showed up for anything else. After I wrote my last post I ran into my dorm mates at a bar on the other side of town. They´re a group of 3 Virginia Tech students who rented a car and are drifting to various surf towns. The movie PCU taught me that you have to identify the person in your dorm who has a car4 and become their best friend. I accomplished this and it led me to drive out to some distant beach with them that had the bigger waves. I surfed for a while but I really can´t handle myself on the big ones (let alone the small ones) and we called it quits after 2 hours. At least I got a little tanning in. Sadly the camera ran out of batteries at the beach and I didnt get the surf pics I would have liked so well.

Later on we got some dinner, watched a local soccer game for a while, and drank a bottle of rum that I was really sick of carrying with me. It was really good stuff and I´ll have to bring a bottle back for Derek. I woke up early this morning w/o a serious hangover and hiked 2 miles with my gear to reach my bus to San Jose at the last second. It was a pretty uneventful trip. I went back today beacsue I wasnt sure hpw far I could get today and I wanted to be here for when Samantha flys in tomorrow. Maybe I could have spent one more day at the beach, but whats the sense in risking being late. Anyways, I met some guys and we´re gonna go get some food. ttyl

Resting Peacefully

It's been a few days since I've been able to do a decent update but I've finally found both the time, a nice air conditioned cafe, and an SD card reader... a rare combination indeed! So, last I left off I was on the beach in Nicaragua... Playa Majagual. Nice place that was. I could definitely have stayed for another week but I of course had to keep working my way South.

So, for my last day there I made it a busy one. That is busy by beach standards where a trip to the store an a nap constitutes a hard days work ;) I started my big day by sleeping in till noon. After that I wandered down to a beach just to the south (Playa Madera) and followed the signs to the Hideout Surf Camp that I had heard so much about. After following a sign down a path off of the wild beach I climbed a cliff and reached the camp's sole building, a dilapetated shack with a view of a surf and a skate ramp. The area was populated by a small crowd of skater/surfers playing the Misfits and Ramones. I had a couple beers with them and headed out since I failed to find lunch there.

After that I went down our beache's sole cantina and found some cerviche, a curry chicken sandwich, and a very rare Coke Light. I met up with a couple that I met the night before, Jerimiah and Michele. He's a programmer but I managed to go the whole day w/o really talking about programming much to his disaproval. Anyways, we went swimming in the ocean, played boche ball at sunset, ate the 2nd biggest papaya I've ever seen (2 gallons big I'd say), watched the movie 'Ants on a Plane', and later on we hatched more turtles that dug their way into the yard. That's a big day in these parts!

Unfortunately I had to travel the next day. I caught a van into town with the afformentioned couple, plus Hilda and Ida (a couple Norwegian girls), and a Swiss/Hungarian couple that I ended up spending the whole travel day with. After town we caught a taxi to the border and crossed on foot. From there I caught another taxi with a ton on peaople crammed inside and rode to Liberia, a big travel hub in the North of Costa Rica. I really wanted to go to Montezuma but it was already 3 and it looked like it could be too late. It was a good thing, because there was a really big festival in town that night. All the stores closed and the whole town took to the street. There was a big horse parade, everyone wore cowboy hats and plad shirts, and there were a lot of ...interesting... food dishes that could be bought on the street. I've never seen so many horses in one place before and I've been to more than a few rodeos. They werent just in the parade, people rode them all night, and would take their food and drink(s) on horseback. I even saw a outdoor discotech just for people on horseback with colored lights, loud music, and unnaturally nimble horses. After that I went down to the bull fight on the edge of town. They built a huge wooden arena and the fans could climb into the middle at any time. Had I a few more drinks I would have been in there too, but the couple were vegetarians and wouldnt go so I had to watch my own back =/ Anyways, it wasn't much of a bull fight. The bull would be let loose and would try to ram the crowd of drunks throwing beer bottles at it. I left after 15 minutes of that and went to bed.

The next day was just the worst kind of travel day. I left early and got into town after dark. From Liberia I rode 4 hours south to Punta Arenas. I walked over 3 miles with all my gear in horrible heat to get to the ferry station and rode that for 1.5 hours. After that I got on a bus and rode for a couple hours to go towards Montezuma. The trouble is, I haven't got a guide book for Costa Rica so not only do I have no idea how far things are apart but I also don't know what hotel I was going to. The bus ended up in Santa Teresa and they kicked me off since I didn't know the name of a hotel or Hostel to go to. On the plus side, they didnt charge me since they felt bad for me I guess. Oh well, I walked a little while in the dark and found a good hostel. That was last night, and today I've got to get out there on the waves since this is a SERIOUS surf town and I havcen't met anyone who isn't here for that. Tomorrow I'm going to start heading towards San Jose to meet Sam on Tuesday but I don't know if I'll get there tomorow night or not. ttyl