My trip comes to an end

Sometimes keeping up-to-date with your travel blog can be harder than traveling itself. I haven't updated since my misadventures in El Salvador and the mountains of Guate, but not to worry-- I made it out alive and I am now back in the United States.

Between my stalled bus outside of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala and my airplane's touchdown in early February in San Francisco were some of the most interesting and rewarding parts of my 7-month journey. I'll do my best to recount the highlights.

Quetzaltenango, Guatemala (Part II)

On the roof of El Nahual with Enrique, my old English student

Returning to 'Xela' felt like coming full-circle. At the beginning of my trip, I spent a month and a half in Xela studying Spanish, volunteering, and living with a host family. I arrived as a true rookie, with only my high school Spanish skills and a Lonely Planet guidebook. This time around, the LP stayed in the pack. I met up with old friends, visited my host family (including their brand new addition to the clan), and stopped by El Nahual, my amazing Spanish school.

My host mom, Ely, with 2-month old Ricardo

The one thing that had changed dramatically was the weather! Xela is high in the mountains which keeps it fairly cool, even in July. But now in January, my sweatshirt and sweater made their first appearances in a long time. The best part for me was being able to fully communicate in Spanish with all my old friends. Language was not something I had to worry about anymore. It was a great feeling to just sit and talk, whereas before all my conversations felt like language practice.

Reuniting with the Germans

Me, Niels, Marius, and Ben at a gas station in Guate

From Quetzaltenango, I headed North towards the Mexican border, Chiapas, and the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. At a gas station just outside of Xela, my good traveling karma officially came back.

As I was waiting for the arrival of the tourist bus that would take me to the Mexican border, I ran into three of my good friends from Honduras. Marius, Benedikt, and Niels are from Germany and are doing their year of national service in Honduras. Ben works at an orphanage in El Progreso, and Niels and Marius are stationed closer to the El Salvador border. We spent our winter vacation together in the Bay Islands and had talked about meeting up in Mexico in January, but seeing them was on the of the most random things that happened during the whole trip. To end up at the same gas station, at the same time, in the same small part of Guatemala..... And on we went to San Cristóbal


More updates tomorrow!

Traveling is not easy

The Nasman family likes to say that travel "is only glamorous in retrospect." The past 8 days have been anything but glamorous. I suffered through a bad cold, long uncomfortable bus rides, and in general, just plain bad luck.

My bus breaks down in the mountains between Guatemala City and Xela

Being sick is never fun but it is truly tough when traveling alone. I just didn't have the energy you need to enjoy the fun parts and the challenging parts of experiencing a new country.

I believe that good luck played a large part in my first 6 months in Central America. I got off the plane in June with only a vague plan and yet somehow found a terrific language school in Guatemala and an amazing community in Honduras with OYE and my job at Best American School. So perhaps karma is now evening things out a bit.

I lost a $100 bill somewhere on my first day in San Salvador. I wasted hours trying to navigate the convoluted bus system of the city, being sent to one place then another by my out-of-date guidebook and well-meaning people on the street. On Sunday, I planned on going to the beach. But with the El Salvador national elections being held that day, no buses were in service to the coast, a fact I discovered after searching all over town for the correct bus terminal. I then got on a bus whose driver promised to stop close to my hotel but continued to the furthest reaches of the city until I realized I should probably just get off and figure out where I was.

Leaving El Salvador for Guatemala, my bad luck continued. At the border stop, a money changer jipped me for about $20. Then my express bus to Quetzaltenango broke down in the mountains. After waiting half an hour, my fellow passengers and I flagged down a passing bus and I spent the rest of the journey reliving my chicken bus days (three to a seat in a decommissioned school bus)

I admit the past week put some doubts in my abilities as a backpacker. (I thought I was good at this!!) But you learn to take it in stride and remember that at least in retrospect, this will all seem glamorous.

El Salvador

I don´t have anytime left at the internet cafe to say much, so I´ll leave you with pictures of the Palacio Nacional, the inside of a cool church with stained glass windows and one of my favorite foods and an El Salvador specialty, the pupusa. Also, I don´t know why this is typing in underline mode. Sorry.

Nicaragua

The Cathedral in León, Nicaragua; the largest in Central America

It has been a bit of a whirlwind but in just 7 days I traveled from El Progreso in Honduras, south to Nicaragua where I visited León, Managua, and Granada; then back North to see San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. A bad cold sapped my traveler´s energy a bit but I persevered to check out Nicaragua´s colonial cities. León and Granada both have the stone-paved roads and old churches that I saw in Antigua, Guatemala. But unlike the air-brushed beauty in Antigua, in Nica I got the sense that real people lived and worked here in these cities. It meant that things like trash, street dogs, pollution, markets, and general life were out in full view.

Parque Central in Granda, Nicaragua

Nicaragua was not too big of a change after 5 months in Honduras. The poverty is about the same, although the border town in which I entered was very underdeveloped. The Córdoba is worth a bit more than the Lempira but not by much. The food is better in Honduras, perhaps because they don´t make baleadas in Nicaragua. I only spent a total of 4 nights here and I didn´t get a grasp on what Nicaragua is about but I caught a glimpse. The national sports are baseball and boxing. The country is gorgeous but with many environmental problems. Definitely a place I´d love to go back to, but next time without the head cold.

On the road again

I have once again joined the ranks of the backpackers. After 5 months in El Progreso, Honduras I left my job, my friends, and my community behind on Sunday and hopped on a bus towards Nicaragua. For a wrap-up of my time in El Progreso you can check out the OYE blog: oyehonduras.blogspot.com

My pack (much heavier than before) and I now find ourselves in León, Nicaragua, a colonial city about 2 hours from the Southern Honduran border. As usual, my plan is a bit short on details but I want to hop around here for a few days and then backtrack north to travel through El Salvador (checking out the pacific coast surfing on the way). After some time on the beach, I will pass through Quetzaltenango once again to visit my host family and then it´s on to the real adventure: a stint in Mexico City.

Some friends have asked me, why Mexico City? To this I can safely answer, I don´t really know. I have a job connection there which will hopefully lead to me teaching English and making a bit more than the 7,000 Lempiras ($350/month) I was raking-in in Progreso. I also have friends there that I want to see, and I believe I miss the culture, the bustle, and the crowds of people that I experienced in NYC. I´m definitely not going to Mexico City for the air quality.

I already miss the life I left behind in Honduras, but I hope that this part of my trip turns-up just as many adventures as the last.

Feliz Navidád desde Roatán, Honduras

Yo pasé el primer Navidád sin mi familia en la isla de Roatán aquí en Honduras. Aunque extrañe mi familia, me sentí feliz para estar con mi amiga Erin y su familia en un lugar tan bonito; relajando y tomando el sol por las playas blancas. Les deseo a todos mis amigos un feliz navidad y prospero año nuevo. Nos vemos en 2009!

El arbol navideño artificial que llevamos al hotel. Santa nos visitó!

Final Days in El Progreso

I arrived in Honduras in August planning to stay one month. Now after five months in El Progreso I will be leaving in January for Mexico City.

Earlier in December I said goodbye to my teachers and students at Best American school and on the 20th I spent my last day as an OYE volunteer. OYE held it's "Entrega de Becas," a welcome event for our new crop of scholarship students which brings our group to a total of 75 youths.

At the event, my radio students provided me with one of my proudest moments at OYE. The group planned their 6th radio show to be a year-in-review and also coverage of the scholarship event. With only a little prompting from me, the radio crew scoured the room for interviews with new students, parents, and OYE staff members, and interviewed themselves about their experiences in the program. The group of audio editors took care of the sound and our music group presented their top 5 songs of the year. After months of teaching them what I know about radio (in Spanish, which was no easy task) I was overwhelmed to see them put it into practice with such ease.

The OYE radio group

There were times when the radio students struggled to keep their focus and when our weekly meetings were not as productive as I would have hoped. But on my last day I could feel the energy and passion of the kids and I wish that I could spend another five months helping them towards the goal of a live over-the-air radio broadcast.

OYE was what brought me to El Progreso and although i also found a job teaching at a local high school in the mornings, OYE was where my heart is, and I will miss my radio students the most.