Trying to reflect on my 6-months-left anniversary is proving a little difficult. Suffice it to say that I have a hefty to do list and intend to stay busy, hopefully making the remaining months both productive and quick to pass. There are good days here-mostly good days actually-and I will miss so many things about life in a quiet mountain town in another country.
I'll actually miss the chicken bus rides, open air markets, casual conversation with random people in town, bringing my dog everywhere with me (mostly taking advantage of being a gringa there..), awesome street food, paca (guatemalan thrift store) shopping, getting to know new places, rain on my tin roof.... *sigh*
But I'm really looking forward to wearing sweats outside without getting weird looks, not being stared at in general, being with family and friends, Barbecues, long drives in the country, being out after dark.....
So even though I have one more big fat plus on the side of coming home (my awesome boyfriend), I'm still ambiguous about leaving. The fact is that I love living abroad, and I love my job. Every day is an adventure, and those little "peace corps moments' sneak their way in at the most unexpected times. It would be easy to start counting down, hoping that that moment when I step on the plane to head home comes soon-but I'm tryning not to take for granted the time that I still have here. It's a balancing act I'm still working out-and probably will be until that final day arrives.
Monday, September 26, 2011
More Pictures...
Since blogger has finally figured out how to make adding pictures easy for impatient/technologically impaired people like me-here are pictures from the rest of our trip-althought the best and most photogenic part was definitely the Island...
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| We bought seafood and cooked it in our hostel one night- crab legs were crazy good |
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| They had $2 beers the last night we were on the island, which resulted in this picture.... |
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| Dancing Jaguar carving at the ruins in Copan |
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| View from the Ruins |
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| Blind Snake! I found on our day trip to Lake Atitlan |
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| Bella and I got paddled around like Queens.... |
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| Macaw carving at Copan |
Listening to the Kinks and getting around to posting pictures...even though its only gonna make ya jealous
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| First day on the island-beach, bearded man and beer in the cozie... |
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| Half Moon Bay in Roatan-We snorkeled right off this beach most mornings |
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| Playing with my underwater camera |
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| Can you find the trumpetfish? |
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| How about the Snake Eel?? This guy was soo cool, we saw them on a couple different snorkeling trips-one time we just watched him forage through the grass for about 10 minutes. Such a cool animal! |
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| A-MAZING fresh tuna sushi-quite possibly the best sushi I've ever had |
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
My Love Affair with the Caribbean
As many of you know, I was lucky enough to enjoy an extended visit from my boyfriend before he had to go back to Cal Poly to start the fall semester teaching and finishing his Master's... I went down to Honduras to reunite with him and start our vacation out right, on the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras. Every time I go back to the Caribbean it gets harder to leave. A 3 minute walk from our hostel brought us to a white sand beach lined with palm trees and some of the best snorkeling i've seen. It's hard to believe now that I'm back-luckily I've got pictures to prove it.
We would wake up each morning, go to a shack called Cindy's Place where Cindy, a busty Garifuna woman served coffee and baleadas with a smile. Baleadas are the tipico fast food of Honduras-handmade flour tortillas with beans and cheese and folded in half is the basic fare but the additional stuffing include meat, veggies and eggs. Cindy made heaping breakfast baleadas stuffed with a generous helping of bacon served up with black coffee and real milk (all rare things in Guatemala). We would sip coffee looking out over the Caribbean sea on the porch of Cindy's Place, shaking out the cobwebs from the night before to enjoy another day snorkeling, baking in the sun, delicious seafood and tropical drinks. Words can't begin to describe how enamoured i've become of the island lifestyle but suffice it to say we were thumbing through the real estate section-a distant dream but not totally unrealistic to think of someday renting to vacationing beach bums and.....
I digress. After about a week and a half of working on my tan, snorkeling, and eating all the fish tacos and baleadas we possibly could, we had to move on. I swear tears came to my eyes as we rode the ferry back to the mainland.
Our next stop was the Copan Ruins, about 30 minutes from the border with Guatemala. We only stayed long enough to go to the ruins in the morning and head to Guatemala the next day. The ruins themselves were really neat. Unfortunately, the guided tour was unimpressive, a complete waste of money... I was mistaken in thinking that just because the guided tour I did at Tikal was AMAZING, All subsequent tours of ruins would be equally Amazing. I was WRONG. The tour guide barely spoke english and did little more than regurgitate the history of the ruins i had already read in lonely planet. Major Bummer. It put us both in a bit of a funk. I think we were both suffering from PCD (post caribbean depression) at any rate.
Then it was back to Guatemala. We made it all the way back to Sija in one day of traveling, and not even a particularly long day in perspective. The second half of Tony's stay was, well, It's hard to follow up the caribbean. The weather here was a shock, and the cold prompted us to cuddle inside in a heap with my puppy and watch movies most of the time. We did get out and hike in the park, get down to Xela, and make a few other day trips. We took Bella to Lake Atitlan one day and even got her in a kayak-it was hilarious.
That was my vacation and now its back to the daily grind-more on that plus pictures to follow.
We would wake up each morning, go to a shack called Cindy's Place where Cindy, a busty Garifuna woman served coffee and baleadas with a smile. Baleadas are the tipico fast food of Honduras-handmade flour tortillas with beans and cheese and folded in half is the basic fare but the additional stuffing include meat, veggies and eggs. Cindy made heaping breakfast baleadas stuffed with a generous helping of bacon served up with black coffee and real milk (all rare things in Guatemala). We would sip coffee looking out over the Caribbean sea on the porch of Cindy's Place, shaking out the cobwebs from the night before to enjoy another day snorkeling, baking in the sun, delicious seafood and tropical drinks. Words can't begin to describe how enamoured i've become of the island lifestyle but suffice it to say we were thumbing through the real estate section-a distant dream but not totally unrealistic to think of someday renting to vacationing beach bums and.....
I digress. After about a week and a half of working on my tan, snorkeling, and eating all the fish tacos and baleadas we possibly could, we had to move on. I swear tears came to my eyes as we rode the ferry back to the mainland.
Our next stop was the Copan Ruins, about 30 minutes from the border with Guatemala. We only stayed long enough to go to the ruins in the morning and head to Guatemala the next day. The ruins themselves were really neat. Unfortunately, the guided tour was unimpressive, a complete waste of money... I was mistaken in thinking that just because the guided tour I did at Tikal was AMAZING, All subsequent tours of ruins would be equally Amazing. I was WRONG. The tour guide barely spoke english and did little more than regurgitate the history of the ruins i had already read in lonely planet. Major Bummer. It put us both in a bit of a funk. I think we were both suffering from PCD (post caribbean depression) at any rate.
Then it was back to Guatemala. We made it all the way back to Sija in one day of traveling, and not even a particularly long day in perspective. The second half of Tony's stay was, well, It's hard to follow up the caribbean. The weather here was a shock, and the cold prompted us to cuddle inside in a heap with my puppy and watch movies most of the time. We did get out and hike in the park, get down to Xela, and make a few other day trips. We took Bella to Lake Atitlan one day and even got her in a kayak-it was hilarious.
That was my vacation and now its back to the daily grind-more on that plus pictures to follow.
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