22

In the last five years, I've spent 15 months traveling, so that means 15 of the last 60 months (which, somehow, sounds like more to me) were spent with passport in hand. That, of course, doesn't include long weekend jaunts here and there.

(Bocas del Toro)

The title of the post - 22 - comes from the number of countries I've visited on my own now. In case you're keeping track or need a refresher, they are: Mexico, Spain, Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Besides the US, there are four others that I've visited with friends: Canada, Jamaica, Bahamas, and Scotland. I miscounted prior to this trip and for some reason thought my Central America travels would bring my country count up to 30. I was wrong, so it looks like I'll have to keep trying. :-)

My passport only has three blank pages in it now and it doesn't expire for four years, so I'll probably end up needing to have pages added before too long.

(Pink sunset at Bocas)

I Miss, Part 2

As my 12 week Central America adventure begins to come to a close, I was inspired by my original "I Miss" post to share some of the things I'm looking forward to once I return home. This will be bullet-style since there's no rhyme or reason to this list of randomness. :-)

* Brunch - This will never change, I don't think. I love brunch and doing it the way we do it in the US is hard to come by when I travel.
* Lack of humidity - San Diego has me spoiled now. There have been a few days here and there when I was at a high altitude and had some periods of coolness, but for the most part it's been hot and humid. Me no likey.
* Good beer - Again, I have San Diego to thank for this. So many good microbrews and Central America has had me drinking "national" beers, their version of Bud or Miller Lite.
* 2-ply toilet paper - No commentary necessary! Along with this is the ability to throw used tp in the toilet instead of the trash can.
* My bed - No commentary needed here either. 
* Jeans and Converse - Just as a change up to what's currently in my pack.
* Mexican food - San Diego, what have you done to me?!
* Trivia nights - It's one of those new(ish) routines I had of the last 9-10 months and it will be fun to get back to it. We'll still lose lol, but at least I'll be hanging out with my buds.
* Phone connections - I've been lucky enough on this trip to have access to free texting and phone calls, but those connections depend on wifi and it will be nice to have a call without echoes and weird long pauses.
* Veggies! - Rice and beans are good and all, but damn do I miss good produce.
* Working out - Yep, I miss it. I'm ready to get back into the gym.
* Talking without thinking - It's tiring having to translate everything in your head before you say it. My Spanish just isn't good enough yet that I can talk without having to think it through first.
* Not needing to worry about bites - sand flies, mosquitoes, bed bugs, mosquitoes, no-seeums, spiders, mosquitoes, ants, mosquitoes. I'm WELL over the bug bites.
* Iced coffee - You just never know what you're gonna get when you order an iced coffee here and I just miss the real deal.

As usual, this list seems to be dominated by food and drink...what can I say? I like eating and drinking! This time one week from now I'll be back in SD and getting started reacquainting myself with all the things on this list that I've missed.

Greatest.Money.Ever.

Are you seeing this? Costa Rican money has monkeys on it. And sloths. And sharks.

If that's not the greatest thing ever, well then I just don't know what is. And yes, you're looking at 18 million colónes. Nope, I'm not rich - that's about $36.

Slice of life

(Party like a Nica, tip like a gringo!)

I sent an email to a friend the other day that I thought was a pretty good story, so I decided to share it here as well. This actually happened on Friday night, not "last night," but it was written on Saturday, so.

Yeah, so, last night all of the electricity in the entire town went out (although I didn't know that at first and thought it was just my block). I was just kinda gonna wait it out and see if it came back on, but I realized the battery on the computer I was using to play solitaire would only last so long, so maybe a beer was in order.

That's when I found out electricity was out all over because it was DARK walking down those streets. Most places were closed, but there was a small generator here and there providing a wee bit of light. I ended up going into a bar I walked into the other night and the owner, Mandy, even remembered my name (I *love* that). She introduced me to the gang of regulars and we all sat around drinking and playing Family Feud on her phone (not sure how that worked without an internet connection, actually, but whatever). Mandy was trying really hard to keep the refrigerators as cold as possible and was loathe to open it for just one beer, so she'd yell at the whole bar (probably a dozen of us in all) to give her their orders. Cracked me up because every single time there was a guy who didn't want a beer and then one and half minutes later he did and Mandy would curse up a storm. 

After a few hours, all of the lights and fans came whirring back on and everyone cheered. We were all looking forward to being able to go home and sleep in relative comfort with the help of our trusty fans.

I got back to my hostel and had to ring a bell to be let back in. (A couple of the bar patrons had said it sucked for my hosts to have to be woken by a bell late at night and I said if they didn't want me to ring the bell, then they shouldn't have let me leave! Ha.) Just a quick ring, not too disturbing, wait a minute or two, no response. Did that a couple of times and was inching into seven minutes of waiting for the door to be unlocked when I just let the bell rip. Did the trick, but the gal seemed stunned. I guess I would be too if a fire alarm sounding bell yanked me out of sleep and a gringa was there at the door, smiling sheepishly to be let back in.

[What's really funny is that my hosts just gave me a key to the front door. I've been here for four days already and just now got the key. I guess they don't want me to ring the bell after all!]

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As cheap as beer is here (usually less than a dollar; an "expensive" beer is still less than $1.50), you just really don't want to drink it all day long. Lucky for me, I found this awesome smoothie place and have made it part of my daily routine to go there for a smoothie and some Duolingo practice. So far I've tried dragonfruit/strawberry/mint, pineapple/celery/lemon, carrot/orange/mint, and cucumber/ginger/orange. That last one is my favorite and now I don't have to try any other iterations. :-)

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A lot of the kids here have those toys that were popular in the 80s in the U.S. You know the ones with the two ball, rock-like things attached by a string or hard piece of plastic that when you move your hand in such a way they clank together over and over again? Yeah, those. At times the sound is annoying as all get out, but it's also kind of amusing seeing little kids as entertained by a toy that I was entertained with nearly 30 years ago. Aw, the 80s have finally found Nicaragua! 

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As you may have guessed by now, I'm still in Nicaragua. I was going to leave on Sunday and then I was going to leave on Monday. But at some point on Sunday I realized that a Monday departure just wasn't going to happen. I'm not exactly looking forward to the greater expense of Costa Rica and Panama. (For comparison purposes, my daily budget in Nica is $20-50, but I've never come close to $50 and there have been quite a few days that were below $20. The range for Costa Rica and Panama is closer to $35-75/day and it seems like it will be pretty easy to be within that range on a regular basis.) Plus, I haven't exactly figured out my route through C.R. and it looks like transportation could be difficult. Yeah. So. Not exactly in a hurry to leave the ease of San Juan behind. Maybe Tuesday... 

Colectivos and Chicken Buses

I know I've mentioned both colectivos and chicken buses as forms of travel I've used extensively since beginning my Central American travels. But I thought I'd explain a bit more to maybe give more insight into the culture of this type of transportation.

When you think about it, the concept of shared transport makes a lot of sense, especially in areas where people don't have a lot of money which makes owning their own cars out of the realm of possibility. Let me explain one more time how it works: Let's say you want to go somewhere, but the taxi ride there will cost $10 (just to use a nice, round number; that's actually quite a bit of money here). You don't have $10, but there are other people going the same general direction as you, so you all pool together to come up with the fare. (The only US example I can think of is people in Manhattan sharing a taxi. But I kind of think that mostly just happens on tv and in the movies?) You save money and you help the environment (one trip for the driver instead of multiple), but you definitely don't save time. You have to wait around until you have the necessary number of people to fill a particular vehicle - not so hard for a four person sedan, a bit harder for a shuttle bus or lancha, and quite difficult for a full size bus.

Chicken buses are only a little bit different, but there is a distinct difference. They're not exactly colectivos because they usually run to *some* type of schedule and will leave even if not full (because it most certainly will be soon enough). The countries of Central America are not particularly densely populated. (Sorry in advance, but you'll have to scroll about halfway down for that info. I was too tired to deal with learning that bit of html code.) Guatemala, the largest by population, comes in at #66 on the world population list. With people that spread out, it makes more sense that people would just hail a bus as it drives by (and just let the driver know when you're ready to get off). And how do people know the bus is coming without just waiting by the side of the road for potentially hours on end? Easy. The driver honks like hell as he drives down the road and if people come out, he stops. That's actually the most annoying thing about chicken buses for me because that horn is LOUD. In case you're wondering what these things look like:

(Converted school bus! One of mine the other day still had Kanawha County Schools - West Virginia - printed on the side.)

And a shot from the inside:

(Not my photo. From www.happinessplunge.com)

I think the payment system on chicken buses is really interesting. There's a guy (almost always a guy, I think I've only seen a girl do the job once) whose job it is to shout down and gather potential riders, as well as handle all of the money. Usually a person or five or 10 will get on the bus, find their seats, and it's some time later before the money handler makes his way down the aisle to collect payment. He never watches where they're sitting so how he keeps track of everyone is pretty amazing. He also always remembers who's due change and where they're sitting, too (and people don't just stay in the same seats, either). I suppose it's not all that different from waiting tables and I did that for eight years, but it SEEMS different. :) On the bus leaving Coyolito from Isla del Tigre, there was even a kid who was in training. He and his mentor were so cute working together.

Earlier in this post, I talked about how sharing rides helps save money. For the solo traveler such as myself, this is one of the few times we're not getting the short end of the stick and having to pay more for traveling alone. It comes in handy...when it works. But when it doesn't, like for my lancha ride from Isla del Tigre, solo travelers are back to wishing they were traveling in a big group. Sure, it was only $2.50 that day, but the colectivo boat at Lake Atitlan is less than a dollar and the private one is more than ten times that, so it can make a difference.

Bringing it back around to the culture I also mentioned earlier, the common threads are waiting and sharing. The idea of "central America time" begins to make more sense when you realize people are used to waiting for things and waiting for an extra half hour past the scheduled departure time is just not such a big deal. Besides just sharing the fare, riders do also tend to share snacks and such as well, although not to nearly the extent that it's shared in India. 

So what do you think? If you were to ever travel in this part of the world, would you partake of the chicken bus experience or stick to the more expensive, private shuttle buses (I've used those, too!)? And if you've already traveled to this part of the world, did I do a good job explaining or is there more I should've added?

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(Also: happy birthday shout-out to my brother-in-law who never comments, but I'm pretty sure he's out there reading anyway. I'll have a Nicaraguan beer today in your honor!)

Now with added detail!, Part 2

I'm calling this version the "photo quality isn't great, but the story behind it is" version. :-) For part one go here.

The above shot was taken in Prague. I'd met Danilo and Elin, two really cool couchsurfers, and we were all in great moods. If I remember correctly, it was a Friday night and we were ready for a night on the town. As we walked to the meeting place for the CS party that we were going to, I stopped in the middle of the street to take this picture. The light isn't great and the shot ends up looking a little fuzzy and out of focus. I like it, though, because with all the good mood vibes in the air and the excitement of a night out with cool people, I was feeling kind of warm, fuzzy, and out of focus myself.

See those colorful, swirly blobs? Yeah, those are koi fish and in case you didn't know, they are very hard to photograph. (Well, at least they're not running away from you like sheep do, but they're fast and taking pictures through water is hard to begin with.)

I took this shot in Bangkok; it was a jam-packed day of activity and this was taken at the Jim Thompson house. I seem to remember being in a good mood on this day, too, and was so dead set on getting a picture of the koi that I literally spent 30-45 minutes taking shot after shot, going for the perfect one. I never did get it (you can see my other attempts here, here, and here), but I sure had fun trying and I had a big, goofy grin on my face the whole time.

Finally for today, we go back to Muang Ngoi in Laos. You may recall that me and Laos didn't exactly get off on the right foot and it was all downhill from there (I won't link to it because, well, the word 'explosive' should be the only reminder you need). Then I got to Muang Ngoi and all was right with the world again. People were friendly, the vibe was laid-back, and I started to feel like myself again at last.

This shot is terrible because I'm zoomed in super far which doesn't really work so well for a point and shoot camera. I was trying to get a good shot of the moon - if you squint and have a good imagination, you can kind of see it in the top of the shot, towards the left. The rest of the photo is a view of the restaurant that was directly across from my bungalow. I spent most of my afternoons and early evenings in Muang Ngoi laying in the hammock on my porch, watching the night get darker and darker, as I listened to the chatter coming from the restaurant. The peacefulness of it all makes me smile even now.

I suppose this edition of the story behind the photo should have been called the "good moods and happy times" edition. ;-)

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In case you're wondering how my friends in Christchurch fared, everyone is fine. Sean tells me that the damage was mostly not as bad as the media portrayed, and most Kiwis just looked at it as preparation for "the big one." I thought 7.2 on the Richter scale was pretty big, but I guess in the en zed it's only big if it's an 8 or higher, lol.

Now with added detail!

I took a LOT of pictures while I was traveling, probably about 5,000 or so, but not all of those made it on to Flickr (I deleted about a thousand of them that didn't turn out or that I just didn't like) and only a tiny portion of them made it on to the blog (the incredibly slow internet speed in some places would've made it impossible). The other night I was looking through some of the pictures with a friend who didn't read my blog or look at my Flickr page while I was away. How do you share nearly 4,000 pictures with a person without making them comatose with boredom? Well, if you're me, you go straight to the Personal Faves set. It only has 92 pictures in it. :-)


What I realized looking through this set, besides the fact that there are SO many good memories just in that album alone, is that a lot of those pictures were posted without a whole lot of additional information. A shot might be labeled "Fraser Island" and appear in the Australia set as well, but that's it. So I thought I'd share some of the background info on some of my favorite pictures, just to add a little something to the picture.

The picture above was taken three days into the beginning of my trip and was the first shot I took of myself (included in this blog post originally). Oh, okay, there may have been one that someone else took and one other that I took, but this was the only good one. I'd been wandering around this park in Barcelona, saw this cool tree, and decided that I wanted to take a picture with it. What I love about this picture is that I look so damn happy (and look at how short my hair was back then!). Everything was still pretty surreal then and I had to pinch myself to be sure that I wasn't dreaming. It was around the time of this picture that I really started to enjoy myself.


This next picture was taken while I was lost. I know, surprise surprise, right? I'd gotten turned around in Athens on my way to the Acropolis. There was a big main road leading to the Acropolis that I'd seen from a distance, but I had trouble finding it and instead found myself in this little village. The houses and narrow, winding paths themselves were very cool, but thinking about how people had lived in those very houses for thousands of years kind of took my breath away a little. The houses were whitewashed with brightly painted doors and gardens were growing out of every nook and cranny. I was enjoying being lost on this particular day, but what sealed it and made it a personal-fave- worthy photo opportunity was the handwritten sign giving directions to the Acropolis:

One more for today and since I started with surrealism, I'll end with surrealism, too. The day that I left Queenstown, New Zealand for Franz Josef Glacier was an early, foggy start. After about an hour, maybe less, we made our first "comfort stop." I was kind of grumbling to myself about how if we kept making stops like this, it was going to take us forever to get there and jeez, why couldn't we just get a move on? But then I looked up and saw this outside the bus window: 

It was so pretty and ethereal looking that I couldn't help but not be mad. It made me remember that the journey is part of the trip, if that makes any sense at all. It also reminded me that attitude is a choice. I could choose to be annoyed at the number of stops we were making, or I could choose to sit back and enjoy the ride. My choice this day was the latter.

Surprises

Aren't surprises just the best? I knew ages ago that I wanted to keep my return date a secret so that I could surprise my friends and family, but when two different people told me they'd had dreams that I showed up unannounced on their doorstep, it was basically a done deal.


My parents live pretty close to the airport, so I knew it would be easy enough to get a taxi there. Of course, my biggest worry was that I'd get there and they would have picked this week as one of the ones to work remotely from their other house. And, in fact, that's exactly what happened. Luckily, I had a backup plan. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. . .


I got to my parents' house and it looked awfully dark. I took a shot at ringing the doorbell anyway, but when the dogs didn't start barking, I knew for sure that they weren't home. I went to let myself in through the garage and, oops!, they'd gotten a new garage door opener AND a new code for it while I was gone. So it was 9:30pm on a Tuesday night, the taxi had just left, I didn't have a cellphone, OR keys. What the heck was I gonna do? I saw that the neighbor's light was on, so I headed over there to ask if he happened to have a spare key. The poor guy had been watching television in his underwear and wasn't exactly expecting the daughter of his neighbors (who he's never officially met) to show up on his doorstep. :-) Once inside, I was fortunate to find that my parents have been keeping my car keys in a logical place, so I grabbed them and headed straight back out to go to my sister's house.


I knew that with three kids and a deployed husband, there was no possible place my sister could be at 10:30 on a Tuesday night other than at home. But as I got closer and closer, a fear crept in that maybe she and the kids were in West Virginia with my parents. What would I do then?! She was home, though, so I didn't really have anything to worry about. Her dog started to bark as soon as he heard me at the door, Amy looked through the peephole, and slooowly opened the door. She told me later that she knew there was a person on the porch, but it wasn't registering who it was. Once the door was open, she started squealing (couldn't wake the kids or neighborhood by yelling!) and asking what I was doing there. She was very surprised and I'm pretty sure I saw her eyes welling up. ;-) We spent a few hours catching up and I went to bed knowing that I'd get to surprise my niece and nephews the next morning.


The kids were sleepy for their surprise. They kind of looked at me and blinked a few times like, "Huh? What's Aunt Shannon doing here?" But in no time at all they were climbing all over me and asking questions and telling stories. It was like I hadn't even left at all. The best, though, was when it was time for them to go to daycare and my three year old nephew, with all seriousness said to me, "Aunt Shannon, you STAY here, ok? Stay here." It was as if he thought I was going to disappear again and he wouldn't see me for a long time. So sweet.


Next up on my surprise list was my grandmother. She wasn't at home when I got to her house and that was when I seriously started to reconsider the whole concept of showing up unannounced. Good for me, though, she showed up literally just a minute later. As she was backing into her parking space, she glanced over and saw my car. I drive a Smart car and they're not very common, so I know she was thinking hey, I know that car. She kept staring at the car and at me as she continued to park until finally I saw the lightbulb go off in her head as she realized it was me in the car. No sooner had she put the car in park, Grandma was all but out of the car and running my way. She was asking me when did I get home and what I was doing home so soon and did my father know? I spent a few hours with Grandma catching up and gabbing before I had to head to my second surprise spot of the day.


I've known my best friend Laura for almost ten years and I knew I could expect a good reaction out of her. She didn't disappoint. :-) Her husband answered the door because she was in the other room with the baby. We were chatting as we walked in, but Laura didn't hear a thing. He asked her to come into the kitchen because he wanted to show her something and she answered him in an exasperated kind of way as she came into the room with one-year-old Ruby. Ruby was walking in front of her and Laura was looking down. When she looked up and saw I was standing there, she literally jumped over her baby and came running over to me, screaming. Many hours later, we were somewhat caught up, but still have heaps to talk about, as it usually is with old friends.


Finally, the big surprise. My sister had found out that my parents were intending on returning home on Saturday night or Sunday morning, so I figured I'd stay at their house Saturday night and just wait for them. I wanted to get their reaction on video and was keeping an ear out to hear the garage door open. But. . .I didn't hear it, it's SO quiet! So they ended up surprising me almost as much as I surprised them. :-) Kathy came in first, wondering why Eric (my brother who doesn't live at home anymore) would be there watching tv. She looked pretty surprised and wanted to make sure that Dad was just as surprised so she may have spoken to him a bit gruffly, lol, as he was unpacking the truck in the garage. Dad was so shocked that his eyes may have started to leak a little. I had started to worry that maybe they were picking up on my clues, but they really had no idea. They really thought I was still in New Zealand! We spent the next four hours or so talking. I told them all about how I'd planned to trick them and they told me what a brat I was. :-D Our first night all together and we were already hanging out around the kitchen island!


The surprises are all done now, now it's more about catching up with people and letting them know that I'm back. That will be just as much fun, though. 

Road rules

Still more thoughts as I prepare to leave the developing world for a first world country. This time my thoughts are focused on transportation.

Plane, train, bus, car. You name it, I've taken it in the last eight months. Rickshaw, tri-shaw, tuk-tuk, pedicab, bemo, moto. There are a million variations depending on what country you're in. One thing's for sure. The rules of the road are a world of difference compared to the U.S.

Let's just have it be said right from the get go: Sometimes there are no rules. Complete chaos reigns supreme. Lane splitting. Babies not in car seats. Needing to walk in the road because the sidewalk is used for motorcycle parking. Regularly seeing vehicles going the wrong way on a one-way road, even on on and off ramps. I think you get the idea, but let me give some specific examples, as well.

Remember my 29 hour train ride from Mumbai to Varanasi? I don't believe I ever shared what I witnessed right before I got on that train. Passengers were forming a line on the platform. Men that I assumed to be police or security were yelling orders. They began to check tickets and then all hell broke loose. Batons came out and passengers were beaten. Women with babies were yanked from line and tossed aside. More yelling, more physical abuse. I had no idea what was going on and was just trying to stay out of the way. I asked a man what was happening and he explained that those were general seating passengers. General seating costs about $2, consists of hard, wooden benches, and the ticket was a number. People were supposed to be lining up according to number, but apparently there's always some line jumping in an attempt to get a better seat. Hence the aggressive police/line monitors. For comparison purposes, my ticket was at the complete other end of the spectrum, 2AC. It cost about $16 and consisted of a soft bed with blankets and pillows in a semi-private, A/C room. As the man explained it, these general seating passengers were poor, stupid, and needed to be beaten (!). I'm paraphrasing, but yes, that's essentially what he said. I've never seen anything like it before or since.

Sometimes I'm convinced that public transportation is a major feat of clown car engineering. There have been many bus rides with every seat full. That should be that, but usually even more is crammed in. From crates of chickens or eggs to huge bags of flowers, the aisle is always good for transporting something. If it's not saleable goods in the aisle, it's people. Minivans should accommodate 8-12 people. Figure in bags and luggage, however, and the comfortable max is eight. There are never only eight people in these things. Usually it's closer to 14 or 15.

Then what about the number of people on a motorcycle? The most I've seen is six, three adults and three kids. But I've also seen one man and two dogs on a motorcycle, so that has to be some sort of human/canine record.

It's not just people and dogs that overcrowd motorbikes. They are a main source of transportation and I've seen them loaded down with everything from plastic bottles bound for recycling to huge piles of cut down vegetation. I'm no longer surprised when I can barely see the motorcycle under the load it's carrying.

The state of the roads themselves makes for long, bumpy, often uncomfortable journeys. Add in super curvy roads like those in Mae Hong Son, Thailand and you get to deal with motion sickness, too. What? You don't think being jammed in with puking people sounds like your idea of a good time?

Red lights don't mean anything and there's no qualms against passing whenever the driver feels the urge, even on blind corners. Horns are used so often they start to sound like ducks with sore throats. Dying ducks with sore throats. A regular game of chicken is happening on roads around the world as people drive straight at each other, veering off at the last possible second.

I've said more than once that if I don't think I'm gonna die at least once during every trip, then it hasn't been a trip worth taking! Because, you see, a lot of this lunacy could be avoided. There are executive, VIP buses and private cars and fast ferries. All of these cost more, of course, but plenty of travelers opt for them. I choose not to, and not just because I'm a cheap sonofagun. I go with the option that most locals take. After all, I didn't come all this way just to spend most of my time with other foreigners; I want to experience what the locals experience. And I gotta say. Some of the nicest people I've met and some of the kindest things I've had done for me have taken place on public transportation, regardless of the craziness of the journey that led to those meetings.

Australia's next and I have a feeling that my experiences on the road are going to ease up a bit. Only time will tell. While part of me will be glad to leave the madness behind, the other part of me will miss it. But just a tiny bit. :-)