wow, i sure don´t update live journal very often... oops? guess i´m busy living real life instead! where have i been? let me share with you..
so im back in central america. i helped boild a school in Horconcitos, Honduras. my heart swelled with each thub-bub of kindness and smile and broken spansih word i uttered. i felt honoured. and so full of love from other people. the experence reminded me that one person really can make a world of difference. i felt the light and love of our dear friend Jack Allen (whom we were building the school for) shine down on me. shine down on me.
i spent a week in livingston, guatemala. drinking and having fun. a little out of charactor for me, actually. hungover and burnt out, i spent a quiet 2 days in a living outdoor space that was completly open. i was living outside in the rainforrest in Rio Dulce! it was beautiful and alive and growing and breathing... exactually what my hangover called for.
then up to belize, where i spent 2 weeks and ..sigh.. probably too much money. i went diving 5 times.. and dove the blue hole. wow! i want to be a sting ray... living peacefully at the botton of the sea. and when i feel like leaving.. shake off all the sand that covers me and fly like an underwater bird. i met lovely friends from sweeden and london and .. calgray of all places. another canadain escaping the cold. the 5 of us laughed a lot, went skinny dipping in the ocean, cooked healthy food and listened to music until late in the night. we traveled all over belize together. suddenly the world shrank. suddenly we were just young people traveling. and we had so much in common, despide being from completly different countries. it was wild, and made the hair on the back on my arms stand up on end. i thought to myself how attainable the world really, really is.
skip.skip.skip some traffic and transit, and busses later i left my dear friends and chilled out on a beach in el salvador for 2 weeks. i met 2 others... corner, 52 and david, 30. david tried to teach me how to surf, but i ended up on the beach instead. el tunco was an easy place to get distracted. before i knew it i had been there for 10 days. we all left together for the big city. corner left the next day for panama. david got ill. i made art and wrote a lot. and felt very sorry for my sick friend.
after 2 long days of sleep and sickness and spewing fluids like you only do in the developing world, david is finally feeling better and we are off to another beach, near nicaragua today. i can´t spend much more time here, in el salvador... only like a day or two at this beach. i can hear nicaragua calling me. i am excited for nicaragua! and leon and granada and ometepe. and volcainos and old citys and beautiful things. the farther south i go... the happyer i feel. i see updates from home about cold and snow and ice. i wonder what the political state is like. i wonder how the job market is. i wonder what i´ll do. where i will live. if im ready for school? who will i be by then... 2 countries later? i am changing so quickly. like a snake sheading skin after skin after skin. i wrote a poem yesterday, as i waited for my friend to feel better. i like it a lot. i painted too. i have wild dreams most nights that i sometimes can remember come morning. sometimes i wish i didn´t. but those moments pass. you simply can´t be happy every moment of every day. and in dreamland, you aren´t the driver. i still wake up. the sun still gets up. i pack my bag and move on.
so thats this trip, so far in a nutshell. i have kept a detailed brightly painted journal and photos to match. and somewhere inside me i am getting ready to go back to canada.
Soooo... where do i start. last i updated i was leaving utila, honduras. that was sad. i stood outside on the ferry with the caribian sea wet on my face, my tears mixing with the already sailty water. i have fallen in love with scuba diving... it´s like entering a world free of sound where everything is in slow motion and all you can hear is the soft hiss of your regulator. Utila was a cute quiet town where the locals and the gringos intermixed constantly. it was also nice not having to worrie about spanish.
tom and greg (medie students from UK) and i ended up travling together for the last 2 weeks. i said goodbye to them last night before i left for xela. my tear ducts are too tired to cry... but it´s nice knowing that no matter where i go or end up... no matter what dark scary hole i crawl down or end up beside.. i can always find my own. and eventualy, i´ll find my way back home.
So... the boys and i went, in one day from utila, honduras to guatemala city. suprizingly, i didn´t think that city was too much of a shithole. granted we only spent a night and we didn´t leave the hotel. when we arrived in Gcity we went straight to hotel colonial... i THINK that is where dear jack and elain spent a night.... maybe not but i thought of them the whole time. guatemala makes me miss dear jack alen. i can´t believe it´s been a year since his death. where ever you are jack, i can feel you watching over me while i am down here. thank you for your light.
the next day, the boys and i went to antigua VIA chicken bus (all the stories are true about those bus rides... they really do sell anything!!!!)and stayed at the hostel called The Back Cat. we met two other people (also from the UK) named Jem (boyfriend) and Clarisa (girlfriend). we ended up spening 3 days in antigua.
the first night, the boys, myself, jem, clarisa and two other random people went out to a salsa bar. then we went to an after party. then, at the after party we met 5 locals who were our age. 2 girls and 3 guys. straight away, we could all tell that these people were really cool, spoke perfect english, attending uni and were going to be our friends. they envited us back to there place for an after-after party... and lets just say that the night was the most fun i have had in a long time. no one went to be before 7am. the next morning tom cooked all 10 of us breakfast and we ate it, with massive glasses of water in our hands.
once we made it back to our hostel, we ate vid´s and took naps and generally... just had a hang over day.
after a good nights sleep... (well sort of... minuse the stupid drunken hostel room mate who ame in at 330am pissed off his nipples talking really freakin loud... wanted to kill him...) we climbed a volcaino.... a REAL volcaino... that had.... um.... (don´t tell my mother.. oh wait...) lava! honest to god, lava! real lava! i saw real HOT lava! i know this sounds stupid, but i didn´t think it would be THAT hot. it almost melted my sneakers. someone on my guide trip did it in FLIP FLOPS! they nearly melted their feet off.. but i was okay cause of my shoes. it was like nothing i had ever seen before.
by day 3, the boys and i were kinda of board by antigua. it was a cute little town, but had a lot of gringos and, frankly a lot of crime. it was one of those little towns that seemed all nice and safe on the outside, but you still had to be careful. (one of the hostels we were planing on staying at got robbed.... Hmmm glad we didn´t stay there!!!!!!)
on friday, the boys and i left antigua for san pedro, lake atitlan. we spent 4 hours in a cramped mini bus, poor greg has long legs and looked like a daddy long legs squished up in a thumble. we killed time by listening to music, watched the trees blurr pass and got stuck in stupid construction. suddenly we turned a corner and, in time with each other greg and i pulled out our earphones and gasped at the fiew.
the lake was amazing. i believe it was formed by volcainos and is still surrounded by volcainos. we did tight little switch backs towards the lake. the sun was glimmering on the surface, calm as glass. i´ve taken photos, but they don´t do enough. the next day the boys and i along with luise and marco (two more friends from the back cat we met up with on the cramped shuttle bus) all rented kayakes. it cost us 10 Q (just shy of 1$usd) for 2 hours. we went to the other side of the lake where there were some locals with kids. the kids were so excited that we had kayacks they wanted in them! few things are as sweet as 7 shiny faced, excited, children yattering away in spanish.... never in my life have i wished harder that i knew more spanish. the rest of the day was spent lazing aroud, getting ready for spanish school, listening to tom play the guitare, watching greg learn how to play the guitare and painting. that evening we ate at a cheap (and super fucking slllllow) resterount. on the way we bumped into Jem and Clarisa! hah! they joined us at the sllllow resterount and we all drank beers while i prenteded that i didn´t have to get up at 4am the next day... all too soon, my night had to end and i hugged the boys good bye. it´s weird... i really started to get attached to being with them. it´s odd being by myself.
my alarm went off at 4am this morning. i caught a chicken bus to xela at 4 45am and arrived by 7 30. by 8 30 someone from ICA had picked me up and i was at school by 9am. i am really tired right now. i only got 4 hours of sleep and it wasn´t very restful. travling alone always makes me a little nervouse... espically since i am out of pratice.
i have met my host family. they don´t speak any english.... or should i say, they know as much english as i know spanish... it makes conversations a little awakward. there is another woman who is staying with the same family. she is from CA and has been here for 2 weeks. her spanish is so much better than mine, but i hope i learn... i have to right?
okay, back to part 2 of my lession!!!! wish my luck!!!
so, tuesday i leave dear sweet utila. i will be traveling to gratamala with two british guys named tom and grege. i just booked my spanish course. i am feeling -excited -scaired -a little sick of being sick -crampy and wishing i wasn't bleeding so damn hard.
the next week will be spend traveling and going to school. i've been gone from canada a month already... i can hardly believe it.
tomorrow i -wake up at 7am and dive,dive,dive,dive. (yeah... 4 dives in one day. good lord) -get last minuet things together, pack and pay bills.
tuesday i -get on a bus to guatamala and don't move for like 17 hours. -am very thankful that i am not traveling alone.
i am learning more and more that -i may be traveling 'alone' but you are never 'alone' for very long -how to put huge ammounts of trust in people i don't know.
i have arrived safly on utila island! actually... i've been here for a week (tomorrow) already. i passed my open water SCUBA diving course and am starting the Advanced Open Water SCUBA diving course today at 6pm... i am a little disapointed that i won't have my old instructor again, but change is alright too...
i got my first sunburn yesterday, so today i have spent in a loca cafe eating tuna sandwitches and chatting with some other travlers. its so nice not being stuck in san pedro sula! when the busses finally started working again, i met up with a tronto family who were very nice (and knew spanish!!!!) so we all got stuck in la ceiba cause the ferry had left already. silly silly silly. i tried to get a water taxi but no luck. for roughly 40usd i took 2 taxi rides and stayed in a super fancy hotel... if that was an american hotel it would of been like 200 bucks a night! like i said... it was a releafe to be here.... and still is.
the funny thing about being this close to the equator is that the sun sets at 8pm... even though it's summer..not use to that yet.
i am fighting off (and winning) a headcold. i think it's from going out drinking and doing shots (and of course them not washing the shotglasses between uses!)
i got my first sunburn yesterday and it's starting to faid into a tan. maybe i will have some colour to me by the time i leave this place!!
soon i need to plan what my next step is after utila... i have decided to skip belize. because it's quite $$ and i want to get to guatamala and start spanish school... speaking of which! i think i have decided on going to ICA there website is http://www.xelapages.com/ica/
it sounds pretty good... now i just have to book it. *grin* okie dokie! 10 minuets left for internet time time to go check facebook!
i am in san pedro sula trying to get to utila... it´s a long story that i will tell sometime when i have had more sleep. i can not locate the underscore key so hotmail and gmail currently loose email wise.... i am using good ol´nbtsc mail.... irnoic a little.
i have met up with two nice sweedish girls who know a lot more spanish that i do... together we will be able to get to utila..
honduras so far is warm, tropical and sticky. i look forward to a cool shower soon. the three of us are staying is a niceish hotem, 17 dollars a night. i get my own sink, toilet, fan, towel and bed to call my own.
tomorrow we are going to have a word with the gods and ask them to stop the bus strike. lol it would be nice to leave san pedro soon for utila.
i am tirled and need to sleep. love to you all, all the way from honduras.
PS i think good news just arrived.... huzza!!!!!!!!!! more on that later!!!!!!!!!!! yaaaaaaaaaaaay for potential car shaires! i love you world!
wow time has grown wings on me and flown by. tomorrow i pack up and get as ready as i can before i leave wed's. is today already monday? where has the week gone?
oh right, it's gone towards camp fires, water colours, journal entries, good food, and friendship.
happyest of birthdays to my darling sister risingdawn. may your 26th year be full of joy and growth and laughter. i miss you, but i love you even more. my dreams were scattered accross the ocean last night towards Jenny too... even if that's a messy subject. dreamland know no boundries like that.
today has been spend laying naked in the sunshine, catching up on some email and listening to nada surf "they weight is a gift." i don't know how it is already 7:30pm. it's probably time for dinner.
last night james came home with a friends guitare, a 6 pack and frusterated at his last table (with good reason.. their bill was $180 and left him... a THREE DOLLAR tip. buuuurn) i had suprized him with a nice dinner which melted away part of his bad mood. (how could it not?) we ate it outside beside a fire while he played the guitare and we watched the stars flicker above us. thinking about time and space and what this year has brought and what it will bring yet.
i feel ready to go south.
south til my skin turns golden. only then i'll be ready to come back home. i miss canada and i'll miss the states but i finally feel ready to leave.
3:45 and i'm chillin' in my swimsuit. i layed out in the sun for 15 minuets and got a little more colour to my skin. it's still 100f (40ish) outside and 90f (30ish) inside. but i'm minding it less and less. james is off at work and i have the whole place to myself. i've read a bit more of my travel books and needless to say, my excitment level is rising by the day. poor little me... i have to fugure out which of the bay islands i want to got to first. omg!!! excited.
Sooooo, james, laura, emma (laura's sister), kerrie (laura's friend) and myself all went to see Jimmy Eat World in concert Weds. it was pretty cool. they played close to a 2 hour set! *grin* Deer in the headlights opened, then Minus the Bear played. i was concerned that i would be board or feel left out but i didn't. lauras sister is amazingly mature for 13. jeeze. james, her and i sat in the back seat and i sat beside james and emma during the concert. yesterday james was suppose to work, but i guess it wasn't busy enough so he got the day off. kinda a bummer cause we could of spend the day in PHX watching free movies, but we had fun back here, playing play station 2, reading and relaxing. neither one of us wanted to do too much. in the evening we went to the store, bought moose drool (beer) and watched Clerks (i felt like i knew every person in that movie from the store) it was awesome!
today i want to go explore the creek that runs by jame's house. maybe once it's not sooo hot. i don't want to get a sunburn. (i still havn't! so proud!) then again i might just stay inside, listening to music, and reading all the books laying around this house. maybe a nap is in store.
i do feel kinda lazy today.
(dawn, are you REALLY turning 26 in 3 days??? unreal. stop growing up! soon you'll be 30, do you not know this? crazy kid. you'll always be 18 to me. **kisses**)
i have arrived in hot sunny AZ safely. this is officially the farthest south i have ever been. (but not for long!) i got in at 6:10 pm last night. laura hathaway was kind, and picked me up from the airport. i met her family, (mom, dad, grand dad, grand ma, cory and emma) what a riot. her family is freakin' funny. we drove to her new apartment and talked while we waited for james to get off work. this morning james and i drove out to his parents house.
in moments of today i have felt like a little girl far, far away from her fathers farm, or her mothers kitchen. the drive out here was nothing like i have ever seen before. it's like looking at a postcard, but you're speeding down the hi way with better music and a good friend. there is more cactuse out here then i ever thought possible. it's actually cooler[1] out here than in the city. but i won't lie, it's fuckin' hot out here in the desert. (100f in the shade today. 90f inside, with the AC going full tilt.)
james left for work at 4pm so i've had the day to myself. for most of it, (4-6:30) i spent inside. because... well... i didn't want to cook myself. it was cooler today than it was yesterday. at least that's what laura and james kept telling themselves. i'm learning to just except that this summer i'm going to sweat, a lot. i read a bit, wrote in my journal a bit, and talked on the phone a bit. it was a pretty lazy afternoon.
after the heat of the day was over, i went outside and lay in the sun. i tried to soak up as many rays i could. my skin is thirsty for it's light. it drank up every last drop. Mmmm, and i have a whole summer to look forward to of this. sure beats the hell out of scooping ice cream or stocking the beer cooler at the RC store.
that feels like a whole world away now. a different life. a million moments ago. i'm glad that i had that job, and i am glad that i am no longer there.
james cat keeps meowing. it's sort of cute. apparently he's going scenial due to old age. "we got that cat before we got Asher"-james "...did you pick him up at the same pet store?"-me *james and i laugh*
i talked to mom today. she's booked her tix to see jenny. i feel like this is an important moment in my family life... i want to draw a line in the sand and see how far away i get between now and then. i want, more than anything in the world to have something, please god anything change in that situation. have whatever weird family stew thats on the stove finally come to a boil. then we can decide if it's eatable or worth saving. you can't toss it out til it's cooked, i guess.
well, the sun's long set and it's a beautiful night in AZ. i'm going to go lay on the porch and let time pass by.
at least her and dad know i'm in CA safely. this is an awful thing to say, but i can't shake the feeling she'd be in such a better place if she was to die safely tonight.
***
please god, when my turn is up... when you have finally called my number.
please let me go, quickly. please don't slowly cut
every last individual thread.
leaving family and friends dangling hanging onto an old voice box and a shaky frame with evaporating memories.
hello California! i managed to actually get everything together and done before i crossed the canada/usa thursday. i took amtrak down to seattle and saw the ezza, rael and the ceci. much laughter and ((sigh)) rain to be had. ezza and i took g-hound down to pdx where we had anther busy full day. we went to smyrc, saw bujo, eli* aaaaaaand ate at javier's! (yoooooooooooooooooooooooou've never been to javier's!?) we woke up very early i took the ezza to the airport. sadness.
eli* and i went to good will that afternoon. it rained. i got on a train. i slept. i got off. the train ride wasn't long enough. lol. i suppose it helps when you get off at two major cities for the day.
now i'm in CA sitting on victor's bed. i feel well rested concidering i slept on the train. victors left to get some food from the kitchen. i might just be too warm to eat. i keep saying how hot it is outside.... victor keeps laughing at me. calling me "silly canadain." i can't help that i'm from a rainy/cold part of the world...we went to UU church this morning. i stood in the sun for maybe 15 minuets and i got my first little sunburn.
i miss belonging to a uu church. it made me ache for Westwood.
okie, now it's time to get some food. even if it's hot outside.
happy sunshine everyone! sorry i wasn't in PDX long enough to see everyone. i will return for longer.
tired
happly hot