Mid-Life Travel

I fell flat on my face twice during our travels in Central America. The first time I landed in sand softened by Caribbean waves. (We were nearing the end of our run across a narrow strand of San Pedro on Ambergris Caye, Belize en route to catch a water taxi to Caye Caulker.)

The second time, like the first, I was fully loaded with my backpack on my back and a bag in hand. As I stepped off the water taxi we'd just taken from Dangriga, Belize to Puerto Cortes, Honduras I fell headlong into members of our travel group. Despite their looks of shock and surprise as I collapsed into their midst, they managed to block my fall and set me upright again. In both cases--just like my years spent trying to run as fast as my friends in schoolyard games--I was rushing to keep up with others. But, happily, in these two instances I was left unhurt ... not even a scraped knee.

Still, traveling when you're 54 requires more care and caution than traveling at age 22, or even 44. Frances and I often needed more rest, especially when busing or taxiing for long hours or after navigating border crossings from one country to the next. We also monitored our bodily functions intensively since there was absolutely no way we could tolerate traveler's diarrhea while using public transportation. We also learned to eat and drink little on travel days since we never knew when we'd stop or if we'd find an always-elusive bathroom.

Eventually we tired of riding chicken buses. Why? We were often among the oldest riders on these buses that were designed to transport people with much shorter legs and smaller bodies. Packing almost twice as many riders into an old school bus as the capacity allowed was challenging. But sitting with your backpack on your lap, your other luggage lodged between your feet, and your knees braced against the seat in front of you when you couldn't move was near-debilitating. Worst of all was standing in the aisle while clutching all your luggage as you were pressed tightly against riders on all sides. When more passengers boarded the already-crammed bus OR when someone decided they needed to squeeze by you, it took supreme willpower--and magic--to accomplish.

In one instance, on a chicken bus from Rio Dulce to Flores, Guatemala, a bus staffer asked local riders to relinquish their back row seats to accommodate the gringos who'd boarded. I can't imagine how resentful these riders may have felt to abandon their seats to us for that four-hour trip. Indeed, some of those people stood throughout the entire journey. Still, I was grateful.

In Honduras we discovered first-class buses. Not only did we each have a seat for ourselves. We could check our luggage into a separate compartment beneath the bus. What luxury!

Of course, most of the travelers on these first-class buses were other tourists so the opportunity to experience local culture and customs was reduced dramatically. No food vendors were allowed on these buses or permitted to stand along the outside of our windows to offer their wares of fresh pineapple chunks, filled tortillas, chilled sodas, or dried plaintain with lime and chile peppers. We did take a first-class bus several times after our initial experience, though, and did so with deep gratitude for the breathing space it afforded us.