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.

From Spanish to English and Back Again

We´re in La Ceiba, Honduras now ... arrived here accidentally on Sunday, Jan. 4. We paid for bus tickets to Tela but didn´t realize we were at our bus stop, a pull off point along the road where we expected a bus station, and we just stayed on the bus. No one told us we were at our destination. All buses have a ¨conductor¨who collects fares along the way as people board the bus. On other buses in Belize that conductor would have told us when to get off. No big deal. We planned to be here soon since this is the jumping off point for the Bay Islands.

We´ve been on the road three weeks. We started in Mexico with mostly English and a little Spanish to communicate, then stayed 10 days in Belize which is English speaking. It was a relief to not have to struggle to communicate. But now we´re back at it. This time most of our communication is with lodging, restaurant, market, and bus employees who know no English or very, very little. So it´s up to us to find a way to express ourselves.

I think often of Dora Kling from Washburn who told me that when she goes to Mexico each March for a month of vacation, she speaks Spanish and when that doesn´t work, she acts and points. ¨Why, once I performed an entire three act play,¨she told me, ¨They still didn´t know what I wanted.¨

We also met a young Canadian man on our water taxi to Caye Caulker, Belize. He had traveled extensively in Mexico and Guatemala and told us that several times he ended up spending an additional night or two at his lodging because he didn´t know how to tell them that he wanted to check out. Whew. We´re doing fine. Steph´s 30 year old college Spanish classes and Spanish dictionary are helping tremendously.

Traveling across borders from one country to the next typically means a long, stressful day. Our experience getting from Belize to Honduras is a prime example. First we boarded a bus in Placencia, Belize at 545 am for a two hour trip to Dangriega. Then we took a taxi to the water taxi meant to deliver us to Puerto Cortes, Honduras. Here we were told to give up our passports for the water taxi company to fill out their manifest. They assured us that they´d been doing this for over 20 years. Then they loaded our luggage in a truck and about 32 of us in various vehicles for our trip to immigration where they took our passports out of a plastic bag for the immigration officer to stamp.

We reboarded our vehicles for a trip to a dock in the middle of nowhere where we waited for over an hour for a boat to arrive. The immigration officer got on the boat and called our names one by one from our passports indicating that we should board. Three hours later we were at Puerto Cortes. Here we had to ride a cab to the Immigration Office in Honduras which was closed. A sign on the door indicated a number to call for assistance. Here we waited over an hour in blazing midday heat for our immigration official to arrive. Again, our passports were handed back to us in order for us to fill out a form to present to the customs´agent. After a long line, and an additional unexplained $3 US fee, we were done.

Frances and I were the only members of our boatload who stayed in Puerto Cortes. Everyone else just wanted to get the hell out of there. Heck, the cab driver told us he had lived there his whole life and there was nothing to see.

But we were exhausted and unwilling to travel any farther. We´d already put in a 10 hour day and needed to rest. We walked to a nearby hotel with a fence all around and booked a room. Chickens must have been living immediately behind or underneath our room because we heard crowing and clucking the rest of that day and all night. There were even small chicken feathers on the floor of our room and in the shower.

Again, what an adventure....