Central America
My travels in Central America
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Endings in Guatemala
“Better late than never. Or whatever.” – A bunch of people say this all the time 2024 Prologue Let’s first take a moment to reset. I traveled to Guatemala and first drafted this post in 2019 and updated it in 2020 after I had returned home from my travels, following a few months of adjustment back into adulting. I updated it again in 2022 reflecting on the massive changes in my life and the world feeling the impacts of a global pandemic. These thoughts and insights are a moment in the history of things that I would like to keep some record of for myself if nothing else. I wrote…
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Yoga Teacher Graduation
“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Last Week of Yoga Training The third week of yoga teacher training in Guatemala is testing week. Everyone in the training had to teach a one hour class during the week and take a written exam at the end of the week on Friday before (hopefully) graduating on Saturday. As the usual, we still had a 90 minute yoga class with Doron each morning. Every once in awhile, if the group looked particularly exhausted, he would go easy on us with a slower, less strenuous…
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Becoming a Yogi: Part 2
“Every exit is an entry somewhere else.” – Tom Stoppard Dance Like No one is Looking A week through my Yoga teacher training class in Tzununa, Guatemala. Honestly, it’s been great. Better than great. I hate to be cliché, but it’s life changing. It’s like three weeks of physical workouts, intensive emotional therapy, career and life counseling, friend making, and new experiences. Saturday mornings we do Zen Dance for an hour and a half in lieu of a morning meditation. It’s 90 minutes of music, and dancing like a liquored up soccer mom let loose on a cruise ship dance floor. A.K.A., like no one is looking. Limbs are flailing,…
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I’m Gonna be a Yoga Teacher
“Life is not what happened to you but what you remember and how you remember it to retell it.” — Gabriel García Márquez Get me to the Shala on Time Yoga training. Guatemala. Here we go. I left Antigua on the arduous trek to Lake Atitlan, the location of my yoga teacher training. I’ve spent enough time relaxing and eating while traveling, it’s time to Yoga. Three hours on a shuttle bus that ran 45 minutes late, and a long walk with a heavy backpack later, and I’m waiting at the dock in Panajachel, a.k.a. Pana. Pana is one of the larger towns on Lake Atitlan, and the one connected to…
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Last Stop: Guatemala
“When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – -William Least Heat Moon Back on a Plane After two months stateside, I left the US in early April for my last foreign destination of this year of travel: Guatemala. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it felt bittersweet leaving the US this time. After spending two months at home, I expected to be excited to jump on a plane for one last passport stamp. When I was home, I felt a lot of life stresses coming back. But I also felt…
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A Stop at Home (and Mexico)
“I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.” –Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie So am I Still Traveling? Hi folks. It’s me again. Upon leaving Singapore in January, I took a short travel break and spent a few months back at home. If you didn’t see me stateside, you likely never noticed any of this happened. When I left Singapore I was just a tad behind on blogging. You’re welcome for that. Because of my laziness and time-consuming, over-thought, forever-taking process of writing, none of you had to wait very long between blog posts. This isn’t Game of Thrones. To answer your questions, no I…
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City Tours and Traveling Mishaps – From Panama to Medellin
“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey.” – Fitzhugh Mullan For those of you aching for more blog posts, you’re in luck. I’m covering a lot of ground in this one. Enough Spanish for One Month For my last Friday in Panama city I skipped my Spanish classes and played tourist for the day. Don’t judge me. I wasn’t just playing hookie because I didn’t want to go to class (which I didn’t). I also didn’t plan my Panama City flight itinerary very well. My arrival in Panama City was on a Sunday afternoon. I then had class all week, and a flight out to Colombia…
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One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out. So I would just scream. – Temple Grandin Language Frustrations I had a frustrating week. And it made me kind of cranky. It’s my last of four weeks of Spanish classes. I switched locations for the last week to one of the language school’s other locations in Panama City and arrived here on Sunday. In concept, this was a great plan. I see more of the country beyond the mountains of Boquete, expand my Spanish experience with variety of teachers, and change up my…
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Making Friends
“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” -Tim Cahill Weekend Excursions Where has the time gone. I’ve been in Boquete for the better part of three weeks now. My first week went slowly. The school didn’t have many other students below the age of 75 so I had a lot of alone time with a bottle of wine and the streets of Boquete to keep me company. I did get a lot of exploring done early on. But I have to admit, I was also getting a little lonely and ready to meet new people. My primary human interaction over the first week was 5 hours a…
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Practica! Practica!
I’d hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don’t talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don’t hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over, handing out little treats when you finally say “potty” or “wawa.” – David Sedaris Learning Español It’s time to get down to business and into my Spanish classes. A one-on-one conversational lesson in the morning, followed by four hours of grammar and vocab work in the afternoon. For those of you that don’t like to add, that’s five hours of Spanish classes. Per day. Five days a week. …
