i feel i must offer an explanation before i start this entry, not an excuse per se but some sort of reason to explain the random thoughts that will be shared below.
i am sick.
thankfully not the kind of sick that most people think of when they consider travel to Mexico or Central America. it isn´t anything serious or even anything much to speak of but i do believe it should be noted. it has probably been building the past week, sore throats in the morning, restless sleep, coughing, and yesterday the near loss of my voice. i have no doubt that the late hours i have been keeping have contributed to this recent development. hopefully today is the culmination...coughing, congestion, no voice, no appetite and a fever. it is also my last day in Leon so i am not inclined to lay low at the hostel. not to worry (yes family i am speaking to you) i have been drinking lots of liquids and even went to the store and bought 2 different types of tea to drink for the remainder of the day.
thought 1: i do not have many photos of my week in Leon and i wonder if it is because i have been spending so much time with new friends that i have forgotten, or maybe i have chosen to focus on the experience and the interactions rather than the scene.
thought 2: it is easy to enjoy and even fall in love with a place when the people who live there welcome you to their city and into their lives. i have been incredibly lucky while in Leon as i have met some wonderful people who have introduced me to places, foods and music, taught me words and games that are either unique to Leon or Nicaragua, and most importantly have shared their time (which we all know is precious all over the world) with me.
thought 3: this is more of a question than a thought...for me it is something i have been pondering. Are we more of ourselves, meaning are we more true to ourselves, when we are traveling? or stated a different way, Are we more open to life and new experiences when we are free of stress, responsiblities and/or a daily routine?
thought 4: in the age of digital cameras, when we can take thousands of photos i find it interesting that i am limited in both my ability to take photos and limited in the number of photos i can take. why am i limited in my ability to take photos...well sometimes it is just not respectful or appropriate, other times it can make you a target, and still other times in the time it takes to get your camera out to catch that spectacular moment you miss it, which means you miss seeing it and capturing it. as for the photo limit, well i didn´t bring enough memory cards and one flash drive isn´t enough to transfer photos. oh and flickr sucks. so i try to put my favorite photos here or on FB and periodically email them to myself, but of course all that takes time. i have decided these 2 things are good though, they make me more discerning and thoughtful about when i do and do not take photos.
thought 5: my attempts to learn chess have again been thwarted by my clear ineptitude. after a lengthy lesson and 1 game the Salt Man gave up on me. i give him lots of credit for his patience. luckily i fared better in the Nicaraguan card game and the Nicaraguan version of checkers.
thought 6: for all the talk of the greatness of the States, especially the infrastructure, Central America puts our public transportation system to shame.
thougth 7: again, not much of a thought so much as a rhetorical question i asked myself this morning as i was repacking my backpack: how many more things can i lose on this trip? current count: one bottle of contact solution, 1 ring, 1 tank top, 1 carabiner, and 1 cell phone. there is only one thing i ever lose in the States, sunglasses. without fail i lose them after a few months. but on this trip, they remain with me while other things, rather important things go missing. of the items listed, the most important is the contact solution. do you know how hard it is to find contact solution in CA?
thats all for now, off to drink more tea.
see you in Honduras!
No comments:
Post a Comment