The One About Traveling

I told my mom I would be home by the holidays. She of course took “the holidays” as “thanksgiving,” and I know how to pick my battles, I think her little girl has been gone long enough…and so I will be home just in time spend the very special holiday with the ones I am most thankful for.

But after I leave Buena Esperanza and before the Tofurkey hits the table, I plan on traveling. My itinerary is not concrete… but I do know that Costa Rica, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico are all in the very near future. I am excited to travel, who wouldn’t be… 8 new countries, 6 ish weeks, so many different cultures, different languages, different natural wonders. It is going to be great. However, I have this other feeling, a feeling like each place I visit I am constantly going to be thinking “what else?” and “what am I missing about this place?”

Let me explain: The closest town to my community here is a place called Isla Colon, or better known as Bocas Island. It is in all the central American tour books. It draws tourist of all kinds and from all over the world. There are the ritzy Panamanians from Panama City, there are the Australian surfers dudes looking to catch a wave, there are the crafty Argentinians out on the street selling their products to pay for the rest of their travel, there are Israelis of course, because they travel everywhere, and so much more.

So this is the place that I have been going to and from for the past 2 years. It is where I can do internet, purchase groceries, have a good meal, and easily catch a water taxi to the main land. Imagine going from this tourist trap, where they advertise “ladies nights” and “jungle" themed parties, and then you travel only 30-90 min and you are in the real jungle, where you can experience the reality of how most of the natives live; where we have no running water, no latrines, no electricity and where the people are all subsistence farmers, who live and work the land for survival.

I know most of the tourists are on the same route. They all carry the same travel books that are all leading them in the same direction and to the same destinations. If you get your hotel, your business or your tour in one of these books and it is a gold mine. The chatter in the hostels are all about where they had just been, or where they are headed, and how drunk they were the night before. In Bocas, they are all shuffled around by the tour guides (via boat) who offer hardly a handful of tour options. Most include sitting on the beach. One of the most popular tour is what the local guides call “the round” and the first stop in this boat tour is Dolphin Bay, the bay right out my kitchen window.

So here is why I have mixed feelings about traveling Central America, and why I know that a little part of me is always going to feel like I am missing something…. I know if I were to visit Bocas without being a Peace Corps Volunteer, I would just follow the crowd, do the tours, see the sites and probably end up sitting in the middle of Dolphin Bay snapping pictures. But now, my eyes have been opened to what lies on the shore of Dolphin bay; this beautiful magical place, Buena Esperanza, that has changed my life....It is the people, and it is the relationships that I have made, that make this place so amazing, and you can’t get that from sitting on a boat with a bunch of other tourists.

But...in a few short weeks I am going to be joining this cycle. I am going to put my backpack on my back, tie my money bag around my waist, keep my tour book handy, and jump on in. I know to really get to know a place like I have in Buena Esperanza, takes time. And I think I can’t realistically travel and stay in communities for 6 months to a year at a time (as much as I may want to) I am lucky to be able to take this trip to be able to take this trip,and I know now that I will do my best to take the back roads, and meet the locals to feel that void I know I will have.

As for Buena Esperanza, I feel so fortunate to have been given the opportunity to live in a place that so many people just get to see from a boat.


Peace,
Meti