Uncategorized « the traveling derelict takes to the road

I’m home now, listening to the rain and a distant toucan, trying to reconcile these feelings of wanting to be on the road again and wanting to develop my life here in Costa Rica. This business won’t run itself, I have to continuously remind myself. I need to do more advertising online, get out and talk to people in the area, pass out business cards. But I feel myself decompressing, too, and I want to make time for that. After every big trip I’ve been on, I’ve needed (or, I suppose, thought that I needed) a “quiet time.” After I returned from my first solo trip—backpacking through Argentina and Chile—I pulled away from my college roommates, more interested in observing than participating. It took me a few weeks before I felt ready to start working on my thesis and preparing to graduate.

After the trip through southeastern Africa, I spent two weeks at home in Cleveland talking about my trip and trying to figure out if I felt different or saw things differently. It took the threat of paying rent to my parents for me to wake up and get back into my life, which meant, at that time, moving to New York City to look for a job.

Writing about this makes me realize that perhaps it is all in my head, this idea that if I sit quietly, I’ll suddenly understand why I travel and how I’ve changed from my travels. I suppose that “culture shock” is real, and I certainly felt a jolt of it after returning to my suburban home from Africa, but it can also be an excuse. It’s almost as if I said “Okay, I did my time. I opened myself up enough and now I can let it all simmer. Something will emerge eventually.” But that’s not how it works, I’m realizing. The emotions felt during and after travel, in response to experiences and connections made abroad, are powerful. Just as are the desires and fears brought on by returning Home. And when those two profound responses meet, what a catalyst!

During my trip this time, driving from Cleveland, Ohio, to Costa Rica, I had my Home with me. In a few ways, actually. I was driving my car, for one. The Pathfinder was packed to the top with kiteboarding gear, my bike, clothes, sheets, odds and ends for the house… Up front we had our maps, snacks, water, and good luck trinkets. There were of course locals who would come up to the car trying to sell things, and the cops who would shine their flashlight inside trying to find someone stowed away, but for the most part that space was ours. It was home. And whenever we stepped out of the car, I had to readapt to the feeling of being away from home, of being outside the familiar. When I’ve traveled in the past, that sense of being Away was a constant state of being. I was always Away from my Home; I adapted once—when the plane touched down somewhere far away—and I felt that for the rest of the trip, until I returned to my Home again.

And, then, during those times when my home-with-a-capital-H was truly far away, I created little homes for myself. That’s a fun challenge for me: trying to feel at home wherever I go. I felt at home in the sleeping bag-strewn deck of the Ilala Ferry, crossing Lake Malawi. I felt at home at Touching Tiny Lives orphanage in Mokhotlong, Lesotho, playing with the babies. I felt at home in that little café in Buenos Aires where Miiko, Helen, and I would meet everyday. I felt at home in the “drop top” beater of a car with our Rasta friends in Negril, Jamaica. Whether it was a very short-term home, or one I returned to again and again, whether it was a place I occupied alone or with others, creating or finding that space has always made traveling a little easier for me. And, I believe, it has allowed me to relax into other cultures and open up to people around me. It has given me the chance during my travels to chill out, reassess, release anxiety, and relax into the newness of the situation.

Not only did I have my Home with me in the sense of things, but I also had my boyfriend with me. Flaco is a new boyfriend, granted, but we’ve been friends for almost a decade and I trust that he knows who I am, even on the road. I’m often wary of traveling with friends, because I’ve found it can lead to arguments and impatience and hard feelings. Travel partners are of a different breed, and aren’t always those who are or would be friends back at Home. But, Flaco and I have traveled in short spurts before. We lived together for a short period of time. We understand the balance between one’s need for space and our mutual need for togetherness. Our friendship was built during my yearly vacations, after all, and traveling together has never been a problem.

So, not only did I have my stuff with me, but I had my family. I didn’t have to worry about every single thing—is the car locked? where will we sleep tonight? should I trust this person? Am I on the right road?—because I could share that worry with someone I trust. And, he’s from Costa Rica! Although it was a great opportunity to hone my Spanish, it also was so comforting to have a Spanish speaker with me at the borders, at police checkpoints, and while asking for directions. Unlike my past travels, when I’ve felt that I had to be “on” all the time, when I had to stay alert and guarded but open enough to meet people and recognize opportunities, this time I could doze off for a moment and everything would be fine. What are travel partners for, if not to watch your bags, help read the maps, and drink a beer with to celebrate at the end of the day?

I had my things, my family, and I wasn’t really wandering. We had some idea of the route we were going to take, and some idea of what to expect from place to place. I’ve never traveled by map before. Sure, I would always look at a map and decide where I was going next and find a bus/ferry/train/taxi/plane that would take me there, but I never actually had to follow a map from place to place. For me, this was an important distinction. It reminded me of the difference between riding the subway in New York City, and riding the buses.

When I busted my knee my first winter living in Brooklyn, I was forced to figure out a way to get from place to place on my crutches. I worked in Midtown, an hour subway ride away from Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The subway was too difficult to manage on crutches, though, especially since I was let off in Grand Central station and had to ride the wave of people commuting to work everyday. There just wasn’t room for me to hobble along, let alone sit down on the train or take my time getting up the stairs. I realized that I had to take the bus, or three buses actually. The commute was a little longer at an hour and a half, but those six weeks of struggle really allowed me to see New York City as a whole. Instead of submerging underground, speeding to my destination, and emerging somewhere seemingly disconnected from where I began, I was able to see the street names and notice which turns the driver had to take to negotiate the one way streets and learn where each bus dropped off and picked up. The city began to make sense to me, and from then on I was able to take the subway, get off somewhere and know which direction I was facing. I had learned the landmarks. Instead of people-watching on the subway, I spent six weeks city-watching.

And this, in a way, was how it felt traveling by car through Central America. I had a sense of where I was going, where I had been, what to expect next. I wasn’t surprised to see the ocean or ascend mountain roads or come across a small town. I felt like I understood the route, instead of just wandering along it. Of course, the big cities and towns were always a challenge, especially when we were searching for someplace to stay for the night or somewhere cheap to eat. But, generally, we had control of where we were going and weren’t at the mercy of a slow bus driver or a long train ride. I felt like we had control over our environment, and that was the feeling that differed from all my other travels. We were on our own time schedule, and were free to stop or go or rest or eat whenever we wanted. So where was the challenge?

I guess the challenge laid in our ability to quickly adapt. We had our course mapped, sure, but we came upon all sorts of detours along the way. A semi that had jackknifed across the road, for instance, held us up for three hours. We could have grumbled, or turned the car around and searched for another route. Instead, we took it as an opportunity to schmooze with the locals and get a sense of how things operated in Veracruz, Mexico. It ended up being a great afternoon spent cheering on the tow truckers and reporting back on the progress to each interested cowboy or family sweating in their car.

In our second-to-last day of traveling, we were forced to turn back at the Honduras-Nicaragua border (after speeding through Honduras and arguing with multiple cops and various checkpoints to just let us on our way, aiming to get to Granada, Nicaragua, by sunset) because Flaco needed a visa. We had to go back the way we came, across half of the country that we had already driven through, and then head north to the capital of Tegucigalpa to get the visa from the Nicaraguan consulate. Even the cops at the checkpoints that we had to re-cross thought that that was insane and encouraged Flaco to just sneak through the border and meet me on the other side. We weren’t going to risk it. The evening was difficult as we had to climb mountain roads to enter the city. Night had fallen by the time we saw the lights of Tegus, but we definitely weren’t up for entering the huge city in the dark. We settled on staying at an auto-hotel, where we paid by the hour for stained sheets and loud neighbors. We made it our own, though, and spread blankets from the car over the bed and watched a movie from my laptop. We were jumpy throughout the night, but definitely cozy.

We bickered between ourselves, too, and it was often challenging for me to retain a sense of humor about things when I was exhausted and dirty and we couldn’t find a place to stop. I became annoyed easily, those first few days of traveling together, but not with Flaco. Rather, I was annoyed when the lady behind the reception desk tried to overcharge me for a room, simply because she knew my Spanish wasn’t as good as Flaco’s. I got pissed when I couldn’t find a store that carried cold beer or when someone looked at me helplessly when I asked for a place I could change money. Of course, my annoyance annoyed Flaco and there was one night (the evening after the semi truck complication) where he couldn’t stand my bitching and had to leave the hotel for a bit to escape my bad energy.

Flaco wasn’t immune to travel aggravation, either. In El Salvador, we got into a yelling match (granted, I yelled more than he did) because his frustration and exhaustion was translating into sarcastic, mean-spirited remarks toward me. “Oh, now you want to eat,” he said at one point, rolling his eyes. Or, he declare that “No, we are definitely not taking that route,” effectively tossing my opinions out the window.

We struggled with retaining our sense of humor throughout it all, and talking over things instead of resorting to the silent treatment. Not only did we need to be open to all sorts of plan-changes and deviations, but we needed to be open to each other’s point of view. For the two of us, individuals used to forging our own paths with confidence (and, possibly, with thinking that we’re always right), sharing the reins forced us to listen more and to be more humble and that there are different, yet perfectly acceptable ways of seeing things. And now, here at El Nidito with Flaco, our relationship is markedly stronger and we are so much closer than we were a month ago. Things are wonderful.

Between making breakfasts, trying to be the hostess with the mostess, putting together jigsaw puzzles with guests, and visiting the Pacific coast to escape the rain (storm after storm has moved through the Arenal area since I’ve been here… leftovers from the rainy season), the traveling derelict has neglected her blogging duties. But, here are our last couple photos from the drive and a few from El Nidito.