For the last 5 months we have been travelling through Guatemala, Belize and Nicaragua with no foreseeable end date in sight. Travelling like this has allowed us to really get comfortable (especially in Nicaragua) and feel more like we are living somewhere rather than just visiting. This is all coming to an end! Ian recently found out that he won’t get a medical school interview for this year, and so we are no longer tied to being relatively close to Canada. The hunt is on for relatively cheap, not ridiculously long, flights down to South America.
We are both incredibly excited as some of the destinations in South America, namely Patagonia & Peru, were what spurred our yearlong excursion from Canada in the first place. After 5 months of being away from home and our families we have begun to feel at ease with where we are at in the travels. Now throwing this curveball of starting to travel further South in the mix has caused us to feel like we did when first leaving Canada. Are we doing the right thing? Are we leaving at the right time? Are we going to the right place first? We have all the tingly, anxious feelings that we did when we originally left home.
These feelings have begun to show us a couple important things. By travelling more openly, not on a schedule, with no real end date, we were better able to enjoy our time and really find the places that best suited us. The other thing that we have learned is that we could totally come back in live in Nicaragua for an extended period of time again. It has been over three months so far that we have been in Nicaragua and we haven’t even seen everything yet!
The other part of this feeling is that we were hit very hard with culture shock when we arrived in Guatemala over five months ago. The culture shock was not only the new culture we were immersed in, but also the things that we were missing from our culture. We seem to finally have a grasp on what is going on in Central America, how things work, and what to expect, only to be leaving and heading for a new continent in less than a month. Although the Spanish we have learned will likely be immensely helpful, it feels as though it may be back to basics with the cultural transition.
The sunsets may change, the people may change, and the culture may change, but whatever may lie ahead, at least there is mucho bueno vino!!!
Love always,
AL + Ian