A note: I wrote this email to my parents while I was in a hostel in Guatemala City. In the morning before I wrote this I had problems with a border crossing at the Guatemalan/Salvadoran border. Twenty-four hours or so earlier I had been finishing a four-day silent retreat. I was zen. This is the story of leaving the silent retreat, called “The Hermitage”, and trying to make it to El Rancho Santa Fe where I am currently living for one year. Look for the second half of the travel story and an update on life coming soon.
Howdy Parents,
I left the Hermitage one day early. It was four days total of silence. It was an interesting and valuable experience. I may do it again. Did I ever send you guys the Pico Iyer episode of On Being? Here it is (https://onbeing.org/programs/pico-iyer-the-art-of-stillness/). I was very happy at points and I teared up a bit at points as well. Without external stimulus with only time to pass, thoughts to pass, and beautiful fruit trees to watch it is a quite nice way to spend time. I think I have come to know myself better and realized some things that I would like to learn about myself. I feel incredibly calm. There was only one other fellow in the dorm area with me. He and I chatted for a while after I started speaking. The impetus to speak came from Emma, the owner. She approached me in the morning to ask if I wanted to pay for breakfast that morning. I was confused and she told me she had me marked as leaving that day, the 17th. Later she came back with my breakfast, a bowl of fresh fruit, nuts, coconut flakes, and seeds. The food was excellent and vegan. I was oddly satisfied with the amount I was fed, three meals that were not very big. I guess that is the idea of a macrobiotic diet.
At that point, I had gone to bed thinking about leaving because I had a friend in San Pedro, a short tuk-tuk ride around one end of the lake, from Durango. He had messaged me he would be there and we were too close in proximity to not have a rendezvous. So when Emma talked to me and things fell into place it was rather serendipitous that I would end my silence.
I went to San Pedro at 10am and found internet. My emails and messages had stacked up. Jacob, the Durango connection was in class until 2. I had emails from NPH that they wanted me to travel a couple of days early. I had messages from the other NPH volunteers who were taking classes in Antigua too. Supposedly there are some protests anticipated to occur this weekend and there are busses being canceled already. This is the reason they wanted me to move now. So I drank my coffee and had another one. This is the best coffee in the world. Coffee is not just coffee. There is good coffee and there is bad coffee. A fellow had sat down with me and we chatted. He is an American fellow from South Carolina who winters in Guatemala because it is cheaper to be retired here than it is in the United States. I let all the information from NPH and the other volunteers sink in. I began to formulate a plan.
I crossed the street to a travel agency and discovered it would cost me 100Q 15USD to get back to Antigua. I would leave San Pedro at 15:00 to cross the lake on a water taxi. These boats are fiberglass skiffs with a small roof. Roughly the same size as the skiff Donovan uses in Alaska. So I made the decision that I would leave that day. I caught a tuk-tuk back to the Hermitage near the town of San Pablo. As we were speeding down the road I saw Jacob walking along. I shouted and waved to let him know I would be in contact. When I arrived at the Hermitage at about 13:00 I was in and out in fifteen minutes, I had packed my stuff in the morning when Emma told me I was leaving. The owners were absent but a volunteer was there. She is a beautiful Bulgarian girl who lives nomadically between wherever works and New Zealand. Now she is living at the lake. She doesn’t have the same opportunities to return to a home to make money like I do. It is an interesting way to live.
So up the hill with my bags, 200 steps. I waited five minutes before hailing a ride to San Pedro. I arrived back at the same coffee shop and reserved a spot on the shuttle at the tour agency across the street. I messaged Jacob and he came down. That was 14:00. He arrived fifteen minutes later and we talked about what we are doing in life. He’s two years older than me and is a carpenter at Rocky Mountain Tiny Homes. He is in Guatemala for a month to escape the drought of Southern Colorado and the subsequent drinking everyone is doing. I was glad to get to chat with him. We talked about riding bicycles around South America in a couple of years. Then I caught the boat for the thirty-minute ride across the lake. It was choppy.
The shuttle van was thirty minutes late and crowded. My knees were stiff and my hip is acting up again. Such is the nature of travel. There was an older fellow from Palo Alto, California and his spouse in the seat behind me. He couldn’t bend his foot. They were doing work with their rotary club. I think he said he was seventy or so.
Three hours later we arrived in Antigua. I had learned of a 35Q hostel (5USD) when I left town five days earlier. They rent out tents on the roof instead of renting rooms. It is a thin mat on the floor that is no thicker than a quilt. So a quilt on a concrete floor, a pillow, and a towel for a shower. There were some hooligans with pot so I had a spliff with them and chatted. I went to dinner with some fellows who were staying there too. A Belgian fellow and a dude from Rico, CO. Not far from Durango. When we returned there was a group of French Canadian Girls going dancing. My departure for Honduras was at 3am the next morning. I decided to go dancing to celebrate my time in Guatemala. I returned from the club at about 1:30 after hugging some folks good-bye who I had come to know over the past month. I showered and was in bed fifteen minutes later. I set my alarm for an hour so I could make it to the rendezvous by 3. When I woke up it was 3:10 and I was at the rendezvous by 3:15. I was running with all my bags as I chastised myself for being a drunken fool. Luckily the first bit of our journey was in a taxi shared by the four of us volunteers. They had waited for me. It was a nice jolt of adrenaline first thing in the morning.
The taxi took us to a Holiday Inn in Guatemala City. We had two hours to kill. The bus finally showed up and we boarded. I napped until the border crossing into El Salvador. The itinerary was Guatemala to San Salvador to Tegucigalpa. The money changers swarmed us and specifically target James and me, the other male volunteer. We’re both tall white men who make easy marks. They scammed him for forty dollars to get his passport stamped. It’s his first rodeo down here. I lost only about three dollars. I did my best to tell them to fuck off. I got stamped in the immigration office and crossed the bridge to El Salvador. The El Salvadoran immigration agent boarded the bus to check our passports. He noticed that my initial entry into Honduras was a visa for ten days. Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua form a federation of Central American countries. He said I had overstayed my visa and he wouldn’t let me enter El Salvador. I argued and reasoned but he was being stern. They switched me to the bus going to Guatemala City. The other volunteers were freaking out a bit but I was just going with it. The silence of the previous few days was keeping me calm. I’m good at this traveling shit. Nothing phases me… hahaha. Ask Joseph.
Now I’m in a hostel sitting on the top bunk of a bed with three other bunk beds surrounding me. I was able to purchase a ticket with a different company and will cross the border directly into Honduras in the morning. My bus leaves at 4am. Sorry I didn’t call but the internet sucks. Hopefully, I’ll be at El Rancho Santa Fe tomorrow evening. I read Paulo Coehlo’s short compilation of essays called “The Warrior of the Light” while I was in silence. It reminded me of how I should interact with the world. But that is what I feel like writing. I’ll keep you updated.
I didn’t proofread this. Sorry if some things are incomprehensible.
Much Love to ya’ll. Thanks for producing me and doing what you could to mold me into the human I am. I am who I am because of you.
Brendan
bdawgingit 