upcountry
Explorer
Great posting. I really appreciate the details and perspective. I truly LOVE Central America and the people. I am born and raised in Hawaii (north shoreof Maui) and have found so many similarities in the culture of C.A. and that of the REAL Hawaii-Ne. I now live in Seattle with my wife and two small children.
After your trip is over and you are faced with a dull return to the states (if you choose to go that route!), I would suggest joining the Peace Corps for a few years.
After meeting my wife while spending the last semesters of our senior year in College in Beleize on a foreign exchange program (coastal reef dynamics course - she was fromt he east coast and I was from the west coast), and then through traveling C.A. by bus for around 6 months from Beleize to Panama, and getting married when we got back home (we eloped and pissed off our familes), we immediately joined the Peace Corps together (have to be married), got stationed in Bocas Del Toro in Panama (Comarca Ngabe-Bugle - near Kusapin), and spent three years calling Panama home and making side trips all over C.A. and S.A. .
In addition to the travel perks of Peace Corps, we got to work with people, and felt like we had enough time to actually begin to understand the culture and make friends. All I can say is the Peace Corps experience is different for everyone, is what you make of it, and it has provided me with such a rich catolog of mental capacity to deal with bad situation in life if feel I can draw on these memories. This experience coupled with travels has allowed me to cope with exactly what you described as your reason for making the trip - inability to deal with day to day life in a cubicle.
Anyway, enough on that, just keep it in mind as an alternative.
My sincere appreciation for your description of your travels!
Chao.
After your trip is over and you are faced with a dull return to the states (if you choose to go that route!), I would suggest joining the Peace Corps for a few years.
After meeting my wife while spending the last semesters of our senior year in College in Beleize on a foreign exchange program (coastal reef dynamics course - she was fromt he east coast and I was from the west coast), and then through traveling C.A. by bus for around 6 months from Beleize to Panama, and getting married when we got back home (we eloped and pissed off our familes), we immediately joined the Peace Corps together (have to be married), got stationed in Bocas Del Toro in Panama (Comarca Ngabe-Bugle - near Kusapin), and spent three years calling Panama home and making side trips all over C.A. and S.A. .
In addition to the travel perks of Peace Corps, we got to work with people, and felt like we had enough time to actually begin to understand the culture and make friends. All I can say is the Peace Corps experience is different for everyone, is what you make of it, and it has provided me with such a rich catolog of mental capacity to deal with bad situation in life if feel I can draw on these memories. This experience coupled with travels has allowed me to cope with exactly what you described as your reason for making the trip - inability to deal with day to day life in a cubicle.
Anyway, enough on that, just keep it in mind as an alternative.
My sincere appreciation for your description of your travels!
Chao.