Grace.

"Welcome home"

That always put a smile on my face when customs does that.
Like America truly missed me.

Even though it was 1am by the time I got home, I threw my entire bag in the laundry, took the longest shower ever and had a beer with my dad. I slept like a rock in a bed with clean sheets, but woke up a bit early being on Mexico time. After a large cup of coffee, I decided a run on the beach was in order. Even though it was Thanksgiving Day, there were plenty of Californians, well being Californian. Surfing, BBQing and family rollerblading. Running on the beach is something I have always loved to do, but this run was particularly pleasent. I felt like I had a new sense of appreciation for my home, Orange County. The amount of comfort that the beach gave me was more than usual and the sense of belonging my extremely surprising. I went with this odd combination and ran as long as my out of shape legs could go. During this run, I had a sort of revelation. I am currently in a place in my life where I can literally do whatever I wanted. I could go to New Zealand for the next three months, 6 months, even a year.

OR

I could stay in Portland, get a job, work more, travel in a few months? Go to Europe? Snowboard Whistler for the season? Work part time and train for that marathon I've always wanted to run? Take the GRE and apply to nursing school? Take Spanish classes, like really learn it? There's so many things on my bucket list that I now have the time to complete now that I'm not in school.
So right now, two weeks from now, I could be in New Zealand or in Portland or maybe even in Canada. I'm thriving in this newly realized place in my life and I'm gonna go with it. I'm 24, healthy, young, free, living for me and never ignoring the grace that I'm finding. Remember that book that I found in Nicaragua? I'm realizing it found me.

Mexico: Mezcal and Lucha Libre

Oh Mexico..

What I thought was my last night with Lauri in Flores, Guatemala turned out to only be the middle of our traveling adventures. For curiosity I checked flights out of Mexico City and found out that I could actually make money by canceling my flight out of Guatemala and buying a new one out of Mexico City! I shuffled my flights and squealed with Lauri as I told her the good news.

Palenque, Mexico. This place was full of tourists but cheap coronas and tacos so I was happy. Lauri and I decided to find a grocery store, make dinner, drink beer and plan the rest of our trip through Mexico. When we found the grocery store and we literally collapsed in laughter. Laughing in a grocery store? It seemed to be the only response that made sense. This grocery store not only had cheese, but different kinds of cheese, real cheese! It had a deli section, a butcher and cheesecake. It was so overwhelming that we just sat and laughed. I guess comforts from home are funny.

Next stop, San Cristobal De Las Clases and it was amazing. Super cold, but super beautiful. At some point we befriended some kiwi girls. We danced salsa with the hostel owner in exchange for clean towels, we drank a lot of coffee, shopped and gawked at the beautiful colonial city. We found a tapas and wine bar, got lost walking back to the hostel and got a ride from the police. I witnessed Lauri’s Latina roots at the bank as she screamed at “the ATM guy” who definitely put a torn and taped bill into the ATM that ended up in my hands. He wouldn’t trade it and called Lauri a liar which didn’t go over well and the whole bank got to watch her tell him what an idiot he was. Definitely a highlight.

Oaxaca, ahhh Oaxaca.

So much culture. Poster’s for art showings, documentaries and theater acted as wallpaper in most restaurants. Political demonstrations and European gypsies selling their crafts littered the streets. I really loved the feel of this city. The first night we were there, the Mexican hipster that worked the front desk at our hostel invited us to accompany him to Mexican hipster bars. To my delight, every bar had a taco stand in front of it. Bar, taco, another bar, another taco, it was quite the perfect way to consume food and alcohol. In addition to our Mexican hipster host we befriended some hippies from Colorado and danced the night away until 4am.

Being a tad too hung over Lauri and I spent the day walking around and reading on roof tops. This chill day prepared us for the following day of mezcal tasting. 

The Dutch boys Brady and Jacco were going to be in Oaxaca the next day so we planned to meet them in the morning for a day of local consumption. What is Mezcal? It’s proper tequila, made from 100 percent agave rather than the 51 percent that Jose Cuervo has, complete with the agave lava that settles at the bottom. We found a small Mezcal factory just outside Oaxaca. We got a tour of the process as well as a taste of all the different types and flavors of their mezcal. 

This ended up being around 15 small shots of sampling, so we were well on our way if you will. On a side note, If you know me at all, you know I don’t take shots unless it’s tequila. Mezcal is quality tequila so I was a happy camper. We bought bottles for a shockingly cheap price of $4 and decided to continue the good vibes with a few beers before heading back. Well those beers turned into being adopted by a group of adorable Mexican men that bought us all dinner. We spent the rest of the evening dancing, playing limbo and taking so many, so many Mezcal shots. At one point Lauri went missing, I found her in a state that I wasn’t sure to be excited or worried..

Lauri: “So I went to the bathroom and I couldn’t leave because there was a thing there that wouldn’t let me pass. I wasn’t sure if it was going to bite me or love me. But I’m pretty sure it wants to love me”. Well coincidently I had to go to the bathroom so I had to encounter this creature anyway. What I discovered was the most adorable pig to ever exist. He did like to nibble, but it was definitely a love bite. Lauri and I cuddled him, loved him and I considered vegetarianism for about one minute.

On the way home the party Mexicans took us to another Mezcal disterillery. The owner at this distillery played us songs on his guitar as we giggled drunkenly. Lauri and I arrived at the bus station around 11pm and took the night bus to Mexico City. Watching the stars in a Mezcal state made it a happy bus ride.

Lauri and I decided the appropriate farewell from Mexico and travels in Central America would be attending a Lucha Libre match. You know famous nacho libre. Of course we found some of the Dutch boys and dragged them along with us. The colorful masked event was hilarious, drunk and loud. We drank grande coronas and cheered for the weirdest opponent. Leaving the arena we stumbled upon a party bus. All four of us looked at each other in confirmation and forced friendship on the party responsible for the bus. They accepted us and even fed us alcohol from their bucket of joy. It was extra joyous when I found they had my favorite drink in the whole world that I haven’t been able to find at a responsible price in the past two months.. Whiskey ginger ale.

We sang Mexican songs, we danced and I asked inappropriate questions that they answered without blinking. All of them were beautiful, obviously had a little money and didn’t look Mexican in the slightest. When I informed them of my ignorance one of the girls responded without any hesitation “It’s because we’re rich Mexicans”. I learned all of them were doctors, lawyers, accountants, professors and other various respected professions. So I guess in Mexican you start to look more of the Mediterranean genre of origin the more money you make. I wanted to understand this a bit more but the club we accompanied them to informed us the $20 cover charge and we weren’t into that. They hugged us, gave us whiskey gingers to go and called us a safe cab. Lovely rich Mexicans they were.

The next day we took advantage of the free zoo and saw the Aztec Calendar before facing the inevitable. The airport showed me the last of the many occurrences of the fate of having Lauri in my life. Our airlines were right next to each other as well as our gates. We killed time with what we are good at, drinking the local beverages. We had the most epic recap over Modelos and Margaritas. I really cherish people who understand traveling, in turn people who understand me. So there we sat, my stand in best friend for the past month. Feeing so many different emotions a wave a of nausea came over me. I turned to Lauri and asked her what she was obviously waiting for me to ask her for awhile.

“What would you do if you were in my position Lauri, with New Zealand and all that”

-I would do what made me happy. The wonderful thing about travel is that it will always be there. Save that ticket for a time when that’s what will make you most happy. The reason you were going to New Zealand in the first place isn’t the case now. As you have told me, if there’s anything you’ve learned from travel is that plans change and then they change again. 

This small response has my brain turning in new directions..

Flores: ruins, rip offs and roosters

Lauri and I discovered that Flores was in fact a tiny little island in Lago de Peten Itza which was a nice surprise. Cobble stone streets and a view of the water and of course two Sarina’s (the ice cream chain we have come to love). After settling in, we then rounded up the Dutch boys and went to go check out where the fireworks were coming from. In the middle of the island we found a giant fake Christmas tree with a matching giant rooster on top where a star would usually be. The Guatemalan beer is Gallo (rooster) and was sponsoring the lighting of the Christmas, so they obviously put a rooster on top of the tree. We danced the night away to live, funny Guatemalan music as we drank the featured beer. La fiesta ended and Lauri and I said goodbye to the Dutch boys yet again. On the way home we found some street food, attempted to jump on the kids trampoline and then passed out around 2am.

At 4am we woke up to go to the Tikal ruins. Why at 4am? Because they claimed we would catch the sunset over the ruins but we watched that from the car, so we were a bit disappointed in the false advertising. However, we drunkenly stumbled around the ruins we some sort of way that made sense. After three hours of temples and information Lauri and I took a short nap in the plaza of the main temples then explored a bit.  Annoyed with the large amounts of tourists, we took advantage of the sound projection in the plaza followed by an obnoxious photo shoot in front of temple 3 then called it a day, as well as a goodbye to Guatemala, the next day we were off to Mexico.

The Guatemalan exit stop was quite the win in terms of backpacking. Lauri did a bunch of research on getting to Palenque, Mexico for the cheapest price and we realized that Guatemala loves to screw travelers. It said online that there was no exit fee at the border but they would try to charge us $5. Sure enough the immigration lady asked for $5 and when we asked for a receipt they starred at us defeated and responded with “safe travels” and a stamp in our passports. Lauri and I had two hours to kill till the next bus so we found a piece of tile to sit on and decided to paint our nails. Four little girls from age 5-8 sat next to us watching with curiosity. Earlier I had given them some stickers so we were already friends. Then one of them discovered big toe. My ugly and awesome travel companion and it was all downhill from there. Lauri and I let them play with our sunglasses and other things in our purse as we finished painting our nails then offered them same to las chicas. Probably the most adorable thing I have ever seen.

Within the next two hours we watched several tour groups get their exit stamp, pay the unnecessary “$5 exit fee” and lose at least $40 dollars in change Quetzals to paseos. We felt bad for not informing them of their naive tourist faults, but being that we had to hang out at the immigration office for a few hours, but didn’t want to make any enemies. You're pretty and all Guatemala, but I don't like your attitude. Let's see how Mexico treats us..

Coban: surviving the jesus mobile and also surviving the depths of the Lanquin caves

Our last evening at Lago De Atitlan we consulted other people at the hostel as well as the travel agencies about getting to Coban the next day. Apparently it would take 10 hours and a coast of about $40 to reach our destination, annoyed with the cost we decided to face the chicken buses and that we did. Our third bus to Guatemala city turned out to be the bus from Harry Potter, that flew down the winding mountain roads, passing other modes of transportation on blind corners and literally tipping on it’s side as we sped around death happy corners. The breaking ability this bus had is when I realized we were in fact on the Guatemalan version of the Harry Potter bus. Lauri and I literally clung to each other and dared not to look up. Lauri told me that it’s more dangerous on buses that have Jesus paraphernalia all over them because the bus drivers think that they will be protected, well, I freaking hope so. Even though Dangling Jesus’s were looking after us from the bus window, we talked about the life we would miss on earth and talked about plan of action if we walked away from the inevitable bus crash we would be finding ourselves victims of.

When we actually made it to Guatemala City, we knew that today was our day. The cab took us to a bus agency that only charged us Q55 that would take 4 hours to get to Coban, for a total transit cost of $10, winning! In Coban we found the Dutch boys yet again! We caught up on traveling adventures then passed out.

The next day Lauri and I attempted to go to Semuc Chamgney but realized it would cost to much and not work with our time crunch. So we found some caves to go explore. The Guatemalan at the entrance gave us some candles, yes, candles and said it should take us 30 minutes to go through. The caves were awesome, and the fact we were exploring a cave by candle light made it even more awesome. Only about 15 minutes in Lauri and I found ourselves sliding down a rock then to attempt to scale a cliff that had a rushing river below. We had a meeting and decided this is probably not the right way. It took about us about 10 minutes to find the correct path and thennnnn we got lost again. And then again and then about 7 more times. Being smart spelunkers we saved my candle and prepared for the worst. However after almost two hours we found our way out with only about an inch of candle left! We laughed, a lot, about the fact we keep cheating potential bad situations. After a swim in the neon green cave river we went looking for a ride back to Coban. We found a tourism group that let us go back with them, but not without a few raised eyebrows. Wet from our swimming session and carrying our muddy sandals didn't fit in with their clean clothes and comfortable foot wear. I find most comfort in being uncomfortable.

Lago De Atitlan: changing pace and heading to the mountains

After one ferry, one border crossing, two taxis, five hours in a bus terminal and eight buses for a total of 30 hours of travel, Lauri and I were quite excited to finally arrive at Lago De Atilan. Her and I are officially on a crunch time with our time left in Central America so we are on a crash course through Guatemala must do’s together. Meet Lauri, my adorable my new Swedish travel partner in crime.

The journey from Guatemala City to Lago De Atilan set the tone for yet another session of falling in love with another part of Central America. Mountains started to appear with layered coffee fields and the greenery and colors increased as the temperature dropped. As we got farther and farther from the big city the locals that boarded our chicken bus got shorter and more colorful. Normal attire for men woman and child, being beautifully embroidered, colorful and sparkly fabrics wrapped in a number of variety ways.

Lauri and I decided to stay in a town called Panajchel in which the lonely planet seemed to claim it as the favorite town around the lake. At the hostel we met some French guys that recommended that we check out the volcano on the other side of the lake as well as a Tuesday exclusive market in Soala.  Shopping and hiking our some of my favorite things, as well as my new travel companion so our day following days seemed to already be planned.

The market in Soala was amazing. A real, local focused market rich with authenticity and spirit. Vegetables and fruit that I haven’t seen since I left home appeared! It’s obvious the cooperative climate of the highlands results in a booming agriculture. Because of this, the street food is quite overwhelming with deliciousness and not to mention the cheapest food yet. So, Lauri and I decided to commit to an entire day of food and shopping indulgence.

The shopping, wow. The leather. The clothes. The cloth. The beads. The pottery. The jewelry. The hammocks. All of it hand made and extremely unique. By 5pm Lauri and I agreed we had been more than successful at our day of indulgence and scurried to catch the last boat across the lake to San Pedro at 7pm. I’m extremely glad we did this at night. It was a full moon, which lit the surrounding mountain range and the tiny town’s nestled along the lake into the hill sides exposed how majestic this place really is. When the boat rounded the corner to reveal San Pedro, Lauri and I looked at each other in awe. I really looked like a postcard. Perfectly arranged cottages, trees and churches, their lights reflecting on the lake, almost as though it was smug.

We stumbled upon hostel named Casa Blanca that did in fact have an adorable fluffy white dog named Blanca. For $5 a night got us our own room on the lake, a kitchen with the cleanliness level of home, wifi and HOT SHOWERS. I almost cried with joy being that hot water has been a luxury I have had to leave at home and the excitement didn’t end there. The Israeli owner had decided to make a huge dinner of his homeland food, flaffel, fried eggplant, cabbage, tomato salad and French fries. And he invited anyone staying at the hostel to help themselves for free! Being that Lauri and I had dubbed this day as indulgence day, I suppose it made sense to end the day in such a manner. The Israeli food was literally some of the best food I have ever had in my life. Following dinner, fat and happy we sat with a few of the Israelis lakeside, sipping tea as Lauri and I cuddled under a blanket. I have to say it’s nice to feel a bit cold again.

We woke up early the next day, ate breakfast and drank a lot of Guatemalan coffee then headed up to San Pedro Volcano. As we faced the 4,000 ft incline we first hiked through coffee fields, corn fields and wildflowers. As we reached higher elevation the trees changed accordingly. It took us about 3 hours to get to the top and it was beyond worth it. The view was incredible. At a sharp10,000 ft it felt like I was standing on top of the world. Lauri and I ate lunch as we dangled our feet off some delightfully hot rocks and enjoyed what San Pedro had to offer as I took in the familiar feeling of a sense of belonging that the mountains give me.

Utila: diving as an official scuba diver and celebrating on our very own private island

As I mentioned before, Parrot’s (the dive center we dived at) offered us our very own private island for a night AND two free fun dives in exchange for them to give us our open water certification. This is not just because we are all very good looking, it was the fact that it really pays to go to small islands in big groups during slow season. Saturday we had two epic fun dives. Now that we were official big kid open water divers, we dived with an Alaskan dive master that went by the name of Zack that was extremely laid back letting us break the rules and dive at 21 meters. These dives included a small wreck, a cave, hunting and killing lion fish, losing Ruben and playing on sand patches and doing “the matrix”. Not to mention all the cool marine life we played with. Can I just say once again how extremely weird this all is for me, I.. scuba dive now? Andddd I like it? So weird, but awesome.

Our epic morning dives set the tone of the rest of the day. We came back in time for the lionfish feast, which was the finale of the lionfish slaughter competition which are an invasive species in the Caribbean. Apparently a hurricane hit Florida in 1999 and five lionfish escaped from aquariums and now have populated all the way to Brazil, destroying reefs and altering biodiversity. So the community of Utila has competitions among the dive centers a few times a year, in which people get amped about murdering as many lionfish as possible.

After the celebratory feast of dead fish we hopped on a boat and we were off to spend the night on our-own-personal-island. It was more amazing than I even could have imagined. The house was huge. It had enough beds to sleep 20 people comfortably, palm trees with real life coconuts for our island themed drinks and dinner, not one, but two docks to lay on and a reef surrounding it that offered snorkeling for hours. We took advantage of all these things for the rest of the afternoon as well as the rum we brought along.

Dinner was coconut stir-fry over rice and one of the best meals yet. After we cleaned up and we started to settle into some serious drinking game time, when Ruben discover a baby turtle that had come through the front door! We were all extremely excited, took pictures and gawked over the adorable little creature before we decided to set it free in the ocean. That was when we discovered that our entire island was covered in baby turtles searching for their ocean home. This was almost too much for my drunk self to handle. We found a box and frantically collected baby turtles. When we had found every baby turtle we made a guessimate of about 50 turtles! We then had a releasing ceremony where we all squealed and hugged as we did our good dead. Simply wow. Baby turtles isn’t something that happens very often and we managed to accidentally stumble upon this surreal event. Not to mention we were on our very own island. The rest of the night we laughed and loved over a beach bon fire.

I woke up to the sun filling my room. I had purposely fell asleep with an open door that gave me a view of palm trees, sand and ocean. I rolled out of bed and plopped myself on some sand and took in the Caribbean sunrise. Here I was, 24 year old, on some tiny island off the coast of Honduras with 7 other back packers doing exactly what we should be doing, experiencing life.

Utila Island: overcoming my fear of the ocean and becoming an official scuba diver

Last week the Dutch boys (that you may remember from Ometepe and San Juan Del Sur) told me they would be stopping in Leon for a few days before heading up to Honduras. After a few fun days in Leon I decided to come along with them to Utila Island off the Alantic coast of Honduras. On the bus ride we met Liz from Ireland, Lauri from Sweden, Josie and Patricia from Finland and an additional two Dutch boys Jacco and Brady. After 15 hours on the bus and one obnoxious border crossing we called in a night in San Pedro Sula.

The next day the plan was to take the bus three hours to La Ceiba and take the only afternoon ferry at 4pm to Utila. We learned that taxis in San Pedro Sula are rude, unruly and hardly take you to the right place. So the nine of us got separated on the way to the bus terminal but somehow all reunited with in minutes of the ferry leaving in La Ceiba. We all survived "the vomit comet" to Utila Islandnand were welcomed bombarded with dive instructors from every dive center in all of Utila, and that's a lot of people throwing flyers in your face. When they learned we were traveling in a group of nine that attacked us with freebies left and right. Next thing I know we are at Parrot's Dive center being offered free accommodation, free t-shirts, free snorkels and a free night on one the cay's for a party night on our own personal island! We chatted about this over free beer of course. Lauri and I were planning on NOT scuba diving while on Utila, but snorkeling, hiking and other not under-water activities. Steph, one of our instructors to be, convinced us to try the first two days and if we hated it, we could drop out without paying. I agreed, hesitantly.

Ok, here's the low down on the ocean and I. I'm afraid of it. Something which I only realized in the last couple weeks. I thought I just didn't care for it, like I liked being around it but I could do without being in it other then a few minutes. It makes no sense seeming how I've grown up next to it. I mean, I was literally born somewhere with the word beach in it: Long Beach, California. My family was a typical southern Californian family with a pool that I basically lived in it according to my baby book. Which my parents even wrote "olympic swimmer" in the under the box that said "most likely will grow up to be..".

From there we moved to Oregon where we still lived by the beach coast. However it was also too cold and/or stormy to actually get in it, so lakes and rivers were the water source of fun in the summers. Then at age twelve, I moved back forth from Oregon to Orange County still enjoying both sources of water as a teenager. I really began to resent Orange County when I moved back for a year after high school, my friends were only concerned about how drunk they were going to get that weekend and when I started talking about my new curiosity in the world they gave me baffled looks. "Why? Why would you ever want to leave California?"

Maybe in turn I began to resent everything Orange County stood for including the ocean? Orange County is home and therefore the ocean is home. I'll always respect it in that sense, but there was so much more in the world, not to mention better beaches. This was around the time that shows like "Laguna Beach" and The OC" were getting super popular and the hype on Orange County skyrocketed and everyone who lived there felt more entitlement in the world than they already had. This made me feel more like I didn't belong and definitely contributed to getting the hell out of Orange County.

My mom said something interesting to me before I left on this trip, "Why do you keep going to places where the traveling is focused around the beach if you don't like the ocean?" I've been thinking about this a lot since I got here. Then when someone else made me realize I am in fact afraid of the ocean I put these two ideas together and started contemplating my newly realized fear. I consider myself someone who is not a fearful person and actually enjoys anything of the "adventurous" nature. So I decided to figured it out and stick with the dive course. Attempt to understand what it was that I had against the ocean by submersing myself underwater for five days and getting my open water diving certification. The first three days were awful, I was petrified the entire time. I dreaded the dives and was so happy to be done with them. I even got food poisoning in the middle of it and had to face scuba feeling like death. I had heard of people who go diving hung over and puking through their regulator, it's totally doable, so you wont drown. This is even somewhat of a positive being that the fish rush over to feed on last night’s rum consumption, grossly funny. However, I’m a secret puker no matter the circumstance, I hate puking in front of people. Vomiting underwater, through my regulator, in front of about 10 people would most definitely further my level of discomfort in the ocean and probably add a whole new level of traumatizing to the experience. Luckily the nausea pill a lovely Irish girl gave me kicked in and I wasn’t forced to share the bad pork with the fishes.

 I felt like I was wasting my money until I began to not hate it and my paralyzing fear became less and less. I was definitely the baby of my dive group and when I completed the skills that scared me, I felt like a little league player hitting their first home run. Child like sensation of accomplishment, purest of it’s kind. Toward the end of the week I actually enjoyed the dives. I felt safe and prepared for anything that could go wrong.

I think my fear and resentment for the ocean has been a combination of things. I think Orange County's attitude has a lot to do with it on the disinterest part of it all. The actual fear being how unpredictable the ocean is and the sole reason why most people have fear, the unknown. We know more about the ocean than we do space. That’s insane to me, and terrifying. But I do keep finding myself attracted to parts of the world that are focused around the ocean, suggesting it intrigues me, which is completely true. It may even be a whole new world of exploration in my story.

Overcoming fears, give you strength to conquer the next and then the next. 

Empowering, nothing but empowering. 

Utila: accepting my fate being barefoot and celebrating halloween.. on the beach?

Halloween was the 3rd night we were on the island. For $10 we were offering a plate of food and unlimited rum and beer, totally in. Somehow between diving our hostel managed to find bits and pieces of clothing, face paints and other random bits and somehow we transformed into acceptable Halloween creatures.

With inspiration from the discovered face paint, I decided to be a fox for this supposed spooky holiday. The previous night I had lost my shoes for the third time, so I accepted my fate of being a barefooted backpacker and went into the night even more fox like. It was odd celebrating Halloween on an island, drinking rum, running around barefooted in the warm rain that this Caribbean island offered. No pumpkins, cold weather, house parties, little trick-or-treaters, instead people from all over the world celebrating in the only way we knew how.

I even decided tonight was the night for the glow sticks Lacey gave me before I left. Being that friendship had started using them as a way of finding each other when we went out. I explained their purpose to my little crew of lions, indians and other various characters which made the night even more perfect.