It’s good to be home

They say all good things come to an end, and so it is with my six week absence from the world of blogging. While the two of us have been hopping around central America enjoying the best that the region has to offer, my scribblings have been restricted to a set of notes in my small notebook (of the paper variety I should clarify).

It’s been a treat to be able to take the time away from updating this site. Instead I’ve been able to concentrate on making the most of the time spent in these colourful and often surprising countries. I have many stories and observations from the last few weeks that I’m looking forward to writing up, and I will have no excuse for suffering from lack of ideas for the next month or or more.

For now as I try to catch up with a mountain of emails and messages (the downside of going off-line for over a month) here’s the briefest of summaries of what’s happened since my last post.

In 40 days we have:

• slept in 21 hotels/guest houses/bug-pits
• crossed 7 land borders (5 of which were staffed by honest officials – a rare breed from what I hear)
• spent around 90 hours on buses (I don’t want to see the inside of another one for a long time)
• been robbed twice (both by hotel staff, from two different hotel rooms in two countries and on consecutive nights; total loss $50)
• experienced absolutely no rain (was going to write that I remained dry but that would not have been entirely appropriate)
• had 2 dips in the ocean (one on each side of the American landmass)
• visited 8 pre-Hispanic sites (and can honestly claim not to have experienced ruin fatigue until possibly the final one)
• been inside more churches than the Pope has visited in his lifetime (almost)
• taken around 1,100 photos (friends and family can breathe easy; the edited set is below 200)
• experienced 4 bouts of diarrhoea between us (a bout at the end of the holiday is highly recommended as a way of avoiding a shock at the post-holiday weigh-in)
• made 12 trips to the ATM (thank you HSBC for allowing my cards to work seamlessly throughout the entire trip)
• improved my Spanish greatly (from terrible I believe I’ve progressed to just bad)
• spoken four languages in almost simultaneous conversations on one bus ride while sitting next to French guy, across from two Guatemalans and behind a Pole
• eaten rice and refried beans on more occasions that I could attempt to count

Much more to follow, but for now it’s enough to state that the trip was a big success yet as always, it’s good to be home.