On The Practice Of Blogging

Writing a travel blog, or so it has seemed to me, is a finicky thing - the more stuff you do and see, the more material you presumably have to post about, but also, the less time you have to do it in, busy as you are out doing and seeing it all. By the same token, if you find yourself with all the time in the world to post blog entries, chances are your posts won't be as interesting as they could presumably be if you spent a little more of that time out doing and seeing.

It would seem then, that an optimally blogable trip should, in principle at least, be just so full of exciting adventures as to leave one with little more than the minimum required time it takes to fire off the occasional interesting post. Now, I have no illusions about attaining or even approximating such an optimal trip - I know as well as anyone that how things seem to look in principle often has little to do with how they wind up playing out in practice.

The fact of the matter is, some days you go out on some big tour or adventure and find yourself not particularly inclined to say a word about it. It just feels as though there's not all that much to relate: I rode horses in the Belizean rainforest. It hurt my ass. Other times, you may not have done much of note really, but nevertheless find yourself yearning to talk about it, like how you went for a swim on a little dock and wound-up watching some local kids fart around for an hour or two and it made you think about the way you and your buddies used to play when you were younger. Or how you sat for a particularly good coffee one afternoon and helped talk yourself through some difficult personal issue you were dealing with.

So what do you do - write a bunch of dross about the ostensibly exciting stuff, or write something potentially mundane but personally meaningful about your day to day life on the road?

How am I supposed to know Joe, it's your blog for chrissakes. I hear your collective voices grumble in my ear.

You're right. I know. As the rightful blogger of this blog it's not my place to reach out to you all for help in such matters. Mine is the business of blogging, so I'll try to get on with it. At any rate, these are the sorts of things with which my mind tends to occupy itself on lengthy overnight bus rides like the one from which I just disembarked.

I suppose I should mention that I am in Guatemala at present, and have been for the past few days, ever since Jaz and I parted ways back in Belize. We figured out that the cheapest option for her would be to fly back to Mexico City out of Chetumal, the same city just North of the Belize border which we had visited on our way down through Mexico only a short time ago. And so, after a week or so tripping around central Belize together, we made for Belize city, and boarded our respective buses - hers North to Chetumal, and mine Southeast to the Guatemalan border, and then onward into Flores. What can I say - good trips make for difficult departures, and this was as good trip as I'd had in a while.

So anyway, last night around 9PM, I boarded what was quite possibly the largest tour bus on planet earth, in front of "The Gran Hotel de la Isla de Flores," one of the more impressive buildings on the tiny but well-visited island after which it is named. No, I didn't stay there, although I did flop on the island for some three nights. I wound up instead at "Los Amigos," one of those quintessential youth hostel backpacker places full of shiny young people from all over the world just itching to chat with whomever will listen about all their recent adventures.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no beef with such places/people in principle (ha!). Indeed I have often enjoyed both in the past, and likely will again, but this particular few days found me kind of under the weather and not feeling much for company, so I more or less kept to myself.

Mornings I would quietly slink out of my hammock, and sit reading for a time in any of the over-comfortable chairs of the sizable common area, sparring with the few mosquitoes zealous enough to be out at that hour. This was usually a good time for me, as few if any other guests were up - most were still comatose from last night's debauch - and I could enjoy a bit of quiet reading a nurse a coffee or two. Before long, however, I would find myself dodging the glances of fellow travelers hopeful for some morsel of light breakfast banter that I was unfortunately unable to give, and so would have to beat it.

My afternoons were usually spent on foot, wandering the streets of Flores in the sun, but that didn't last long - Flores only has so many streets. So I often sat here or there to read, or just to sit. If it got too hot, I swam. If I noticed myself becoming hungry, I ate. If I grew tired, I napped. It was nice in that way.

Evenings were short for me. Things usually became loud after dark, and I would turn in early. I suppose I must have seemed a proper jerk to most of the folks around, but I couldn't be bothered about that, consumed as I was by my own thoughts and emotions. Toward the end of my time there however, I had come around a bit and began once more to warm up to the pleasantries of life among travelers. It is a good life, after all.

I was helped to remember that fact recently by a long overdue talk with some good friends, and I felt it in my chest this morning as the stewardess of my luxury-liner of a bus shook me awake, showed me to the sizable flight of stairs I had to take back down to ground level, and I stepped out into the cold air of Guatemala City at 6AM. The terminal was full of betoqued taxi men and all manner of scraggly traveler people, but the day hadn't yet begun, and so the streets were still quiet. I stretched beneath my pack and after taking a couple good lung-fulls of the cool-gray morning air, I wandered over to some bundled-up women on the corner and bought a coffee in which to soak the remainder of the delicious butter cookies I had bought for the ride. Mmm.

If you had asked me just then if I knew where I was, I'd likely have told you: I'm at the main bus station in Guatemala City, Guatemala, obviously. But you would have seen, as anyone can, that those are merely words, and that "knowing where you are" means a lot more than simply knowing the name of the place you happen to be standing. In the neighborhood where I grew up, I know where I am. In places I have lived for years, I know where I am. This morning I had no idea where I was, as would have been clearly demonstrated if you'd asked me next for directions to, say, the nearest liquor store. For all I know, I could have been standing in front of one and not known it.

Anyone who has traveled some will likely know the feeling I'm talking about - it's a good one, no? I've learned to appreciate it anyway, and as I stood there this morning waiting for the sun to rise, and trying to calculate just how long I could keep a cookie submerged in coffee and still manage to bring it to my mouth before it turned to mush - that feeling stood out as one of the many things that continually help me to remember just how lucky I am to be on this trip, doing what I want to be doing, learning what I want to be learning, and to be meeting so many incredible people. But also, to be able to share some of that with you from time to time - albeit not always via a punctual stream of explosively intriguing posts, but there you have it.

Thanks again for taking the time to poke through! Talk soon.