Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama
A recent study by researchers at UC Berkeley, shows that bushmeat — game — taken from forests in many locations around the world is an essential part of the diets of the people who live there, and even helps to prevent anemia in children. The study was conducted in the Makira Protected Area of Madagascar, which is a global hot spot for biodiversity, and the findings have created a ripple between conservation efforts and human health initiatives.
When we were in Suchitoto, El Salvador, we were walking around one day and stumbled upon a child’s birthday party. It seemed like a typical affair. A crowd of neighborhood kids joyfully yelling while taking turns hitting a pinata that had been strung up in front of a house. Parents were sitting in chairs encouraging [...]
Ok, I’ll admit, when I left the USA with my five month old baby and my adventurous traveler husband I didn’t know if it was possible to do what we were setting out to do: continuously travel the world on a tight budget, $25 to $30 a day for the both of us AND a [...]
When Petra was six months old, she started to seem interested in solid foods, and I began to do research about how to introduce them to her. Baby Led Weaning (BLW) is a term that springs up on natural parenting books and parenting message boards. It was always totally confusing to me what, exactly, this [...]
Many new mothers have to face the challenge of when to head back to work. Some mothers go to work because they need the money, some go to work because staying home all day with the baby doesn’t make them happy, and some do it because they used up all of their maternity leave. Not many mothers [...]
The Impact of Status on Poverty Culture I remember an old traveler complaining to me once in the jungles of Peru about how he could not believe it when the people there would build concrete houses to live in. Apparently, after 20 years of World Travel, jungle people living in concrete houses had not yet made it [...]
Does Aid to Foreign Countries Create Dependency States? A broad shouldered German girl sat across a table from me at the Finca Tatin in the eastern jungle of Guatemala. “I am a foreign observer,” she stated proudly. “What do you observe?” I had to ask. “I am protecting political activists from the Guatemalan government, and [...]
Care for Amoebas in El Salvador After our two week stay in Guatemala, my husband, seven month old Petra, and I took a bus to El Salvador. I had been to El Salvador three times previously and have a cousin who lives there, so it was something of a homecoming for me. I feel comfortable [...]
My husband and I flew to Guatemala with our baby, Petra, when she was seven months old. We had previously traveled with her in the US and Dominican Republic, but this would be the first time we traveled quickly with her, staying in each town only 2-5 days and mainly staying in hostels. I was [...]
Breastfeeding in Public while Traveling I exclusively breastfed Petra for five months before we went to the Dominican Republic, so I was pretty comfortable feeding her in public. I am not super modest, but I’m also not used to showing the world my breast either. It takes a little practice to be able to discreetly [...]
Length of Cloth Baby Carrier Systems In most of the world, the way to carry a baby is with a simple piece of cloth attaching it to a caregiver. The fabric is usually just a standard four or five foot textile that is wrapped around the child and adult in a number of different ways. [...]
Many readers ask me how I make money to perpetually travel the world, and the answer generally lies in learning skills and trades that can be plied on the road. Paulo, from Paulo is Here, is a traveling massage therapist (amongst other things) and has successfully transformed his work skills into a fully functioning independent [...]
Latin American Girl’s Ears Pierced at Birth SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico- “I have never seen my girls without earrings,” a mother of two once explained to me in Antigua. She said that she would bring a set of earrings in with her to the hospital as she went into labor and then pass [...]
How can I stay and eat for free when traveling by volunteering?
It seems to me as if your question is about how to extend your travels and limiting the costs of such by volunteering and that you are not looking for information on how to save the world. Good, I can help here.
It has been my experience that work/ trade opportunities are virtually everywhere when traveling.
A Deal is a Deal Travel Tip, Warning Signs for Bad Travel Business This is a travel tip about the warning signs that can show up when entering into a bad business deal when traveling, and also a parable of how I nearly entered into a questionable deal with a hotel. If everything is not [...]
Travel means leaving people “Buenos noches, Gueid,” a four year old girl just said to me. That was the last time she could direct those wishes on to me, as the next day Chaya, Petra, and I took leave from the Finca Tatin — the hotel where we worked in the jungle of Guatemala for [...]
Digital Nomad Room Rental Parameters SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico- As I walked into the city of San Cristobal in the far south of Mexico I made a boast to my wife: We are going to get a good room here with WIFI, hot water, cable TV for no more than 100 pesos — [...]
PALENQUE, Mexico- It has been my experience that cobblers are amongst the most honest, genuine, humble, and proud craftsmen that I have regularly had the privilege to encounter in 11 years of travel around planet earth. Time and time again, I walk into the street side hut, sidewalk bench, or into thee small store fronts [...]
Pacas are the place to shop for cheap clothing in Central America A paca is kind of like a scene in a movie where a car is parked in a bad urban area and is quickly stripped of all of its pieces by the locals in fast motion while the owner goes for a stroll [...]
Bus options from Flores, Guatemala to Palenque, Mexico FLORES, Guatemala- Generally speaking, an international bus or train service — as in a direct line of transportation across a border — is going to cost a traveler more money than traveling to the border, walking across, and picking up transport on the other side. This is [...]
CA-4 Visa for Central America Explained FLORES, Guatemala- I sit one tick from exiting Guatemala after a five and a half month stay in the CA-4 region. The CA-4 is an agreement between Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua to decrease their internal borders and pull together into one region for immigration. So if you [...]
Guatemala is a model country for tourism FLORES, Guatemala- “If you only went to the tourists sites of Guatemala, you would think that it was a really nice country,” my wife Chaya observed. Guatemala is a nice country, but more than giving an very general status report on the place, what my wife was really [...]
Ice cream bean, guama, guaba strange food in Central and South America Ice cream bean, otherwise known as guama or guaba, is a very strange looking and tasting legume that grows wild throughout Central and South America. As it is a legume, a row of large seeds are enclosed inside of a long pod that [...]
Crowded Bus from Rio Dulce to Flores Guatemala At one PM I boarded a bus from Rio Dulce bound for Flores — one tick away from Mexico. One minute later I realized that I would be riding this bus for three hours without a seat, crammed in between other unfortunate passengers without seats, resting my [...]
Hotel Staff Must Treat Guests Like Stupid Chickens The Vagabond Journey family have now completed their tenure at the Finca Tatin, a hotel in the jungle of Guatemala. Three months of working with tourists have left me a little wobbly on the breed as a whole: who are these people and where do they come [...]
Has Cruising Around the World Become Gentrified? I can remember reading books on how to sail around the world and live cheaply in Maine, the place where I learned the basics of sailing. These books said that you could sail around the world on only a few thousand dollars a year, that you could eat [...]
Maya Dance of the Deer The Baile de Venados — the dance of the reindeer — is still performed by the Q’eqchi’ Maya in the eastern jungles of Guatemala for numerous celebrations. I observed this dance in conjunction with festivities connected with the International Day for Indigenous People and the graduation ceremonies of students from [...]
Travel Frees the Self from Persona In travel, people are striped down to their root form. Nobody knows anything about you, you are preceived exactly how you act in the moment of the acting — there are no previous bearing on your action, you are not hemmed in by your past, nobody knows how you [...]
Tarantula Venom Not Deadly to Humans “Look up there,” my friend pointed up to a hole in the side of a tree. I looked through the dark of night, I saw the hole which sort of looked like a brown anus bored into the bark. “It is the nest of a tarantula.” “Are they dangerous?” [...]
Siete Altares Livingston Tourist Attraction Photos LIVINGSTON, Guatemala- There are perhaps only two places that could be called proper tourist sites near Livingston, Guatemala: Siete Altares and Playa Blanca. Reports from tourists returning from trips to Playa Blanca indicate that the beach — among the nicest one on the eastern coast of the country — [...]
Scorpions Eat Spiders in the Jungles of Guatemala FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- There are a lot of very large spiders that abound just about everywhere in the jungles of Guatemala — in the trees, on the ground, on the walls and ceilings of just about every human made structure. These large spiders tend to come out [...]
Hermits on the islands of Belize BELIZE ISLAND, Belize- “We are on a deserted island!” a young American tourist whooped upon landing on the white sands of a Belizean cayo. “That is a real stupid thing to say!” boomed an unexpected voice from the interior, “this island is not deserted, I’m here!” —————— It is [...]
Travel to Belize Cayos Cays Keys Islands BELIZE CAYOS, Belize — On my third incident of travel through the tapering isthmus of Central America, I have finally set foot on Belizean soil. I helped lead a tour out from the Finca Tatin in Guatemala to the southern cayos of Belize. A two hour speed boat [...]
Traveling with Tattoos in Central America It is true that one of the physical characteristics of gang members or the “criminal” sect of Central America are often characterized by heavy and very visible tattooing, but it has not been my experience that, as a heavily tattooed traveler, I have ever been mistaken as a gang [...]
Guatemalan President faces extradition on charges of embezzling aid money from the USA Former Guatemalan president, Alfonso Portillo, is being brought up on charges in Guatemala for embezzling 15 million dollars from his country’s defense fund as well as facing extradition to the USA to go to trial for reputedly taking one million dollars of [...]
Tourists go with touts, Wade sticks his neck out to keep them from being ripped off LIVINGSTON, Guatemala- I was standing in the restaurant Buga Mama which sits above the dock where we pick up passengers for the Finca Tatin in Livingston. I was looking out over the junction of the Rio Dulce meeting the [...]
Coral snakes in Guatemala jungle FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- One bite from a coral snake and you are more or less dead meat. Huge doses of antivenin and artificial or mechanical respiration are needed to preserve life, and a single bite has been proven fatal within hours. The neurotoxin from a coral snake paralyzes the breathing [...]
Village Life is Humanity Through a Magnifying Glass There is a row in the hotel kitchen. Again. The Maya women who work there screwed something up and they are blaming it on anybody and everybody that is not them. They blame each other, they blame my wife, they try to place the blame onto anyone. [...]
Value of Currency is a Cultural Symbol SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- Money has no inherent value. Money is only worth something because we say that it is. That is all there is to it. It was good to be reminded again that money is just a symbol — it is just the proverbial finger pointing at [...]
Anteater – Wildlife in Central America FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- Anteaters like to inhabit the banks of rivers, swampy savannas, and the dark depths of humid forests. One such anteater pushed the bounds of his habitat in the eastern jungles of Guatemala. He fell into the Rio Dulce. Apparently, anteaters float. Or at least they float [...]
Economic Development is a Double Edged Sword FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- “If the people there don’t get an education, nothing is going to change,” a European tourist at the Finca Tatin spoke after visiting a nearby indigenous village in the jungle. Immediately prior to making this statement this tourists was talking about how nice, happy, and [...]
Licha or Rambutan – Fruit in Central America In Guatemala, the fruit known as lichas are actually rambutans — a native Asian fruit which are closely related to Lychees and Loquats. They are a sweetish/ sour fruit that has gained recent popularity in Guatemala and throughout Central America. They are best known by their bright [...]
Tacuazin Habitat and Behavior FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- Tacuazin breaks into the kitchen of the Finca Tatin each night. She steals our fruit, she nibbles on the ends of our papaya, our pineapples. She leaves empty banana peels laying around the kitchen floor. Though Tacuazin seems to be a polite thief, as she usually just nibbles [...]
Fishing in the Jungles of Guatemala RIO DULCE, between Fronteras and Livingston, Guatemala- “Are there less fish now than there were 20 years ago,” I asked Alfredo, who had been fishing in the Rio Dulce in the eastern jungles of Guatemala for 28 years. “No, it is equal,” the 38 year old Maya responded in [...]
Tarpon Caught and Lost Fishing in Rio Dulce RIO DULCE JUNGLE, Guatemala- When departing from the fishermen after a Saturday night of hunting for sea monsters, I was invited back for another round on Monday. Alfredo told me that it is more difficult to catch Sabalo — Tarpon — on the weekends, as this is [...]
RIO DULCE JUNGLE, Guatemala- The type of boat that the Maya fishermen in the jungles of Guatemala use to chase their game is called a cayuco. I must admit that sitting with three men in a cayuco is not an easy task. There is more than enough room in a cayuco for three men, as [...]
Fishing for Sabalo Tarpon with Maya in Guatemala This article is part one of a series on indigenous Maya fishermen and fishing methods in the Rio Dulce area of eastern Guatemala. RIO DULCE JUNGLE, Guatemala- I looked down at a collection of gigantic fishing hooks that were laid out upon a white plastic lawn table [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- A group of four young French backpackers came into the Finca Tatin. We picked them up in Livingston, they rode our boat to the hotel, everything was normal. My wife, Chaya, gave them an introduction to the finca, she requested that they mark the price of the boat ride on their tab. [...]
Dream of Sailing Continues on the Rio Dulce, near Caribbean FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- The dream of sailing the world continues as I sit on the Rio Tatin, a tributary of the Rio Dulce, one of the most famous hideaways in the world for sailors. There are large sailboats everywhere, some of them are being sailed [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- From my observations, mothers are often times not a child’s primary care giver in Latin America. Grandmothers are. It make sense: women tend to have babies young here, and a young woman is in the prime of her working life — it is part of her family role to bring in money. [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- “Why do these crabs only have one claw,” a visitor to the Finca Tatin asked me. “Because that is how God made them,” I spoke with firm finality as I walked by. How else could I respond? Though, I must admit, another answer could have been, “Because the lady crabs like them [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- Four walls of unpainted planks stacked end on end, a corrugated steel roof, and a cement floor is all I need. I have extravagance: I sit on a beer crate and my computer sits on two, we both have luxury. I hear voices coming from far away. Far away is the key [...]
It was night time at the finca, the generator was shut off, the entire place was dark, most of the guests were snug in their beds, sleeping. I usually go down to the river at this time to swim. Nobody is usually there, nobody asks me any questions or want me to do anything for [...]
Tourist Attacked by Canoe Pirate in Guatemala Places often seem safe until they are suddenly proven to be dangerous. You could probably walk through the world with your head in the clouds for a couple of years, proclaim it a safe place, call the news media or anybody else that says different naysayers, think yourself [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- “Your guide is here, guys,” my wife spoke to a group of tourists at the Finca Tatin. We had previously arranged a guide to take them on a hike through the jungle, all the way to Livingston. This is a walk that requires a guide who knows the paths — it is [...]
Scorpion Sting Treatment and Prevention FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- When in the tropics, I always shake out my clothes before putting them on my body, I always check my shoes to make sure no malicious little creature had made them their abode. This is preparation against scorpions, spiders, a half dozen other creatures that can bite, [...]
Leaving Home Makes Criticism of Culture Easy FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- “You would have thought that by now they would have come up with a way to make change,” my friend Bob was lamenting the annoying fact that it is very difficult to get change for even relatively small bills at almost any business in Guatemala. [...]
Yesterday was my one year anniversary. I have been a married man for one full year. Last year at this time I was wearing a wig and a top hat and Chaya was disguised behind a joke mustache. People were playing kazoos, everybody was standing out in a rain storm in their best clothes. We [...]
Travel in Guatemala Tropical Storm Agatha FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- “I receive emails from many tourists who think that they can’t travel here in Guatemala because of Agatha,” I spoke to worker at the Finca Tatin one night over beers. He looked at me funny. I repeated my statement, reiterating the fact that Agatha was the [...]
Good Conversation Makes Traveling Experience FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- There seems to be an ingrained notion that in travel you should have all sorts of happenstancial encounters of coincidence: you should meet the people you need to meet, have your path guided like some sort of Alchemist character. This is a part of the great expectations [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- I waited for two hours in the rain for a girl once in Salango, Ecuador. She was the prettiest girl in town, we had a date. I hardly even noticed the rain that came down overhead — where I am from, Upstate New York near Lake Ontario, a mere rainy day does [...]
A large part of the traveling experience is found in the people you meet, the stories you hear, the things you learn, the information you share. Conversation is a large part of traveling, though is something that I find that many young travelers are terrible at. I write Travel Tips about how to get from [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- Two young English girls were dropped off at the dock of the Finca Tatin by a public boat that ran outside of scheduled times. I became interested: why did a boat from Livingston drop two passengers off after 5 PM when the last run usually comes in around two? I questioned the [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- I was cleaning up some garbage and straitening out some things in the common room of the Finca Tatin one morning when I picked up a half crumpled flyer for the Bigfoot Hostel in Nicaragua. I looked at it. It had a picture of young, white tourists riding sleds down the side [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- Jungles are loud places. There is a perpetual hum in the background, a buzzing that arises from every direction that grows into a roar in the night. “A lot of people don’t realize it, but jungles are not quiet places. It is unbelievable how loud a jungle can be.” An old traveler [...]
FINCA TATIN, Jungle near Livingston, Guatemala- When living in the rain forest you live with insects. The human no longer sits alone on an “I eat you but you don’t eat me” pedestal when in jungle climes. In the jungle, the human is food — food for insects. How do you live with insects in [...]
FINCA TATIN, Jungle near Livingston, Guatemala- A voice rang out from the docks in front of the Finca Tatin. It was an American voice. It was saying hello. My wife rushed out to the voice. “How did you get here?” I heard her ask. It was a worthy question, as no roads go to the [...]
FINCA TATIN, Jungle near Livingston, Guatemala- The indigenous cooking staff at the Finca Tatin were worried about my baby. They said that her head was always hot but she did not have a fever, that she was a little too vetchy, that she did not nap normally. They implied that she may be having headaches, [...]
FINCA TATIN, Jungle near Livingston, Guatemala- Traveling in extreme climates often means taking additional measures to insure health. The jungle is an extreme climate. There are illnesses here that do not exist in other regions — insects, poisonous serpents, spiders, things that bite, and bacteria that travelers from other climes have little resistance to. Though [...]
FINCA TATIN, jungle near Livingston, Guatemala- Eleven years ago on this day I left home. June 16, 1999 — I had a rough, patchwork sort of plan to spend a lot of time moving about the world, but this did not yet crystallize into an idea of being a traveler, or of traveling perpetually. The [...]
FINCA TATIN, Jungle near Livingston, Guatemala- I looked at my wife’s back the other day, I unexpectedly discovered a swollen, black, sub-dermal protrusion looking back at me. I though that it could have been the implanted larva of a human bot fly. Or at least I hoped it was the implanted larva of a human [...]
FINCA TATIN, jungle near Livingston, Guatemala- there is no predicting what may row up to our dock at the Finca Tatin each day. The people from the Maya villages in the surrounding jungle come up to our shore with fruit, meat, materials, animals, just about anything they think we may be interested in buying. There [...]
FINCA TATIN, Izabel, Guatemala- One of our dogs was off in a nearby jungle village biting people yesterday. Apparently, the dogs that live at the finca where I am currently working followed a tour group out to an indigenous village — as they often do, this is normal, we live in the jungle, all dogs [...]
FINCA TATIN, Izabel, Guatemala- A Michelada, or cerveza preparada, is a loose term which nomenclates the result of adding lime juice, hot sauce, spices, Worchester sauce, tomato juice, salt etc . . . to a beer. Micheladas are as popular in Latin America as most other standard mixed drinks, I have watched them prepared on [...]
FINCA TATIN, Izabel, Guatemala- Petra screamed. “It’s alright, babies are suppose to scream in the bath,” the Maya woman who was bathing Petra reassured Chaya. Petra continued screaming. The Maya woman continued bathing. “I usually mix together hot and cold water together when I bathe her,” Chaya passively suggested to the woman who was making [...]
FINCA TATIN, Izabel, Guatemala- “Es muy feo,” the owner of the Finca Tatin spoke decisively as he curled up the sides of his lips into a Manta Ray sort of grimace. He was peering into the mug of stewing green liquid that was sitting before me. He was not talking about its mucusy green appearance, [...]
FINCA TATIN, Izabel, Guatemala- Traveling a fast path across the world means jumping climates, changing environments, time zones, expanses of longitude and latitude — it means providing your body with a good wholesome shock as it must quickly adapt from one clime to another. Travelers now go from the freezing cold to tropical heat in [...]
FINCA TATIN, Guatemala- The day begins before 7 AM in the eastern Guatemala jungle on the Rio Dulce. I wake up, quietly slip out of bed to avoid waking my still sleeping wife and baby, slip on a pair of shorts, grab my computer bag, a tooth brush, toothpaste, and walk outside. This will probably [...]
FINCA TATIN, jungle, Guatemala- At a cost of 0 dollars and 0 cents a day, my family now lives in a jungle paradise in the east of Guatemala. Chaya and I trade work for three solid meals a day and a good bed to sleep in. We now live very well in a truly beautiful [...]
FINCA TATIN, jungle, Guatemala- There was no sign of a tropical storm, no indication of mudslides, nothing to make me think that rivers had overflowed or that people had died, no way that I could tell that the county which I woke up in was besieged by natural disaster the night before. I am in [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- It is Saturday night in Suchitoto, the disco is packed, everybody in town is here: the girl who works at a pupusaria, the guy from the language school, the faces that people the streets of this little city north of San Salvador are on the dance floor. They are wearing clothes designed [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- I cannot say that I have ever wondered about where my family’s old cars went after junking them in the USA. More than likely, they remained as junk and were picked clean of parts like a corpse before a gang of vultures. Though there is a reasonable chance that the cars you [...]
SOMEWHERE, Guatemala- 7 hours was the time it took to ride a Fuente del Norte bus from Rio Dulce, Guatemala to San Salvador. That was six weeks ago. Now it seems as if I have been sitting in a traffic jam for around three hours — a traffic jam out in the middle of nowhere: [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- The landlord of our apartment complex told us when we moved in that he would have a window put in to fill a little 1.5 foot square portal that was only blocked up with a few bars and a piece of ply board. I just shrugged. The rest of the apartment’s orifices [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- Last Sunday, May 23, was my birthday. I mostly sat around dehydrated and chemicalated from the 18 alcoholic beverages I drank the night before. I say this to indicate that I have friends in Suchitoto, my wife threw a birthday party for me at El Necio, she bought me a big birthday cake, [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- Sometimes in travel you will see maliciousness, poverty, suffering, intolerance, and ambivalence in the local cultures that you can only deem by your own standards as being cruel. This is a normal part of traveling. Sometimes you will feel compelled to step in and help, most often you know that such action [...]
Traveling and Infant Development SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- Petra is a traveling baby. Before this, she was a traveling featus — though I do not believe that Charles at MostTraveledPeople.com so far allows users to account for their in-utero travels. Petra did two squinty eyed, mushy headed months in Maine before joining her father out in [...]
Rainy Season Begins in Central America The rainy season in Central America begins in May and lasts until September or October. Traveling is still possible as, outside of genuine storms, the rains tend to come in torrential downpours that only last for a couple of hours at around the same time each day. SUCHITOTO, El [...]
Domestic Violence in Latino Culture SUCHTOTO, El Salvador- A heavy hand from a large man fell hard against the slender cheek of a thin woman. The hand rose again just to fall upon the same target, again and again. The woman screamed “Mierda!” as she tried to fight back. She was being beaten. Her husband [...]
CINQUERA, El Salvador- El Duende is a little green guy that lives in the mountains of El Salvador. I am told. I am also told that he gives free tamales to people. I went out one night into the mountains where El Duende lives and distributes tamales. I was with a group of friends from [...]
CINQUERA, El Salvador- Solar water disinfection is the practice of making otherwise bacterially contaminated water drinkable by putting it in plastic bottles and exposing it to direct sunlight for at least six hours. I have noticed plastic bottles filled with water sitting on the roofs of homes in El Salvador, and, when I come to [...]
CINQUERA, El Salvador- “Did you see why they did that?” “Did what?” “Did you see that they took the mirror off the wall because of the lightning?” It was true, as soon as lightning struck and the rains began pouring down all the mirrors in the little house in rural El Salvador were removed from [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- Live like a lab rat in a maze, I am not joking, this is a key to travel, a key to living. I was at a Mother’s Day festival with my wife, Chaya, and the baby. Chaya was walking in front of the baby and I. She spotted one open bench. She [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- Mother’s day in El Salvador is a day for men to get drunk. Apparently. A day for men to get drunk and ride horses, play soccer, sit on street corners singing drunken tunes with other drunken men, and then possibly even topping the day off by passing out in the streets, drunk. [...]
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador- I could not decide if the groggy, thick with green, putrid water in the aquatic animal pools was mastery on the part of the San Salvador zoo for providing a real life swamp setting for their keep, or if it was just plain disgusting. I asked around, consensus determined that it [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- I was privy to learn a new greeting in Latin America the hard way: “Where is the mother?” a man asked me as I was walking through the streets with my baby Petra in my arms. What!?! does this guy think that I am not capable of going for a walk alone [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- The rough, jagged surface of a rather large rock was being scrubbed back and forth across the top of a dirty grill in a pupusaria in Suchitoto. Suds of soap rose in the rock’s wake, and a girl stood at the helm, pushing the cleaning stone back and forth over the business [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- I don’t want to travel with Petra in the tropics anymore, my wife told me. My heart sank. I know that this statement is akin to saying, “I don’t want to travel anymore.” Because the tropics are the budget traveler’s true stomping ground. There is a belt around the mid-section of planet [...]
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador- Every May 3rd, the people of El Salvador celebrate a holiday called Dia de la Cruz — The Day of the Cross. It is a pre-colonial harvest celebration that has now co-opted a Christian overcoat which occurs right before the start of the rainy season. It is a harvest festival, and like [...]
 |  |  |  |  |
