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Published: February 23rd 2010
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We took a minibus, which unfortunately meant that the seats and clearance we also mini. People staying in hotels were picked up first, so we were picked up last and got the worst seats. Seems only fair. Besides being wiped out from my adventure, I became mildly panicked about getting a blood clot sitting with my knees to my nose for two and a half hours. I should have given myself a shot but that was in my luggage back at the bus station.
Tikal Ruins
We hooked up with three other riders and hired a private guide. Tikal ruins are larger and more famous than Copan, but less impressive to our now experienced archeological eyes, having visited two whole sites. Taller temples, more monkeys, and more jungle than you could shake a stick at. Or is that a snake? Bit of a climb up eight stories to the top of a temple, but when you got there you could see more temples, monkeys and jungle for miles around. Guess its one of things you have to see because everyone else sees it.
Turistas
When tourists meet we embark on a series
Monkey
you knew that of basic three-step conversations. “Where are you from, what have you seen, and where are you going?” Someone from the states, like us, we start with “California,” and then, following their level of recognition, circle in on “San Francisco,” then “Berkeley, across the bay.” If one of us has been where the other one is going we move on the intermediate three-step of “How did you get there, at what cost, how much time?” In contrast, after “What is your name?” C.A. natives would ask Maureen “Do you have a novio (boyfriend); When are you getting married? How many children do you want?” This had become old with her. In restaurants, when I would flounder an order or ask a question, she would address the waiter in fluent Spanish, and then he would turn and respond to me. I suppose they address the older male present, even if it was clear I had no clue and even said “No hablo Espanol.” “He (nodding toward me) doesn’t speak Spanish.” He replied, in Spanish, “Oh, that’s OK. I’ll speak very slowly.” I thought, “ and if that doesn’t work then you can always speak louder.” Sometimes Maureen tired of being dissed.
A word about the three other tourists. Wolfgang (Germany) and Mathilde (Dutch) were a lovely couple who spoke English to us and French to each other. Suzanna from Vancouver, traveling solo, was “a sommelier and dog trainer.” They are intelligent, generous, and socially warm. All had quit their jobs to travel around the world for a year, finding beautiful places and staying several weeks at a time, planning only for their next major plane flight. I had the impression that many bus riders to and from Flores were similar. Did they really quit their jobs with enough money to afford this or did they have inherited wealth?
I have been to 9, 11 countries on three continents in the past five years which only a promising beginning to such people. Mostly in late twenties ore than a few in the midst of traveling around the world for a year. World travelers have the passive, observant, receptivity. But when they have a sustained diet of that, when that is their routine, when it is not in the process of being digested, and invested in a creative activity, then this seems to result in a somewhat blank gaze. They seemed to
become more alive when they were talking about how to get there or where they were going next, how much it costs, how it could be done cheaply, what is seen (but not what it meant to them, only how it was bigger or smaller than a comparable site). They are blasé, but not necessarily sophisticated, just blasé. Too much stimulation produces a mile malaise, but they’re not complaining.
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Marcia Billings
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I agree that an unrelenting diet of travel would be dulling rather than full of new delights. Even so, I'd give it a whirl at this point.