the silence of the world

so i think i have been away from utila for almost two weeks now. that is the longest i have been off the island in the last eight months. its also the longest i have gone without diving in the last eight months. i was floating in a warm waterfall waterslide tiled spa pool last night, wishing for the silence of the ocean. diving is not silent in the way sitting on the bottom of a lake is. it is not even the hushed silence of the still dead of a country summer midnight. but it is an even silence of breathing: inhale, exhale. fill, empty. there are no voices filtering in overheard conversations and loud laughs and strange words. no roosters, no dogs, no motos on the road. just what thoughts can fill your head. contemplation, observation. if only we were built with gills.

costa rica is i suppose what i expected, though i hadn´t thought much about it before arriving on the side of the road in front of a little sign for monteverde. survived the worst ride of my life in the back of a pick up on top of no less than nine backpacks with four other people and a body board. bounced up and down a dirt mountain road for 35km, but the views were quite fantastic. one side the lago arenal, the other the golfo de nicoya and the nicoya peninsula. and i have never seen so many and such variety of mango trees, which for some reason i find really exciting. while we waited at our cross roads we coaxed a few ripe mangos from a tree. the only good one left got squished in the truck. arrived in monteverde thankful to be alive. costa rica was built for the self proclamed ecotourist. just because you´re careening through the treetops attached to a cable does not mean you are a part of the ecological salvation of said forest. but no matter how its branded, ziplining is insanely fun. i am beginning to realise i need adrenaline to feel human. the faster the better. unfortunately i also have a talent for injuring myself so i know that sooner or later those two friends will meet and i am not gonna like it. for now though, i will happily throw myself off high places and sail through forests and valleys on a string. i would go back to the tarzan swing every day if i could. (http://www.monteverdeextremo.com/canopy_tarzan.html)

the nature night walk was a rip off but most of these tours are. still did see a two toed sloth, an agouti, and a kinkajou. oh and the infamous cell phone frog. the canopy bridges were also not exactly worth the price, but nice to have actually seen some cloud forest. on to la fortuna, the most expensive town i´ve been in since i left the states. its like new york prices up in here. crazy. but la fortuna waterfall is lovely, and getting to stand behind the falls was really very cool. the four hundred stairs back up the trail was much less cool. hot spring spa with buffet dinner was well worth the money. dangerous waterslide? yes. 67 degree centigrade pool? yes, though completely unnecissary. and, hot pools with tile beds, of course.

so good to be out of my little bubble for a bit. it has really been a long time since i have had a real break from work. traveling is always amazing, and it has definitely been extra amazing to have good people to travel with. lucky that they are letting me tag along. and tomorrow, vamos a ver el rio pacuare!

the laws of bouyancy in practice

i realized yesterday that the thing i miss most, have always missed most no matter where i have been living, is my mother's kitchen. where everything is in its place and nothing is missing. a complete spice rack. proper appliances and utensils. it seems such a simple thing but it is a lifetime of preparation behind it.

when this was just a trip, just a travel plan and not a life, there were goals. many actually. there has so far been only one met; to acquire new and useful job skills/knowledge to help get closer to graduate school acceptance. i have not learned spanish to any real level. i have not written. i have barely taken photos. i hadn't even made it to more than two countries before this week. what a failure.

but here i sit in nicaragua, on vacation from so much work. it is desert and scrub and ocean waves breaking on dirty brown silt-sand. the sunset is the bright deep hue of burning brush fire. jesus stands sentry above the bay, palm held high against the winds as if to keep those rushing clouds at bay. silver and luminous he is watching you. this town is just another tourist trap. harbourside restaurants vie for your patronage and set tables on decks stretching over the packed sand towards the moored ships sheltering. they know you do not speak spanish. they know you don't know how much a taxi ride should cost. and i don't quite care. this is my vacation so fuck it high prices and fake smiles and all. let's go surfing and drinking and forget the rest of the world exists. spending days by the pool with a book and music and a beer is all i wanted. until i get bored then i will be ready to resume responsibility for myself my dog my life. i don't know what happened to that long  five plus months of travel vacation i had promised to myself. the cloak of life just slips on so easily, its an old friend just revamped in new shiny caribbean colors. trade the greys of new york city living for clear clean azures much more appealing but oh at some level its all the same. i am growing down not up. i am on the razor edge of running.

Happy 7 Month Anniversary, Utila

seven months ago this very day i arrived on this island. herded off the ferry, glaze-eyed and sweaty, lucky to have followed my isreali travel partners to the place i did. starting from (basically) zero to instructor was not what i would have imagined my life to shape into. but i am happy about it. diving is what i have dreamt about forever without knowing it. i like this world mostly. always good people. always a place i belong, cold beers, sun, the sea (my true love). but i will never get over the leaving part. i walked to the ferry dock before six am but i am still here. i dont know how to either contain the sadness bleeding out or stop the enamel coating growing into an indestructable shell of repression. i will not be a ghost this time. but it is the same feeling of walking with a shadow and feeling all the more alone for it. it is the same feeling of missing something and being unable to pinpoint exactly what but knowing, knowing.

so happy seven month anniversary to me. i swam with the most beautiful creature today. it was a perfect moment. isabelle and i fast after the whaleshark, it was maybe three meters long, with a couple hitchhikers attached underneath, and i saw his face and it made me grin, inside, like the kind of smile where you show all your teeth. and we both have wounds to heal and i feel lucky to have shared that moment with the right person. one month ago yael and i saw our first whaleshark and that was a perfect moment too. i know i'm the lucky one.

on the road again, for a moment

so here i am in placencia, belize. its quiet and touristy and there's a wide white beach and palm trees and no sandflies. this is what i wanted my vacation to be like. instead, i find myself missing utila. i love being on the road though, in buses and boats and watching the countryside float by. there are things that you don't realize you miss until you've gone. i miss my dog. i'm worried that she's gonna cry and won't get walked enough and will have too many fleas when i get back. when i first got her, i didn't know if i would like her enough to keep her for good. she was shy and scared and seemed like she had no personality. but after the first two weeks, she started to come out of her shell. she plays now and makes cute funny noises and jumps around and play bites me and wags her tail when i come home. she loves me because i feed her and walk her and rub her tummy. now i wouldn't dream of giving her up.

the quiet here is creeping me out. there are too many old white people here. its too expensive. maybe we'll go somewhere else tomorrow. the jungle might be nice, although i totally didn't bring any clothes appropriate for that sort of thing. supposedly there's cave tubing which would be super fun. i love going into caves, and especially cave rivers, even though it scares the shit out of me. i want to cave dive someday. the more fear you add to an adventure the more satisfying it is when you've done it. cave diving seems like the ultimate. or maybe super deep tech diving although that doesn't hold as much allure. creatures of the deep ocean are incredibly fascinating, but i always imagined going down there to observe in a little submersible vehicle of some sort. haha.

i've always accepted the fact that, unlike past generations, i will have many careers in my life. i'm too torn by contradicting desires to think that i'll ever find just one thing to focus on for my entire life. i love the city life, and i love the natural world. i tried the city, and now i know i don't want that anymore. i don't think that the last ten years were a waste of time, persuing a career in photography, living the glamorous life (haha) in new york city. it was fun and exciting and i learned a lot about myself and the world. i feel grateful that i know without any doubts that that is not the life i want to lead anymore. i can focus on finding something new. diving was not something i'd ever thought about as a career or anything close. but it fits: i can travel, be close to the sea, and learn something first hand about marine biology. i can be close to the fishes, which up until a short while ago i'd only considered an outside interest but now think i should persue some kind of conservation study... somewhere done the line grad school in marine conservation biology is a distant goal. for now i'm quite happy persuing a "career" in diving. instructor in the next few months, whenever i can afford it, then going from there. hopefully seeing much more of the world in the next few years. my life is open, and its kind of exciting. i'm not in a hurry.

i'm not doing too badly on utila either. i had thought i would go home to my parent's house in california because rent is free and maybe i could save some money working back in the states. but it would take at least a month, maybe more, to find any job at home, and it would most likely be an unsatisfying job. so i may as well stay where i have a job (or two) that i enjoy, and even if i'm not earning that much, its not too bad now. its going to get busier as well, so i should be diving more often and maybe even making more at the bar. i made enough in the first week of feburary to pay my rent and then some. if i work at it, i could save a fair bit. i also want to at least take the efr instructor course and then i can teach that too. most instructors don't want to waste their time teaching that so it makes sense. and if i stay in utila through the end of april i can work through semana santa too, and thats supposed to be a crazy week.

but life is subject to change. like feelings, opinions, goals and dreams... its all wide open.

December, Utila

Island Livin' it up

 Sooo... I realize it has been quite a while. If anyone bothers to check this anymore I'd be surprised, but what the hell I'll try not to neglect this space so much in the future. For now, here's a link to my FB photos, hopefully it'll give somewhat of an idea of what life is like here. Obviously not so much the diving part as I don't have an underwater camera, but the rest of the day to day...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=95334&id=1407631058&l=c29a859dee

Its difficult to stop and reflect on what people outside of this experience would want to know. Getting sucked into a routine of sorts makes everything less fresh and new although no less amazing. I am thinking I'll be here for a few more months, so plenty of time to come up with something...

Infinite Arms

So, here I still am. In the naive plan making that was this trip I thought I would be on another continent by now. Next time I'm not buying a plane ticket. Next time I'm making no promises, not to anyone or myself. I'll go when I'm good and ready, thank you. Vaguely shaping in the future in front of my eyes I see returning to complete the journey I set out to, but whether that is the nearer or further future it's not apparent. Here are more possibilities than I ever could have dreamed. The shape of he master plan looks something like this, thus far: complete my dive master course, maybe stick around, maybe go to catch the flight I already booked out of Buenos Aires a few days before the Christmas holiday. As soon as I have enough money, leave for an undetermined location to find work diving (Asia, Australia, South Pacific, etc). Work til I want to leave and find the next destination. Travel, work, dive, live. What could be better? Careers can wait. Life can wait, but this is my life and it's finally real.

A Land Without Time

It's been awhile... I've lost track of any sense of time. Just mark the days by when people leave, what number dive tallied. It's not reality. Or maybe it's the only real thing and everything else is the false life. I'm almost sure it's the latter. Because if this wasn't real, what would be the point at all? I think I've been on this little island (Utila, Honduras) for nearly 3 weeks now. It seems like nothing, though the small aches of missing the people I started out with marks the time better than a calendar page. But this is a lull before the real work starts. I've completed my first two courses, the open water and advanced open water course, and just finished the emergency first response exam. Next will be the rescue diver course, log some more dives, then start traing for my dive master. Crazy but it should be great. Learning new job skills is never a bad thing.

P.S. Photos as soon as I have Internet that's not so slow!

Archive: 30 August 2010

There is nothing in the world quite like real, pure freedom. I can only hazard a guess at what those true explorers of the unknowns of this world have felt. What they lived and died and suffered for. The freedom to go into the unknown, alone, to discover something absolutely foreign. Well, I am not sure weather that experience exists on a certain level anymore, but the essence remains the same. Sure, I have always had the ability to make my own way, but there has always been structure to my life shaping the choices I've made. Had to find a job to afford the apartment to live where I wanted to. But traveling is different. Almost nearly true freedom to decide where I want to go and when. The only actual limiting factor is money, as usual. Time, well I've got the rest of my life. I have no commitments if I don't want to make any. Even the ones I chose now feel like binding chains. To float on the current is the best feeling. Now, I want it to last forever. My home is nowhere, and that's okay. 

All the bugs in the jungle want my blood

I left Antigua on Friday evening after my last class (sad). Took the overnight bus (9 hrs, plus approx 3 hrs in shuttles either end) to Flores and the Mayan ruins at Tikal. Probably not the best plan, but oh well, who needs sleep anyways. The ruins were impressive - limestone towers rising up out of the jungle, 70 meters high. It was hot, humid and filled with tourists but still a worthwhile visit. I took a guided tour, which was good but already I´ve forgotten most of the information but at least it was relavant at the time. Spent one night in the tiny island town of Flores, situated on a pretty lake in the nothern Peten region. The town wasn´t much but hotels and tourist shops and overpriced waterfront restaurants. I did get to stay at a hostel with a pet rabbit roaming around, so that was a plus. Sunday took a 7 hour shuttle to the town of Lanquin, where the famous aqua pools of Semuc Champey are located nearby. Unfortunately it rained a lot, so when we got to the pools on monday they were more of a mustard/mud color, but still nice for swimming and jumping into. Evidently this week is the anual festival celebrating the town or Lanquin, so we waded through crowds of people watching a parade of all the schools in the region, which was good fun except for having to walk against the tide and getting in everyone´s way. That was awkward. First we visited the Las Marias cave which was excelente; swam in the underground river with nothing but candles and a crazy spider monkey-like Guatemalteco for guidance. We waded through the murky water, scrambled up and down some sketchy ladders (while still keeping candles alight), ducked under a waterfall and got one little rock slide/jump in. Guatemala does not have the stringent safety requirements that we are used to (no hard hats or waivers here). Then we hiked to el Mirador to view the pools of Semuc Champey from above. A very worthwhile, albeit strenuous, hike. At some points it was more akin to rock climbing, and the trail was slick from all the rain. After sweating off a few pounds in the jungle climate, taking a dip in the cool water below was perfect. Even though the pools were muddied it was good fun. Our guide showed us all the best spots from which to jump/dive into the pool below. The day wouldn´t have been complete without a scenic ride in the back of a truck back to the hostel. I quite enjoyed it. The last few days have been spent doing a whole lot of nothing. Hammock, river, sun, get bit by unidentified bugs, hammock, eat, drink, climb through the window of the dorm after getting locked out, etc. I´ve been so busy I haven´t even been studying which was one of the main reasons I intended to stay here. But doing nothing just takes up so much time...