My Birthday

Today is the 34th anniversary of my birth so I decided to include photos of those responsible (Guadalupe and Angel) and of me as a baby. If my parents have a slight look of fear in their eyes, it is understandable. They were 20 years old and in their first year of medical school. I would be scared too!

Even though my life is not perfect, I live a charmed life, and luckily, I know it. I am growing in the direction I want to grow and as I get older, I get happier. I am more forgiving with myself and have started living more in the present. There just isn´t as much future to which to postpone one´s happiness. I always get philosophical on birthdays...

I spent the morning going for a swim and looking at old photo albums. My grandmother (abuelita) made lemon pie as my birthday cake and we had a nice recounting of the early years during lunch. There were many "Angel, when you were little..." stories and "Angel, when are you going to get married?" comments told by mom, dad and abuelita. We are going for a drink tonight to share more stories and hopefully less wedding comments, but with abuelita and a couple of drinks, who knows what will happen? All in all, it is a great way to spend a birthday.

Preliminary Itinerary

Today, the big adventure feels more real. I bought my airline tickets! STA travel had great student fares, travel insurance and a South America airline pass. I will do my best to enjoy my last "student" tickets.

As a good friend of mine (Melanie) told me, two things she learned while backpacking were patience and flexibility. The bus may not come at the time it is supposed to, so you might as well sit on your pack and wait. You may meet people who you really like who are going somewhere you didn't intend to go, so why not change your plans? Hence, I scheduled lots of time for each place and bought tickets that could be changed.

It will be interesting to see what the actual itinerary turns out to be, learning some flexibility and patience would not hurt me either :-)

Sept. 18 to Oct. 11
Travel within Central America, mostly Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica
Spanish colonial towns, volcanoes, rain forest, SCUBA

Thursday Oct. 12
Fly from San Jose, Costa Rica to Sao Paolo, Brazil
overland bus ride to Rio de Janeiro for beaches, bossanova and samba

Wednesday Oct. 25
Fly from Rio de Janeiro to Salvador, Brazil
beaches, capoeira and Portuguese language lessons, buy Natascha a bracelet at the Church of our Lord at Bonfim

Sunday Nov. 5
Fly from Salvador to Iguazu Falls, Brazil
fantastic waterfall, cross over to Argentina

Wednesday Nov. 8
Fly from Iguazu to Buenos Aires, Argentina
tango, salsa and writing short stories at cafes

Thursday Nov. 23
Fly from Buenos Aires to Cochabamba, Bolivia
train to salt flat at Uyuni, Lake Titicaca, cross over to Peru to meet Hung and Matt for the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

Tuesday Dec. 19
Fly from Cuzco to Lima, Peru
fulfill grandmother's promise to St. Martin de Porres at the church were he is buried, national museum

Thursday Dec. 21
Fly from Lima, Peru to San Pedro Sula, Honduras
share stories with family, eat grandma's cooking, prepare to be a math professor!

Utila, Honduras

Technically, Utila is not part of my trip. I came with Marcela, Denise and Dad (el viejo) to SCUBA dive. Denise and Dad completed their PADI Open Water Certification, so now they are open water fish. I did my advanced open water and got to dive at night and a ship wreck. Marcela, who is our family´s expert fish, got a specialty in buoyancy control. We had a fantastic time underwater. A good chunk of the Pineda family is now amphibious :-)

The trip was a taste of the backpacker (mochilero) culture as we heard more English than Spanish on this island and your average SCUBA instructor has more likely than not been to all continents except Antarctica and I am sure that some of them have been there too.

I stayed a couple of days after my family left to go to Sun Jam and try to see whale sharks. Sun Jam was a rave at a cay off the coast of Utila that happens once a year. It was some party... On the small boat there (cayuco), I met some cute Quebecois with a fondness for singing Cat Stevens songs. The mochileros are a colorful bunch. The party rocked and was filmed by Entertainment television. I was there by coincidence. It just happened to be the weekend after our dive trip. I am looking forward to more unforeseen adventures!

On the two days I was by myself in Utila, I met several interesting people who were doing trips around the world after graduate school or taking time off work to do extended service projects abroad. Traveling was our common bond and we were very open to meet each other and share stories. I am now anxious to begin my big trip. I feel that I won't be alone and that the people I will meet will give me glimpses at of worlds that I would not normally be exposed to. Exciting eh?

Unfortunately, the whale sharks are not around right now. hmmm, maybe I´ll just have to come back to Utila.