Central American Epilogue

Not enough time has really passed for me to fully process the experience into the event that it will be in my memory, that is, I'm still living it out. Also, to say that we experienced Central America is somewhat misleading, since we only covered a few hundred miles between two countries, leaving adventures in Nicaragua for later.

I was, though, inspired to look at the price of land. Just to know. Just curiosity getting the best of me.

So this isn't really an epilogue. I couldn't really name the final post in my "Blonde Giants in the Mayan Jungle" series 'Last Post in blah-blah-blah Series', but I did anyway, just switching "last" with "epilogue".

An epilogue would tie up all the feelings incurred during an experience with an overarching theme. I'm just not prepared to do that yet. Later, sure, most likely, but now? I'm only a few days removed from my bowel issues, so, in that way I'm only just done experiencing this trip.

So, instead of philosophical discussions, ala our trip to Chicago in 2009, I'm just going to display some pictures that struck me as important to our experience of this trip but that haven't made it to any posts thus far.

So here we go.

This is second picture I took on the entire trip, riding in a cab as we left the airport. It is a picture of the national beer of Guatemala's logo, Gallo, the rooster. This image is everywhere in Guatemala, like Heineken and Amstel signage all over Amsterdam.



This is my "speeding through a Central American city" picture. I went with a different picture of Guatemala City, but I like this picture more (it had too much color, and I was going for the drab look in the other post).



This is a cool palm at the hotel we stayed at in Rio Hondo.



Here's a different picture of the market at Chiquimula in Guatemala. This picture, while more colorful, doesn't capture the chaos that I wanted to convey with the picture I chose for that particular post.



This is a picture of a steep street in Copan, so steep that they need strafing on the stamped concrete to keep cars from sliding during the rain. Actually, it's needed for the dry season as well; we saw a car struggle with it during a sunny day, which led me to think it may be too treacherous in the rain, but if anything this experience has taught us that people just do what needs to get done.



This picture of a macaw at the ruins site was somehow missed my first go around. So...not sure how that happened. I guess I was too enamored with the flapping look of the wings to find a better picture.



Another "dammit" moment, this is one of my favorite pictures from the ruins that I somehow missed.



Picture 5000 on my point and shoot camera. 5000 pictures from September 2010, right as we moved into a new apartment in Austin and before we traveled to California for a wedding. The hieroglyphic stairs from underneath the tent.



One more "how did I miss this picture" entry. Actually, I had planned to include this one, I just forgot. I remember reading over the post just recently, and said to myself where's that one picture? Whoops.



Cool shot of the volcano and clouds looming over Antigua.



At some point I'll have better, more nuanced things to say about the experience. I was thinking that the Midwest trip in 2009 was easier to wrap my head around at that time because 1) it's a different version of America, and that was easier for me to deal with, since I was used to viewing "different versions of America" and writing specifically about that; and 2) I was out of work and had more time to sit and work it out quickly.

So...awesome. Go somewhere wild and chew the scenery.