Takeaways from Central America

This past December, I had an amazing 18-day off-the-beaten travel experience with my best friend in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. It was my best vacation to date, which I attribute to three things: 1) As time elapses  I realize more and more enlightenment and have more and more fun in life 2) as time elapses I get a better understanding of what it is that I want 3) Central America is simply amazing.

Some takeaways from the experience:

I love Central America. What a hidden gem. Warm sunshine, friendly people, beautiful beaches and great surf, amazingly cheap and good food, some nice gems of cities, a beautiful language, lots of travelers, and relatively short distances between countries. These are still developing countries so it’s necessary to do your research before you go and to have a heightened sense of awareness in some places (e.g. the capitals), but these really are some amazing places on earth.

In life, you can’t worry about the things you can’t control. You should also know that whatever situation you get yourself into, you’ll do the best with what you have, where you are. You can let fear prevent you from moving forward, or you can feel the fear and do it anyway – and know that the rest is up to fate. (You’ll also find that often you eventually realize that your fear made it out to be a lot worse than it actually is).

When you really think about it, life is pretty simple: Tell the people who you love that you love them, find out what it is and who it is that you love and pursue, and fight for what you want in life. My best friend and I were exposed to thought exercises that required us to think through some potentially scary situations, such as armed gang members boarding our buses or being held up at gunpoint. Though these scenarios may or may not be all that common in developing countries (we heard accounts of this happening to a couple travelers we encountered but these events never happened to us nor to a large portion of the travelers we met), you still think through the what-ifs. That activity in and of itself further validated some points for me and has impacted the way I continue to approach my relationships. It’s good to get these reminders in life.

(Side note: You also become desensitized to these potential scenarios, realizing that gang members and robbers really only want your money and/or stuff – I personally packed knowing that everything I was taking I’d be prepared to hand over if it came to that. We also began to travel with a ‘robber fund,’ ensuring we always had cash that we would hand over in the event we needed to, even if this was as little as $4 each).

(Another side note: A lot of these places have become safer in recent years. A lot of the warnings outlined in the safety reports from the Canadian Embassy may even potentially be outdated. In Antigua, Guatemala, we found there were a ton of Tourist Police roaming the streets, and even police located on the volcanoes, even at nighttime. When doing your research, always be aware of what you’re reading and where it comes from – other sources of information on the Internet had much lighter tones when speaking about traveling through Central America – it’s best to take in all of the sources of information and then to develop your opinion).

This trip has definitely helped me become even more comfortable with risk and push my boundaries even further. Throughout the 18 days we continued to push our comfort zone and each risk we took resulted in an extremely positive experience, which we never would have realized had we not taken that risk. I’m still always assessing to make sure I don’t push things *too* far (though how do you know where and when that point is), but right now, I’m super appreciative of the experiences I’ve had to date, and am feeling a lot more light, carefree, and happy with my new personal risk threshold.

More thoughts on risk. What’s the bigger risk? Going traveling in less-developed countries, or letting fear hold you back in life, letting a small part of you die each time you don’t follow your heart and not becoming the person you could potentially be? (Not to mention the risks you encounter at home, such as sitting too much or not taking any risks at all). We heard a lot of “Oi, what are you doing?” and warnings when people heard of where we were going, including from Canadian airport border control, but I feel these sentiments are tied to several mental fallacies people make about risk, such as overestimating the probability of rare events.  The way I see it, if you aren’t legitimately scared of the risk you are taking, then maybe the risk you’re taking isn’t big enough and you are living inside your comfort zone. (I also remind myself that as a woman I tend to be more inclined to take less risks in life (due to evolution), which is a piece of perspective that helps me further push my comfort zone – because without risk you can’t grow and can’t become all that you’re supposed to become).

Yoga, stretch, and workout breaks are amazing =D. My best friend and I started traveling with two other Canadian girls for a portion of our trip, who were super cool and would start breaking out into pushups, squats, pullups, lunges, runs and yoga breaks at various intervals, such as waiting for a bus, or during a regular beach-and-hostel day. These ensure that even on vacation, you’re feeling great! (One of my personal highlights was having a nice run during 40-degree El Salvador weather right before a nice swim-and-then-lunch session, while some locals and travelers looked on in surprise).

It’s nice to support the local economies of developing communities. My best friend and I made this realization in one of our favorite towns, El Tunco in El Salvador, which led us to continuously purchase more papayas, more smoothies, more coffees, more natural fruit popsicles. Supporting local economies likely also encourages tourism, which may lead to even greater safety and wellbeing.

Traveling through Central America really put into perspective how valuable an American dollar can be. In El Salvador, I would buy two bananas for a quarter and a 3-kg papaya for two dollars. Anecdotally, we also heard stories of gang members robbing individuals on buses and being satisfied with 5 dollar bills, which is rather eye-opening – we heard of someone being shot because he had absolutely nothing on him. This inspired our individual robber funds, ensuring we both had at least $4 at all times on us.

It’s interesting to think about contexts and environments. Some people in this world end up having children at really young ages because they can’t afford contraception. Others join gangs and rob both tourists and locals because they struggle to feed themselves and their families. It’s a bit sad, and I think these realizations are really influencing me from this point forward to use more of what I have to make life better for others (This year I’ll be doubling and potentially tripling my philanthropic contributions).

It’s helpful to be aware of the questions you are asking yourself in life. This realization came from a Tony Robbins audiotape that I was listening to on the plane to Guatemala. During one of our volcano-climbing expeditions, I was coming down with a fever and wasn’t feeling in the best of shape to hike up a steep volcano. Instead of asking myself ‘Why is this so challenging?’ I kept asking myself ‘How can I make this experience better for myself?’ and ‘What can I get out of this?’ It’s a simple shift but it makes a huge difference in how you perceive and appreciate certain situations.

(Another learning from Robbins’: Be aware of the metaphors you use in life. I personally like ‘My body is a temple.’ If you continuously tell yourself this, you tend to embrace health-enhancing behaviors and avoid health-destroying behaviors).

18 days is a significant amount of time. Time really comes down to what you make of it and what you do with it, and the breadth of experiences you can go through in even just a couple of days is really amplified when you’re mobile and backpacking. 18 days was absolutely perfect. (I’ve also come to realize there are things you can do in life to increase your quality of time and quality of life, and in effect ‘stretch’ the amount of time you perceive to be experiencing).

It’s so great to have a career to come home to. I’m super grateful that I’ve been carving out a career through university and since, and have this nice balance of career + travel. (This point gets driven home every time I meet individuals who I feel enjoy themselves through their long-term travels, but don’t seem to have too much of a professional purpose. For me personally I don’t think I’d  be getting the most I could be out of life, though I’m sure this lifestyle is optimal for a large population of people out there).

Lastly, I had some personal guiding principles validated, including: Be present in the moment, follow your heart, take risks, embrace, enjoy. Travel is such a great experience that brings our hearts closer together (knowing the local language helps tons too), and gives us time to think, assess, integrate, ponder, and plan.

What’s next: I’m planning on continuing to strengthen my Spanish here in Toronto. I’d definitely love to do more Central America one day, and have also started thinking about traveling through Southeast Asia at some point. This vacation also got me thinking about  pairing various activities with travel abroad experiences, such as studying a martial art abroad or obtaining a yoga certification. Right now, I’m happy to be here in Toronto, and have a newfound appreciation of being able to drink straight from the tap, ride in cars with seatbelts and rearview mirrors, and to freely eat apples and other fruits that aren’t peeled. I’ve also started to focus on supporting more entrepreneurs in Central America (See my Kiva lender page here), which I’ve found is an activity that is bringing me more joy and fulfillment.

All in all, a super positive experience. I definitely recommend Central America for anyone looking for a new travel destination, and can share more thoughts and tips for anyone who’s interested in finding out more.

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