Chillaxing in Paradise...

So here I am relaxing in a hammock on the dock, watching the sunset, using wifi, and kickin with my SCUBA crew and prefectly content after graduating from a "Scuba baby" to PADI Open-water certified today, Yay!  This will have to be a short blog cause my friends are harassing me to come play with them and we are having a pig-fry tonight at our dive school, which also doubles as the coolest palce on the islands, I f*cking love it here.  We are back in a inlet, so there are mangroves, cranes and plants all around us, we have an awesome cabana complete with airconditioning, a TV (although we never watch it), hammocks and a beautiful smoking balcony that looks out onto the water.  There is also a huge open deck where everyone chills right by all the diving gear.  Honestly I cannot think of a better set up for a dive school, or better people here.  Our dive instructor is this awesome French-Canadian guy with a mohawk named "Biscuit" who is trying to entice us to stay here... forever, ha ha he totally loves our crew: "Team Crevice"!  Not going to let on to what it reffers, but I am traveling with a stellar crew right now: Pete (my friend from Pomona), Dave (Pete's friend he used to lead backpacking trips with), and Megan (this totally rad girl they met in Xela) and together we are unstoppable and quite halarious.  Lynne is now part of the crew as well, but unfortunately we willhave to break up soon, Dave has to get back to the States to shear Alpaccas and Megan has to get back to evaporating water on oil sites, a job she works six months of the year and makes $60,000 so she can travel the other six months.  The transient lifestyle is quite interesting to me, and soooo tempting.  Its so easy to work six months of the year and travel the rest, and there is so much world to see.  I might just be hooked.  Megan and me are talking about traveling together to Nepal, SE Asia, and New Zealand next fall and winter... ha  ha but who knows I change my mind so often, fickle me.

I have been thinking a lot about what I want in life though, what I want to achieve and what I want to see and honestly I think this quote from Carlos Castenada sums it up best:

"For me there is only traveling on the paths that have a heart, on any path that may have a heart.  There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length.  And there I travel- looking, looking breathlessly."

There is no better way to describe how I am feeling now; this path that I am travling has heart, it feels right to me.  I feel as if I am learning new things and challenging myself and my paradigms daily.  Sightlines and Environmental Consulting felt wrong to me; it had no heart and I will never travel a path without heart again.  Life is too short for that, there is so much good living to be had.  I vow to never be without heart again.  Hopefully here I can volunteer and maybe find a vocaiton with heart, like medicine, who knows.  All I know is that I am so blessed and lucky to be here in this hammock, with such great friends and a wide open future.

SCUBA!!!!

Our Open Water class with our French-Canadian instructor Biskit:

For those of you who don´t already SCUBA, imagine if you will the sound Darth Vader makes when he breathes: the steady inhale and exhale, that sound is still echoing in my head from earlier today as I got to swim amongst beautiful tropical fish and a sea turtle. I have only been diving for one day but I absolutely love it, and feel as if I just may be hooked for life. Which is just what I need, another expensive, time consuming hobbie; but wow, it opens up a whole another world (I feel like the cheesy voice on the PADI movie: it might be scary at first but once you master the skills there is a whole exciting underwater world to explore)!


I could totally see myself getting stuck here and staying here to get my Advanced, maybe my Dive Masters and become and instructor like this girl I met here, Lynn. Talk about a small world, but I met this girl on the ferry over here who used to go to U of O, so already the Oregon connection, but it turns out she worked with a bunch of my good friends from Pomona and even a boy I grew up with at the Oregon Bus Project. So obviously we became fast friends and are planning on going on a night dive together in search of Octopi as soon as I am certified.




She works at a local dive shop, and bartends at this amazing bar called Tree Tanic, which is a treehouse bar connected to a hotel built by this amazing sculptor/artist that has some of the most amazing mosaics and sculptures I have ever seen. The whole place looks like a Gaudi version of Alice and Wonderland. I wandered around it last night for hours in amazement and will try to post pictures up as soon as I get fast internet. Oh and rent here in a nice house is only 200 dollars a month so..... I am tempted to stay here and join the ranks of the amazingly happy, tan, and healthy dive fanatics. I mean I already teach backpacking, canoeing, rafting, sea kayaking, and snowboarding; why not add SCUBA? But alas I must get back to cooking, chilling, and overall enjoying this lovely island.

La Cieba

We all had a pretty good laugh in La Cieba when the bartender told us we were staying in the nicest part of town!
Really, you have got to be kidding me, with all the bars and locks on all the windows, trash, and bums, on the streets. Honestly, La Cieba reminded me of the Ghetto in LA, except really, really humid. There was even a Texaco where we could pick up cheap beers late/night, well relatively cheap anyway. One beer was 23 Lempiras, but a six pack was ten times as much as a single beer, 236 lps. Now either someone really fucked up on the math or the Hondurian Government is tryine to disuade people from buying in bulk. Bizarre. Lempiras are the local currency, named after a famous indigenous leader Lempira who tried and failed to boot the Spanish out of Honduras. I guess if he would have succeeded they might have named the country after him or something instead of Honduras, which means depths in Spanish and reffers to the deep waters that Columbus saw off the Hondurian Coast. But since Lempira failed to drive out the Spanish they just named the local currency after him, and treat the indigenous people pretty poorly since now 90 percent of Hondurians are Mestizo, of Spanish descent.
OK enough history lesson for one post now to the fun stuff....

Finca El Paraiso

I woke up two days ago at 2 am vomiting my entrails from a flu bug me and my friends picked up in Semuc Champay, and then had to travel all yesterday to Rio Dulce on the Carribean Coast. But it was all worth it today when I woke up and stepped out among these vibrant red jungle flowers right outside my room. After a liesurely stroll through the market we ended up boarding a chicken bus (the local method of traveling, old us school buses) and heading to Finca El Paraiso from which we hiked thorugh the jungle to bathe in a hotwaterfall.
As a hotsprings connesuer, I can attest that this was defintaly the largest hotwaterfall I have ever seen. It was so deep under the falls that we ended up jumping off it, such a delightful senstaion really jumping into a mixture of hot and cool water. I will try to post pictures up as soon as I get a chance. Should be off now we are going to grab some vegtables in the market, make a stir-fry and chill. We head to Honduras tomorrow.

Semuc Champay

I had a fabulous day today. I met up with Pete and his two friends he is traveling with: Dave and Megan. They are pretty stellar people. Dave and I spent the day exploring the water caves by Semuc Champay, jumping off bridges and rope swings, and kicking it in the sauna at El Retiro. This place is paradise. The river runs through the hostel and they have a homemade sauna so after you soak in the sauna you jump into the ice cold river. I feel like a whole new person. The sauna is made with recycled bottels, concrete, a thatched roof, and an old wood stove. I definately want to build my own someday whenever I have my own land. There is also family style vegetarian dinners served every night in the bar followed by an amazing happy hour where you can get two double-shot of Jonny Walker and Gingerale for four dollars, holla! Needless to say I am one happy girl.

Exploring the caves was such a blast, I went there last year when I was here but we got taken even farther into the caves this time, got to jump off of a cliff inside the cave, and jumped through a tunnel to a pool underneath. It was a stunning experience, and to top it off I these three Norwegian girls and three British boys that I explored the Lanquin Bat Caves with yesterday were also there. So much fun.

I would love to kick it here another day or so but the crew has already been here for a few days waiting for me so we are heading off to Finca Itzabel tomorrow to swim in a hot waterfall. Then off to Honduras to learn to scuba dive and rent our own Island. The Island only costs $85 a night so between the four of us thats only twenty buck, but we are thinking of grabbing a few more chillers and having an all out party.

Its always been a personal dream of mine to own my personal island where there were no rules or clothes, looks like it may actually happen (well I guess technically I will be renting the island).
We will probably only rent it for three days, which hopefully will help us avoid a "Lord of the Flies" or "Beach" senario but who knows; things sometimes escalate quickly. Well I should jet, a delicious meal and interesting company is awaiting me.

You know you are in a good neighborhood when...

You know you are in a good neighborhood when all the doors and windows have bars on them, really makes you feel safe you know? And yes I did spend my afternoon waiting for a bus in Guatemala City because the shuttle I booked failed to pick me up, the bus later broke down an hour away from Coban, but in the end it was a good thing for two reasons:

1. I learned an appreciation for Spanish versions of oldies: like the spanish version of "Leader of the Pack" and "Killing me Softly". The help me learn the much needed Spanish and are so catchy. I found myself happily humming along to songs I would not listen to in English, but adore in Espanol.

2. I actually do think I want to get my M.P.H. and P.A. when I get back to the States, I really want to practice medicine and feel that I am helping people every day. What brought this on? I ended up sitting next to and making friends with a guy studying medicine in Guatemala City. I know what you are htinking, what´s with Tara and the Med-school students? He is only 20 but has been studying medicing for 5 years already and only has another 4 years. He got to deliver his first baby in November at age 20, can you believe that? Damn I thought I was cool to be able to lead trekking trips at that age, but he is really doing something with his life. The way he talked about his job and studies, so full of passion and intent, I love that, I want to be like that.

Ok I should head back to my hotel its getting late and there I have to try and find Pete tomorrow, but honestly I want to get to the coast so badly. I want to swim in the clear blue waters of the Carribean and feel the sun kiss my skin.

No habla espanol!

So yes, it just may seem that I need to learn Spanish to successfully tour this country. For some bizarre reason no one seems to understand Nepali here, which is too bad because my default mode of speaking seems to be Nepali. I don't even intentionally speak Nepali, but when pressed or flustered I let a stream of Nepali words flow from my mouth. Sometimes mixed with Spanish like when I told the fruit stand lady that she had a "mas tulo nino", tulo is big in Nepali. Worst though is when I answer in French and Nepali to a Spanish question; which yes, happens a lot. It seems that there is only enough room in my tiny head for one foreign language at a time, and despite my best efforts I cannot keep them straight and to be honest I don't know if I am ready to lose Nepali.














As I was wandering through the markets today, Thursday in market day in Guatemala, I realized how similar Guate is to Nepal and India and how homesick I was for Kalimpong and Nepal. Funny how I spent the majority of my time there miserable and missing home and now I think of it as my other home. I miss walking through the markets, haggling and shopping for my aama, I miss the food, the children, the Himalaya, but most of I miss being fluent in Nepali and being able to articulate myself. Here I am just another gringo traveler, but there "Ma Nepali Ho" (I was Nepali).


Sadly, I must let Nepal and my Nepali language go if I ever hope to make it here though, hopefully I will return there someday but for now I am looking for the similarities here that will endear Guate and Central America to my heart.

I don't really have to look that hard though, the native Mayas look very similar to the hilltribe Gurungs of Nepal. Put a nose piercings on the women here and they actually looks quite similar to Nepal, and the volcano filled landscape is quite gorgeous.

Speaking of volcanoes the local volcano, Pacayo, had a little eruption when tourists were on it two days ago. I met some of the girls who were on it at the time. They ended up going to the hospital and were covered in scars from the rocks, ash and steam. Apparently they barely escaped in time, stupid tourists that roast marshmallows over the lava and expect not too get hurt by an active volcano! Ok so that was definately me nine months ago. I admit it I went as close to that lava as possible for great shots holding a joint and a Brava beer, so yes I understand how stupid tourists can be but what really amazes me is that people went on volcano tours yesterday! The day after the active volcano erupted tourists were like, oh wow, lets go climb that active volcano with seismic activity today. How dumb can you be, obviously the tectonic plates are moving beneath the volcano and it is not safe to climb, but hey "jewan yasta chha" (So is life in Nepali).

I know I said I was going to give up Nepali, but its so addictive to me...
Huesta Luego for now I have to go catch a bus up North to explore underwater caves, jump off huge waterfalls, and relaxing by a clean, cold river in Lanquin.