I left Atitlan, Guatemala for San Cristobal de las Cases, a wonderful place in southern Mexico's Chiapis for a "Visa Run" but lacking motivation perhaps I returned with another 3 month Guatemala visa to Panajachel, Guatemala. I've been going back here seasonally for 4 or 5 years and it's hard to beat this place for energy, a small town feel and low cost of living. You get to know some really nice people, some not so nice and some that defy description, I'll say on this edit. A pretty wonderful place, as it is without corrections or as my friend Andy Graham (who calls himself The Hobotraveler) says, "a life less normal". Big mountain lake, volcanoes, beautiful Mayan peoples dressed exotically and speaking ancient languages, some Rock 'n Roll'ers meets good samaritanos and the continual stream of International backpackers and itinerant artisanos, barristas and coffee roasters (of which I confess I am one).

As this is a personal journal, for my family I'll say I am fine and in good health, exercising and going to a hotspring everyday. To my surprise, I've become a vegetarian and a casual churchgoer and have been learning some Spanish.

Trying to save a little money from my modest pension - basically a Social Security check - to move on I expect to another country or continent within my economic category. To everyone, God Bless and know that you are loved.

I have been loving it here in the Central Highlands at Panajachel, Guatemala and will have stayed here for about 3 months before moving on -- this is the limits of a forienger's (extranjaero's) length of stay before requiring a "Visa Run" to a neighboring country for 72 hours before being allowed re-entrance. There are other ways of extending one's stay in Guatemala, but none that include a "geographical cure". I am somewhat anxious to get going and will leave when my rent's up at the end of the month, around the New Year, 2010.

Here in Guatemala I have seen vigilantism with a thief robbing the mercdado battered to death and his 3 female (one pregnant) comapanions covered in gasoline for burning ... Police intervened (after watching the man killed by a mob) to extricate the women (Cops actually asked women to kill the 3 women but could only find one to agree to be an executioner) and the "lynch" mob burned several police pickup trucks when the women were not surrendered to the mob for burning by the Cathedral. I take it that the belief is that the devil inhabits the thieves, so they burn them, medieval-style. Effective and understandable to the locals where the Police are seen as corrupt

Happened to 3 thieves that shot up a bus a couple weeks ago in nearby Solola and Huehuetenango and now two attempted burnings here (and one mob killing) in a week. The streets are calm, but paving stones for throwing are still underfoot and I have at times felt uneasy , esp in the evening walking towards the markets and instead returning to downtown to my apartment. Probably nothing will happen, but others I know are planning on leaving soon too. I just am wary of police or military reaction to destruction of police vehicles and police stations frequently. This is a country with a 36 year Civil War against it's ethnic Maya majority and they are the ones burning down police stations and their vehicles. The next day or so, it is like nothing happened - life goes on - until several days or a week goes by and it starts up again. Beautiful here, but I am not Guatemalan and have appreciate the opportunity of getting off the road for awhile before continuing my journeys on. After 3 months, I'd see myself as a "resident" and not a traveler which has been my life-style. Gotta Go someplace!

Which Way?

I left Portland, Oregon after only one successful attempts to link up with my Son over his 23rd Birthday. I was his age once and can understand his not making himself more available...I figure he will make his own efforts to meet once he is about 35, give or take a decade - I had left Panama where I had been living with that intent, along with seeing all the rest of my family and filing my usa Federal income taxes (my expat tax filing extension was bout to end nd the required paperwork, called a W-2 was back in North America). My family was very supportive but re-gearing for extended travel and traveling about to see them ate up my funds, so in early October, 2009 I prepared to leave the expensive U.S. (for a retiree) with a stop first at "The Farm". Many years I had thought about visiting "The Farm" in Tennessee, the largest and most successful Intentional Community in North America. A Big Deal. Well, once there I decided that the 10th Bioregional Conference being held was in antithesis to me, so I became instead absorbed in washing dishes for about 10 days and got to know the real people behind this great experiment in Community. After all, Conferences are in essence meetings and I would anything to miss meetings, unless of course it's a Quaker Meeting where Silence is Golden and not a pontification fest.

After all, this meeting was mainly hosted by and large the good people at The Farm - they were only hosting it. Pitching in and washing dishes for the Conference attendees with The Farm's residents seeing it was me, was a no-brainer. I hate meetings and essentially all autocrats! Well, they both really Suck more than Gravity. Anti-Gravity is my Speed.

The Good Farm folks, the original 60's Haight-Ashbury Hippies (which I am too) were a perfect fit for me and being that I was next headed again to Guatemala for the 3rd time, where they had done good works through their own relief org, PLENTY, International in 1976 after the catastrophic earthquake and genocidal "Civil War". They are remembered fondly there and introduced that Nation's only Soy Diary which is still in operation in Solola fighting protein deficiency, thereby becoming the actual role-model for who Americans abroad should emulate. Feo Americano, no mas.

Enough said.

It's 3/4 through September of 2009 and back in usa (ooo-suh = the phonetic Spanish pronunciation) for a time (couple months) I nam a week away from traveling on again outside my country ... it's within my means to live in the 2nd and 3rd and 4th World, but not in my own homeland now that I have a monthly pension draw.

The pressing reason I came back to usa was to finally file my taxes and have now visited 7 cities including the backtracking - flying, busing and hitchhiking in order to see my family since I am half a world away and one never knows how long our collective futures are. My family has been very helpful in opening up their homes to me or I never would have been able to make this trip. Thanks Family!

My Mom suffered a stroke but seems pretty much to be on the mend except for some memory lapses and trouble finding the right words about half the time. I got to visit her and my other 4 siblings and my Son -- now just a week left until I have funds to exit the US from my location, Portland, Oregon. Such a nice place! Wish I could stay longer but I'd run out of money and the rains are coming and conversely they are ending in Latin America.

Hey! How're you all? "Super-Bien" here and that's all good.

My update:

I bused from Panama to Costa Rica and while there in the capitol San Jose I came across and interviewed an edgy tall redhaired Quaker woman that was an election monitor for the recent abortive Presidential term-limits referendum of Honduran Presidente Zelaya. This was breaking news and I became a witness to History, albeit 2nd hand. The balloting had been dissallowed by both their Honduran legislature, their Supreme Court and long-time usa backed militarists but was being unilaterally pursued by the Executive branch. Likely because the Center-Right President had recently displayed Communista colours and moved for a Fidel Castro/Hugo Chavez-styled consolidation to restructure the realm. In this type of hemispheral model, El Presidente assumes total control and as all other power centers are eliminated, so the Presidente was perceived a threat declared a criminal and was deported in the night to Costa Rica by heavily armed, masked soldiers. "But what do the People want?" Which People? There's plenty of non-consensual clamor over this being expressed in Honduras and elsewhere regionally, so I don't even want to get into that. Not to mention not wanting to be embroiled in the Central American Presidential controversy in another of my previous homes, Guatemala. Central America, a place with much to offer and high up on my Good Places to Live list regardless of tension or turmoil mostly just focused out of proportion by the press. I mean Paradise is hard to look past. Right.

So...leaving Costa Rica by Super Saver flight I flew on to Denver, Colorado but abandoning the connection airfare onward to Los Angeles, California I instead yielded to tempation, busing by Greyhound to an old hometown - Glenwood Springs, Colorado where the World's largest outdoor hotsprings is located. Ahhh! A couple long hot soaks amidst that gorgeous mountain scenery and I was right off again on the bus to Missoula, Montana my next stop. I was off to visit family this trip and as it was by then Sunday in Missoula this meant shouldering my backpack and hitchhiking back out of Montana to wild-on Idaho to get to my Brother's home at his mountain wilderness river resort, Three Rivers. It was a nice visit with wonderful people and a terrific scenic stop - after about a week I hitched back to Missoula, Montana to fly on to Los Angeles, California to visit with my older Sister and her branch of the family. This soon meant a trip to her family's beach houses near Rosarit0 Beach in Baja. Que Bueno! Since returning from Old Mexico I walked back across the border at Mexicali recently to eat 3 tacos - seemed the thing to do and the people were great. This whole bad press that Mexico has been getting is non-substantial, now anyway. Go visit!

I'm gearing up with a change of clothes, pack and a laptop to live with for another year. The USA is too expensive for me and to live in a reasonable life means taking the road to the 3rd World. Where I always wanted to travel off to, so at Year 2 now I'm feeling I've arrived and find I'm not so much a traveler as a Baby Expat and the old homeland has just become another foreign land. Guess travel is Broadening.

Touching base with the rest of my family and still to visit my ailing Mom and my Son has strong power for me now back in usa for awhile. Great to be reconnected from time-to-time but the time to relocate and see more of this planet looks like a goalpost just down the way.

But Which Way?

Now the last day of May, 2009 I have been living in Boquete, Panama in the cool mountains at altitude. A mountain coffee and flower center, the view is spectacular with orchids growing in the trees and coffee flowering beneath them along running streams and rivers.

Last month in April I lived on Colombia's North shore for some Caribbean beach time and because I lived in Boquete, Panama just prior I felt drawn to return to cooler mountain weather after a beautiful but hot and humid stay in Colombia. I may be able to do a little coffee roasting at a higher altitude cooffee finca near me now that I'm back in Boquete.

I feel the draw to relocate to Ecuador - Quito or Cuenca, both UN World Heritage cities - but I know the weather's getting liveable again in North America where I have family to visit, so I'm coming to a cross roads. The rainy seasons are opposite in Ecuador and Panama across both sides of the equator and as it's a short air-hop between these places it's one good plan to take short flights back and forth to stay in the sun year-round.

I Headed South

Which Way to Go? If undertaking a life lived on the road, you have to look around where you find yourself then sometime later it beggars the question ''Where you want to go next?''. That's more difficult than it sounds, for as Oblio explained "Everywhere you go, there you are". Like the Scarecrow said to Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz...

''Which Way? Which Way?''

I''m getting ahead of myself, so Long Story Short ... when both my marriage and my career ''Went South'' near simultaneously while I lived long term in the ''El Norte'' towns of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and Spokane, Washington I took a modest pension (earned from working my ''last'' job for about 20 yrs) and settled my affairs, selling my car, paying off Bills and giving away the larger and less moveable of my possessions to friends. With a backpack, a passport and a debit card I caught a flyer to Guatemala to meet with my friend and online Travel Guru, Andy Graham, The Hobotraveler. In Antigua, Guatemala he introduced me to two other Travel Bloggers, Wade Shepard of Vagabond Journey and his friend Mira of Lady The Tramp. Three Cool people, to be assured. Andy, The Hobotraveler had graciously offered to show me the ''ropes'' the ins-and-outs of travel in the 3rd World. ''Guatemala is a good place to start'', said Andy and as he really the bonafides, I came to give him my attention. School was in session. Much informal intense classwork, like "Don't carry your wallet'', ''Carry a padlock'', ''Don't eat that'' and ''Learning to ride Chicken Buses solo with diarrhea while delirious and disoriented". Inspection was a daily event -- ''Where's your toilet paper''. Andy did me a favor! I have to thank him for the much-needed dose of reality and I'm trying to repay the favor here and there to others on the road.

I somehow became the enamorata of Maria "Mane'' Elena, a volatile Chilena massage therapist/psychologist-hypnotist and before I knew it I was on the road (and probably hypnotized), leaving lake town Panajachel, Guatemala where I had settled for a couple weeks in Isla Utila in the Honduran Caribe. After Mucho On Agains/Off Agains we took the ferry back to the mainland and bused back thru Honduras, then Nicaragua to light in Costa Rica for awhile. Tamarindo, a touristy beach town (mostly Argentinian and Italian - Gringo's coming in 3rd place, ahead of the French) became our home for about a month, where we took side trips to see giant sea turtles, give each other massages, walk on white talcum powdered coral sand beaches and generally work on our tans. My novia (girlfriend) after several months recently flew back to Santiago, Chile to bus on to her home in Capilla del Monte, Argentina and I once again find myself solo, Claro (unattached), a strange disattached feeling. I'm better for the experiences and my life taken up on the road.

I've currently staying in the excellent MiCasa Hostel in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica for a month or two more now (that brings me up to about 3 months here, including Tamarindo and means I'll have to do a 72 hr Visa Run to a neighboring country during my habitacion here) until my travel and living expenses are in shape to reside in my next country. I have to replace a laptop and camera, which rolled away in a 3-wheel TukTuk taxi back in Panajachel and I've learned that's cheaper in Panama. In order to do that I'm to meet at the Teatro Nacional (The national Opera House) today at noon to see a $130/month room in a shared house to cut my expenses in half once again. Nice to keep ones standard-of-living (whatever that is) while increasingly paring back expenses. I'm picking up conversational Spanish along the way and will get back to classroom study once in Panama I figure, if not here in Costa Rica. It's really indispensible for a traveler to speak the local language and I find myself becoming increasingly fluent in Spanish.