Metchosin

Im back in Metchosin (and Canada) tonight. Holy shit. Holy shit.

It.. I.. um, dont know how I feel. Partly it feels like I never left. Partly it feels like Ive been away for years, and I dont have a home here anymore.. Although, as far as my home in Metchosin goes, definately feels like I never left more than the latter.

On the ferry over, I tripped out pretty hard, staring at the loonie, and other Canadian montary things.. and then, I put beside it, a Quetzal (mainly used guatemalan coin). I felt like my brain was trying to shift back to being used to Canadian coins, and that my entire trip was more or less a dream.. as I sat on BC Ferrys.. but then, there beside the loonies and toonies, was this Quetzal. A coin which is now more familiar to me than anything Canadian. Its hard believing the two sides of my life exsist together.

Anyways. Im crazy tired, and kinda sick.

Thanks fer readin an carin.

Tyler

Something more.

I also miss the pine needles.

I miss the warm winds and the smell of freshly cut lawn.
I miss the ability to lay listliss on a carpet indoors for hours, then get up, pee, eat, and do it all over again.
I miss Andy, Stewart and Darien. I miss Angelena. I miss sitting and talking and sharing experiences and opinions with all of my parents.
I miss walking through the woods, semi-aimlessly, through alpine meadows, west-coast rainforests, and straw-filled feilds.
I miss living with my sister, in our cabin, on the ocean.
I miss tormenting the general public with my brother.

So, I guess I miss Canada too... really difficult to keep from crying right now. Its been a while, Canada seemed so far away for a long time.

*deep breath*

Anyways, in other news.. lately, well.. actually for a while, Ive given many an hour of serious thought to coming back down to Latin America, to do it all over again. This time, South America..
Banking on taking a year or more to do it. Banking (heh) on saving up money beforehand, but also... working, perhaps as much time as I am biking, to keep a travelling net balance of Zero.

Anyways. Worlds still spinning. Life is a time warp, shake your ass and just do it.

tyler

And now for the present tense.

Im back at Maya Pedal, alone in the Guatemalan bike shop, for now.

And I return to Canada, in 10 days. Thats one week, and 3 days. Thats 240 hours. Thats a really short time.

And I realized that I missed Guatemala, and I love the town that I lived in here for near 4 months. And I love (and am biwlidered and excited by) the fact that I can actually COMMUNICATE with the people around here.. I can have conversations, and get to know people!
And I hate the fact that I am fairly sick. Ive been sleeping rediculus amounts (more than 12 hours in the past 24, and Im ready to walk back home right now and go to bed all over again).

And, I wish I could stay, and work in Guatemala, all over again. If I could afford to, it would be a really, really tough decision.

But lifes bound to change, and I suppose that Im only 20, and I have the time to do this all over again 50 times in a row, if I so desired.

Anyways. Adios, hasta luego, vamos a vernos en poco tiempo.

A reminder: I can again be reached by telephone (long distance :P). (502) 7849 4671, best to call in the evenings (after 5) during the week, or any time during the weekend. I am one hour ahead of BC time, and in line with Albertain time.

I IS A SkooBASharK.

Time to get tough. Real fuckin tough.
Meet Tom Roberts (aka Rob Canada). This guy´s balls, are almost as big as a milking cow on a lard diet. So big, infact, he barely fit inside.. that small whole, the one by his knees.
On May 14, a team of four of the most dangerous, hard-assed ambitionators scraggled inside this hole, loaded down with food and water, flashlights, rope, and ..snorkel gear.

This is their story.


Above: Golden Orb Weaver Spider, one of hundreds on the Bay Islands of Honduras.

Unfortunately, its a short story.
After several minutes of squeezing through the tunnel, the four emerged, faces covered in mud and bat guano, into a small room, just big enough to stand. They were ancy; The day before they had spotted a large tarantula in the place, on the ceiling, at face height. After having poked the tarantula several times after discovery, they believed that it was possible that the tarantula could be planning revenge..
But he was nowhere to be seen, and so the group relaxed. But only slightly.
Before them, near the edges of the cave, layed several pools of water. Upon examination with a flashlight, the pools revealed their lure: All were significantly more vast than the open air space they now stood in. A vote was taken, and it was determined that Tyler, the guinea pig of the group, was to enter first.
After dawning his snorkle and fins, and being handed a dive light (underwater flash light), Tyler started to carefully lower himself into the largest of the pools. This step was difficult, as the entry point consisted of a steep wall covered in sharp rocks, not to mention that the bottem of the pool dropped off immidately from the edge of the wall. As Tyler entered the water, he searched for the continuation of the wall under water, and found none. This resulted in a sketchy jump into the water. Once entered, the intense truth of these pools came blundering out: There was only one pool. There was no underwater wall, because the entire platform that they had been standing on, was indeed a bridge. The pool had many visable entrances. And many tunnels, leading to other rooms entirely. And.. one fish (seen by Harry).

All in all, 3 hours were spent underground here. We used a rope to keep track of the person diving, as once entering other underwater rooms, other air pockets were found, and a fair amount of distance could be covered without needing to return to the origional room. We had a maximum submerdged time set for us, 4 mintues (meaning that if the diver didnt return in 4 minutes, someone else went into the water, followed the rope with our spare light, and looked for him).
We explored much of what we could see, but we left many a dark scary tunnel untouched, as fears of light failure and large tarantulas haunted us.
Above: North (open Atlantic Ocean) side of Utila, the beach was covered in the most jagged rocks imaginable.

Take care.
Tyler

And then, things changed quite a lot.

We played with this guy for a long time. No, I didnt transform into a praying mantis, but that would be cool.

So, as the days progressed, I found myself having a different view of my current status of travelling through Nicaragua on bike. I found that, after Panama being reached, and after my brothersisterRobart being met in San Jose, travelled with, and left, I really didnt have too much of a goal to ride towards. I found myself finding it almost pointless to spend many hours pouring through the hot sun, riding by groups of people who all looked on with awe (or confusion, or amusement) as I passed. I found the short conversations that I had with people as I rode by not exactly fulfilling. And an idea, that I had thought about numerous times before, crept back into my head...
Why not give away my bike?
After arriving in Leon (and riding all of 33km that day, finishing the 120km sprint), I spent a night in the city outside a school with a friendly security guard. The next morning, taking note of the increased amounts of squeaking in my bike as the kilometres progressed, I took it to a bikeshop, spent 4 dollars US and regreased and bascially rebuilt the entire beast.
After leaving Leon, I road north, passing through the volcano chain in Nicaragua, and covering a total of 45km that day as I crashed in my tent behind the house of a motorcycle mechanic.
The next day, after beginning to climb off of the sealevel dryzone in western Nicaragua, I found myself stopping more and more often, for snacks, to chat, or to look and find where newly discovered sounds where coming from. And then, I stopped again, saw a group of people and thought;
Why not give away my bike? To them?
.. I sat and pondered for almost half an hour, on the side of the road, relaxing in the shade, snacking on the sweetbread I had bought that morning. I had such a strong draw, to just go up, make friends, and say, "Here. You can use this." I felt like I had finished this bike trip already. I felt like that I was just wasting time, trying to live cheaply while I waited for the days to tick by before I returned to Canada. I felt like my bike had served me well, and our time together was finished. There wasnt a bone in my body that thought sourly of the thought of just handing it over, for someone else to enjoy, to give the bike yet another life.
In the end, purly because I felt like I was giving up if I stopped then, I decided to keep climbing.
After about 200m, I came across another tienda (small store), and the entrance to a small town. I stopped, again, walked over, and purchased a bag of milk, because milk is tastey. I smiled to the people in and outside the shop, and stopped and talked. After a few minutes, it was revealed to me that there were open gold mines in the area, and that the children there could take me on a tour of them if I wanted. I was sold.
After a night of being treated like a son, again, by the family I had just met, I walked up to the mother of the household, and handed over the keys to my steed. I stripped her (.. the bike.) down of all my gear, did some last minutes maintenence and upkeep, leaned her up against their wall, and smiled at how pretty that bike really was. Frickin caddilack.
That night consisted of a small semi-intentional party by the family (which was well recieved by me, as I had just finally ended my epic bike trip). It also consisted of a little (at first..) random gift giving to me. I took them as a kind jesture at first, but when this poor family started handing over personal belongings to me, I started feeling quite ackward. In order to accept the gifts that were being pushed towards me (in exchange for the bicycle), I managed to trade some of the belongings that I already had, just so I did not feel as strange taking so many gifts from this family, whom I had not wanted anything in return from except continued friendliness.
In the end, I left with food (both in my belly and in my bag), some jean shorts, many a bag of tasty home-made chocolate banana milk in my stomach, an english-as-a-second-language book in spanish, and a toy horse.

So, that was then. From then, I travelled north to San Rafael del Norte by bus with all of my crap (heavy, heavy crap), met borthersistaRob and proceeded to have a currently continuing awesome time here with the Nicaraguan friends I had already made. Our current plans are to leave here either tomorrow or the next day, by bus towards the Bay Islands of Honduras, and then to Guatemala, where we will proceed to have a killer time till its time to header back to the freakishly cold climate of Canada. Man. This trip feels like it began such a short.. well, no. Feels like a long frickin trip. Well, it doesnt even feel like a trip, not any more. It feels like life.

Photos:
Above and below: A very large lizard. That was captured, killed, cooked, and then eaten, by us. To celebrate.Hey Michelle! A bull! Frickin gargantuan head.

Harrison, walking near San Rafeal del Norte, on one of our many awesome experiences that weve had here.

Anyways, take care. Thanks for continuing to show an interest in my well being and do-goodings.

Tyler