We’ve been traveling up through Central America at a good clip. Three border crossings in three days was aggressive and draining, but El Salvador was great: we spent our time in smaller towns and found the country pretty and the people very friendly.
We stayed at and toured a coffee plantation and processing plant. In this season the coffee is growing; harvesting occurs between November and May. That said, they were still processing and getting beans ready for export, and both Jessie and I were surprised at how much effort a cup of coffee takes. Picking and sorting are still very manual processes.
The kids have finished their math for the school year, and getting them to write is now even harder. I think I can squeeze a few more blog posts out of them. While we were in El Salvador, we also started the process of getting them registered for school next year. We were under the impression that this would be easy as we never de-registered them and they were supposed to be homeschooled while still in the district, but apparently not.
The border crossing in Guatemala was uneventful, and continued the trend of friendly and patient customs officials. There was some misunderstanding about what I was trying to do but two Guatemalan customs officers teamed up to decode my Spanish, and we were out of El Salvador and into Guatemala in about an hour and a half.
Unfortunately I seem to have caught some sort of virus in El Salvador, and by the time we ended our first day in Guatemala I was feeling pretty ill. The next morning we toured a small fort, and while I’m generally of the “mind over matter” school of dealing with disease, it was becoming clear to me that a rest might be in order. I tried to keep going for another half day, but by lunch I had to admit to Jessie that I needed a rest and couldn’t make it to Tikal for a few days.
Jessie found us a place in Santa Elena on the shores of Lake Peten Itza and I basically went to bed. The kids swam in the pool and took it easy, and after a day I woke up closer to being healthy. The plan had been to camp at Tikal, but I’m still not feeling one hundred percent (or really even 75 percent), so we’re going to stay in a bungalow close to Tikal with the intention of checking it out in the next day or two. Oddly enough, the family hasn’t seemed to disappointed to skip the camping and hang out at the pool…
1 Response
Sorry to learn about your health challenges. You and your family have appeared to have remained very healthy for most of your trip. Your stressed and rushed schedule these past few weeks has not helped. Hang in there. The end of your trip is nearer than ever now. We look forward to seeing you and learning of all your adventures.