I took this trip in 2008 and uploaded five photos for the Greenland Scholarship opportunity.
I took this trip on my motorcycle from Traverse City, MI in the U.S. to San Jose, Costa Rica and blogged about it for several reasons. First, I had gone to Costa Rica to have extensive dental implant work done. My first trip down I had flown to have the initial implants put in. I had to wait at least three months before returning to have the crowns put on.
I decided to drive my motorcycle down and see if it could be done (I knew it could, I had talked to many who have made the trip, both by car, motorcycle, bicycle and even on foot). The trip included traveling 2,500 miles from Northern Michigan to Brownsville, Texas in the U.S., then another 2,000 miles or so through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and finally into Costs Rica. All told, with 3 or 4 weeks in San Jose for the dental work, I would be gone about two months; I had hoped to be back in Michigan by Christmas.
As I mentioned, one purpose of the trip was to get my dental work done at a substantial savings. Another reason, outside of the adventure of it, was to become a better travel writer and also get use to writing a blog. I wanted to use the blog to portray in words and pictures, my experience of the trip. I also had a 3 or 4 week home stay with a family in San Jose while attending a Spanish speaking school. All in all, it was a busy trip with several different agendas.
While I thought about running ads on my blog and trying to profit from the trip in some sense, I really never used the blog for this purpose. I hoped to help others who might be traveling in Latin America by car or motorcycle by writing about the many intricacies of border crossings in Central America, highway conditions, costs, etc. I also wanted to ideally give an accurate account of my experience while injecting some of my own philosophy of the art of traveling well and doing it in a respectful way; something that becomes increasingly difficult if you don't speak the language or are not prepared for the trip itself.
I also fell in love with Latin America from the ground up. I drove across remote areas of Mexico and Central America experiencing the vastness, the history and the beauty of countries that are so alive with energies that range from primal, to religious to political. I can see why explorers of old once having seen Central and South America, might have found it difficult to go back to Europe with all its problems and their old way of life. Perhaps the problem of exotic travel even now, once having been to the mountain top, you are forever changed in some way. You have a different view of the world because you have seen so much more of it than the person who does not travel.
Of course, some just seem to see more of life no matter if they travel or not! Many, many of the people I met on my trip do not have the money or means to ever leave their country. They also might not think of leaving their lands and their family to travel even if they could. There is something to be said about this anti-western thought process that does not need to travel, conquer or change the world; a sound counter-balance to the world of consumerism and artificial needs. It is in this spirit, the spirit of the people who are of their land, we must first ask, if we have a right at all to go into their world and make demands of them, including hospitality demands. I am not posing the answer to the question, only the importance of the question itself. Since many of us might be tempted to conquer the world with travel and fulfilling our desires for experience alone as the reasons for travel.
It’s just a question to ask, that in so doing, might help temper our travel habits and give more respect to those places we do choose to travel. Lets first ask, why, and then proceed accordingly.
Here’s to the art of traveling well. That way in which we ourselves are fulfilled while adding to the worlds we visit.
You can read my blog at freedomthrumovement.blogspot.com
