Bugs

August 5, 2005

hello out there! i think my last sign of life for many of you was around christmas-time after my travel adventures in cuba and europe. since then, i have been busy making the most of my alter-ego, corporate susie, to replenish funds and weigh my long-term plans, as one must do from time to time. my options remained limitless...get a job and settle back into dc, move to austin or portland where the vibe is more my speed, travel to mexico and look for a job with an ngo, keep riding the momentum of this travel wave and head on to southeast asia? if you haven’t noticed, i’ve been skillfully avoiding staying put and all the trappings that come with it and more than ever am aware of the diversity of choices available to me having no binding financial ties or commitments at the moment. and i am aware of the strange dichotomy and even hypocrisy that lurks behind it all, too...eschewing the “american dream” (owning a home and an SUV in exchange for a job that owns me, etc.) while taking advantage of the enormous financial benefits of its economy (and my dad’s very flexible terms of employment) to do what i have done over the past few years. the thought crosses my mind to feel guilty. but then five seconds later i’m completely over it :).

there is something appealing about the rawness and simplicity of life on the road that i can’t seem to shake and i couldn’t resist using the return ticket to guatemala that i accidentally had dangling in front of me since a round-trip ticket was less expensive than a one-way when I came home last year (supposedly for good). so after another several months of working, i headed off again at the end of may with plans to visit friends in antigua and then head north and travel the length of mexico and maybe find a job. i once again found myself in the all too familiar position of having backpack and guitar in hand and several months of freedom and the open road lying before me. i’m beginning to think my family is getting tired of this routine, as they have taken to just kicking me out of the moving vehicle onto the airport curb when they drop me off these days. it’s been interesting to feel this metamorphosis happen in me, where i actually somehow feel more at home living out of a backpack. i can’t decide if i quite like being so comfortable with impermanency, but i’ve loved the lessons i’ve learned in adaptation and bare necessity.

back in antigua, guatemala for a couple of weeks...this place seems to have crept into my blood and i keep finding my way back. highlights include...seeing several dear friends, making some new ones, motor biking up a live volcano and not being able to go quite all the way up to the crater like you usually can because of the molten lava spewing out of it, playing a few gigs at an old favorite spot of mine, waking up to a cockroach almost the size of my hand crawling across my bare back (unfortunately for him, i was much bigger and have cat-like reflexes. a fierce battled ensued, i won.), and experiencing guatemalan dentistry up close and personal when i got two cavities filled. you see, given my below the poverty-line economic status for the past several years i have had to resort to guatemalan-style healthcare. if anyone feels compelled to set up a susie healthcare fund, feel free. but somehow i don’t think you guys are feeling too sorry for me. and besides, guatemalan dentistry is not so bad as you might think.

Old roommates (and boss) Monique and Adriana (my girl!) were visiting at the same time, I hadn't seen them in 1 1/2 years.

my wonderfully adventurous girlfriends from home, anna and sara (and later anna's hubby tom) met up with me for the next three weeks of my trip. we rented a car and drove up north to the jungle area of guatemala and caught a bus across belize to the mayan riviera of mexico, an area most popularized by this armpit of mega-hotels, packaged vacations, and burnt-to-a-crisp more-than-slightly-overweight americans known as cancun. we skipped out on cancun and hit up tulum instead, which has remained relatively unscathed but the development frenzy just to its north. a hedonist’s paradise, words cannot describe…but turquoise waters, sparsely populated white sand beaches, palm-trees rustling in a cool ocean breeze, and hammocks and cheap, rustic cabanas right on the beach might be a good start.



one other "small" lingering detail...you all know all about how i’ve been bitten by the travel bug. well, when i was last home this spring, i got bitten by another bug, one with a very, very strong bite…that's right, the love bug. and this one may be a permanent infection. if there was anything that would compel me to choose it over the adventure of the open road right now, it must be pretty special. so i ended up cutting my trip several months short to come back to dc to see gboyega before he left for several months in nigeria to see family and friends he hasn’t seen for years. several months ago, africa wasn’t even on my travel radar. yet somehow instead of eating enchiladas and listening to mariachi music in Mexico right now, i’m in germany (visiting my brother and his family) en route to nigeria tomorrow. funny how things can change in the blink of an eye. the journey is just beginning...

hope all is well with you and yours.








Who's the random hippie?