A few weeks ago I heard some country music and felt a tiny bit homesick (if it’s possible to feel homesick while drinking a papaya smoothie in a laid-back beach town on the Caribbean Sea).
Since I left Merritt nearly two months ago, I’ve visited four countries in Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize), stayed in nine different hostels, taken coach buses, chicken buses, taxis and boats, and had all sorts of amazing experiences.
Travelling with my best friend from high school, I toured lots of gorgeous Catholic cathedrals in historic colonial cities, went zip lining above the jungle, tried kayaking in a lagoon surrounded by mangrove trees home to howler monkeys, explored Mayan ruins, went snorkeling in the Caribbean Sea, and ate a whole lot of rice, beans and tortillas.
Touring Central America in this style wasn’t always easy – we were travelling on a limited budget and spoke very limited Spanish – but things always worked out for us in the end. For example, when our bus was turned around near the El Salvador border, we found another English speaker we could tag along with, which helped when we ended up in a different city from the one we set out for.
Even while it was often apparent that we were far from home – the security guards all carry machine guns or machetes and buses often carry animals as well as people – there were traces of familiarity to be found.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, I often saw our easily recognizable chapels dotting the landscape and even the occasional pair of young missionaries with their white collared shirts and black name tags.
Besides that, there were the fast food chains, Wal-Mart, Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” playing in every car and at every restaurant, and cowboys.
Of all the places I visited during my month-long adventure, it was in western Honduras that I thought of Merritt the most. Farming and ranching appeared to be among the dominant industries in the area. However, instead of the flat farmland that I am used to seeing, the Honduran farms followed the shape of the landscape with crops growing across the rolling hills. Cows were also numerous and could be seen grazing in fields and occasionally walking down the roads. But what stuck out the most was that almost all the men sported cowboy hats, blue jeans with belt buckles and cowboy boots, and this made me smile.
My adventure is over, and I’m living at the “coast” now, but I just wanted to send an update and let y’all know that I will always think fondly of my time in Merritt.
