As the four of us girls who went to Honduras were standing in line yesterday at a bus company, waiting for yet ANOTHER bus to connect us by chance back to Guatemala, we realized that this trip has taught us a lot about traveling. After missing the bus we needed by about 10 minutes, we came up with a list of things we learned about traveling in Latin America. Here is what we came up with:
1) Everything takes more time than you plan for. In fact, everything takes about double as much time as you think it will. Lines are long, ferries are slow, people are slow, and often the shuttle you need you JUST missed by 15 minutes because of timing.
2) Make friends. Talk to people. We randomly would just talk with people, especially other travelers who were clearly from the U.S., and made a lot of friends. One family even piled us into the back of their car to take us to the mall while we waited for the ferry! This is something I haven’t done in the past, because Dad always has had everything planned out when we travel. But traveling with 4 girls, and with a LOT of extra time waiting around for things, we chatted with a lot of random nice people, which ended up turning out in our favor more than once.
3) Take advantage of the knowledge of the locals. We were helped SO many times on this trip by Latinos who went out of their way to help us simply because they were genuinely nice. After getting off one bus ride, we just walked up to the nearest taxi, got in, and asked him where to go to get the next bus we needed. We realized that instead of trying to fend for ourselves, its better just to use the knowledge of the locals because they know SO much more. This saved us so many times, because if we would have done things our way, we would still be traveling.
4) Plan in advance. We came up with this to add to the list, but it’s not really that possible, so I don’t know why we put it on here. What we did is bus jumped our way back to Guatemala, with no reservations, which is why it took us so long. However, it is almost impossible to plan ahead, because when you call weeks in advance to make bus reservations, or email the website, they NEVER RETURN YOUR CALLS OR CONTACT YOU IN THE LEAST. So. We decided that it is necessary to plan in advance to avoid a LOT of stress and cut out a lot of time, but it is not very possible or cheap to do so.
5) The last thing we came up with was: speak the language. I cannot emphasize enough how much this helped us. When we saw people with absolutely no Spanish knowledge trying to talk to hotel clerks and taxi drivers and etc, it was so ridiculous how much of a difference our Spanish knowledge made. We help other people whenever we can, of course, but it was really shocking for us how easily we understood compared to normal English speakers. Since we are around Spanish all the time now, we don’t realize how much we know. We have almost reached the point of fluency. It really is cool. I am to the point where I think in Spanish. I form phrases in my head in Spanish. I speak without stopping to think first. Anyways, fluency aside, without understanding Spanish in our travels, we would have 1) been seriously gypped, and 2) been frustrated about 85% of the time. So it’s a good thing to travel in Latin America with someone who speaks Spanish! Just the travel advice of 4 girls who trekked cross country to spend five days in the sun!
1) Everything takes more time than you plan for. In fact, everything takes about double as much time as you think it will. Lines are long, ferries are slow, people are slow, and often the shuttle you need you JUST missed by 15 minutes because of timing.
2) Make friends. Talk to people. We randomly would just talk with people, especially other travelers who were clearly from the U.S., and made a lot of friends. One family even piled us into the back of their car to take us to the mall while we waited for the ferry! This is something I haven’t done in the past, because Dad always has had everything planned out when we travel. But traveling with 4 girls, and with a LOT of extra time waiting around for things, we chatted with a lot of random nice people, which ended up turning out in our favor more than once.
3) Take advantage of the knowledge of the locals. We were helped SO many times on this trip by Latinos who went out of their way to help us simply because they were genuinely nice. After getting off one bus ride, we just walked up to the nearest taxi, got in, and asked him where to go to get the next bus we needed. We realized that instead of trying to fend for ourselves, its better just to use the knowledge of the locals because they know SO much more. This saved us so many times, because if we would have done things our way, we would still be traveling.
4) Plan in advance. We came up with this to add to the list, but it’s not really that possible, so I don’t know why we put it on here. What we did is bus jumped our way back to Guatemala, with no reservations, which is why it took us so long. However, it is almost impossible to plan ahead, because when you call weeks in advance to make bus reservations, or email the website, they NEVER RETURN YOUR CALLS OR CONTACT YOU IN THE LEAST. So. We decided that it is necessary to plan in advance to avoid a LOT of stress and cut out a lot of time, but it is not very possible or cheap to do so.
5) The last thing we came up with was: speak the language. I cannot emphasize enough how much this helped us. When we saw people with absolutely no Spanish knowledge trying to talk to hotel clerks and taxi drivers and etc, it was so ridiculous how much of a difference our Spanish knowledge made. We help other people whenever we can, of course, but it was really shocking for us how easily we understood compared to normal English speakers. Since we are around Spanish all the time now, we don’t realize how much we know. We have almost reached the point of fluency. It really is cool. I am to the point where I think in Spanish. I form phrases in my head in Spanish. I speak without stopping to think first. Anyways, fluency aside, without understanding Spanish in our travels, we would have 1) been seriously gypped, and 2) been frustrated about 85% of the time. So it’s a good thing to travel in Latin America with someone who speaks Spanish! Just the travel advice of 4 girls who trekked cross country to spend five days in the sun!
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