Let me start by acknowledging that we are living an amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we are very blessed to be having. That said, many studies have shown how harmful social media is because people only post the best of the best…smiling, happy, perfect lives. I thought it would be appropriate to point out that, while our adventures are grand and beautiful, it’s not always as perfect as it looks.
We are extremely near the equator, so it is blisteringly hot while also super humid…I think I sweat at least a gallon every day. Unlike our travel in Europe, there are challenging cultural and language divides with GoogleTranslate often failing us in attempted communication. We have gotten pretty decent at charades (homemade sign language)…but that only gets you so far. We are currently also in a place with no public transportation, relying purely on a service similar to Uber…but unable to talk to the driver or really even know where we are going. Jessie has a gluten allergy…but there must be nobody in this region with celiac because the phrase “gluten free” (as translated in a dozen ways) is quite foreign and confusing, so she is mostly living off of fruit and lettuce. This is not the busy season so the hotel is undergoing maintenance including shutting off all the air conditioning in the building for 6 hours at midday today and endless paint fumes and hammering from renovations across the hall and next to us every day. So there…we ARE in paradise, but that doesn’t mean everything is always perfect.
Today was a fine day. We didn’t do much…pretty much hung out in the pool at the hotel and went to the beach for a little while. Much better than sitting in an office cubicle…but something anyone reading this could do on any old Saturday. Tomorrow we have a big adventure…so you can go back to thinking everything is perfect 🙂