Ouch. I slipped off a slippery edge cycling in Guatemala and fell over. It wasn’t really that bad, but now I’ve some pain in my back for a week. I pulled a muscle trying to hold the bicycle and it hurts a lot. Yes, we’re not the youngest anymore. Even the actionism that we often display on this trip doesn’t help to rejuvenate us.
Cycling Guatemala
We have decided to cycle part of the way along the coast, along the Pacific, in Guatemala.
The main Road has sometimes a shoulder, sometimes it doesn’t. The streets are pretty narrow with a lot of traffic.
To take the costal road is a little bit of a detour and the route also takes us over some very bumpy roads and adventurous ferries, but well, off the main road.
We finally reached the village of El Paredon in Guatemala and stay for 5 days. I hope that my back pain will improve a little.
We have a small apartment, cook for ourselves, do the washing again, I write my reports and we have time to think and something like this comes out of it 🙂
„We had an analog childhood and have a digital adult life“
- We were born in the 60s.
- We grew up in the 60s and 70s.
- We studied in the 80s.
- We discovered the world and had our first adventures in the 80s and 90s.
- We live in the 2000s.
- We became wiser in the 2010s.
- And since 2022, we’ve been on a trip around the world by bicycle.
Not very grown up or wise, but never mind.
2024
It turns out that we have lived through seven different decades …
Lived in two different centuries and millennia …
We’ve gone from long-distance switched telephones to self-pay phone calls in phone booths to wireless video calls worldwide.
We’ve gone from slides to YouTube, from vinyls to cassettes, CDs, MP3 players to online music, from handwritten letters and postcards to emails, WhatsApp.
Black and white television, color television, then HD-3D television.
We went to the video store and now watch Netflix.
First computers we got to know, punch cards, floppy disks and now we have megabytes and gigabytes on our smartphones.
We roller skated, rollerbladed, rode tricycles, bicycles, mopeds, gasoline or diesel cars and now we drive hybrid or electric cars.
We used to drink tap water and lemonade from glass bottles, and the vegetables on our plates were always fresh, then we had Bofrost for delivering and now we get ready-made food delivered.
I particularly notice that we have grown old when we come to tourist regions like this one on the Pacific in Guatemala. We pull the average age down. And then the fashion? That was ours in the 90s.
Something will never change, we love sunsets at the beach 🙂
Back to fashion, the 90s are back. A mix of casual coolness and experimental style.
XL versions of tops. Wide T-shirts and wide sweaters were in. From the mid-90s, women mostly wore tight and short-waisted tops. Crop tops and strappy tops, often in combination with wide jackets over them. In between, you can still find remnants of the 80s in fashion, the famous “Baywatch” style with the thong.
Beaches El Salvador vs Guatemala
Unlike on the beach in El Salvador, the atmosphere is so much more relaxed. Less of the typical surfer style. The tank-top wearing board fanatic with long blonde hair is not the trend here. Everything is somehow more casual and mixes with the hipster style. The stereotypical surfer style doesn’t exist. The one who is always on the lookout for the perfect wave, lives a carefree life by the sea and looks stylish at the same time. We don’t find that here. But of course there is some kind of style, even if it seems to be more about sport and leisure activities.
One fashion in particular catches my eye: The hype surrounding the hipster full beard is over, the moustache is back in – but why? Fashion, that’s why.
I can see that this question about Fashion alone outed us as “old”.
Okay, so it is also okay when it hurts when I fall down. I’ve really realized that here. Not the falling down thing, but the being old thing. We can see it. I don’t know where the old people are. Why not here?
Maybe there’s one last little bubble in this world where young people can find a bit of peace. Where they are not reprimanded and no world problems are thrown at them. Where no Trumps have anything to complain about and no one throws their opinion at others without being asked.
I have rarely been to a place where I have felt so much serenity. It’s the perfect place to enjoy life and forget about the world.
And yet, we will continue our journey. Tomorrow we’ll be back on the road and in 6-7 stages we’ll be on our way entering the border to Mexico.
The Flag of Guatemala
By the way, we have this little “Elephant” acompaning us on our tour. Streetart against ALS.
