#56 - summer trip

in the ideal situation i would have an endless source of money with which to travel the world. unfortunately i don't so it's not my ideal situation but i do have an opportunity for a great trip this summer. my friend and former college roommate, amanda, is getting married this august in costa rica. her fiancee is a costa rican so naturally they are having it there. it was going to be a nice 3 month trip for me to explore central america but unfortunately i had to go and ruin my trip by failing my class. so instead of having from august till whenever to complete my trip, i will probably only have a month, depending on when my summer class is. i have to take a 1 credit class called nursing transition NUR 151. since my teachers/advisors are inept and generally wrong i have no idea about when and how i will take this class. it will start june 23 and get out either july 25, august 15 or august 29. then fall term starts on september 22. if it is july 25 i can do a 6 week thing. august 15 and i can do a 4 week thing but if it's august 29th i won't much time, barely enough for a 2 week trip. i have been saving money for awhile now for it so it would be a bummer if i could not make it work out. i have also been doing research, reading online and in travel books...only making me want to go more!

if i have a 6 week trip i could make it work. here are the 7 countries i am interested in visiting and planned on spending time in on my 3 month trip. instead i'm either going to cut out time in each country or skip countries altogether, thinking the latter probably.

• costa rica
• nicaragua
• el salvador
• belize
• honduras
• guatemala
• mexico

obviously i am going to be there because of my friend. since she won't be living in c.r. i am not sure how long she will be there before/after her wedding so if i cannot make the wedding in late august that would be a shame. then would i not even go? that is the question. spend my money to visit another area perhaps. i think my 6 week plan (school ending july 25) would include, in order of interest but not necessarily chronological/geographical order:

1. costa rica - 8-9 days
2. guatemala - 7 days
3. yucatan peninsula, mexico - 5 days(ish)
4. el salvador - 4 days
5. belize - 4 days

then if the trip were to shorten to say 4 weeks or less with amanda being in c.r., my list might be more like:

1. costa rica
2. spanish school and homestay somewhere to learn spanish

so these are two different possibilities that i've been thinking about, both not what i planned initially but change and flexibility are the names of the game. if she will not be in c.r. at that time though, i might do a trip to guatemala or mexico instead, the two i have a little more interest in and that aren't terribly expensive. i have something to look forward to, i'm just not sure what.