As I end my fourth month of travel and prepare to begin my fifth straight month of being away from home maybe some of you are wondering how I manage to do it. How can I travel for so long? Or more generically, how ya living?
I think I could answer this question in one word really. Are you surprised? Surely it can’t be that simple. Okay, in some ways I’ll admit it is not, but in the most important way it really is. And what is that one word answer? I’ll get to that later. For now, let’s take a look at how I am living. Do I sleep in the streets under cardboard? Do I eat beans and rice for every meal? Do I walk everywhere I go? The answer to theses questions is a firm NO.
First off, lets look at where I live and how much I pay for it. Currently, I am staying at the Itzamna Spanish School here in Antigua, Guatemala. I’ve stayed in three different rooms here in over two months here. The first month I stayed here I was in probably the nicest room here for exactly 2000 Quetzals per month, or about $270.00 US Dollars. This was a private room with a queen sized bed and private bathroom including a hot water shower. I switched to a different room for a week or two and then to a different room where I am staying now. The room I am in now costs 1500 Quetzals per month, or about $200.00 US Dollars per month. To put that in more easily understood terms, I pay under $7.00 US Dollars per day for my room. In this cheaper room I don’t have my own bathroom. I share three bathrooms down the hallway with 5 other people living here. Two of these bathrooms have hot water showers.
