You say goodbye to your everyday expectations and welcome the quirks and inconsistencies that live here in San Lucas.
And amid all the good, you trade in your conversations about your personal future, for conversations about mere survival of the transition back to the States. Because as soon as you fall into step with your rediscovered Guatemalan life, your beloved chapín way of living, you find yourself on a plane soaring into chaos and the biggest Guatemala hangover imaginable, not to be cured with Gatorade and Advil. For some of us it lasts 2 weeks, others felt it intermittently for a year.
Guatemalans get it; they're sad too.
Yet you feel more alone than ever. So you call the ones who truly understand, those who have made the leap from life to life and back again. You exchange "me too's" and never wish such painful longing on anyone.