As I predicted, August was not relaxing

I think these two pictures adequately capture what the first two weeks of August 2019 were like for me.

The first one was taken in Moraine Lake in Alberta, Canada, and the second one was taken in the Laguna de Ventanillas in Oaxaca, Mexico. How I ended up doing a mini tour of North America is beyond me, but basically, here is what happened.

Since I thought that my last day at my job would be August 1 (after I thought it was going to be June 1, thus triggering James' and my trip to the Yucatán), I made plans to visit my friend Sari in her mountain town in Canada. I had never been before but heard of how beautiful the area was, and it wasn't too far from Oregon; I figured I might as well take advantage of both Sari and me being based at home with our parents. I booked the trip, intending to take a "real vacation" after I left my job.

Except that didn't end up happening.

On the one year anniversary of me starting my job, my supervisor asked me if I had a few moments to talk. Not thinking it would be much, I said sure. During the call, she told me that our organization had been presented with a funding opportunity. Basically, one of our funders told us to come up with a proposal as to how we would spend a huge amount of money over the next year to work on legal support for children in migrant detention centers (aka camps). My supervisor told me that if we got the money, they could extend my position another year. If I took the opportunity, she would want me to move to Atlanta to work more closely with her.

Since I have the tendency to take things that fall into my lap like that, I said yes. Even if I had to move to Atlanta (which I am quite excited about anyway), taking it would save me the effort of having to find a new job and worrying about applying to law school while unemployed. I thought for some reason they might disemploy me for the month of August and then rehire me in September for financial reasons and because I had my week-long vacation in Canada booked, and they had an organization-wide event in Mexico that I was not originally going to be a part of. But it turned out that they were going to keep me employed and that I would be joining them in Mexico after all. That meant that right after my Canadian "vacation," I would be flying to Mexico.

Since there were a lot of logistics for the event that still needed to be handled, and because I could not afford to take the whole week in Canada off vacation days-wise, I only took three vacation days and worked remotely the rest of the week. Despite this random turn of events, Sari and I still made the most of our time together. She had to work at the Banff Visitor Center most of the days, but we had one whole day together to go around the area!

The view from the porch outside Sari's family home

We spent our free day going to Lake Louise, hiking up to Lake Agnes Tea House, and roaming around Moraine Lake. The entire area is extremely photogenic, so I will let the photos (and accompanying captions) speak for themselves!

Lake Louise in the morning before the crowds showed up

The view from our spot in the Lake Agnes Tea House, a ~1.5 hour hike up the mountain from the lake

Sari looking pensive

Me with my cookie and tea

There was a waterfall and creek just below the tea house

I was lucky to have Sari, a Parks Canada employee, as a guide – she knew to purchase shuttle tickets to get to Moraine Lake from Lake Louise way in advance before they sold out early in the day. After finishing our little hike, we got on the shuttle and ended up at Moraine Lake. One of Sari's childhood friends was working there, and they were able to reconnect. Her friend even let us rent a canoe for free, which absolutely spoiled us!

The lake as seen from the rocky viewpoint; it's a glacial lake that has minerals and whatnot, which makes it that beautiful turquoise color

Colorful canoes in a row

Another highlight that day was that I basically got to use French, Spanish, and Tagalog on random occasions. Although being in a super crowded, touristy place can be annoying, that means you have a high chance of running into people from all sorts of different places. 

On Sunday, August 11, Sari and I left the house bright and early so she could drive me to the Calgary Airport. There, I was confronted with security and customs lines far longer than I was expecting, which made me nervous. Nevertheless, I somehow made it to my gate almost out of breath and onto my flight! It was a chill flight that lasted around an hour. My parents picked me up at the airport and then we all went home to have lunch. I was only home for around two hours in the afternoon, however, because I had another flight later that night. So almost as soon as I had initially left, I had to return to the airport and check in for my next flight. I was already tired from having to leave Sari's house so early that day, so imagine my exasperation when I found out my flight would be delayed by over an hour. Fortunately, I had a long layover in LA, which meant that I had nothing much to worry about. Also, the gate I arrived at in LAX and the gate of my next flight happened to be right next to each other. 

I was still pretty exhausted and disoriented and couldn't wait to just get on my flight to Mexico City and attempt to sleep. I might have dozed off for a bit, but since it's impossible for me to truly get a good night's sleep on planes, I was still in a daze when the plane landed. Since I had another five-hour layover ahead of me (just like earlier this summer on my way to Mérida), the huge line going through immigration did not elicit any nervousness in me, unlike the lines in Calgary. I spent the layover either walking around or sitting down and trying to do things on my laptop. The food choices were not great. I ended up just getting a sandwich at Subway and a Frappuccino at Starbucks. I ended up sharing a table with a retired couple from Calgary (lol) and their little Yorkie dog.

Finally, it came time for me to board my flight. As I stood in line, so ready to be done with the traveling and to board the final, hour-long flight, my eyes travelled to another traveler holding out his passport. His passport said PILIPINAS on it. At that point, I thought I might have been hallucinating and seeing things I wanted to see, but I went up to him anyway and asked him if he was Filipino.

Long story short–yes! And there was a whole crew of Filipino seamen on the same flight as me!

Okay, there were more like ten, but it was just the energy boost I needed. I chatted with the guy I met in line, chatted with my seat mate on the plane, with the guy in the same row, and as we got off the plane and walked down the steps onto the runway, we remarked at how it was just like we were getting off a Cebu Pacific flight. At baggage claim, I met more seamen, one of whom even spoke Cebuano. They were all excited to see me and wondered what I was doing in the random Mexican beach town. None of them spoke Spanish, so when I walked with them to where their shuttle driver was to pick them up, I became an improvisational translator between Spanish and Tagalog. The driver was confused and asked if I was part of their group. I understood his confusion.

When it came time for them to leave, the Filipino seamen said "Bye, kababayan!" The unexpected encounter warmed my heart, and the feeling carried me through the rest of the day.

So where exactly did I end up after traveling forever?

The thatched roofs of the idyllic tropical airport 

A little beach town called Huatulco, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca! I was there because my job had organized a regional convening of our Defenders from throughout Mexico and Central America. Around 60 of our Defenders attended, and the entire event took place over three days at an all-inclusive beach resort. Couldn't complain.

Since I was tasked with helping the event run behind the scenes, I did not partake much in the event itself; nevertheless, I got to spend a lot of quality time with Defenders, from newer ones to ones I had met in El Salvador. This would happen during mealtimes as well as during down time in the sea. It was definitely my kind of work trip! The mountains in Canada were nice, but to me, nothing beats a dip in the water and the ocean breeze in the tropical air.

Here are some more pictures that I am letting speak for themselves.

Caught this lovely lizard friend chilling by the sand

The view on the walk between the conference room and the restaurant

The view from the restaurant, where we had a buffet for every meal

Destination wedding vibes from this setup for the party we held the last night of the event!

A truly iconic photo. Pedro from El Salvador is notorious for never sending me his hour and expense reports after working on cases. I wrote a song about it and performed it in front of everyone.

Rebeca, one of the Guatemalan Defenders I met in El Salvador, who also visited Brooklyn while I was still there. I gave her Airbnb credit via a link and her using it gave me some back.

Dora is another Defender I met in El Salvador, and she is from Honduras. Her husband Dilber joined the network recently so they were able to come to the event together. When I first met Dilber and introduced myself, he exclaimed, "Oh you're Amanda! Dora has said lots about you." I hope they were good things. They were probably mostly things about me saying I wanted to go to Honduras and for her to take me around on the crazy trips she does when she works on cases.

After the festivities were over, our team had a day for a group activity. We did an ecotour where we saw lots of animals (hence the boat on the lagoon in my opening photo) and had lunch by the beach. All in all, it was a successful trip, and I am very glad to have been able to go on it.

My first two weeks of August were a fantastic mini tour of the sights that North America has to offer. Now, I am mostly glad to have finally written this whole blog entry after procrastinating on it for a while. Catch me mentally trying to channel this doggy snoozing on the beach from here on out.