So, dear readers:

Say goodbye to The Suitcase Generation and hello to The Mochila Generation, a new guise in which this blog has recently been reincarnated.

As some readers pointed out previously, the employment of the word ’suitcase’ was misleading, for obvious reasons. But at the same time, ‘The Backpack Generation’ just didn’t have the same ring to it, and equally, I thought that the connotations of the word ‘backpack’ were too singular and did not sufficiently account for other kinds of travelers.

The Spanish word ‘mochila’, though it means kind of the same, has not reached the status of buzzword such as ‘backpack’ with its sometimes negative connotations. And thus ‘mochila’ is a better choice. It is also befitting as I’ve decided to focus this blog on travel in Central America & The Caribbean and so, old entries about travel in Europe which did not fit within this framework have been deleted from the old blog.

Why these regions? Well, because Central America seems to me to have been ignored compared to their Southern counterpart, and the Caribbean because… well, because it’s the Caribbean.

Land as slim as a whip,
hot as torture,
your step in Honduras, your blood
in Santo Domingo, at night,
your eyes in Nicaragua
touch me, call me, grip me,
and throughout American lands
I knock on doors to speak,
I tap on tongues that are tied,
I raise curtains, I plunge
my hands into blood:
O, sorrows
of my land, O death-rattle
of the great established silence,
O, long-suffering peoples,
O’ slender waist of tears.

– from the poem Centro América,
by Pablo Neruda

Right now, you will see that this blog is heavily skewed towards resources on Guatemala, Nicaragua and Cuba, since they are the countries in which I’ve been, and also as we’re just starting out. However, there is room for new additions, so if you’re anywhere in Central America or the Carribbean and would like to contribute to this blog, please get in touch.

So here you have it: my pet project of a collective travel blog still waiting to define itself on a subject very close to my heart… at the mercy of whatever time I can find on my hands, of course.

Yes, that’s a cry for help.

I hope to hear from you fellow citizens of the world knocking down my Inbox door very soon. God know there’s enough of you.

The Mochila Generation.

Stay a while. I’m pretty sure you belong here.