Edward

One of the coolest things about traveling is the people you meet. We met Edward at the beach in Monterrico. He is such an interesting guy that he deserves his own post! He is an expat who lives there 3-4 months a year. He came to the beach every morning and every evening and talked to people. He says that he likes travelers but not tourists. Everytime we talked with him we learned s little bit more about him. It was like a puzzle putting together the timeline of his life. Edward is 84 years old!! He stands erect and is able to sit cross-legged for long periods, and gets up with no issues. He credits this with his daily yoga practice that he started about 10 years ago.

Edward introduced us to Shalom, a young Israeli guy who had been traveling for 9 months through parts of South America and will be headed back soon partly because he is missing his country and partly due to finances.

Edward was born in Illinois to Swiss parents. He lived years in the US and years in Switzerland so he has dual citizenship. After college he worked on Wall St. Then he took a 2 year trip through Central and South America. Somewhere in around the college time, he did spend a couple years in the military, but not in Vietnam. Since we got bits and pieces of information from him over multiple days, it was hard to piece together.

Next he spent some time working with banking for the military in Vietnam. He said that the war messed him up and he moved to the wilderness in northern California for 25 years. It sounded like he was off- grid some or all of the time. He worked as a gardener and spent a lot of time in nature. During the winters he would travel in Latin America.

He didn't provide many details after his time in northern California but he did spend a couple years teaching. He said he retired at age 62.

He always had a story about somewhere he had been. He traveled to Guatemala many times and ten years ago he bought property and had a house built. He invited us over to see it. He has two bedrooms , an open air kitchen and a neighborhood covered patio. He also designed and had built a wood fired sauna that he uses regularly. When he bought the property, it was an empty lot aside from 2 beautiful shade trees. Edward developed it into a beautiful garden with many different plants. He spends time working in his garden everyday.

Edward has assembled some travel journals and emailed us a couple when we expressed interest. He has also emailed a couple times since we left Monterrico, mostly about silver prices.

Edward took us on a walking tour of the rest of the town, the real Monterrico. The people know him, but even more so, the dogs know him. He often takes beef lung with him to feed the dogs which he claims never get enough attention. He stops and pets them whenever he sees one

Edward worked in the financial industry for those few years early in his career and his interest carried forward to today. He was giving suggestions about investing. He is a big fan of gold and silver. He is a well read man and discuss money, politics, economy, and pretty much anything else.

He arranged and then went with us on our morning bird watch boat ride, again stunning us with his wealth of information. Afterwards her invited us to his house for a breakfast of oatmeal and fruit and coffee, cowboy style (no filter).

Edward will be leaving here in March and heading to Switzerland for a few months. He'll then spend a could of months in the US and then travel who knows where else. There are few places he hasn't been and has a story to tell about everywhere he has been. One of his favorite cities is Budapest.Læs mere