Day 2

I went to sleep less than happy with my accodomations. 8x20 with a bed scratchy enough I contemplated taking out my ravor and giving it a good shave. I woke up earlier than I have in ages, this is the benefit from a non-comfy bed, you wake up from a collection of many lucid naps feeling totally refreshed. Like when I was sleeping in the library, I woke up from a three hour sleep everyday for over a week like I just had some post-space age highly refined coffee.

I got breakfast at “Munchies”, tipped the guy three lempira with USDollars still dominating my value processing system, poor fellow must utterly despise me giving him a 15cent tip. Wandered the main street most of day away, it is non stop quad, moped, motorcycle, tuk tuk, pedicab and the occasional duct tape engine truck, all being operated by three year olds, with two year olds on the back seat.

It rains over one hundred times a day here: “This rain must be messing with me, just when I thought it couldn’t rain any harder, it gets louder bigger and faster. Twice the hardest rain I have ever seen nonchalantly doubling. Pretty soon it won’t be falling, it’ll just be here.

I find it difficult to shop here, you could find a wider array of food products in the Republic of East Germany, and they would be more vibrant as well. I got a sauce that tastes like bathroom cleaning supplies, shoulda known better than buying something labeled Don Julios: Mojo.

Retreated back to the castle to read, after a bit the light goes out in my room. The next second I realized the unceasing club music next store has stopped, the next second; it’s pitch black outside. The whole island lost power.

An hour later the power comes back on, just finished a four serving pasta meal, Really would like to get out for a brew, but I’m stuck laying in a foodacoma. I’ll get one for breakfast.

The Bittersweets

The water in the sinks is a nice tannish brown and is pressurized enough to hit me in the face roughly 100% of the time.

But I can’t complain, there is water!

My room is plain and dirty and the bed is like 100 grit sandpaper.

But I’m paying $70 a month for a room 42 Monty Python ministerial steps away from the azure blue waters of the Caribbean.

The hardest part about cooking here is there is never a lighter handy for the stove.

But the good news is that divers smoke so much I think Paul Mall should give them a sponsorship.

Day 1

Driving to JFK at 3am, feelings of anxiety. I realize that sometimes making plans is more fun than going thru with said plans. Board the 757, one of the most beautiful things is the scenes of earth from god-view, and New York city in the dark morning is indeed the finest you can catch(although it is too late in the morn to see the electric snake, perhaps that is for the best). Watching NY fade away is upsetting, one of the rare times of NY nostalgia. ----This is not an airplane, it is a flying fart juice canister.

Miami is more serene. Across the runway is a Lufthansa Airbus, there is certainly no way that thing can fly, Dorothys house from the Wizard of Oz has better aerodynamics. Board the 737, my fear of flying is gone (seemingly for good), I suppose that is what happens when you’re doing the same thing for hours on end. I even have hopes for some mild to gentle severe turbulence to rock me to sleep. We follow what looked to be the entirety of the Keys about 15 miles to the east (what a unique land formation), and pass right through the center of Cuba, it sure looked peaceful down there.

Grand Cayman Isle: Oh the humidity! I forgot what you felt like. Lap dogs of various breeds sniffing out my bags, still nervous even though I know I had nothing in there, followed by the third pat down of the day, this one being far more intimate, they must like me. I reach La Ceiba, the airports are getting progressively smaller, this one using aeroplanes as a sort of rusty décor rather than for transportation, saw a plane taking of using a single donkey for propulsion. The customs line took well over one sweaty hour as 62 employees watched as one ticket lady stamped away at our official documents.  Split a cab with a Portlandian who after this is heading south to engineer on a research ship based in Panama. La Ceiba is quite beat, the landscape being composed of mud and garbage. We were stopped by two soldiers sporting Ak-47s, I gingerly smile and wave. The ferry was completely sealed top to bottom, I though this excessive until we made it out to the 13ft rollers. The vomit task force was in full operation on this crossing. I want to be the captain of this vessel, it is more like surfing than sailing.

On the dock I bid farewell to my temporary travel buddy, I catch a lift on the divemasters moped, flying past pedestrians on each side, dodging dogs and such, leaning into a sharp left and speeding to a stop at the end of the narrow dock. I’m handed a beer, Salva Vida ~ it certainly was. The young girls are running around with cigarettes in their hands lighting fireworks, than go flying past my ear exploding in the bay. The first thing the little girl tells me is “you’re a good person”, I like this one.