Letters From Travels: Still Not Dead

Good news, guerrillas still have not carried me off to hold me for a ransom, tried to cut my hands off, or even robbed, and then viciously beat me. The worst I've dealt with here in Nicaragua was some woman not having enough change to change an American twenty. Ah how I love the 17 to 1 exchange rate.

The locals here are suspiciously nice. I can barely talk to them but I've still been invited surfing (tomorrow hopefully) by one of them, offered a tour to a cool place for a photo op by another, and bought the equivalent of melted otter pops from another (which taste way better than the straight chemical stuff in the States). I included the otter pop thing for T. If you don't know what an otter pop is, well your life is probably an empty void of nothingness spiraling down a black well of insignificance, but nobody's perfect.

My Spanish lessons are going so-so. I think both me and my teacher are sick of them. 4 hours in one sitting is not the way to take a class. Speaking of which, UNM decided that although I have proof of military service, I don't have enough proof of enough military service. The "defending your country for 7 months" line didn't work either. I'm going to try crying next.

For those of you who are wondering when Ez is meeting me, well I wish I knew. He left today, and since he's traveling the way I did, it could be a while (don't tell him, I don't think he knows how ridiculously far it is).

Also, in my down time (oh wait, that's all day) I decided to come up with my own political party. I'll be running for president on it in 2008. Here's a peek at some of my plans: Bush's old "No Child Left Behind" policy will be slightly altered and become the "Dumb Children Left Behind" policy. As for abortion, it will remain legal but under the condition that any woman undergoing the procedure will be required to wear a giant A on her chest for the rest of her life. The color of the A will be standardized, I'm thinking about a shade of red, possibly scarlet. So remember in 2008 - Size Does Matter, vote Pocket Lint.

El Pocket Lint

Letters From Travels: El Gringo

I guess I don't have a lot to say. I sit on a beach--in a hammock or in a rocking chair--all day and relax. But I'm sure the rest of you are having an equally good time as I am.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA

El Pocket Lint

Letters From Travels: On to Nicaragua

I'm in Nicaragua now. at San Juan Del Sur. This is the opposite of Honduras (i.e. NOT the worst place in the world). Here I'm not worried that someone is going to try to kill me with a banana.

I'm going to take some Spanish lessons here and spend the next couple of weeks until Ez comes down. Maybe I'll go check out the turtles. Olive Ridley Turtles nest here during these months. I thought it would be fun to find one turtle and keep pushing her back into the ocean so she couldn't lay her eggs on the beach. It would be fun and educational.

Central American fun fact: Years ago, an American named William Walker invaded Central America. He tried to take over the whole place and failed. Then Nicaragua invited him in to help with a coup, in which he succeded, eventually declaring himself president. Then he tried to take over all of Central America again, got his ass handed to him, and had the US Navy take him in. Then he tried AGAIN to invade Honduras with like 25 supporters, was caught by the Navy again and deported. And then he tried AGAIN, which is past the point of ridiculous, was caught by the British I think, turned over to the Honduran government, and shot.

I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from that story. Invade Nicaragua, not Honduras.

El Pocket Lint

Letters From Travels: Uhg, Sick

I finally left Belize after spending a couple of days in the dark, lying on my back, trying to sleep 22 hours a day. I got a pretty bad cold there and wasn't having the greatest time.

I'm in Honduras now and if first impressions are worth anything this is where bad people go when they die. I'm not a huge fan. I'm currently in the capital, Tegucigalpa. My favorite part is that the taxis will just honk at you to get your attention, like you can't see them. And every car is a taxi. So basically all the cars in the city just circle around you and honk. Then some dude told me, on no accounts, to leave my hotel after 7. He seemed to be implying that I would explode if I did, and I don't want to explode.

I'm leaving tomorrow. I can't deal with this. I'm off to Nicaragua, where I hope to be able to tell the difference between the guys that want to help me find my hotel and the guys that want to gnaw on my soul for the rest of eternity.

There's one guy looking at me right now like I owe him money. Oh wait, that's the internet guy. I DO owe him money. I should go.

Still alive though. Thirteen days and counting baby!

El Pocket Lint

Letters From Travels: Paradise

Hey hey. I made it to Placencia in Belize. Its a small beach town of like 500 people. It's really, really, really, really, really cool. There's jungle everywhere and clean sandy beaches on the ocean. And it's nice being in a place that primarily speaks English again. I think I'll be here for a few days, possibly forever.

I'd like to say I miss home and all that, but then I look outside. I'm not sure I'll ever come back. I wonder if this country would extradite me if I blew off the rest of my military contract and stayed here. Only one way to find out.

And the best part about this place is if you plan right you can hit 5 happy hours at 4 different bars! How sweet is that?

El Pocket Lint

Letters From Travels: I think I just ate a Pequeno

Welcome back to the wacky traveling emails of el pocket lint.

I think I told some of you I was going to Merida and a few of you I was going to Acapulco. Man, I got you good! I'M IN PELENQUE and i think the shift button just broke. oH, THERE IT GOES. DAMN IT. ah, better. Apparently this place is a total rip off. I can't believe a room costs 15 us dollars. It's ridiculous. So off I go to Belize instead. I hope to end up in Nicaragua soon. I hear there's a special on drive-by shootings there. I don't know if I'll get out there though because my planning seems to work about as well as communism did.

I saw some pyramids in Mexico City. They certainly were big. I would be so annoyed being on of the slaves that built it. "Well it doesn't really do anything, but it looks nice. Aren't you glad you spent your entire natural life carrying back-breaking amounts of stone now? How rewarding!"

Now future generations can look back on the incredible achiements of those people and say "Yeah, I guess it's cool. If you like big piles of rock"

El Pocket Lint

Letters From Travels: Hola

You will all notice by the title that my endeavors to learn Spanish are succeeding with flying colors. I now know 5 words. I'm not sure what 2 of them mean though. In case you're out of the loop, I'm in Mexico City now, and will hopefully be heading towards Central America at some point. Basically I felt that I really needed to experience some countries that are hot, poor and have a long history of armed struggle and insurgent revolts. Wait...

Anyway, the 42 combined hours of bus travel was pretty sweet. I'll give it to them, the Mexicans have really got the whole bus thing down. They beat the hell out of the Greyhounds I was on in the States.

I'm staying in a hostel in the middle of downtown. I think. I'm pretty sure there are like a billion downtowns here. I walked through Mexico City's version of a Walmart Supercenter earlier, which is where everybody with absolutely anything to sell goes out on the side walk and screams. I'm not sure but I think one guy was tring to sell his grandmother. She was way overpriced.

So, I havent been stabbed yet, which is kinda disappointing because I feel it really is something that I should experience before I leave, you know, as a cultural thing.

El Pocket Lint