The Astounding Travel Adventures of a Miraculous Fellow

6/17/2005

…literally.  They bit me all over the ass.  It itches like the Dickens.

There are also ants in my shoes, my socks, my shirts, and worst off, my bed.  This is not usually the case, but somehow they found a way through the generally impenetrable shield that is my mosquito net.  The problem with the ants here is that they are somewhat maltempered, unlike the infamous “American Passive Ant” who earned his name from years and years of hardworking passivity.  No, no, this ant, the “Thunder-Jawed-Dagger-Faced-Poison-Tipped-Sawtoothed Salvadoran Ant” generally enjoys climbing onto the feet on passersby, and employing his thunderous jaws and poisoned teeth, not to mention his daggered face, to eat your flesh.

This hurts.

This morning I woke up with them in my bed, and was unhappy.  They had bit me many, many times.  ”Whyyyyyyy? Can’t we live in peeeeeeace?!” I quietly lamented while committing genocide on their colony.

Now for the most part, the ants don’t get into my bed, although their irritating little friends the gnat will.  This little bugger is the reason that my feet resemble Mark McGwire’s face after a severe steroid binge.  After biting me a good 40 times on each foot during the night, I usually conclude in the morning that The Salvador has finally decided to stop fucking around with these minor diseases and give me smallpox of the feet.  This is partly the reason why I always wake up cocooned in my sleep sack hyperventilating every morning.  It’s a very refreshing way to say “Buenos Dias” to the day; and the only way to hide from the ever-present bug population.

My biggest problem of all in The Salvador is the zancudos.  Zancudos are the larger, evil sibling of mosquitoes.  However, they enjoy the taste of human flesh to a much, much higher degree.  Recently, they have begun to multiply due to the start of the rainy season.  These little pests have quite contentedly snacked upon me – the other white meat.   After a long evening of slapping and swinging at zancudos, dripping with the carnage of the kill, I am rather exhausted. I usually retreat to the respective safety of my mosquito net as soon as Mujer con Pantalones has wept her last tear for the evening – 9:01 P.M.  I would rather lay in bed sweating than have my blood pilfered by those avaricious little fuckers.  I thoroughly hate zancudos, they make my brains sad.

The bug situation here is rather remarkable, and I have decided that this is the Bug Capital of the Earth.  No matter how much repellent you slather on, how many layer of clothes you wear, or how thick your protective bubble is (applicable only to the Boy in the Bubble), they are going to get you.  Be it the little tiny bugs or the mammoth pterodactyl-sized bugs, they will get you. 

Now, speaking of the mammoth bugs, I would like to describe the two largest bugs in the history of everything.  They both live in Salinas del Potrero, my community.  One I named Carl and the other one Esteban.  Actually, I’m not so sure about their names, I was fleeing too quickly in terror, while they gobbled up oxen and small children at will, to actually catch their names.

The first one (Carl) is somewhat like the carapacho, which I have decided is the Dumbest Animal Ever.  It is a four inch long, two inch wide beetle with legs that actually scrape the skin on touch.   (I didn’t want to touch it, but I had to save the mayor of Salinas who was being carried away by Carl.)  The other bug (Esteban) is an enormous moth with a six inch wingspan…on second thought, it actually may not have been a moth, but could have been a small hang glider left behind by a wayward Smurf.  But it sure did flap around more than a hang glider when my one of the kids in my family smashed it with a stick.  That’s one forgetful Smurf who’s gonna be walking home.

So I sit around here all day trying to avoid obtaining a nice little case of Dengue fever, Typhoid fever, or possibly the ever-threatening Dance fever.  I don’t like my odds though, as there are at least 489 zancudos perched atop my computer sizing me up like a famished fat man eyeing popcorn chicken at the counter of a KFC.

 I’d better go bathe in repellant again.  That or woo the Girl in the Bubble so I can share a piece of that action.  Snap.

6/27/2005

Hola amigos.  My Spanish is coming along nicely.  Although I have no idea what “hola amigos” means, they seem to react favorably here when someone says it, so I pass it along to you all.

I am now at an internet cafe in Guatemala.  Strangely enough, Guatemala means “Land of the Internet Cafe” which was brilliant foresight on the part of the original settlers of this country.  I just got back from probably the most beautiful place on the face of the planet (Earth, that is), Tikal.  After coating myself in a heavy layer of Jaguar-repellant, I traipsed into the thick Guatemalan rainforest, only to arrive…I mean…discover, the lost ruins of Tikal.  Luckily for me, it was much easier to discover because, as luck would have it, there was a tour bus that stopped at the Tourist Center, near where I discovered the ruins.

Anywho, Tikal is a 2500 year old Mayan city located in the middle of the jungle in Northern Guatemala.  This place is incredible.  You walk 20 minutes through the jungle with spider monkeys gleefully swinging overhead in the trees, while, no doubt, joyously flinging their feces at each other.  As you walk through the jungle, suddenly out of nowhere, you come upon huge ruins towering over the rain forest.  It reminds me a lot of Jurassic Park, with the notable exception of man-eating dinosaurs.  But, in the dinosaurs’ place are the man-eating temples.  While I did not technically see any temples eat any men, I could tell they wanted to.  The best thing about the temples is that you can climb up to the top of most of them, and look at an unobstructed 360 degree view of jungle.

Tikal has over one thousand ruins, and five or six huge temples, so there’s a lot to do.  I was there for two days, so I got to see everything.  At one point during my wandering through the park, I heard a huge roaring coming from the jungle, which sounded like a jaguar rap competition.  After I asked someone, “Why don’t they turn off the microphone? Those jaguars can’t rap for shit!”  I was informed that they were in fact howler monkeys.  Those little scamps sure can make a big ruckus!  Howler monkeys, eh?  Boy oh boy, talk about a misnomer.  In my mind, a howl is something like “hooooooooot!” or possibly “aaaaahooooooooo!”  But these howlers were growling and roaring like lions.  They should be called “Roarer monkeys” or “not exactly howling monkeys.”

After hearing the roar of the howlers, I did what any dumb tourist armed with a camera would do – wander off into the jungle alone to catch a glimpse of them.  I found a slight trail and started off, at first in good sight of one of the pyramids.  After 100 feet, I turned around and couldn’t see anything but trees, which worried me a bit.  I could easily envision losing my way, and falling victim to an attempted mauling by your friendly neighborhood jaguar.

But, the howler’s roar called me further; so I did what any dumb tourist armed with a camera would do – keep on wandering blindly into the jungle.  After about 300 yards deep, with the growl right in front of me, abruptly the noise stopped and the trees started rustling.  Silence surrounded me.  Suddenly, out popped a ninja and we commenced to battle in the finest arts of kung fu for nine hours!

Wait, no, that’s a lie.

In reality, the howler monkeys were swinging through the canopy directly overhead.  No ninjas were present this day.  But, the howlers were still pretty cool.  I just stood there quietly, watching them swing from branch to branch, searching for a more comfortable place to scratch their asses.  I was inclined to climb up there and swing with them, but my parents had my prehensile tail removed at birth…sigh.  Alas, I just watched them frolic around for awhile.  Then, I started getting the heebie jeebies, because I realized I was standing in the middle of the jungle, where there are plenty of jaguars roaming freely, not to mention the omnipresent threat of attack by the dreaded Jungle Possum.  So, I decided to high tail it out of there before I was Possum lunch.

Next I climbed up a hundred yard ladder to the top of my favorite Temple, which was completely empty, to enjoy the beauty of the dense rainforest.  From there you can see for miles and miles of untouched jungle.  Then I sacrificed a virgin.  Although, technically speaking, heh heh, you probably couldn’t call her a virgin after I got done with her, wink wink.  Yikes.  But, hopefully the Gods were not paying attention to that.

And, I was able to capture one of the monkeys from the rainforest.  In return for food, he throws feces at passersby, to my utter delight.  Now he and I are the best of friends.  He’s a good monkey.  I named him Daniel.  

So, if anyone is in the vicinity of northern Guatemala this weekend, I suggest a brief jaunt to Tikal.  Quite worth it.  Definitely the most beautiful place I’ve seen in my life.  And I’ve spent countless hours in numerous strip clubs across this wide blue planet.

7/11/2005

Howdy folks,

So, I’d be a really bad volunteer if I didn’t send out at least one rallying cry to my friends, so bear with me, this is a hugely important issue here.

CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, is about to pass in the US. It is really, really, really bad.  The extremely poor people that I have befriended, lived and worked with are going to basically be muscled out of the market by the international corporations come in.  These people make about $3 a day as it is, and the huge majority of families’ income comes from small farms.  The people feed their families with the crops, and then sell any excesses in the markets for meager earnings.  But, with the passage of CAFTA, the huge companies will have enormous farms with the top technology and pesticides (the peasant farmers here are mostly using just organic techniques to help the environment) to create monstrous, McGwire-esque steroid crops that will be far larger than the organic crops.  Plus, the companies will easily be able to sell their crops at lower prices to muscle out their competition, the poor campesinos.  This will force the people to work for the corporations, at the same wages as they make now.  This will make a ton of money for the corporations, but make life worse for the poor, of which there are so amazingly many in El Salvador.

I met Chencho, an ex-Salvadoran priest who is the founder of the nonprofit I am working through, while he was here, and he believes that the only thing that could push the country back into civil war would be something like CAFTA, which once again hurts the poor at the expense of the rich.

These people have been through so much to have to once again be passed by for the sake of the rich.  Just yesterday, there was a riot in the University in San Salvador protesting the raising of bus costs by 25%, to help out the bus companies.  Almost everyone uses the buses here, so this is a huge financial impact on these people.  I read that 30% of their yearly income goes to bus transportation.  This riot involved burning a bus and fighting with armed riot police.  For a country of such kind, generous people, to see them pushed to acts of violence only shows me how fed up they actually are.  In my whole time here, I’ve seen nothing but cooperation and kindness to everyone.  But, with the passage of CAFTA and the neglect of the poor, there seems to be no other option for these people.

Unfortunately, no one in the US seems to know anything about this.  As long as Michael Jackson is still on the loose, there’s always going to be “more important” news to feed to the masses.

So, if anyone feels the need, this is a hugely important issue for, not only the Salvadoran people, but for Americans as well.  There are already 2 million illegal Salvadorans in the US, and with the passage of CAFTA, it is bound to be double that coming our way.  Not to mention the rest of Central America that will be affected equally.  So, email your
representatives and senators, and let them know that this is a really, really bad idea.

The poor no longer can be the stepping stone of “progress”.

Here’s the website: To learn more about CAFTA, and contact your Representative, click here: 

http://www.stopcafta.org/article.php?list=type&type=21

Now, I shall step off my soap box.  Tomorrow I’m going to Costa Rica for a week, and then I have about 10 days left here.  The last three months have gone by so fast, I can’t believe my time here is almost over.  This has been such a great experience; I can’t imagine how different everything will be when I get home.  But, I also can’t wait to stand on carpet, eat pizza, have running water, and not be eating alive by every fucking bug under the sun.  Also, I can’t wait to understand people all the time when they talk to me and not be chased down by stray dogs when I ride my bike.

Well, thanks for listening to my ranting, but its really important for my friends and neighbors here, not to mention all of Central America.

7/22/2005

Okay, no more politically motivated stuff.

From here on out, my emails will only be interesting stories of memories past, or lines from Celine Dion songs.  ”And IIIIIIIIII, eeee, IIIIIII will always love youuuuuuuu.”  

Oh shit, that’s Whitney Houston.  

Well, f ‘em both.

So, I am now in Costa Rica, at a hostel with free internet.  I shall be here for many, many moons, emailing people at will.   The connection here is like my favorite actor Vin Diesel – fast and furious.

Well, Costa Rica is very, very different from my home in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador.  Today I “flew” in an “airplane” to the “airport” to get here.  That would be the Salvadoran equivalent to riding in a pickup truck full of 35 other people to a dirt hole in the road which serves as the bus stop.  Next I took a taxi to the hostel, instead of my brakeless bike to my shared bedroom.  Then I went to a restaurant. Apparently, where I live, there is no equivalent to a restaurant, because you only eat at home, or possibly kill a chicken on the road and consume him there on the spot.  At the restaurant I ate mozzarella sticks, a cheeseburger and fries, and two beers for 10 bucks.  Sure beats tortillas and beans, with no drink (although that only costs 4 cents).  While eating I watched Centro de Deportes on ESPN which featured “Especial de Beisbol” — “Baseball Tonight”.  I sure do like baseball.  They have a game like baseball here, only instead of hitting a ball with a bat, it involves kicking a rabid dog in the face as he tries to consume your flesh.  The general concept is the same, but “Kick Dog” doesn’t quite pull the crowds as baseball.  Yet.  Mainly because they haven’t defined the Babe Ruth of “Kick Dog”.  Although Jose Manuel Garcia Rivera is as close as it gets.  But you already knew that.   

After gorging myself on dinner, I will have the glorious pleasure of using flush toilets to dispose of my poop, which is sure to be plentiful.  As of yet it hasn’t happened, but in
my next email I’ll be sure to describe that entire process in full.  Also, it’s nice to not have to shine your flashlight into the shitter before doing your business to look for scorpions. My greatest fear involves scorpions attempting to breach the strictly enforced “exit only” that is my cornhole.

But, enough about my cornhole.  Upon returning to my hostel, there were English speaking people watching English speaking programs on an English speaking TV.  I feel like I died and went to England. Although, in this England, everyone has American accents.  American England – Englerica or Americgland.

Tomorrow I am going to check out a University here so I can plan my next “getaway” where upon I can try to get a Master’s degree at the same time.  My major will like be “Universe”. Then I call officially call myself “Master of the Universe”. He-Man’s gonna be pissed.  She-Ra’s all mine bitch, probably because you wear tighty whiteys all day long, ya silly freak. Holy shit, this has gotten a bit more out of control than normal. 

Next, I’m off for a nice little surf trip, and I’m not talking about surfing the web, bra. Then I’m heading back to The Salvador for my last three weeks.

Now, after bad-mouthing my peops in The Salv, lemme do some clarifying.  I love El Salvador.  It is so Central American it makes me sick (especially if I drink the water).  It has such a great feel to it and the people are so amazing, that it has firmly established itself as my number one country in Central America.  There are no tourists there, so when you go, you get the real culture — up front and personal, like a crazed mutt trying to eat your bike and stomach contents.  

Kick Dog, anyone?

Please feel free to regale me with your stories of Fourth of July glory.  I had quite a time here.  Determined not to miss out on the festivities, I rented a truck, strapped myself to the top, painted my body red, white and blue, stuck sparklers in my ears, and drove around town blaring “Born in the USA”, “God Bless the USA” and “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Celine Dion (even a tough minded party like that needs a soft and tender edge to it).  Well, after my car was hijacked, I walked home.  But the sparklers were in full bloom.

8/2/2005

I am now sending this message from an email machine that is located inside of my parents home in North America.

I didn’t have to take a pickup truck, a bus, and walk in the blistering heat all the while dodging machete blows and drunken street performers to arrive here.  I simply walked down the hall, then turned right, and there was the computer. Weird.  I also don’t have to listen to horrendous Reggaeton music blaring forth from the other computers like the soundtrack for Hell itself.  (Although I really miss my new favorite song, “Machete”, whose chorus goes “Machete, afilado, machete, afilado” – literally “Machete, sharp, machete, sharp”.  No joke.  They love machetes in El Salvador).

So, I got back last night.  I flew into Houston and was immediately greeted by an airport full of white people.  All of whom spoke English (technically Texan, which is sort of like English after consuming way too much booze).  So I shrieked out in Spanish “Where did all of you gringos come from!”  Then I realized, “I ain’t in Kansas anymore” – Kansas being the name of the local Salvadoran moonshine bar in my community.

Then I went to the bathroom.  The details of which are rather banal, but it is when the culture shock moved in.  First, the toilet automatically flushed, then the sink automatically turned on, then the hand dryer automatically dried my hands (unfortunately, I had to push the lever on the soap dispenser, which was exhausting and, I have to say, more than a slight inconvenience).  I then nearly missed my flight waiting around in the bathroom for the robot to come in and zip up my fly, but I think he was on his lunch break, so after 45 minutes I decided to do it myself.

Later I boarded a train to move to the next terminal, which had no driver, so I surmised it was powered by none other than the blackest of magic.  On my flight to Arizona I got to sit next to a rather overly chatty American lady.  Finally, after she stopped talking for a quick breath before her next 25 minute tirade, I tried simply said “Como?” and pointed to my El Salvador jersey hoping that she’d shut the hell up.  Mission failed.

Well, it’s good to be home and with my family.  Although this American culture and technology confuses and frightens me. Our refrigerator can fill up a glass with water, and also give you small blocks of hard, cold water, which are called “ice”.

What a country!

Plus, the weather inside of my parent’s house is very cold, much colder than outside.  It’s possible the house is made of this “ice” substance, or else the devil has possessed its walls.

I miss The Salvador, but I have finally stopped sweating, and wasn’t woken up this morning by roosters and turkeys.  I miss my Salvadoran friends, and it was sad to go, because there is absolutely no way that they can visit me, so I’ll just have to go back. And, I’ve spoken my last Spanish for awhile, that is until I start my daily trips to Tijuana for “happy pills” that I will sell to people who sleep on the beach in San Diego.  Ooh, one nice thing is that my parents’ dog doesn’t attack me and give me fleas with rabies.  Oh, and there aren’t mosquitoes sharing my pants with me, and scorpions sharing my bed with me, so that’s cool too.

Welcome back to America, gringo!