tegucigalpa, honduras

hello ya´ll,

last night i had a dream that 1)i went on a date with george w. bush and 2)i said "ya´ll go fuck yourselfs" for some reason.

we´re in tegucigalpa honduras now, it´s a crowded polluted dangerous city, but i like it. there´s bars on all the storefronts and armed guards at every pharmacy, but it´s nice. i hear they have a bookstore here too! tasha and i downloaded a bunch of books on tape to our ipods before we left, including john grisham´s "the testament"-a book i´m sure we sold at the book market (my last job) and a book i would never want to read in a million years, but i ended up listening to it and loving it. i was hooked. it was 11 hours long, and the guy who read it was good. it was all just great until it ended, like, 2 hours before it should have. what i mean is that it was cut off right in the middle of the last trial! i need to know waht happened to rachel lane and nate and josh and the family! it´s terrible. we need to go to the bookstore and find the book and finish it. it´s pathetic. yesterday i just fished bill clinton´s "my life", which i enjoyed. it sounds like i´m in a cultural wasteland or something.

nicaragua was ok, now that it´s behind us. the name makes me think of nicotine, smoke and tobacco. we went from the south to the north, and i don´t think saw one leaf. it looked how australia looks in my mind, hot and dry, trees with no leaves in fields with dead brown grass and bony animals staggering around. volcanos too. everything was a misadventure, the kind of travel diary entries i get sick of. "today we walked 5 miles in the dirt with 100 degree sun and then the bus never came and a dog died in front of me." when i read people´s travel logs, most of it is taken up with stories about how bad the bus ride was. yes, i know it was bad. but you paid 37cents for it and you wanted to go to a country where you could get by on $17 a day. of course it´s going to be uncomfortable. you´re not going to get a unicorn paddling you down a river on a rose covered gondola for 37cents.

but, my tattoos are a hit. here, tattoos will stop traffic, and help you make friends with 18 year olds. it scares me how easily the security guards are distracted by boobs and tattoos while they´re holding a rifle.

wah! my digital camera went wonky on me not long ago, it still takes photos but they all have lines through them and are all pixely. i knew it was going to conk out on me on this trip! so no more pics on the road...

last week while we were in leon nicaragua, tasha and i found out that a friend back home, matt lux, died. it came as a shock, and i don´t think i´ve fully absorbed the news, as it seems so far removed from my reality right now. our hearts go out to the people he left behind, josh, jasmin, zorano, and his family, we´re really disheartened to hear about it and hope everyone who loved him is getting the support they need right now.

so please, hug your people tonight and tell them you love them.
taura

ps-i just want to say hi to some of the great people we´ve met so far, sula, matt the climber and valk! a big thanks to david in san jose who put us up for a night! also, ha ha thomas you doubter, our paths did cross again!