Bamaragua

Moving on

2009-12-07T13:09:00.000-08:00

I got back to Granada Saturday afternoon just in time to catch the second half of Alabama's 32-13 victory over Florida, a good way to start my last few days here.

The cheapest flight home I could find leaves out of San Jose, Costa Rica (one country south of here) on Dec. 17 early in the morning. So that means I'll be traveling a little farther than expected, but I refuse to rename this blog cause Bama Rica isn't as clever a title.

I had a talk with my boss about ending the internship early given the circumstances of my flight being in less than two weeks and he was fine with it. I also just want to take the rest of my time to enjoy this whole experience and reflect on what a ride it's been. It feels like it's all ending very suddenly, though I've got a few more amazing things to see before I head out.

My next stop is Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua. It's two volcanoes connected by a little isthmus of igneous rock in the middle of the lake, and supposedly "the biggest island in the world found in a freshwater lake." I've been hearing about this place for years. Not only is it supposed to be other-worldly in its beauty but it's actually home to a number of environmentalist projects in farming and conservation. I've met some of the North Americans and Europeans who live out there working in these environmentally friendly projects and I was surprised to learn the scope of these projects' influence and outreach. Ometepe just sounds like one of those natural havens for people trying to think of ways to save the world.

I will leave for Ometepe tomorrow on a four-hour ferry ride down the lake from Granada (Lake Nicaragua is one of the biggest lakes in the world), spend a few days there and then I believe go to San Juan del Sur on the southern Pacific coast for Dec. 11, which happens to be my birthday. Celebrating it abroad with no one I am remotely familiar with should be interesting.

Also, I hear it's quite cold right now in my sweet home of Alabama. Last night around midnight I sat with my now former boss and roommate around a courtyard in rocking chairs, sipping tequila on the rocks and admiring the needle in the thermostat on the wall, which was trembling just beneath the 90-degree mark. This morning, as usual, I woke up mopped in sweat and kicked the one cover off me and lied there in my shorts for a while before slowly peeling myself from the mattress and took a long shower in cold water. The heat just never gives up in Granada.

Furious rant

2009-11-29T20:59:00.000-08:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - There's something fishy about these official international observers, and I feel like a lot of them exposed their true allegiances tonight at the Marriott in Tegucigalpa where the Supreme Elections Tribunal and all the hundreds of media here were set up to cover the elections returns.

In interviewing international observers tonight, I noticed a strange trend: not one of them had ever been an official elections observer before. They talked my ear off with all kinds of lofty rhetoric about how Honduras is speaking for itself now and what a great democratic fiesta this was and how Hugo Chavez lost his shot at taking over Honduras. Very few of them spoke in a way that was clearly non-partisan. After lots of questioning, many revealed they had allegiances to right-wing interests that had wanted the coup government to be recognized from the very beginning. This all made me start to question just how legitimate are the people hired to say the elections are legitimate? I wasn't the only one. And then this happened.

I was walking by a Chilean observer who got in a heated argument with a latina journalist I believe was working for Al Jazeera. She had also pointed out how inexperienced a lot of these observers appeared to be, and this guy and another observer got into it with her. Suddenly all the Honduran journalists and Honduran observers swarmed her and her argument with these two observers got drowned out by all these Honduran journalists and observers - IMPARTIAL PROFESSIONALS - shouting "Long live Honduran democracy!" and holding up signs for the cameras.

I got the Chilean guy's attention and he slipped out and I interviewed him. He acknowledged this was also the first time he had been an election observer, but he "has a law degree" and thinks he's capable of handling this job. OK, fair enough.

But while we were talking the crowd got even bigger around this poor woman and everyone around her was shouting "FUERA! FUERA!" (Out! Out!) and she actually had to flee the hotel because she was being verbally assaulted by these people, that's why I'm not sure who she was with.

Even the Chilean guy said "I disagree with her, but that over there's a bit much."

And some of those official Honduran observers chased her downstairs and out the door, and once she was gone they started whooping with fists raised towards the second floor balcony where we all were, and they all started chanting "Honduras! Honduras!"

It was just an unbelievable display of golpista mob rule. Dissenting opinions not welcome. The other international journalists were also shocked by the whole sight. Me and a French TV journalist were so incensed and talking about it that we started to draw the eyes of those same bastards who chased away a journalist who dared to ask a legitimate question about this cherry-picked group of international observers.

I'm still furious. Is this how we're supposed to know that democracy and transparency and freedom of dissent are still alive in Honduras? When the pro-coup media and pro-coup observers swarm people for asking questions and chase them all the way down the stairs and out the door?

Disgusting. Horrific. Any other words that come to mind I'll just shout off the balcony later once I get a much deserved drink.

Election morning

2009-11-29T08:50:00.000-08:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - It's been a very slow day thus far, so I thought I'd take the time to make an update about my trip to the polls this morning.

I hitched a ride with Bloomberg reporter (and former Nica Times reporter) Eric Sabo this morning to several polling places not long after they opened around 7 a.m. Each had a handful of soldiers and police, but no overwhelming presence was visible anywhere in the streets. The city was dead this morning, as if it were any other Sunday. There's no sense that really anything is happening in Honduras unless you talk to some people in the modest crowds at the polls.

Those voting will tell you how important these elections are for democracy in Honduras. For some it's about their candidate, but for most it's about sending a message to the international community. There's no fear of violence, nor any real fear of fraud taking place. Without a doubt, there will be a lot of people who don't go to the polls, but it probably won't be significant enough for Zelaya's supporters to gain momentum on keeping the elections from being recognized. That's really their only hope at this point for having any say in Honduras' political future.

In other words, the only people who have anything at stake today in the elections themselves are the two main candidates for the presidency, Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos (from Zelaya and Micheletti's now very divided party) and National Party candidate Pepe Lobo, who barring a huge surprise should win today. Which one of them wins, in my opinion, really won't have more or less effect than the other on Honduras' future. It appears now there's more at stake on Dec. 2, when the congress votes on and likely rejects Zelaya's restitution.

At this point I really think the Resistance and the international community are out of options. The support of the United States was crucial in keeping the hope of Zelaya's restitution alive, and the Obama administration jumped the gun following the signing of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord in saying it would more than likely recognize the election results. Micheletti can pat himself on the back for signing that accord which gave the interim government ample loopholes to take advantage of. They were able to get Zelaya to agree to calling for a unity government that the interim government on its own got the right to decide and agreed to let the same congress that certified his ouster have the vote on his restitution without setting a deadline. That was crucial, because it let congress put the issue off until after the elections without drawing condemnation from the U.S., even though it was understood in theory that they would do it more promptly.

Polls close at 4 p.m. and I think the results may be known as early as 7 p.m., but that's probably optimistic. In the meantime I'll be here in the lobby of the Clarion Hotel with a few other journalists watching the local news and following the other blogs. Here's hoping Hondurans can find something to celebrate on an otherwise very uninspiring day in Central American politics.

Citizen Coup

2009-11-26T15:57:00.000-08:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – My mornings here always start with a walk through downtown to a local café or restaurant where I get breakfast. I buy two or three newspapers on the way and spend most of the morning reading them so I have a thorough grasp of the local take on everything affecting the country.

After a few days of repeating this process, I realized how hard the media down here make it for anyone to have a firm grasp of the situation. Reading these newspapers is painful. They’re wishy washy, they’re biased and there’s no reason to believe a single one of them is presenting the truth, since they rarely use attribution anyway.

The two big papers that support the coup, El Heraldo and La Tribuna, each about 60 pages usually, both dedicate about 20 pages a day to election coverage. With all that copy, you’d expect the average reader to take away a firm interpretation of the previous day’s events, the issues at hand, and how feasible the candidates’ plans for accomplishing their goals would be.

Not in Honduras. What these papers want is for people to go vote, to make a point to the international community and to give yet another victory to the oligarchy that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya (who now resides in the Brazilian Embassy 10 blocks away from my hotel) and pays them to openly refer to his supporters as terrorists. In fact, relatively few of these articles focus on health, education, poverty, crime or any other part of the myriad of domestic issues facing Honduras.

As we get closer to Sunday’s elections, they way their coverage leans becomes more obvious. They preach about threats of a Zelayista boycott from unknown sources, a boycott they present as being well-organized and violent, intent on disrupting the vote in anyway possible to, in La Tribuna and El Heraldo’s words, “prevent our democratic celebration.”

And why would they say that, I wonder, when yesterday in an interview I did with Juan Barahona, the leader of the entire Resistance Front Against the Coup, he said leaders are specifically telling all Zelaya supporters to not vote and stay at home?

“We’ve told people to stay at home and not to vote,” Barahona said. “We won’t be protesting on election day.”

The mainstream media have not once reported that this is what the Resistance is telling people. Instead they’re trying to justify the army calling up 5,000 reservists for election week by fabricating a plot by the Resistance to turn out in large numbers to keep people from voting. The military could use support in the press, considering Andres Pavon, director of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras, recently came out saying the military is planning a “massacre” against Zelaya’s supporters. Pavon was also the first to predict back in the summer that a coup was being plotted against Zelaya.

On Wednesday, La Tribuna ran a full-page story glorifying Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos – who resigned as Zelaya’s vice president to run for the presidency – for walking through a Tegucigalpa neighborhood and ripping down posters that called on people not to vote Nov. 29. The posters said “No to the elections! Yes to a constitutional assembly,” the issue Zelaya was ousted from power over, “In the face of this electoral farce, we promise not to vote!” But the headline read “Elvin destroys propaganda that incites apprehension and fear.”

What? In America, the headline would have been “Cute publicity stunt, Elvin.” And even though voting is not mandatory in Honduras, today La Tribuna reported that government prosecutors are trying to find the people who made the boycott posters and press charges of “electoral misconduct” against them.

Last time I thought about it, voting wasn’t as important to democracy as simply doing what you think is best for the common good and not persecuting people who see differently from you. Democracy is defined in Honduras by those who support the coup as more a policy of “doing what our masters tell us.” And to them there’s nothing more undemocratic than letting a giant segment of the population make a peaceful political statement on the day of elections by refusing to vote for candidates they don’t believe in.

Over the last 10 years voter abstention has gone from 25 percent (in 1997) to 44 percent (in 2005), even before the country’s leaders oversaw the region’s biggest political crisis in decades. With most of the international community still undecided on whether to recognize the election results, the pro-coup media know very well that a lot of political leverage is at stake with voter turnout. And if voter turnout is lower than ever, who wants to place bets that the Zelayistas get blamed for scaring people away? The possibility that people think the two main candidates are opportunistic snakes in the grass (which they are) or that people expected the results to be fraudulent won’t even get mentioned.

There is potential for a terrorist attack come election day. One could even argue that Barahona knows it and that’s why he’s telling his people to stay away from the polls. There have been reported attacks with small explosives against various political parties’ offices around the country, but they’ve caused very little damage or gone off when no one was at the building. Also interesting is that not one of these stories has been accompanied by a photo of the reported damage. Every story about these incidents links them to the Resistance without ever once getting comment from a Resistance leader, including stories on the arrests of four men believed to be planning an attack against interim President Roberto Micheletti in El Progreso this week.

There’s a lot of uncertainty here, and the Honduran media have only fuelled it. I expect there will be some arrests on election day, but ultimately enough people will come out to vote, the losers will concede defeat, the Resistance will be painted as weaker than ever for not showing up (and all it took was the threat of a massacre, wimps), and eventually the Honduran elections will be recognized worldwide. On Dec. 2 the congress will probably vote against returning Zelaya to power, he’ll probably be tried for various crimes, the coup leaders will get away Scott free, and a dangerous precedent will be set for future left-leaning leaders. No matter who is elected, the true driving force of democracy here will remain in the hands of the privileged few and they’ll spend the rest of their lives patting themselves on the back for how they handled that one close call.

Amid boycott, Honduras prepares for vote

2009-11-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

Bamaragua note: This is a shortened version of a story that will run in the Nov. 27 edition of The Nica Times

By Mike Faulk
Nica Times Staff

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – There's more on the line than just the presidency when Hondurans go to the voting polls this weekend.

On Nov. 29, five presidential candidates are set to square off in an election that is expected to boil down to two candidates, the conservative National Party's Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, who has a commanding 16 percent lead in the polls, and center-left Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos, who severed as vice-president under deposed President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya.

All of the candidates are running on platforms that call for improvements to education, health and safety in Honduras.

But the real issue heading into this weekend's elections is the future of Honduras' democracy, and whether or not the elections will be able to restore any credibility or legitimacy to the country's embattled political system.

Since the June 28 coup against Zelaya, Honduras has been entangled in Central America's worst political crisis in decades.

Many countries in the region have said they won't recognize the elections unless Zelaya is restored to the presidency before Sunday. Congress announced last week it will vote on the ousted president's temporary restitution on Dec. 2 – a move Zelaya rejects as a violation of the agreement he signed earlier this month with de facto President Roberto Micheletti.

Still, many Hondurans are hoping a strong turnout at the polls will help bring constitutional order back to their country, while winning back recognition and cooperation from the international community.

A Cid-Gallup poll published last month showed that 73 percent of Hondurans hope the elections will be the solution to the five-month-old political crisis.

But as election day approaches, that now looks like tall order, according to Roberto Reyes, spokesman for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. Voter turnout has declined over the last decade, with just 56 percent of the country's 4 million eligible voters casting ballots in the 2005 elections, Reyes said.

Sunday's voter turnout could be much less, as Zelaya's supporters call for a national boycott of the elections.

Reyes said the presidential election has turned into a fight for the hearts and minds of Hondurans – Micheletti supporters insist the elections will prove the democratic system still works in their country, while Zelaya's supports insist the whole thing is a sham.

Ever since the coup, Reyes said, there's been an ideological war waged in the streets.

“On the day of elections, we'll see who wins the battle,” the electoral spokesman said.

Honduras interim leader may step down. Will that help President Zelaya? | csmonitor.com

2009-11-20T08:52:00.001-08:00

Honduras interim leader may step down. Will that help President Zelaya? | csmonitor.com

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The King Quality Nine

2009-11-18T09:06:00.000-08:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - I got here around 1 a.m. last night after a calamitous bus ride from Granada.

I rode with King Quality, which on a sign in Spanish says it provides "the royal elegance of the ground plane." Whatever. It was an hour late picking me up. Nine of us were supposed to meet a connecting bus once we crossed the border into Honduras that would take us to Tegucigalpa, but said bus wasn't at the rendezvous point when we arrived. After half an hour of chewing out the fine King Quality staff, who wanted to leave us there to find and pay for some other means of getting to Tegucigalpa at 10 pm, they did just that. Nine of us stuck in the middle of nowhere, about two hours from Tegucigalpa, stuck in the parking lot of the Hotel Oassis. Guess who the only gringo was?

We were there for an hour and a half, maybe two, until finally some of the guys talked this man with a big truck into hauling all of us up through the mountains. Two other guys decided they'd just rent a car. I threw the most into the pot for us to get out of there, so they insisted I take a seat inside, where there was room for three passengers. The other four, all of whom fortunately had jackets, huddled down in our luggage in the back and then we were off.

I got to my hotel around 1 am, but woke up in a pretty good mood this morning. Traveling around always puts me in a good mood, especially since the climate is much more temperate in Tegucigalpa compared to Granada's inferno.

If anything has ever taught me that time is money, it's been working freelance. With that said, look at the time, adios.

Back to Honduras

2009-11-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, I've been given the opportunity to do more freelance and head back to Tegucigalpa for a few weeks to cover the elections in Honduras. It should be a good experience for me as a reporter and just as an outsider getting to watch this crucial moment in that country's history unfold. It also means I'm headed back into an unending chorus of car horns and smog, but I think Tegucigalpa had actually grown on me by the time it was all said and done in October. Hotel Granada, Room 5, here I come again.

My bus leaves at 10:30 am Tuesday morning, and by all estimates it should take me 10 hours to get to Tegucigalpa (which means "Silver Hill" in the former native tongue.)

Adventure!

Fridays with Vindell

2009-11-15T20:23:00.000-08:00

Bamaragua note: I have never read the book that I just referenced in the title of this blog entry. I have considered it though.

My conversation teacher Karen has been bringing in a radio journalist friend named Pedro Vindell to speak with me the last two Fridays. Pedro is in his 60s, can speak at a rate that's almost painful for a non-Nicaraguan to try and keep up with, and unlike most journalists wears his colors on his sleeve. When I met him his small eyes greeted me from under the shade of a baseball cap bearing the image of Che Guevara, and he wore a T-shirt with the image of Sandino, the symbolic torch of a revolution that would be waged under his name 40 years after his death. Vindell was a student of Marxism well before the Sandinista revolution, he even went to Russia to study it, and took up arms alongside the Sandinistas early in the 1970s. He was captured by the Somoza dictatorship on two occasions and faced months of torture in prisons, including the ole electrodes to the genitals trick, before he was sent into house arrest. Some fellow revolutionaries helped him sneak out though, and soon enough he was back in the mountains near Esteli fighting against the dictatorship. When the war was over he became a founding member of El Nuevo Diario, a left-leaning national newspaper that still competes with the equally popular and more right-leaning La Prensa. He also worked for the official Sandinista newspaper La Barricada, which Salman Rushdie once fairly described as "the worst newspaper I've ever read."

Before I continue I think I should lay down my take on the revolution here, which ended July 19, 1979 when Somoza fled, taking all the reserves in the Central Bank with him, and the Sandinistas marched into Managua to take the capital without a fight. It led to years of counter-revolution by guerrillas openly funded by the U.S. government and former President Ronald Reagan, who was hands down the most malicious president Latin America as a whole ever had to deal with. Of all the horrible acts committed by the dictators this region has suffered through, a number of them propped up by the U.S. government, the things Ronald Reagan personally saw done to Latin America throughout the 1980s ranks right up there with the slimiest of them all. Cheers to the great Republican hero.

The Contras never seemed to have much direction. Their philosophy was sort of a "Hey let's burn ferries and power plants, let's put land mines in the middle of ports and highways, specifically target and terrorize rural communities, and if they fear us enough, fuck, maybe we could make ourselves president!" They were trained in Honduras, and funded by the U.S. They had such little support around Nicaragua that the Sandinista government adopted a policy of distributing AK-47s to families throughout the country no matter what their political persuasion was. That's how confident they were in their widespread support, and the policy paid off. But the war destroyed Nicaragua's economy, left thousands more dead, and created a tired populace that knew if it voted the Sandinistas out and elected a candidate openly backed by the U.S., there would finally be peace, and that's just what happened in 1990. The Sandinistas were never what they were painted to be by the media or the politicians in the U.S. They weren't radical communists, they were socialists, and even that's a loose usage of the term. But there was too much hysteria over the idea of "another Cuba" after a tired and abused people overthrew a very real dictator, and Henry Kissinger and Reagan and Bush and the CIA and the whole gang of cowboys saw to it that Nicaragua would "do as we say," which is what the U.S. ambassador literally told some top Nicaraguan officials one time.

The newest twist, and tragedy, in Nicaragua's story is that Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista revolutionary leader re-elected president after almost 20 years of Liberal Party rule, is using more and more underhanded tactics to preserve his power. He had a Sandinista supreme court remove the ban on consecutive re-elections, used fraud to steal numerous municipal elections for this party in 2008, and has a paid army of small-time thugs who break opposition protests. Anyone who travels the highways in Nicaragua also notices a strange trend, that every light post or bridge is colored red and black, the colors of the Sandinistas. There's less and less space between the interests of one party and the power of a "unified" government. The revolution that rooted out the beast is itself growing claws and salivating.

This has caused some important revolutionary leaders to part ways with Ortega and found a separate Sandinista party, but not Vindell. He speaks of Ortega with the same look of sugary sweet admiration a child may have for his mother. But at least he doesn't completely sugarcoat his reaction to the administration's slow move towards dictatorship. Those small-time Sandinista thugs who attacked me in front of the U.S. embassy would say Ortega not facing term limits means "the people can now decide who they think is best to run the country." Vindell's reaction to the decision, when I asked him about it, was, "I love it. It means we'll be in power for at least 40 more years."

I try to talk to him more about journalism because I can tell he gets uncomfortable after a while of questioning him on how he could support the government's outlandish acts, but I can't help it. I've been mesmerized by the political situation here ever since I was stared down by that mob of thugs masquerading as genuine protesters, the fire of immunity from the Sandinista police forces flickering in their eyes in front of this lone gringo, whose ambassador dared say that he was "troubled" by the supreme court's decision on reelections. I could almost hear the embers bursting. Those people didn't have the first clue, Vindell is well-educated on what's happening, and it takes a very strange if not equally dangerous attribute to go along happily with what you know is a subversion of everything your revolution once stood for. Or maybe winning the war on paper took enough of his soul and body to not complain anymore afterwards.

I stepped out onto the second floor balcony of my Spanish school last Friday to take a break after we'd wrapped up our talk. A breeze picked up and my sweaty forehead thanked it. Then I saw Vindell pass by under me on his dusty bike, peddling slowly, waving at an old friend or two also strolling gently by the horses and carriages in Granada's central park. He looked completely at peace, more with the air of a cow chewing grass in the shade than a man in denial that his country is slowly unraveling once again.

Pierre Sendero: Waltzing

2009-11-08T00:19:00.000-08:00

The moon shone through the clouds like a dying candle dripping wax over Granada's potholed streets. Beneath it a song of ex-patriots, international students, others with a dime to waste wailed on and on about their respective consequences in a drunken tune the privileged couldn't hear. And in the shadows stood the whores and the crackheads providing backup, snapping their fingers, blowing kisses, whispering, hissing. An audience of colonial architecture wiped the tears and the sweat from its face in helpless silence. And there I was, Pierre Sendero, out of cigarettes, out of patience, out of words, wishing something would end this charade and put all of us out of our misery.

Gettin' busy

2009-11-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

Since I've "reached my destination," whatever that means, I'm going to drop the datelines on these blog entries unless I'm making a post from outside Granada.

This post brought to you by exhaustion, frustration and anxiety. The breakfast of champions.

I feel like I've done a lot of everything and a lot of nothing since I've arrived here. I'm behind on my blog writing, my journal writing, my journalistic writing and my PR writing.

PR writing?

Yes. I signed up to volunteer with a local volunteering organization named La Esperanza. Originally I was interested in helping teach English in local schools, but it's in the middle of the semester right now and when I told them I'm a journalist they immediately wanted to use my experience with writing to help publicize them outside of Nicaragua.* So I've gone to a few volunteer meetings and met some very nice people in the last week, but so far I'm still not sure what I'm going to produce for them and how I'll distribute it. I'm excited about it though. It's my first venture into PR writing and maybe if I like it and produce something good I could try to do it for a bigger organization, as long as it doesn't involve working alongside one single PR hack I've ever interviewed in my life ever. There's a few exceptions to that, but I don't have time for shout-outs.

I'm working on a story right now about how cuts to the national budget are making public funding for higher education almost non-existent, prompting students to take to the streets for protests that would make members of Students for a Democratic Society wet their pants. Burning tires, flaming effigies and home-made mortars are a theme in the streets of Managua whenever this time of the year comes around. These kids mean business. My biggest hurdle with this story is getting a single government official on the phone pertinent to this situation to talk to me and give me numbers about this year's budget cuts. You have to call people again and again and again in Nicaragua to get any kind of response. You even have to ask why someone isn't in the office, because a lot of times a secretary will say "So and so isn't here, but give me your number and he'll call you right back" without mentioning that he's not in the office because he's actually out of the country for a month. When you do get someone on the phone, it's like hearing a broken record. Everybody, even the students, have a party line on this issue. If your question reaches beyond what they've memorized, they'll just as soon repeat what they already told you and act like it's good enough for at least 1/2 a point on the quiz I'm giving them.

So who knows when I'll finish that ~~fucking~~ thing. It's making me more and more testy as my deadline approaches. That and the fact I'm having trouble understanding Nicaraguans more than any other nationality I've met on this trip. They speak fast, there's a lot of slang and they drop a lot of letters randomly in their speech. It can be especially complicated when I'm talking to someone on the phone. For that reason I've signed up for two hours a day of one on one conversation classes here in Granada. My first class was today, we had a pleasant conversation about Granada and I understood my teacher perfectly, but that's because she spoke like a normal person. I told her I need these conversations to go faster and with a lot more street dialect thrown in. We'll see how tomorrow goes. I'll take these classes for at least a week and if I still haven't improved my Nicaraguan Spanish maybe I'll just pay a crackhead on the street to ramble at me for two hours a day (though they already do that for free.) That would do the trick.

So like I said, I'm finding ways to keep myself busy and yet somehow not getting a whole lot done so far. Part of it also is that Granada is just a very calm and attractive (and often scorching hot) place to waste the days away in a hammock under a coconut tree with the fan blowing on you. I haven't had any desire to get out of the city yet, though I do at least want to visit the volcanic island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua as well as San Juan del Sur on the Pacific and the more colonial Leon to the north. A trip to Costa Rica to see my old Tico Times editora Meg Yamamoto and amiga superior Gaby Diaz might also be necessary (OK, so I do have time for shout-outs.)

Mitad y mitad es suficiente.

*The asterisk was to let you fine readers know that telling people you're a journalist is a lot like telling someone you're a lawyer or a tax collector. It's something you avoid mentioning at all costs for a variety of reasons.

In Nicaragua, Sandinista mob attacks U.S. Embassy

2009-10-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

In reporting this story I was swarmed by a mob of Sandinista youth getting out of my taxi. They grabbed at my arms and my clothes, surrounded me and wouldn't let me walk, and launched a verbal tirade full of friendly phrases like "FUERA YANQUI!" (Get out Yankee!) as others in the crowd fired mortars at the U.S. embassy. When they wouldn't let me through I just engaged them and started trying to interview them, but none of them had the balls to talk on the record and the crowd around me dispersed one by one when I held out my arms with notebook in hand and said "Anyone here want to give me their name?" They just hung their heads. The rest of my time there the protesters sort of stared at me with this confusion as to why this gringo actually wanted to know what they thought and why they hadn't yet beaten me into the ground with their bats and sticks. I got out unscathed, and maybe an hour later the riot police showed up and tear-gassed the whole show.

By Mike Faulk and Tim Rogers
Nica Times Staff

MANAGUA – The streets of Nicaragua's capital once again became an unruly mob scene Thursday as roving bands of masked Sandinista youth, party fanatics and state workers took to the streets to protest what they claim is “U.S. interventionism” in their country's internal political affairs.

A group of several hundred Sandinistas protested aggressively outside the U.S. Embassy, launching mortars at the embassy building and spray painting anti-U.S. and pro-Sandinista graffiti on embassy property. Vandals, many of whom were bussed in for the protest, broke embassy security cameras, exterior lighting and attempted to destroy the signage for U.S. Consular Services.

Nicaraguan police assigned to protect the embassy stood by watching and didn't intervene, even when protesters spray painted the embassy walls next to where they were leaning.

In other parts of the capital, streets were blocked by similar protesters in several points in the city, prompting the United Nations to issue a warning to its employees to avoid affected areas.

“Death to the yanquis! Death to the empire!” screamed one Sandinista Youth leader into a microphone outside the U.S. Embassy. Others yelled revolutionary slogans once used against the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s.

Protesters –many of whom were masked and some wielding sticks, bats or rocks – demanded the ouster of U.S. Ambassador Robert Callahan in response to a speech he gave Oct. 28 to the Nicaraguan-American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM), in which he reiterated the U.S. government's concerns over the state of democracy in Nicaragua.

In his speech to the business chamber Wednesday afternoon, Callahan questioned the controversial ruling by Sandinista magistrates in the Supreme Court to overturn a constitutional ban on consecutive reelection and clear the way for President Daniel Ortega to run again in 2011 (NT, Oct. 30).

“From our point of view, the Supreme Court acted improperly and with unusual speed, in secret, with the participation judges from only one political movement and without any public debate or discussion,” Callahan said. “We think that an issue of such importance and concern for the future of Nicaragua's democracy deserves due deliberation and analysis.”

The Sandinistas responded furiously.

“That gringo can't tell us what to do,” said Andres Castillo, one of the Sandinista protesters outside the embassy Thursday afternoon.

“Let Nicaragua resolve Nicaragua's problems,” said another protester, Silvia Reyes. “This is the restitution of the rights of the people,” she said of Ortega's re-election, repeating the party line verbatim.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman declined to comment on the violence. But AMCHAM president Roger Arteaga told The Nica Times that the ambassador had called him to tell him what had happened and warn him that AMCHAM might also be targeted for similar vandalism.

AMCHAM responded by sending its staff home for the day and talking with police.

Arteaga, meanwhile, lamented the violence and the increasingly instability of Nicaragua.

“Attacking the U.S. Embassy is not going to resolve the problems of Nicaragua,” he said. “When ideas run out, the only thing left is force. And this government has run out of ideas.”

At Night in Granada

2009-10-29T00:13:00.000-07:00

GRANADA, Nicaragua – Monday I sat sweaty and exhausted in the back of a rickety old school bus two and a half months after boarding a Greyhound in Mobile, the sun setting behind me, its rays pouring in through open windows making the entire bus an explosive shade of orange. I closed my eyes, my memories played out the same way those mountains and all the ones before them scrolled past, bumping my way into the Granada city limits, a hundred faces, moments and emotions all behind me as quickly as I encountered them.

Then my feet were on the ground in Granada. That trip ended, another one began.

So this is my third night here, I’ve written one short article (about Honduras, naturally) and in the morning I’m headed to Managua to cover a student protest over budget cuts that will affect education funding. My first two days have been tranquilo, just wandering the city, running errands, getting adjusted. I really like the house I’m staying in here with Blake, which you can see pictures of and other spots I stopped at in Nicaragua over the weekend on my way down from Tegucigalpa here.

How do I properly reflect on the journey here? First of all, it doesn’t feel like one single trip. It’s been two and a half months, seems more like a year and yet feels like it only took a week to blow by. Every new town had new faces, I was hearing new stories and telling my story all over again. I’m not entirely the same person I was when I left, nor am I entirely the same person I was in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. I’m not trying to quantify this growth in terms of political boundaries, a rose by any other name and all that. Maybe Simon & Garfunkel put it best when they said

I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song
I’m twenty-three now but I won’t be for long
Time hurries on
And the leaves that are green turn to brown

Tonight I’m just caught between beginnings and endings and Spanish tiles. Sometimes it feels like the world only gets less certain the more I familiarize myself with it. The inevitable doesn’t come out from under its shroud at my convenience. Enjoying life is all about detachment from that reality and exercising precision with every other cognition.

Standoff over Zelaya's return continues as negotiations stall

2009-10-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

This article appears in the Oct. 21 daily online edition of The Tico Times.

By Mike Faulk
Nica Times Staff

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Another day, another proposal rejected in the negotiations between representatives of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and interim President Roberto Micheletti.

The renewed talks all but broke down Monday.

In responding to a bid last week from the Zelaya camp for Congress to decide whether the deposed leader will finish his term of office, Micheletti's negotiators proposed that they decide Zelaya's fate after seeking official opinions from Congress and the Supreme Court. Zelaya's negotiators soundly rejected that offer in fewer than two hours.

“That proposal is insulting,” said Víctor Meza, Zelaya's top negotiator.

Meza said Zelaya's team had no counterproposal and instead demanded the interim government make a better offer than the previous two. Micheletti negotiators had previously offered to let the same Supreme Court that ordered Zelaya's arrest on June 28 decide whether he should return to power.

Meza said both proposals were “offensive.”

“The dialogue isn't broken, but it's being obstructed,” he said.

Before Meza issued his response, Micheletti negotiator Vilma Morales stressed the need to take all the time that's needed in negotiations to reach a solution. She said she opposed Zelaya's attempts to exert pressure and set deadlines for negotiations.

Zelaya temporarily suspended talks in reaction to Micheletti's first proposal before they resumed Monday. On numerous occasions he has set and subsequently pushed back deadlines for an agreement to be reached before his team will pull out of talks.

“Deadlines don't work with dialogue,” Morales said.

Armando Aguilar, another Micheletti negotiator, said Monday's offer is the best compromise between the two original proposals.

“They didn't accept our proposal, we didn't accept theirs,” Aguilar said. “So the third option is to put the decision back under the control of this commission.”

Meza accused Micheletti of using the negotiations as a political instrument to win time as the countdown to the Nov. 29 presidential election continues.

Both commissions say they're in agreement on every issue between them except Zelaya's return to power. Zelaya already said he will give up his campaign for a constitutional assembly to rewrite the 1982 constitution, which critics saw as an attempt to abolish presidential term limits.

“Mr. Zelaya conceded all he could to help dialogue,” Meza said.

Of freelance and soccer

2009-10-20T16:49:00.000-07:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Yep, I'm still here. Three and a half weeks and counting.

My internship has already started and I've been filing stories for both the Nica Times and Tico Times, the latter I interned for in 2007. It's been fun reporting from here, but sometimes aggravating because it's one of those experiences that reminds me just how young I am and how much more I have to learn in this profession.

I spent all day yesterday at the Clarion Hotel where negotiations are going on between the Zelaya and Micheletti camps. They agree on everything except Zelaya's return to power and the way that might happen. It's painfully obvious that Zelaya's return to the presidency is the last thing Micheletti's people want, and the offers they've made for who gets to decide Zelaya's return (either the Supreme Court that ordered his arrest or Micheletti himself) have only infuriated the former president's already testy delegation of negotiators.

I set up my laptop in the hotel bar and filed stories from there while waiting for negotiators to come down to the lobby. As it got later in the afternoon and into the evening some of the maybe 50 other journalists trickled into the bar as well and started getting beers, vodka tonics, rum and cokes, etc. Bars are like candy shops for journalists, even more so when they're on the clock. All of a sudden a line of four journalists at the bar sat up straight and turned their heads as nervously as meerkats toward the lobby, where the rest of our herd was out of their seats and running for the conference room where it was just announced Micheletti's people would be speaking in a few minutes. I wound up getting near the front because one of Micheletti's negotiators walked slowly on his cell phone while journalists piled on top of each other behind him to try and get an exclusive. I slipped past them all and got in line behind the row of TV cameras already set up, my digital recorder and notepad pressed together between my fingers while I used my right hand to take notes. When the negotiators began talking a lot of the Honduran journalists wouldn't shut up, shouting commands at the people speaking "like Look here! Turn the volume up!" until suddenly all the journalists were shouting at each other to shut up.

Living with the herd is a vastly different experience from being a reporter in Anniston, where the circus sideshow act they call amayor and city council will call a "press conference" even though they know the only reporter who will show up is the one who is forced to cover them. That would be Megan Nichols, god bless her, who ought to be working for The New York Times.

It's definitely an experience that toughens me up though. Normally a story hangs on my ability to get someone on the phone at the right time, now it's an honest to Buddha strength and endurance test. Two hours later Zelaya's people showed up to reject the new offer by Micheletti's people, and a similar "running of the journalists" went down.

Barring any big developments in the negotiations, which Zelaya's top guy says are in a state of "obstruction" until Micheletti makes an honest proposal, I should be in Granada by this weekend. I've made money on this freelance venture, but in all I think I'll barely break even, or be slightly in the red, when it comes to money spent vs. money earned in Honduras. But hey, I didn't plan on making any money in Nicaragua either. It's all about the experience.

I also got to be here for when Honduras' soccer team qualified for the World Cup. It's been more than 20 years since they've qualified for the World Cup, and Micheletti decided it was so huge that he made the following day a national holiday. That night, like when one dog howls and more jump in, the honks from cars and trucks and buses full of gleeful Hondurans rose and rose into the night air along with bottle rocket bursts and gun shots. The USA qualified for the World Cup a few days before that, and from what I read there's no evidence of a similar celebration.

I went down to the street and stood outside with Cesar, one of the desk clerks at the Hotel Granada who has become all too familiar with their resident gringo journalist of nearly four weeks, and soaked up the atmosphere. Huge waves of people with their flags up and shirts off came rolling down the street shouting and clapping for joy. Honduras qualified after beating El Salvador that night 1-0 and by the U.S. not losing to Costa Rica in a 2-2 tie the same night. One group of teenagers was running by me when one guy pointed and said "Hey! United States! Gracias! Usa! Usa!" (Usa [oo-sa] in case you didn't get it, is the Spanish pronunciation of U.S.A. when you combine the letters as a word.)

So that's my story. It's dinner time in Tegucigalpa, there's a cold front moving through so it actually feels like fall in the South right now, and I feel like going for a walk. Take care chavos.

Tegucigalpa daze

2009-10-13T16:48:00.001-07:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - I'm not sure where the time has gone in the hodge podge of decaying Lego blocks that make up this town. I think I fell out of that traveler's mindset when I started working again, then quickly developed a daily routine that consisted of little excitement and a lot of work that led to stories people were already paying the Associated Press for. I’ve also been suffering from allergies and a small bout with the stomach flu.

Plus I've spent way too much time the last two days with my head buried in “The Shining” by Stephen King, which I just finished. Not recommended reading for someone trapped in a decrepit old hotel all alone. Come take your medicine, doc.

I’m not all alone, per say. There’s a few couples here, and up until yesterday a family of about 10 Somali Muslims traveling through Latin America was also here. There were three young guys in the group, whose names I regretfully don’t remember, who would occasionally come up to me on the second floor balcony where I steal Internet and talk a little in English about traveling. They finished every sentence with a big bright smile, then stood around awkwardly reading over my shoulder. Sometimes one would just walk up smiling, not saying anything, put his hand on my shoulder and read my laptop screen for a second. I would look up at him and he was still smiling. Then just walk away. It was too amusing and harmless for me to protest.

No, I didn’t tell them that a guy I went to high school with is currently helping terrorists fight their government.

I finished a story for The Miami Herald today, but I have no idea when it will be published. Blake, who left Tegucigalpa for Granada today, hooked me up with that contact.

I’m sad I didn’t get to do much outside of Tegucigalpa aside from one day trip to La Tigra National Park, but I’d say I’ve had an authentic experience. Barring any big developments with the drama surrounding the coup here, I’m heading to Granada on Friday. I’ll have arrived just a little more than two months after leaving Mobile.

After I finished “The Shining” I put it up and grabbed a new book out of my backpack, this one a historical study titled “Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle” by Thomas W. Walker, a professor at Ohio University. Here are the first two sentences:

“Located at the geographic center of Central America, with Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south, Nicaragua is the largest country in the region. Even so, its 57,143 square miles of surface and its population of 4.9 million make it only slightly larger, in both respects, than the U.S. state of Alabama (with 52,423 square miles and 4.5 million inhabitants.)”

Bamaragua.

Protestors mark 100 days since Zelaya’s ouster

2009-10-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

By Mike Faulk
Nica Times Staff

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Oscar Flores needed no reminder that Monday marked 100 days since former President Manuel Zelaya was forced into exile at gunpoint. He’s kept a tally and hoisted it over his head at every protest every day since then.

“We’re tired of waiting,” said Flores, 52, during Monday’s protest in front of the U.S. embassy here. “It’s time to restore democracy.”

Monday also signified the 100th day in office for interim President Roberto Micheletti, who lifted his executive order that for one week gave broad powers to the national military and police in limiting freedom of speech, assembly and the press.

Zelaya’s supporters said they were protesting in front of the U.S. embassy to encourage the government there to take stronger steps toward ensuring Zelaya’s return to the presidency.

“We’re asking our North American brothers to support us in the face of this dictatorship,” said university student William Bardales.

The Organization of American States Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza announced over the weekend that he had spoken with Micheletti in recent days to promote dialogue between both sides in the conflict and help return constitutional order to Honduras.

Insulza and other OAS representatives will come to Honduras Wednesday to hold meetings with Zelaya and interim government officials, though at this point it’s unlikely the two sides in the conflict will hold official meetings between each other.

Protests face intimidation, lower turnout following executive limits on free speech

2009-10-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

From the Oct. 2 edition of The Tico Times. For clarification, I am interning for The Nica Times, in Nicaragua, which is owned by the same company that runs The Tico Times, in Costa Rica, which I interned for two years ago.

By Mike Faulk
The Nica Times

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – As many as 1,000 protestors showed up at the Radio Globo station Wednesday morning only to run for cover around 11 a.m. after military officers chased them up the street, threw tear gas at them, beat them with batons and arrested at least 30 people, according to witnesses.

The protest was the biggest yet following Monday’s executive order limiting freedom of speech, assembly and the press by interim President Roberto Micheletti. The turnout at protests by sympathizers of ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has shrunk drastically this week from thousands of people to 500 at most following the decree.

Protestors had blocked one lane of traffic outside Radio Globo but said they weren’t disturbing the peace when military officers moved in.

David Romero, the director of Radio Globo, which officials took off the air Monday following an interview with Zelaya when he asked sympathizers to flock to Tegucigalpa for “one final struggle,” said the military herded the protestors like sheep, surrounded them, then began their assault.

“They attacked without warning,” Romero said. “The protestors didn’t want to fight.”

Cesar Caceres, spokesman for interim President Roberto Micheletti, would only say he didn’t know enough about the incident to confirm what happened. Caceres said the protest had not been given previous approval by the national police.

Under the executive order limiting freedom of assembly, protests of 20 or more participants must be given previous approval by the national police. Caceres said protestors at Radio Globo had not notified police about the rally.

Volunteers for the Resistance Front said more people stayed home this week because they fear retribution from the de facto government, which took power June 28 after Zelaya was arrested by military officials at his home and forced into exile in Costa Rica.

Protests Monday and Tuesday saw only several hundred demonstrators, many of which seemed more pensive than excitable as they stood between two rows of riot police enclosing the street in front of Francisco Morazon Pedagogic University.

Zelaya sympathizer Jose Luis Calix said resistance supporters are staying home for fear of being arrested or beaten, but others aren’t showing up because the government’s closure of pro-Zelaya media has made it harder for them to know where to go.

“We no longer have the right to stay informed,” Calix said. “They’ve done everything they can to keep us in our houses.”

But Caceres says the executive order was imposed to curb violence and prevent further damage to private property as the result of protests the resistance allowed to get out of control.

“Of all the protests leading up to this decree, not one of them was peaceful,” Caceres said Tuesday. “[The Resistance Front] tried to create a sense of terror among the population.”

The National Congress expressed dissatisfaction with the decree Monday, and Micheletti responded in a press conference saying he would take the issue to the Supreme Court and Supreme Elections Tribunal for their opinions on possibly repealing it.

Various international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also condemned Micheletti’s executive order.

National police and military officials continued to use their new broad powers to repress freedom of assembly Wednesday. Tensions were running high among the few who remained outside the radio station following the attack.

“If we were armed, they wouldn’t attack us,” said Oscar Tabora, one of the organizers of the Radio Globo protests. “We’ve almost had enough. The people, we have our own ways of defending ourselves.”

Resistance protestor Maera Medina’s eyes were still watering from the effects of the tear gas. She said police went after protestors indiscriminately.

“They were beating people like they were animals,” Medina said.

Military officers hung around a block away from Radio Globo for about an hour following the attack. The remaining protestors shouted obscenities at them as they boarded government trucks and flew by in a caravan.

The soldiers just smiled and waved.

Caceres said Micheletti is continuing to meet with officials from other branches of the government to decide when he will lift the executive order.

Cesar Murcia, another volunteer for the Resistance Front, said the attack was an abuse of power by the interim government. Murcia said these attempts to discourage protestors aren’t working, despite the fact that very few protestors remained outside Radio Globo.

“We still have conviction and we still have an objective,” Murcia said.

Caceras said Micheletti’s ultimate goal is to keep the country’s political atmosphere stable as the presidential election in November draws near.

Caceres said accusations of Micheletti acting dictatorial are ludicrous.

“He will stay in office until Jan. 27, the end of his term,” Caceres said. “Not one day longer, not one day less. It’s that simple.”

The Great Mind F***

2009-10-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – I don’t know what’s more amazing about this conflict: the fact that both sides are so hypocritical, or that it's hard to find anyone here who will admit it.

Hyperpartisanship seems to be a big part of the culture here in “Tegus.” One either supports the ousted president Manuel Zelaya or the interim president Roberto Micheletti, and being open to any criticism of the side one supports is taken on par with letting someone badmouth their mother. The attitude, especially on the side of Micheletti, is one mainly sparked by all the criticism that has rained down on the country from the international community. They see it as a violation of their sovereignty, as if the world is telling Honduras that it’s not smart enough to handle its own affairs.

And believe me, I know exactly how these people feel where it regards that angle. I am from the South, after all.

But the fact is that Mel Zelaya was a corrupt president known for rampant cronyism and violated direct orders from the Honduran Supreme Court to not move forward with his plan for a constitutional referendum. But instead of putting Zelaya on trial, the coup leaders removed him from office (when the Honduran constitution says a president cannot be removed from office) and then expatriated him and exiled him to Costa Rica (even though the constitution says no Honduran citizen may be expatriated.)

Despite all that Zelaya is at fault for, Micheletti’s interim government has made one mistake after another since taking power and is looking more and more like a dictatorship following his executive order this week severely limiting freedom of speech, the press and assembly. The order, which has been condemned by various human rights groups as well as the National Congress here, grants broad powers to the national police and military in controlling those sympathetic to Zelaya.

At least one radio station and one TV station sympathetic to Zelaya have been shut down this week following the decree. Radio Globo was shut down Monday following a call from Zelaya that all his sympathizers flock to Tegucigalpa for “one final struggle.” Even though he was clearly talking about more protests, the government took that as a call to insurrection and the military was sent in to shut the station down.

As for the news stations that have stayed open, their allegiances are also clear, and none more so than the official government-run TV station. The only commercials they air are a series of maybe five anti-Zelaya, pro-Micheletti that outline the various crimes committed by Zelaya during his tenure. There’s another one that features a prayer for the country and the president that the people can recite at home. Another one assures the Honduran people that the police and military are here to protect them.

Tell that to the protestors and journalists who were herded like sheep, tear-gassed and beaten without warning Wednesday during a protest in front of Radio Globo. I spoke with Micheletti spokesman Cesar Caceres who said the protest hadn’t been registered with the national police, and thus under the decree they had every right to disperse the crowd.

Military-enforced censorship, extreme nationalism and a countrywide call to prayer for the new government; are you noticing a creepy trend here?

Micheletti has gone to very dangerous lengths to suppress the resistance here, and the sad part is that his methods are working. Fewer people turn out to protest, their means of communication have all been shut down and Manuel Zelaya isn’t getting any closer to being reinstated despite demands from the U.N. and Organization of American States.

Micheletti is banking on the elections to save Honduras in the eye of the international community, but even now various countries are saying they won’t recognize the elections. It could become an issue of who gives first, or ultimately there could be a compromise where Zelaya is reinstated for a very small period of time after the elections and the coup leaders are granted immunity from any retribution he might seek. But those are just a few ideas from the endless list of possibilities facing this country caught up in Central America’s worst political crisis in decades. It’s all a waiting game.

As for me, it looks like I’ll be here at least until the middle of next week. I’ve come into a little money from my freelancing but it’s become clear I can’t afford to hang around here indefinitely, plus I have previous obligations coming up in Nicaragua, unless I call off the internship and rename the blog “Bamaduras” or "Tegucialabama." From now on I’ll be making a combination of blog entries and direct posts of the news stories I write from here. Pierre is still somewhere in El Salvador I believe, since he’s not much for politics, but I imagine you can expect to hear from him soon enough as well.

Zelaya sympathizers protest rights crackdown in Honduras

2009-09-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

From the TicoTimes.net daily online edition

By Mike Faulk
Nica Times Staff

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Fewer than 100 protestors organized outside the Globo radio station Tuesday morning to protest the government's closure of the pro-Manuel Zelaya outlet Monday following an executive order limiting rights of free speech around the country.

José Luis Calix, a volunteer for the resistance movement, said the decision by de facto President Roberto Micheletti to close the station was a human rights violation.

"We no longer have the right to stay informed," Calix said.

Andrés Sierra, a fellow protestor, said the de facto government is only interested in silencing dissent instead of promoting dialogue that would end the conflict.

"The resistance media have been shut down, and the media that attack us have been allowed to continue," Sierra said.

Micheletti spokesman César Cáceres insisted outside the de facto president's house Tuesday that the decision to temporarily close Globo was not political, but aimed at preventing more violence from breaking out.

Globo's broadcasts were shut down following an on-air interview with Zelaya Monday in which he called for sympathizers around the country to descend on Tegucigalpa for "one final struggle."

“Of all the protests leading up to this decree, not one of them was peaceful,” Cáceres said. “(The Resistance Front) tried to create a sense of terror among the population.”

The Honduran Congress has called on Micheletti to lift his executive order, a demand the de facto leader seems to be considering. According to Honduran daily La Tribuna, Micheletti promised to discuss the matter with the Supreme Court, the Supreme Elections Tribunal and presidential candidates in order to reach a decision on the decree.

Could Honduras media crackdown backfire?

2009-09-28T12:00:00.001-07:00

My first contribution to The Christian Science Monitor.

Could Honduras media crackdown backfire? | csmonitor.com

I also have some photos up from some events yesterday and today's protest, right here

En Tegus

2009-09-26T23:20:00.000-07:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - "El pueblo Hondureño esta despertando!" Hector, my taxi driver from the bus station, said as we splashed up and down the capital city's potholed streets. "The Honduran people are awakening!"

The resistance is strengthening. Government officials, the engineers of the coup against former president Manuel Zelaya, los golpistas, are committing atrocious acts towards the people and democracy, according to Hector. He flips the radio to Radio Globo 88.7 FM, a pro-Zelaya station, and turns the volume up. Silence. He says the government took 88.7 FM off the air "because they are the only ones who speak the truth!"

This was my welcome party to Honduras. The curfew had already set in by the time I arrived, at 6 p.m., and the only place anyone was driving at that hour was home. He dropped me off at Hotel Granada, a comfy and cheap little place not too far from the city center. I hadn't eaten dinner and didn't realize how early the curfew set in, so I was sitting in my room starving, though comforted by an e-mail from my dad informing me that the Alabama Crimson Tide beat Arkansas 35-7 this afternoon.

Finally I went downstairs to ask the clerk if there was somewhere, anywhere to get some sustenance. He said the convenience store next door was closed but taking walk-up customers. Outside of there I met a young man who's name I didn't catch, but when I said I was hungry he said the restaurant he works for was still open and I followed him to it around the corner. After talking with the guards for a second in front of a retractable fence in front of the establishment, they unlocked it and let me in. I had some gringas and a beer while I watched the bar staff put up a sheet between one half of the bar and the street. People picked up their beers and went behind it, so I decided to follow just as a cop car full of big guys with big guns rolled slowly by.

A Salvadoran man turned Honduran citizen was sitting across from me and leaned over to speak to me in very broken English. I offered to speak in Spanish but he refused. He told me Zelaya is a very corrupt man, a trafficker of narcotics even. He and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez both. Zelaya isn't interested in being returned to power to satisfy the will of the people. He just likes the power. He said the political instability here isn't as bad as the former president would like people to believe.

"I'm from El Salvador. I lived through the war there," he said, pausing, then raising a finger and smiling. "This is not a war."

It's clear to me this city is full of people with opinions who want to be heard. Buildings are spray painted with graffiti in favor of both Zelaya and his replacement, Roberto Micheletti. One TV station airs nothing but the hard government line, saying Zelaya is trying to bring foreign powers in to meddle with Honduran politics, subverting the will of the people, etc. Another channel lets people call in, half of them railing against the golpistas' violations of the constitution and the other half lobbing the same accusations at Zelaya. Both sides are adamant, and it's hard to know who's telling the truth.

It looks like I'm going to get a crack at it though, along with the countless other foreign journalists here. My editor at The Nica Times has already told me he wants me to file something from here this week, and, it's official, I'm going to be The Christian Science Monitor's man on the ground here.

I may be in Tegucigalpa a lot longer than I thought, which is fine with me, because things are happening here. Even the empty streets are buzzing with that intangible that's getting my adrenaline up. I'm meeting up with my eventual roommate and Bloomberg stringer Blake Schmidt tomorrow, and I'm hoping he can help me get caught up to speed on how things have been here. I've got a lot to digest and not much time to do it in. I've got to hit the ground running.

Heading to Honduras

2009-09-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

SAN SALVADOR - Some quick updates folks, as I have to get on a bus to Tegucigalpa in an hour.

The borders are open now, though there's a curfew from 7 or 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. every night. It should take me about six hours to get to the capital. From there I'm not sure where I'll be staying in the city.

My future roommate in Nicaragua is there right now covering the latest happenings for Bloomberg, and I'm hoping to meet up with him tomorrow if not tonight.

I've also put out some feelers for freelance and got a very promising response from The Christian Science Monitor (many thanks to That Trotter Chick for pointing me towards the right people). So next week I'm hoping to once again be a working, and most importantly, paid journalist.

In short, things are heating up after some very lazy and mundane days wandering this city aimlessly. Time to get back to doing the things I love. More updates to come from Tegucigalpa. Take care friends.

What happens in Honduras now stays in Honduras

2009-09-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

SAN SALVADOR - The government of Honduras has closed its borders and airports. It happened after ousted president Manuel Zelaya snuck back into the country with the help of the Brazlian government, causing the de facto government quite a headache.

In case you aren't familiar with the geography, I have to cross Honduras to get to Nicaragua from El Salvador.

So, with about one week left before I'm supposed to be in Nicaragua, what am I going to do? My editor (who helped write the TIME article I just posted about Zelaya) tells me to just wait, and that they can't keep the borders closed for very long. I don't know if that means I'll hang tight in San Salvador, which I just returned to after spending yesterday on the Pacific, or work my way south and hope something happens by the time I'm close to the border. I'm also considering finding someone with a boat to just take me around the Gulf of Fonseco, but I would have to find this hypothetical captain somewhere on the coast near the border and hope he doesn't charge me an arm and a leg.

Until then, I'll be running around San Salvador trying to learn more and maybe finally get a kick out of this big ugly city.

Photo links

2009-09-22T00:14:00.000-07:00

SAN SALVADOR - Where the motto must go something like, "If it ain't American, it ain't shit!" I'm being hard on this metropolitan city, but I've spent two nights in two different parts of town and seen at least one popular American chain restaurant for every local eatery. (And did you know that the Salvadoran currency is actually US dollars? It's true. They call it
dollarization.) I try not to judge a book by its cover, but for the time being I'm going to leave San Salvador on the shelf and head for El Salvador's Pacific Coast tomorrow. The most I've done today is get lunch with a girl from Los Angeles I met on the bus here and some language institute friends of hers. It was cool because we hadn't arranged it. I had just checked into my new hotel and as I stepped outside to look for some lunch I saw her and the group walking right up the street from me.

Such is the life of travelers.

Tomorrow I'm going to Playa Truco, which I think is an hour and a half from here. In the meantime, how about some photos? I know, it's quite exciting. It only took me I don't know how long to get them up. Here are some public links to photos from the trip I've added to Facebook. Enjoy.

Mobile, Ala., to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Guadalajara to the Mexico-Guatemala border

Guatemala

Can't find a phone near the bus stop in El Salvador so...

2009-09-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

SAN SALVADOR = Happy birthday Dad.

Arturo ama lava

2009-09-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

ANTIGUA, Guatemala - My trip to the Pacaya Volcano here started out with a story about a kidnapping in Fez, Morocco.

Chris from Berlin was traveling Morocco sometime last year with a friend when it happened to them. They had made some seemingly friendly and well-connected local friends over their few days there, and one day agreed to meet them at their house. Not long after they were inside they were told all exits had been closed off and that the two were now being held for ransom.

The two Moroccans didn't get physical, pointed no weapons at them and apparently handled the whole thing less like kidnappers and more like a restaurant manager detaining two people who couldn't pay their bill. Their biggest weapon was being Moroccan and the fear Chris and his friend had of who the police would believe if they chose to fight their way out. After a whole day of negotiating they finally gave the guys almost everything they had on them and were let go. They left Fez immediately.

The story left me pensive for the rest of the hour-long ride in a packed van of international tourists. I was in Morocco when this happened. But it's not just that, his experience is something a well-intentioned and overly trusting traveler could be forced to go through anywhere in the world. I've gone to strangers' houses before and never once felt like I was in danger, but you just can't know. When it works out it just adds that much to your experience. In fact, anytime someone can trust a stranger and it works out well, it's very reaffirming for one's world view about people in general. Maybe one just needs to keep in mind that the world isn't as mean or kind as he or she thinks it is.

Speaking of mean, I had to rudely ignore a bunch of very sad-looking children at the base of the trail to the volcano, all running up to us trying to sell walking sticks hacked from tree limbs. I said no to the first stick, and the kid holds up another one, which is exactly the same, and when I say no to that, he holds up the third one, also just like the others. He and the other 10 children did the same thing with every tourist there. Men also line up at the trail with horses, which they try to sell as "taxis," and then follow groups up the hill waiting for someone to fall or twist an ankle and request a horse. For that reason the entire trail is covered in horse shit.

Our guide was a very enthusiastic Guatemalan man named Arturo. He's native to the community where the trail started and said a lot has changed since he was a child. That's because the earth moves, spews and trickles there 24/7. The uphill (er, volcano) hike would take about an hour, half would be through forest and the other half on an empty black mountainside shrouded in gray clouds.

As soon as we were out of the woods it was like being on another planet. Black ash and rock everywhere, a sheer drop off on the right side of the walking trail and too much cloud cover all around to know how far or just where the drop would take someone. There was no sky, and somewhere in front of us you could here what sounded like large metal gears grinding slowly in the mist. We had to step over a line of jagged black rocks that interrupted the trail, Arturo said the result of a bigger unexpected eruption several years ago.

Soon we saw a red glow in the fog, a few minutes later we were standing in front of a slow moving red blob that shed steaming hot rocks left, right and forward. The clouds cleared overhead and we could see the smoking cylindrical peak of Pacaya.

I took my picture just a few feet away from the blob, having to run back after it was taken when it spat a hot glowing rock that rolled downhill towards where I was standing. We went around it after that and climbed up the side on a pile of tiny brittle volcanic rocks that sank under me and crunched as if I were walking in a bowl of cereal. At the top was a flowing river of lava, and some friends of mine in the tour group proceeded to cook marshmallows over it and gave me one. We sat there for maybe half an hour, some people made sandwiches, some people stood around throwing rocks at the lava river, and one German guy peed on it.

The clouds had gone elsewhere most of that time, but came swooping back up the mountainside just as it was time for us to walk down. The sun set quickly, I didn't have a flashlight, and it resulted in a long trip back down the mountain full of nearly disastrous falls and my feet covered in horse shit as a souvenir. At one point I was even separated from the group and wasn't sure where the front of the group was until I heard the sweet lifesaving music come from Arturo's cellphone speaker

Billie jean is not my lover
Shes just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son

When it comes to nature tourism, few things are better to me, more thought provoking or awe-inspiring than volcanoes. It's the living, breathing, moving earth. A perfect visual of the natural change our planet has undergone and how it continues to push forward. I've seen a few before but this was the first time I was ever able to get close to the lava.

I also couldn't help but be a little proud that my trip up the side of this volcano started in Alabama, even if that girl from Michigan (who hasn't asked me anything else about myself but continues to offer me a laundry list of tips/orders on how to be a good traveler, since I must be inexperienced at this) thinks it's funny. Everything I have done or will do on this trip started in Alabama. Bamaragua.

Stale brains and butter

2009-09-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

ANTIGUA, Guatemala – I’ve found comfort, friendship and more reasons to love Guatemala ever since I arrived here, which was far too long ago for me to still be hanging around Antigua. I planned on leaving today, but couldn’t decide where my route leads to next. Que sera sera.

The drawback of busing from Alabama to Nicaragua is that one can get tired of moving so much, especially when there’s so many things out the window you want to stop and see. Guatemala has far too much to offer for the time I have here, and apparently it’s all gone to this colonial town and its thriving international community. Chela, Semuc Champay, Rio Dulce, Tikal, etc. They’ll have to wait for some other adventure.

Speaking of adventure, I’ve done most of it at night here, then spent my days laying around, walking lazily to artisan markets and then coming back for more napping before hitting the streets again after dusk. For example, things got wild at Café No Se last night following a really good pianist/traveler's rendition of Billy Joel's "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," the whole thing ending with two British guys, two Canadians, a girl from Connecticut and myself storming the fountain in central park at 3 am and getting strange looks from stray dogs. Yes, there are photos.

But with that night now gone and over and my brain seemingly going stale on this pillow, all I can do is lay here and play Michael Jackson for the maids in my dorm room right now at the Gato Negro Hostel. They said it’s musica bonita.

Some girl from Michigan who just checked into the room chuckled far too hard and for far too long after I told her I’m from Alabama. The only other time I met someone from Michigan traveling was in Costa Rica, and he wouldn’t talk to me at first because, as he later revealed in a disparaging lecture on everything that was wrong with my Fatherland, he expected me to just be some redneck. He was from a city where they have better standards than the ilk of Alabama, called Detroit, one of the most prosperous, safest and least corrupt cities in the world. Its nickname is The Equality City.

The funny thing is that everyone chuckles or looks at me with great surprise when I say I’m from Alabama, be they from Michigan or Israel or Belgium. There’s usually something they want to say, but if it’s not Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” then it’s something bad and they just bite their tongue. You can’t judge someone for his or her race, sex, disability or social class, but it’ll never go out of fashion to mock someone for where they’re from, and no one has to deal with that on a global scale more than people from the South.

The girl from Michigan just informed me, sort of like a tour guide would say to people stopping too often to take pictures, “It’s going to rain tonight, so sitting in bed while it’s dry probably isn’t a good idea.” Who the fuck are you? Now she’s barking something about what I need to know if I cross the border into another country. Thank you so much for this unsolicited advice, I almost want to show you what I’m writing so you can know the exclusive, refined and intellectual group of followers of Bamaragua will see what a pompous pile of shame you are.

I had set out today to write a colorful essay about my hike up the Pacaya Volcano the other day, but this turned into something else didn’t it? I’ll tell you about that later today, maybe after I decide where I’m going next. I’m at a cozy yet precarious part of my adventure. I need to be in Granada no later than two weeks from now, but I’ve easily covered three-fourths or more the distance between there and Mobile, where I started. I could even take a grueling overnight bus to Granada from Antigua if I wanted. Most likely tomorrow I’ll head across the border to El Salvador and hit the capital, San Salvador. Either that or head northeast to Honduras and spend a few days at the ruins in Copan.

Time to find someone in the street and get me a luncheon.

Land of volcanoes

2009-09-12T23:54:00.000-07:00

PANAJACHEL, Guatemala - Mexico ate my dust around lunchtime. I'm now sitting pretty on the balcony of Mario's Rooms overlooking a dark and empty Santander Street, hungry rain dogs howling up the block.

I stayed in San Cristobal for an extra day just because I had hardly done anything with the constant downpours (it's the rainy season, you know) and something about that town just makes a traveler enjoy being there, even in solitude. I met a poet from Chicago named Quinten Kirk outside what became my favorite cafe (the city is full of them thanks to all the coffee plantations on the outskirts), Cafe Yik; ate some pad thai served up by a Mexican-born Indian Hindi; walked up the side of a small mountain; and commissioned a van to take me to Antigua, Guatemala today.

I was picked up at 8 am and took the van with eight other random travelers who had all booked tickets to random spots across north and central Guatemela. On the way Matt from England and two Hollanders were talking about a place we would pass three hours prior to Antigua called Panajachel, on Lake Atitlan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_de_Atitlán), and how gorgeous and fun it is. When we got here I told the van driver to just drop me off in the middle of Panajachel, and that's what happened. I think I spent 9 hours total traveling from San Cristobal, with about an hour of that being checking in and out at the border. My hotel/hostel/hospedaje is just called Mario's Rooms, and that's really all it has, aside from this balcony, where I may or may not be picking up the wireless service of another nearby business.

A few things I can already note in difference between Mexico and Guatemala:

1. I don't feel as safe here, and most of it I think has to do with Panajachel. The more I read the more I learn this is the most touristy town on the lake, and that explains why I can't walk five blocks without 12 different people following me either trying to sell me everything you could imagine or trying to con me out of my lunch money. I really can't stand being such a huge target. I came here for a cultural experience, not for the locals to treat me like a piece of meat wrapped in money. I finally had enough during dinner when this old Mayan woman (yeah, probably the least deserving of the persistent salesmen to get pissed at) wouldn't leave my table and started wrapping her scarves around me. I slapped the table, leaned in, looked her in the eyes and said "Dejame en paz, por favor!" or, "Leave me in peace." She looked pretty dejected after that so I said "I'm sorry, good luck." I can't wait to just get out on the lake tomorrow.

2. The beer here is not as good as it is in Mexico. This is pretty simple. Gallo, one of the most popular beers, meaning Rooster in English, is god awful. Cabro, another one, meaning Goat, is tolerable.

3. Mexico was cheaper, which is surprising given its relative stability compared to the government and economy here.

4. I do like Guatemala already, even though I keep bringing up Mexico like the girl that got away.

It's very late. Even the dogs have gone to bed. Buenas noches.

The next frontier

2009-09-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico – That’s a mouthful, but it's got a nice history behind it. Fortunately the people here just refer to this lovely colonial town as San Cristobal (http://www.gonomad.com/destinations/0601/sancristobal.html),.

The second part of the name is noteworthy. It comes from Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican monk and bishop of the Chiapas state from the mid-to-late 1500s, who fought much of his life to preserve the rights of Mexico’s indigenous population. Learn more about him here: http://www.lascasas.org/. Still interested? The city was also one of the launching points of the Zapatista rebellion in 1994, http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/mike/mexico1994.htm.

I also came here because I heard it’s beautiful and colonial and it’s less than four hours away from the Guatemalan border. This is my last stop in Mexico. Tomorrow I’m hoping to make it as far as Antigua, Guatemala, but I’ll have to find a bus to the border, probably get across the border on foot, then find a bus terminal that will hopefully have what I’m looking for. I meant to get to the bus station today to figure this out, but it’s been raining like hell.

I thought sweat would be the theme of my trip but so far it’s been the rain. Day plans got wrecked in Mexico City and Oaxaca as well because the rain just wouldn’t stop. The metro rail actually flooded one day after I left Mexico City, http://mexicometro.org/news/. Then some Bolivian religious extremist hijacked an airplane and landed it in the Distrito Federal (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8247472.stm), but I don’t think it had anything to do with it being the rainy season.

I always miss the crazy stuff it seems, except for that time a terrorist strangled me eight years ago (http://bamaragua.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-relation-to-suspected-american.html). I got an email from Andrea Elliott of The New York Times after the Press-Register reported on my incident with Omar Hammami. I actually thought the PR article was kind of weak, so I'm not going to bother posting it, but more importantly, you heard correct, I was interviewed by The New York Times. I set up a time in Oaxaca to call Ms. Elliott in a wooden phone booth at a calling center a few blocks down from the hostel I shared with my Australians. A gave the reporter's cell phone number to the woman at the front desk, who then dialed it and told me to wait in the phone booth. Once Ms. Elliott (notice my clever use of NY Times-style attribution on second reference) answered on speaker phone, the woman motioned for me to pick up the phone in my booth and it transferred. I've made a lot of international calls, and none have ever been that complicated. It was actually a fun interview, we spoke for maybe 30 minutes, and we talked everything from terrorism to Arby's roast beef sandwiches. Her article on Omar should run sometime in the next few days.

It’s incredibly cold here in San Cristobal. I don’t know what the current temperature is, but I was chilly even at lunchtime. I didn’t pack a jacket because I expected things to only get hotter after Monterrey, but it has been the opposite. The farther south I go the colder it gets. I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this that I don’t feel like looking up right now, but I won’t complain about how cold I am. I know the heat is going to find me somewheres.

The one thing I have done today is visited the barber. Even sitting down this old man had to stand on his toes to cut the hair at the very top of my enormous skull (seriously, I can’t even wear hats), but I think he did a good job. He actually cut the sides and back first, and took his time. I decided he was prepping himself for the hike to the top. The barber shop is just one door down from the Hotel Villa Real, my haunt for the last two nights. It’s not bad for $23 (U.S.) a night. I have a TV with no remote, a shower with no shower curtain and free wireless Internet that can only be picked up in the garden, where it’s raining, and I’m forced to type this in Word at a rickety old desk. It’s only a few blocks up from the travelers’ scene, where I was surprised to find small narrow streets lined with restaurant after bar after café after hotel after souvenir shop in all directions.

I had gone out last night to find a bar where I could watch Mexico play Honduras in a qualifier for the 2010 World Cup. I settled on a Cuban-themed bar named Revolucion where all the tables and chairs had been put in rows facing the big screen TV. It got packed after the first half, neither Mexico nor Honduras had scored, and it was getting tense. Sometime around the 80-minute mark Cuahtemoc Blanco scored on a penalty kick and the bar erupted. People ran in from the street to hear the news and see the replay. Mexico would win 1-0 and the crowd celebrated.

Why can’t we have this in the United States? Our team is in the lead right now in the World Cup qualifier standings for our division, which includes Mexico, ranked second. Come on people.

This is probably my last post from Mexico, and I’m sad to leave it behind. I had high expectations, but I think Mexico beat them. Despite its struggle with poverty and political strife, and it's occasionally tense cultural relationship with gringos, there are few places I’ve gone where the people have been so proud, hospitable and understanding of foreigners. I have only rarely felt alone here, making good friends in Guadalajara and in Mexico City. Ah, my sweet Australians. They sang me an Aussie drinking song at a Lucha Libre-themed bar in Oaxaca our last night together. Some Belgians we met that night also sang a drinking song of theirs to honor me, but I don’t speak Freedom. I mean French. The Australian one went something like:

“Here’s to brother Mike, brother Mike, brother Mike.
Here’s to brother Mike, who’s with us tonight.
He’s happy, he’s jolly, he’ll skull* this by golly!
Here’s to brother Mike, who’s with us tonight.
So skull mother(lover), skull mother(lover), skull…”

*skull = chug

I continue to be amazed at how I’d never come here before and how I don’t even have room on this blog for everything that has actually happened in the last 26 (or 27?) days.

My experiences here are just preparation for what’s to come. I’m on my way to four more countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) and now have less than a month to arrive in Granada. I’m going to rest up tonight and take off tomorrow. It’ll probably be a few days before you hear from me again. Take care.

Pierre Sendero: Thoughts in a transit

2009-09-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

There are few freeways in Mexico that mirror our Eisenhower Interstate System (under God), but the few they do have are a pleasure to ride.

The few. The 12-hour overnight bus ride to San Cristobal de Las Casas from Oaxaca, on the other hand, is full of speed bumps, cattle and military checkpoints. I can’t even sleep on airplanes, much less buses tearing ass up some of the worst roads in the Western Hemisphere. The sudden stops, the crying children, the asshole who fell asleep and spilled his drink under the seat all over my duffle bag. I was alone. I’m still alone. I’ve been alone for several days, just busing here and there, getting a room by myself and then finding a plazuela in town and a café with a good balcony. I like it because I’ve grown tired of people. People are my job, so knowing them inevitably starts to feel like work.

I get sick of strangers sometimes, even if they’re probably good people, even if they’re attractive women, and especially if they spill water over my only god damn change of clothes! Sometimes it’s always the same conversation: Where you from? Where you going? You a student? Oh, social chameleon? That’s your job? What’s your name? You went to Mazatlan? Did you surf? You didn’t surf?! Maaan…What’s your name again?

Pierre. And yeah, I went to Mazatlan. I had to fight off a god damn boogie board gang by myself while Faulk and the actress Roby Packer were sick and huddled around a toilet for the week living off Saltines and Gatorade. It was at Olas Altas Beach, right in front of Hotel La Siesta, where Jack Kerouac spent happier days stoned off his ass and not once had to deal with mongrels like those guys. The waves are high and strong in this beach alcove, as the name suggests, but they don’t last long and so boogie boarding is the preferred method of attack.

Attack. By that I meant the waves, but it’s the same instrument they used against me. I had fought my way through enough pounding waves to get into the deeper, calmer water where they build up and my enemies in wet suits lay waiting. I was getting looks, but I assumed it was because I was the only gringo out there and I was just body surfing without a board. Those guys were far off, as I had planned, but it seemed they were closer every time I went under water and came back up for air.

Soon these young Mexicans had surrounded me, they refused to say anything to me, but lined up right in front of my waves. I returned the stink-eye and swam farther down shore, but as I looked back I realized they were following parallel to me, like lions stalking prey through the grass. A wave was about to break right in front of me and I had the perfect chance to catch it. I turned towards shore, felt the undertow start to drag me under, and swam up to the crest of the wave just as it tumbled over. For a few seconds everything in front of me I saw through tunnel vision made of white foam, then it overtook me and I was flipping in circles under water trying to find a place to put my feet.

When I stood up another wave knocked me back over. I got up again, and a third wave was coming, only this time the boys in wetsuits had caught it and had me in their sights. One came from the left, the other from the right, boards pointed down, three feet in the air above me, a wall of white foam starting to mount. I had heard about surfer gangs in Hawaii and Costa Rica, even Australia, but I didn’t think boogie boards gave people that same tribal burst of testosterone. The waves had me disoriented but I had to think quick. At the last second I decided to run towards them and then dove under the wave. I heard a loud smack before the roar of the ocean filled my ears and knocked me side to side. I waved my arms but wasn’t going anywhere. I was being pulled out to sea. So ended the life of Pierre Sendero.

So I thought. The current finally let go and I swam up for air, my eyes and nostrils burning with salt water. I had gone a good 20 yards down the beach from the gang. They were searching for the two bastards who tried to take my head off. It seems they collided after I took a dive and the boards were in pieces rolling up towards shore. That was the last time I looked back. I ran up to shore, grabbed my towel and sprinted for the hotel. The clerk was shouting something in Spanish as I slid across the lobby leaving a wet, sandy mess for him. And screw him too. The air conditioner had been broken for days and if he wasn’t going to fix that I figured I should leave him something to do.

But this story started on a bus, on a shitty road, a thousand miles away from Mazatlan. It was 2 a.m. We were seven hours into the ride with five more to go. I had slept 30 minutes when the bus driver pulled over at a late night comedor and said it was his dinner break. I went into the restaurant, surveyed the crusty old empanadas, the salsa bowls with flies hovering over them, and the despondent look on the server’s face as he wiped his nose with an open palm, and decided to just buy a bottle of water. I went for a walk around the bus and leaned up against the back of it and pulled out a cigarette. It was cold out. I shared the spot with a Mexican in his mid-20s named Francisco. I asked for a light and he offered me his cigarette, then I smelled something bitter.

“Te gusta la mota?” he said smiling. “You like weed?”
“No, gracias. Eh, tengo gripe,” I said. “No thanks, I have a cold.”
“Mentira…” he said, handing me his lighter. “Liar.”

Francisco, a teacher from Oaxaca on vacation going to see his family in Tuxtla Gutierrez, sat across the aisle from me, but didn’t rub me as the type you’d find smoking weed behind a bus at 2 a.m. The bus driver started up the engine and Francisco came running up the steps, stumbling down the aisle, shrinking into his seat, reeking of pot.

We slept for another half hour until more speed bumps jolted me out of my trance. Then we stopped. The lights came on. An army officer carrying an assault rifle boarded and was having a heated conversation with the bus driver. Francisco had also woken up and was terrified out of his mind. The window seat next to him was empty and he crawled over trying to find a way to open it and dump his stash. No luck. He started tapping his foot, his face was flushed. Just a matter of time before they brought the dogs on. The officer began walking up the aisle and Francisco looked like he was going to cry. Drug wars are a volatile and unpredictable force. Rarely do they separate good from evil. A drug war separates people who use drugs and sell them from people who don’t, with the belief that you have to crack a few eggs for the greater good. Francisco is a school teacher, he educates the youth, leads an honest life, but at that moment he was starting to feel like an egg in the government’s omelette. Whatever lofty goals drug wars seek are unattainable. Things will go back to the way they used to be, just give it time.

The officer stopped, for some reason I’ll never know, just a few rows away from Francisco, then turned around and got off the bus. Francisco was still breathing the fresh sweet air of freedom very deeply, and glad to have his yolk in one piece. I waited for the lights to go out, the checkpoint to be cleared and then reached across the aisle and slapped him on the shoulder with a laugh.

I spent the next few hours staring out at the dark countryside, the silhouette of a nearby hill occasionally coming to me like some ghostly apparition. I thought about home. I thought about a woman. I thought myself to sleep at some point and I awoke on a half empty bus in what I could only assume was the Tuxtla bus stop. Francisco was gone, his scent fleeting. In an hour I would reach my last stop in Mexico, San Cristobal, where I would get some much deserved isolation and rest before boarding another bus on this endless journey.

I don’t even know why I’m here. I haven’t learned anything I didn’t already know, unless you count the boogie boarders, and how ridiculous is that? I don’t expect you even to believe it. But I like Faulk, he asked me to go, and I owed him one. He’s here somewhere in town, but I’ve been ignoring his e-mails. We’ll get back to work adventuring tomorrow. I needed a vacation.

Hostels, hostiles, and pyramids

2009-09-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

MEXICO CITY – This city is too big to know in four days, especially when I’m growing tired of sightseeing.

Yes, those are beautiful old buildings. Yes, the city has a great history. Yes, I would like to stay here longer. No, I can’t.

The pride of my time here was getting to visit Teotihuacan (http://archaeology.asu.edu/teo/), the ancient city of pyramids and temples that was built hundreds of years before even the Aztecs came to dominate the highland basin. The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world and climbing the steep 248 steps to the top made my lungs well aware of it. The view was spectacular from up top, with little monarch butterflies fluttering around seeming to comfort visitors by promising they never have to climb those steps again.

I went halfway up the slightly smaller Pyramid of the Moon, as far as visitors can go, and met an older German woman while I sat on the steps looking out over the Avenue of the Dead. She asked me where I am from, and when I said Alabama, this was her response:

Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me
I come from Alabama,
With my banjo on my knee.

So there I was, sitting on the Pyramid of the Moon, getting serenaded to “Oh Susanna” by some German woman. She said she has friends in Montgomery. Bamaragua, friends. Bamaragua.

I made my excursion with four Australians I met at Mexico City Hostel (http://www.mexicocityhostel.com/), a five-story hostel in a fantastic colonial building near the Zocalo, the city’s main plaza. It can hold 100 travelers and the mood there went anywhere from international university co-ed dormitory to an all-out madhouse. My Australian friends were all normal (by my slightly more eccentric definition) and I also made friends with a banker from Vermont, a businessman from London and a jazz singer from Amsterdam.

Then there was the Slovenian kick boxer who slept in my room. He had no cartilage left in his nose so he could push it in flat on his face. His knees and elbows were banged up and red I think not from his past battles but the current ones he was looking for on the street and at our hostel. He was upfront in drunk, broken English saying he was looking forward to the next time he could fight someone. He accused a Japanese guy of stealing his wallet but it was found stuck in the couch in the lobby before anyone got hurt.

As for the Japanese guy, the first time I saw him he was napping on one of the bunk beds in my room in the afternoon. He slept on the top bunk near the doors that led to a small terrace outside and I passed him to step out and check out the view of the city. I opened the door and I as I was closing it turned around to see my dorm mate laying there with eyes wide open, wider than you can open yours, staring fiercely right at me. Underneath his chin a yellow teddy bear he was clutching tightly beneath the covers was peeking out at me. He didn’t say anything.

“What. The. Fuck,” I thought to myself before closing the door.

An older man from New Zealand was also staying in our hostel. I don’t know how long he had been there, but I never once saw him leave. He would either be in the lobby reading or upstairs watching movies with a group of younger travelers. I only spoke to him briefly, but he told my Australians he was just traveling the world to have time to think to himself. Getting out and actually seeing and doing things, he said, is just an afterthought.

I couldn’t get one good shot of the Zocalo because there was some large event recently where they are only now dismantling the huge tents that take up the plaza. My shots are mediocre, and I forgot to bring my camera with me much of the time I was walking around the historic center. At least I have some good shots of Teotihuacan. I also have great shots of my Australians. (That, yes, I will one day get to put up.)

Speaking of which, my Australians are some of the finest cunts I’ve ever traveled with. Did you just gasp? I learned by hanging out with them that in Australia cunt really is a term of endearment, interchangeable with the word friend. Someone tried to tell me this before, but I thought they were joking. It may have changed my life, or just promised me a whole lot of trouble for when I get back to the States.

My next post will come seven hours south of here, in the city of Oaxaca, my Australians in tow.

My relation to suspected American terrorist Abu Mansour al-Amriki

2009-09-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

A Bamaragua exclusive.

MEXICO CITY - Today's entry is not about travel. It's about a 10-second strangle hold that suspected American terrorist Abu Mansour al-Amriki, formerly Omar Hammami, once put on me when we were students at Daphne High School in 2001.

It's not a big deal, but today in retrospect I think it's more interesting and more telling of what was to come than some of the articles that have been posted on al.com, not to mention the fact that current Daphne High School principal Don Blanchard told FOX News that Omar never got into trouble in high school (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,546510,00.html).

It happened I think right before or right after we were supposed to serve as delegates in the Baldwin County Model U.N. of spring 2001. He would always talk about Islam in class in a way that walked a thin line, sometimes even standing up for Osama bin Laden. He was very vocal but could hardly stand it when anyone disagreed with him, often shouting at other people in the class and having to be shouted back down by our teacher to let other people speak.

I was a freshman at the time, and he was a senior. I was also a practicing Buddhist, if you can believe it, and so we had our occasional disagreements over the role religion should play in people's lives. However, our disagreements were never personal, and we actually got along alright. But we weren't actually arguing about anything the day he attacked me.

I was sitting in the back of the room talking with a good friend of mine, the only other freshman in the class, not paying attention to a discussion between Omar and our teacher at the front of the class. Then he started saying something I couldn't understand, but I legitimately wanted to know what it was they were talking about. My way of getting to that was immature, but I didn't realize that a. He was speaking Arabic and b. He was quoting the Koran.

"What's that? Labelelala?" I asked looking across the room at him with a smile.

His calm face turned sour and before I had even noticed it he was on his feet and running around desks toward me. I stayed in my seat just staring at him having no idea what he was about to do. Then he put his hands around my throat, clamped down as tight as he could so that no air was coming in or out and just stared me right in the eyes. I didn't put my hands up. Even though I was a freshman, Omar was actually half my size. I just stared right back at him while everyone else in the class was shouting at him to stop.

He let go after maybe 10 seconds and stormed out of the classroom. The teacher went and found him and the principal was brought in. Omar was suspended for three days and then came right back to class. I remember when he came back to school he came up to me, or was maybe told to come up to me, and apologized. We had this conversation in front of the teacher, and at the end of it as we started to walk away, he turned to me and pretended to come at me again with his arms half-way out. He did it with the same smile on his face that now people across the world are seeing in Abu Mansour al-Amriki's propaganda videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87CEciLBRqM&feature=related). I responded with a very awkward laugh, and that was the last we ever said of it.

We avoided any real conversation with each other the rest of the semester, then he graduated and the next fall went on to become president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of South Alabama, just weeks before 9/11. It was that event and his role in the Muslim student community that first got his name on the front page of the Press-Register, and much of what he said at the time being sympathetic towards the victims is now being referenced in almost every article you see.

At the time, I was never sure if my feelings about Omar, or al-Amriki, had more to do with Islam, which I was fairly ignorant of, or if it really was that Omar was in the process of developing a very dangerous personal philosophy based on his own interpretation of the religion. It appears now, as the U.S. government is looking for Omar somewhere in Somalia, that maybe his case really is the latter. I never could have imagined he would take it as far as he allegedly has, but that looks to be exactly what has happened.

Guadalajara y unas cosas

2009-09-01T23:16:00.000-07:00

GUADALAJARA, Mexico - Hola a todos. One of my favorite things about this blog is getting to be drunk on the job. Did I say that? Sorry mom. It's past midnight here and I've just returned to Hostel Guadalajara (an excellent, excellent hostel) from a brief night on the town with my new hostel friends Patricia, from California, and Gerome, from France. I'm supposed to board a bus to Mexico City tomorrow, but I'm considering staying here one more night.

That's because I underestimated Guadalajara. I don't know how, but I was so busy enjoying the last few cities I went to in Mexico that I didn't have time to consider that this historic city of 4 million inhabitants might also have more than I can see in just two days. The problem is now that it's September I have about one month to get to Nicaragua and time is of the essence. I'm roughly halfway through Mexico and I need to budget my time perfectly to get to Granada a tiempo and experience everything I want to see along the way. The other problem is that I have fallen in love with this country and don't want to leave.

How is it that I've traveled to four continents but never once stepped foot in Mexico? That's not entirely true since a year and a half ago I went to the island of Cozumel with my mom, but the mainland is a whole different animal. I feel almost as safe here as I do in the United States. Haven't caught swine flu, haven't met anyone who has swine flu and don't even get me started on the drug war. There is a war going on in this country, no doubt, but aside from the occasional military checkpoint on the highways I haven't seen it. I'm not nearly as vigilant of my luggage in buses as I was in places like Morocco, Peru or Costa Rica. Part of it may be that I haven't been robbed in any of these trips and I'm feeling a little bold, but another part of me really just trusts the people here on the whole. It's incredible to think how many people (who I appreciate for caring) thought I was putting myself in danger by coming here.

The other international travelers I've met here in Guadalajara are of the same opinion. Some have been here for months and are trying to think of ways to stay longer. Every day it becomes more clear to them and to me that this country is just as diverse as the United States, geographically and politically.

I'm now reminded of a certain young man, who we will refer to as Sr. Cabron, I met two years ago through a mutual friend in Tuscaloosa. He swore to a table full of people that if you own a goat here you're considered a regular Mexican Paris Hilton. I told him he was wrong, but I hope he gets to come here one day and see for himself there are no signs hanging outside the banks advertising the current goat/dollar exchange rate.

That's the problem with how we gringos interpret life in Mexico. We live so close, yet in our minds Mexico is worlds away. Americans can say whatever they want about this country and there's not very many around who know better to stand up for the people here. I see it all the time. I hear it from people who genuinely surprise me with their views. One friend recently told me that Spaniards are "classy Mexicans," and I regaled her with the story of a "classy Mexican" who stripped down to his camo underwear in Madrid and chased after some female friends of mine until I went after him. If people thought I took what they said poorly then, just wait till I get back to the States.

But what was I talking about? Guadalajara. Si. I want to stay but I don't think I have a choice. Checkout here is at 10 am, nine hours away, and I don't think I'll be going to sleep anytime soon. I'm not doing anything else tonight, aside from sitting at this table in the lobby with some Mexicans enjoying a late night quesadilla dinner, but being alone and sleeping on a hard bed in a dorm room makes the lonely traveler think all he can think no matter how tired or happy he is. Then his empty mind just sits there on the pillow, and at some point lets go and falls into sleep. The nights are cool here, which makes the process easier. Buenas noches.

Vallarta, pt 2: A Farewell to Roby and other puns

2009-08-31T19:14:00.000-07:00

I drank too much Sol yesterday and didn't get around to part two. I just got to Guadalajara, but wrote this on the bus ride down. Down? Over? Over. Here's a map of Mexico if you want to connect the dots: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/north-america/mexico/

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico - The actress Roby Packer dug into her deep Hollywood pockets and paid for us to get a room at the Hotel Suites Nadia (http://www.hotelsuitesnadia.com/) for five nights. She was tired of my insistence on staying at hostels, and I can't blame her. This is her vacation, she has a job to go back to, she deserves what she can afford, and I'm the moocher who helped her live it up. It's a different story for me, I seem to remember now that I quit my job two months ago, and that's why the comfiest living I'll have on this whole adventure was in this city.

And that went a long way in my enjoyment of this place, but I also found something to like in the streets, in the restaurants and out on the water in the Liza, the private 20-foot boat we rented Saturday. I think it was roughly $90 US to take it out for four hours. We went south along the rim of the Bahia de Banderas to Los Arcos (http://www.vivanatura.org/BanderasBayPhotosPh1.html), some beautiful rock formations/islands with natural arcs under them. They make for great snorkeling, and the bread our captain Ramone was throwing out to the fish would bring nearly a hundred angel fish up to the surface at a time. They would look me right in the face, appear to cock their heads in confusion, then go about snatching up bread crumbs. Small, slender fish with red, gold and black stripes swam in place near the rock walls all shouting "Hello! Hello! Hello!" in their fish language.

After that we hung out at Las Animas, a beach that's far kinder than Playa Camarones, near our hotel, where rough last-second waves come at visitors and pound them out of nowhere when they walk into the surf. I almost died on my first day in Vallarta, not even knee-deep in the water, but that doesn't matter. "We survived!" I once shouted at Moze, a fellow writer, when we were running back into the Gulf of Mexico like mad one night moments after running out of the sea because sharks bit us. I would like to think it was our optimism that instantaneously healed those tooth marks we never saw in the light.

We headed even further out almost to the mouth of the bay where it meets the Pacific and snorkeled some more in a rocky little spot with no one else around. This was maybe 15 or 20 feet deep, and I put the snorkel aside and just dove down again and again with my mask on looking at the bottom feeders scurrying in between the rocks. Roby said I looked like a little boy out there having fun. I wanted to pluck a stone from the bottom to bring back with me but none of them really stuck out. The last thing I saw underwater was looking back at a school of angelfish trailing my toes. I got back in the boat, and thunder rolled over the mountains.

It rained the whole boat ride back, but it really didn't matter. Our excursion beat out the one had by the two-story boats that meandered by us kicking out smoke, the 200 or so passengers all waiting in line for another water taxi to take them to shore. This is the benefit of having the courage to walk up to a line of seemingly shady water taxistas, haggle over prices and come to a good deal on your own boat.

The only friends we made in Vallarta were the hotel staff and the crazed gringos who bought some of the condo rooms there. One was crazed in a good way, a woman in her 50s from Las Vegas who was married back in the States, had a gay best friend in Vallarta and loved to socialize and thought everyone should do what makes them happy. The other was, well, he whistled at all the hotel staffers (who were very nice and considerate and personable with us) and laughed incessantly with the kind of cackle I could only imitate with a mouthful of beer and fried shrimp. "It's Mexico. It's OK to whistle. Ramone? Can I get a drink dude? Ramone, this pool is cold. Ramone, turn the heat up buddy. Ramone?!?!" Fuck you buddy.

The eats were hit or miss, but at least the service was good everywhere we went. I would recommend Las Palomas on the boardwalk if you're down there. Melted cheese with chorizo and steamed flour tortillas, where have you been all my worthless life?

I thought this entry would be a little more poignant, but oh well. A little more than two weeks ago Roby flew from Dallas to Houston to meet me and take a 15-hour Greyhound bus ride to Monterrey. We then rode nine hours to Zacatecas, and another 13 from there to Mazatlan, and another nine from Mazatlan to Vallarta. Roby's flight from Vallarta to Dallas today lasted three and a half hours.

And I keep on getting farther away. Now I'm on my own, with no familiar face to greet me until Granada, where my roommate, hopefully, will be waiting.

Vallarta, part 1: Lost in the Supermarket

2009-08-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico – I was hesitant about coming here, because towns with reputations that precede them as being incredibly touristy really turn me off. One touristy beach town is hardly different from the other, especially in Latin America. I only added Vallarta to the itinerary because this is where Roby could get the cheapest flight home. The city has proven itself much more versatile than I was expecting, I've actually had a great time, but part of the culture here has still fallen victim to the power of the tourism industry.

The goals of businesses in most touristy towns I’ve been to in Latin America all stress homogenization, whether they realize it or not. Each restaurant owner, hotelier, water taxi captain and artisan is greedy for as much business he or she can get, and whichever has the most success gets imitated to the fullest extent. It’s been four-ish days since we got to Puerto Vallarta, and Roby now knows what I’m talking about.

The culture of the small merchants here is strikingly different from what we encountered in Monterrey, Zacatecas and Mazatlan, and no place is a better example of it than the Mercado de Artesanias here. It has 300 stores and 100 items, with everyone jumping on you as soon as you walk past their section in the merchandise maze. A college-aged, drunk, shirtless Mexican greeted us as we got out of the cab and gargled something about his large T-shirt selection. Business was bad that day. He could cut us a deal. A lot of the shirts were in English, with such endearing statements as “It ain’t a beer gut, it’s an engine fer a sex MACHINE!” and “FBI: Fuckin Boobie Intelligence,” or something like that. The last guy who bought that shirt was probably right up the street that moment getting a pair of breasts tattooed on his calf to show his diligence to the cause, all smiles while his buddy bought an 80-dollar skull and dragon bong up front for “almost free.”

“Almost free.” Once we got away from the first guy, those would be the last two words we heard from anyone chasing us down the aisles as we tried getting away from the merchant cabal. “You want to buy something amigo? How many you like? This one have beads. We have the turtle. Almost free!” I could not stand still and just look in peace, like I am accustomed to doing in Mexico. It’s like the merchants in other cities had treated me almost like family compared to the pack of hyenas they had running wild in this market. And I’ll go ahead and say that calling them hyenas is harsh, because they’re just trying to make a living.

And I appreciate that in Mexico people understand they have to work if they want to make money. Unfortunately for the salesmen in this market, I met a lot of good salesmen on my way here who knew that having Zen-like patience and never letting their want for money get the best of their human side are the best ways to do business. I only call those here hyenas because I felt like injured prey trying to find my way out of that market.

The artisans and merchants aren’t the only ones. Every taxi honks at you; every restaurant has someone in the street to drag you in; you can’t talk to a water taxista without three others trying to distract you; and on some isolated beaches here you will think you’ve found peace, lay your head back and close your eyes, only to hear someone in the darkness say, “Senor, bracelet, almost free!" then "Take a picture with iguana almost free?"

But there’s a reason this is a two-part post about Vallarta. I’m getting the bad things out of the way, because this is easy, because few things inspire me to write as prolifically as my occasionally poor attitude, and because it’s bad form to not end on a good note when you’ve had a genuinely good experience somewhere. I’m going to drink another cerveza (Sol, to be exact), go for a dip and get on later to tell you about how Vallarta won me over.

John Wayne was here, but they didn't name the airport after him

2009-08-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

MAZATLAN, Mexico – No sooner did things seem to be going perfectly than Roby and myself both came down with Montezuma’s revenge. We have spent about as much time in the bathroom here as we have swimming in the ocean, but today I think we’re both healthy enough for the bus ride to Puerto Vallarta.

At least Pierre had fun in the city, though he was almost murdered by a Mexican boogie board gang on Monday.

It is beautiful here, however dated the H.R. Puffinstuff-inspired art on the Olas Altas promenade may seem. In Old Mazatlan where we’re staying (haven’t even bothered to check out the more modern-looking part of town), it’s a dirty beach town that passed its heyday, but it’s clearly gone through a revitalization in the last 10 years and is on the upswing. Maybe five blocks away from the beach is the Plazuela Machado, which comes alive at night with Christmas lights decorating the park in the center and live acoustic music pouring out of fancy restaurants. We walked down one side of the little park before dinner and smiled at a peanut vendor in his 50s, sleeping sitting up on a bench. After dinner, my last meal before Montezuma snuck up on me, we walked the other side of the park, and saw the same peanut vendor sleeping on the bench opposite from his first spot.

The people here are just as nice as those we’ve met anywhere else in Mexico, and the retired gringos who pop up at outdoor cafes along the beach are also eager to get to know you. But the friendliness of the people in Latin America is something I am already familiar with, and one of the reasons I keep coming back.

I was reluctant to shower at all here in my weakened state, and when I have showered it’s taken only about an hour to sweat myself back into a hot mess. All of my clothes are dirty, and I haven’t shaved in weeks at this point, and the hair on my head is standing like a rooster’s. I am the towering spectacle of that which is rude, dirty and presumably rich gringo. I decided the other night though that when I put my glasses on I go from beach bum to beach scientist and have been wearing them around ever since.

We head for the bus station in less than two hours, and I have to put everything up in my bag again. For those who don’t know, I am making this 4-, 5-, 6-month trip with one 70-liter hiking pack (thanks to former REI employee Adi Nevo for picking it out) and then a regular Jansport school backpack. It holds just what I need to get by with room to spare, so long as each time I re-pack I do so just as meticulously as when I was loading it up back home in Spanish Fort.

I’ve taken a lot of pictures and I know this blog would be more interesting with some art, but my camera won’t work with a MacBook. I will make some picture posts as soon as I get the motivation to find a PC, I promise.

Hasta la vista.

Beer in the nose is a Mexican trick

2009-08-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

MAZATLAN, Mexico = Today, one week after leaving Mobile, I swam in the "olas altas" of the Pacific Ocean here on Mexico's central coast. I now have sand in every region, sun in my skin and a cold bottle of water on the nightstand at Hotel La Siesta in Old Mazatlan, where Jack Kerouac would roost on his stays here in the 1950s.

I didn't even know that about this hotel until today when me and Roby walked past a sign commemorating him outside. We got in around 3 am after a 13- or 14-hour bus ride from Zacatecas in the country's interior, where we spent Wednesday through Friday. Roby learned that little sleep and no stops along a dark bumpy route can make me a little hostile and schizophrenic a la The Shining. I slept in late today and we made it a point to take it easy and not do anything too tiring today, until we let the beach kick the crap out of us this afternoon.

And I have plenty of time to talk about Mazatlan. We'll be splitting the last week of Roby's part of the journey between here and Puerto Vallarta, where she will fly back to the States and things will inevitably get weirder for me as I continue south on my own towards Mexico City and beyond. So let's talk Zacatecas.

Zacatecas is a historical city of more than 100,000 that seems to be off most people's radar. Really, the whole interior of Mexico aside from Mexico City or Guadalajara seen to be off the grid. Its historical element gives it everything I love about old colonial cities that tourists bypass: beauty, intrigue and pride. We stayed at a sad little hostel one block up the hill from the most highly recommended one in town, which was sold out, but it met our basic needs. Weather was much cooler there, I guess because it's in a valley between some small mountains, and it only got hot around midday. It's a very steep city though, and the old roads and steps get pretty slick in the rain. It rained on and off while we were there, and the hostel owner David had to sweep the water off the roof every time to keep it from leaking over the toilet.

We rode a European-made (ooh la la Europe wonderful Europe) cable car from one mountain to another, with a bird's eye view of every cathedral, plaza and aqueduct along the way. We got lost in the alleys and bought some fresh pastries after being drawn to a bakery around one street corner by the smell of cinnamon in the air. There was a week-long music festival going on in one plaza in support of gay rights as well, with everything from mariachi to marching bands to blues singers. We applauded, partly for the music and mostly for the cause.

Our favorite place for a drink was Las Quince Letras (count 'em up). Founded in 1906, it's the city's oldest surviving bar and too small for it's popularity. It gets to be standing room only pretty quickly in there, but the bartenders aren't pretentious and don't even ask for your name or a credit card to start a tab. They have a red paper mache devil that rises up from behind the juke box with the tug of a plastic wire stretching across the ceiling from behind the bar. One old man who had been at the bar longer than we were was fumbling with his change at the juke box when the devil rose up to face him. He took a step back, grimaced and then flipped off the devil. We made some friends there, Daniel and Irwin, both university students in town studying English and economics, respectively, who showed us some of the other bars. You can tell two guys are close when they can call each other "cabron" back and forth, the Spanish equivalent of such classic hits like "bastard" and "motherfucker." If a stranger calls you that you're either doing something wrong or they're too drunk for tener razon.

"Watch," Irwin said as he tapped the bottom of an empty beer bottle on the top of his own Corona and made it foam to the top. He lifted the bottle to his nose and snorted the foam as it poured out everywhere, with Daniel laughing hysterically, his John Stamos locks bouncing. "Beer up the nose is a Mexican trick!"

I've probably left out some other good stories, but there'll be more to come from Mazatlan.

La Salida de Monterrey

2009-08-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

MONTERREY, Mexico - Good morning you soulless machine. And to everyone reading this.

Roby and I are packing up and getting ready to head to the bus station, where we'll hopefully find a timely and air conditioned bus to Zacatecas, about a 6 and a half hour ride southwest of here. The locals we've friended here tell us Zacatecas is more representative of real Mexico than Monterrey. I don't really know what to expect if that much is true. Everyone we've met here is so friendly, the food is great, the landscape is amazing, etc. Our friend Roberto, a pilot originally from La Paz in Baja California who is now based out of Monterrey, who we met singing karaoke at a bar just a few blocks up from the hostel, said with Monterrey being the country's wealthiest city comes an elitist upper class culture that we were never exposed to hanging out in the Barrio Antiguo. He said in other parts of town there are numerous bars and nightclubs where if you don't walk in wearing Dolce & Gabbana you'll probably be kicked out, and you don't always know if you're entering one of these places until you've stepped in.

That's not to say Roberto didn't know a thing or two about how to party in style. We spent hours at the karaoke bar Monday night until it closed around 2 a.m., and stayed past then with the stragglers all beating on drums and bongos while they finished their drinks in the dark with one black light painting them all neon. Our refusal to leave didn't seem to bother our drunk bartender Panchito, who began embracing me like a brother every time we crossed paths. Once we left finally Roberto invited us back to his apartment in downtown Monterrey. It turned out he lives in an 18-story apartment complex with a large private lounge area upstairs that's open to the renters and their private karaoke parties into all hours of the night. Roberto had a microphone he attached to his computer and then hooked it up to the lounge's PA system, then found karaoke videos on YouTube for us to enjoy. Yes, you missed Mike Faulk sing such hits as "Fotografia," "Me Gustas Tu," and "1979" We were rolling on the floor laughing trying to figure out exactly how to make that "coo" sound in between the lyrics in "1979." The lounge was decorated in modern art and also had a balcony with a view of the whole city, which was surprisingly quiet to me as I stood out on it by myself pondering which Hulu video I would have fallen asleep to watching by myself that night in Anniston had I not left my job.

Yesterday was tranquilo, our heads hurt, so we spent a lot of time in air-conditioned museums and shopping malls downtown. We now have one hour to check out, and I need to wash this sweat off of me to make room for today's new batch. Ya venimos Zacatecas.

El Barrio Antiguo

2009-08-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

MONTERREY, Mexico - You learn to appreciate the simple pleasures very quickly when trying to bus from Mobile to Nicaragua. I'm here at La Casa del Barrio hostel in Mexico's proudest city hoping my computer doesn't short circuit in my lap from all the sweat it's absorbing right now. A rare breeze has made its way into the room I'm sharing with the actress Roby Packer (who is downstairs eating a chorizo omelette) and the tingling hairs on my sweaty legs are telling my brain that this is ecstasy. Just a few days ago I would have shut the window and turned the AC lower in the comfort of my home in Alabama. But this is a whole different frontier, and I'm already good at sweating even in climate-controlled rooms. Sweat. It'll be one of the themes of the next six months.

My bus to Houston from Mobile left around midnight Friday and arrived at about 10 am Saturday. The last time I would look over my shoulder to see Alabama passing behind me there was a pink (waning) crescent moon rising over her. I had two seats to myself for several hours of uncomfortable sleep until the bus filled up around 4 am in Baton Rouge. I have to be exhausted out of my mind to actually sleep on a bus, and because of my 6-foot-4 frame it's impossible to get comfortable. People lean their seats back into my knees, which makes my legs fall asleep, which forces me to adjust with little space to utilize, which infuriates me, which ultimately makes me sleepy and doze off into some light trance just as the sun is rising and the bus is heating up again inside.

I was running on fumes when former Anniston Star reporter Nick Cenegy and his Laura Lee picked me up downtown and took me on an unexpected whirlwind tour of the city's best spots. I thought my 12 hours in Houston would only involve gazing out the windows of the Greyhound station downtown when I couldn't sleep on the metal benches, but instead I got to tour the Rothko Chapel (http://www.rothkochapel.org/), The Saint Arnold microbrewery (http://www.saintarnold.com/) and took a clutch nap in one of Houston's many outer lying cookie cutter subdivisions, on a street ironically titled Unique Court.

Roby and I were reunited for the first time in three years outside the Hobby airport around 5:15 pm, having last known each other as students at the University of Alabama, and Nick and Laura Lee took us to Montrose, a hip part of town that many would say is the only hip part of Houston, for some food, wine and storytelling. Soon enough it was 10 pm and me and the actress were back at the Greyhound station, tickets in hand and all points south. This bus was bigger and less crowded than the one I took from Mobile. We fell asleep at some point after passing through San Antonio and didn't wake until it was time to change buses at the border in Laredo. It was past 4:30 am, the bus was late, and our talks had dwindled down to incoherent mumblings. When the bus did arrive we thought it would be smooth sailing, but we hit the Rio Grande at 6 am and didn't get across it and through Customs in Mexico until about 9 am. The immigration official filled out two tourist forms for us and by the authority vested in him marked down that we were married. I had promised myself I would not get married in Mexico, but it appears I had no say in the matter.

Getting from the bus station in Monterrey (around noon Sunday) to the Barrio Antiguo where our hostel is was maybe the easiest experience I've ever had upon first arrival to a city in Latin America. Normally you can expect a maelstrom of fake taxi drivers with kids peddling gum and trying to pick your pocket in between the masses. Mercifully, we didn't have to deal with any of that and instead had the option to buy a $5 taxi ticket to take us right across town to what is supposedly the city's safest and most well-preserved area. We got a room at La Casa (http://www.lacasadelbarrio.com.mx/movie.html) and tried to nap but just sweated. The cold shower afterwards went a long way in making me feel better, but getting to eat barbeque pork cooked over a corn tortilla with melted cheese on top, a form of a dish called "memela," and downing some fruity frozen tequila drinks at La Casa de Maiz helped even more. Last night we went on a walk through the city's historic plazas, caught a little street theatre here and there, and ended the night at a cafe in the Barrio called 13 Lunas, where in the back you can take some winding rickety steel steps all the way up to the roof and drink surrounded by a gorgeous panoramic view of the city.

Everyone is so friendly here, it feels incredibly safe and I don't think I could have asked for a better introduction to Mexico Lindo. Today we'll be perusing the Contemporary Art Museum (http://www.mtyol.com/marco/) and hopefully catching a cable car up to one of the gorgeous mountains that surround this bustling city. We'll have to decide by the end of the day whether Monterrey is worth spending one more night in or if we should move on to Zacatecas, http://www.zacatecas.gob.mx/, the second of five stops I'll make with Roby before she flies back to Texas on August 31. After Zacatecas we'll go to John Wayne's old stomping grounds in Durango, followed by a week of Pacific beach living in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta.

Ok my friends, time is of the essence, adios.

Pierre Sendero: Llegó la hora

2009-08-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

"Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going."
---Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary

Mike Faulk quit his reporting job at The Anniston (Ala.) Star July 2 after nearly one year of writing, carousing and mostly sulking in the isolation of the verdant Appalachian foothills of his home state. He said it was as much an experience to grow as a person as it was a time in which he came dangerously close to forgetting everything about himself. There was order, and there was chaos. Joy and depression. ACCOMPLISHMENT:DEFEAT. He emptied his apartment of all his possessions following a July 4 holiday with our friend Clover on the Atlantic coast, giving most things away to charity and taking with him only that which he could fit in his small SUV. He took off in the middle of the night. He imagined there was a cloud of dust behind him that spun around and settled in the quiet brush of the Talladega National Forest off Alabama 9. It would have been symbolic, and he would have been able to write about it in that way.

I am not Mike Faulk. The literary device known as I came into the picture a few weeks later. It was at sunset this past Monday. I was in downtown Mobile mingling with partygoers on the deck of the Carnivore Fop cruise ship parked in the bay just off Water Street. I was soaking in the hideous purple- and pink-tiled cafeteria, the laughing red-faced lobsters that were once middle-aged couples two hours before they hit the plastic tiki bar, and keeping my eyes turned politely away from the 14-year-olds as they discovered things in the hot tub in the absence of their parents at the casino. I was miserable, and the boat just hummed, and soon the city skyline would turn to open Gulf and no matter how much further the alcohol and cash-addled debauchery went I would have to be there every second. I thought about Faulk, who had warned me about these things, but my love for free drinks and bizarre company led me there. I had a spouse ticket to the Knights of Old Royal Street's summer cruise retreat thanks to my friend Junior Clayborne, recently divorced, in need of a wingman and one of the Mardi Gras society's top directors, but in that moment I began to question whether my talent as a social chameleon had taken me too far over the edge by accepting Junior's almost weeping invitation to join his rich friends on their lush retreat. I wanted adventure, but not with these people. Their interests were clear, the greatest cultural experience of their lives would be a booze cruise off the coast of Cozumel, a floating Sodom and Gomorrah where they could share their disgust for the way the media treat Sarah Palin, and that would only require one flaming Perseid falling from heaven to send it to the bottom with the old pirate ships. They'd think it's just like Universal Studios. I texted Faulk about my personal hell in only so many words. I began sweating and unbuttoned my American flag polo shirt, which I specifically bought to fit in with the gentiles, and put out my cigarette. Moments later, Faulk responded, "JVMP! VAMOS!"

I handed off my Fiesta Fun cocktail and souvenir glass to my obese associate and cruise director, Big Steak, kicked off my alligator shoes and ran for the back of the boat diving off head first into the bacterial stew of Mobile Bay, knocking the wind out of myself and staining my new shirt and Wrangler's boot-cut jeans a sewage shade of brown. God knows what kind of mutant crustacean is living in my cowboy hat at the bottom of that natural drainage ditch, nibbling on whatever it is that grows on the outer shell of the Bankhead Tunnel while pondering quantum mechanics. Like I said, it's a mutant. I swam to the dock and grabbed a rope dangling over the water and used it to pull myself up to the pier. Higher above on deck I could hear Big Steak jostling through the crowd, probably sweating like a thawing raw chicken, shouting "No no no! Not another one! Buh-bye Pierre! Buh-bye!"

Junior, my apologies.

I have not heard from Faulk since then, but I know where he is going and have a rough idea of his schedule. We are very close, close enough to where we trust each other completely despite fundamental disagreements, and close enough to where he allows me to write whatever I want in his blog. His place and time are never far off from my own even if we don't see each other for however long. It's complicated, but I think you the reader will come to understand me and my relationship to Mike with a little patience. Who am I? My name is Pierre Sendero; who I am is something that my creator (more so a title than a job) has left up to me to decide as I go.

Señor Faulk quit his job at The Star for a newspaper internship in Nicaragua that begins the first week of October. He quit three months in advance so he could move home to see his family and friends, and because he estimates that it will take roughly a month and a half for him to get there when he begins his journey on a Houston-bound Greyhound late Friday around midnight. This Friday. Tonight. It's why he has this blog and why he recruited me to help tell the story as it unfolds, albeit sparingly. He will meet a good friend of ours in Houston, the actress Roby Packer, and they'll take another bus from Houston to Monterrey, Mexico, where they have arrangements to see a puppet show Sunday. Roby and Faulk will bus through the likes of Zacatecas, Durango and Mazatlan to the Pacific resort town of Puerto Vallarta, where Roby will board a flight back to the States Aug. 31 and Faulk will continue south. The other details will just be a matter of time and experience, and I'm fairly certain he'll be on here any day now to tell you more. The next time I write something, I'll make it clear from the beginning which one of us is doing it.