I’M IN FRICKIN HONDURAS!!!

Hi Team!

So I’m in Honduras… okay. I’m really back in LA.

But Craig… why don’t you write these emails on the the trips anymore?
The answer:  there’s no internet cafes. Or at least, I didn’t see any on my 15 day journey through Honduras, Nicaragua (and for a day in El Salvador!)
Since Wi-fi has taken over the backpacker experience, they just don’t exist.
And I miss them.
I miss going out a couple times during the trip, checking in, and sharing adventures while there.
So next time I’m going to bring a blue tooth keyboard and type it up on my phone and share it that way…

At this point you might say:
“Craig, you went to Honduras? Nicaragua? WTF?!?!”
And honestly, that was a bit of my thought too when this trip first showed up. I checked out the US State Department travel advisories. There are 4 levels of advisors.
1:  Generally safe. Common caution.
2:  Upgraded caution. Be more aware.
3:  Rethink travel due to safety concerns
4:  DO NOT GO.   (Think Iraq or Afghanistan).

Well, Nicaragua, was surprisingly a 2. That’s cool. Just like Cuba, or India.
Honduras was a 3.  “Rethink Travel”.
Warnings consisted of DO NOT TRAVEL AT NIGHT. And lots of warnings about the capital city and other major cities and the entire eastern part of the country.

I’m not going to lie. It was a bit intimidating. I love adventure, but going to war zones or places of high human conflict or danger — no thanks.

So again, you ask: “Why did you go?”

Well, faithful readers, you might recall a certain adventure involving millions of crabs from the Cuba emails earlier this year. And you might recall Hannah and Fabian, the two totally awesome German’s I shared that with, whom I also rock climbed and scuba dived with. Some of my favorite people I’ve ever met traveling. Well those two have been traveling since I met them back in March. They went from Cuba to Mexico, bought a VW Camper van and have been driving south ever since. Months in Mexico. Climbing volcanoes and sailing and exploring caves with huge underground waterfalls in Guatemala. And they were headed into Honduras for diving and beyond. So I thought: Let’s have some more adventures together and joined them for a couple of weeks.  In addition, they had two friends from Germany with them, Stefi and Franzi (Twin sisters), who joined a a couple weeks before me and were doing 2-3 months.

Me, Hannah, Franzi, Fabian, Steffi

So the stage is set, I’ve got pickpocket proof travel wallets, belts with hidden money compartments, and a plane ticket to Roatan, Honduras. I land on a short runway in the rain of this lovely island. Then hop the ferry for the 1 hour ride to Utila. A smaller island nearby. Well, the ferry crossing was one of the wildest boat rides I’ve ever been on. The waves were BIG. Like 10 foot at times big, and rolling into the boat side to side. The horizon was grey. Sheets of rain came down. I loved it! I was on the top deck, enjoying the fresh air and the wind. At one point the crew told everyone to sit down and looked genuinely concerned… hmmm….

In the end we landed in Utila and Hannah and Fabian were there to greet me on the dock with giant hugs and smiles and frankly it felt like we’d seen each other a week ago. And it’s been 6 months. It’s one of the amazing thing about travel. I spent a total of 5 days with them in Cuba, but it’s like 5 weeks of normal time. And as a result, we just clicked back in to stories and jokes and good times. It was awesome.

DIVING DEEP:

So the main thing to do in Utila is Scuba dive. It’s one of the cheapest places in the world to learn. So I did my Advanced open water with Fabian and Franzi. (Hannah and Steffi had already done it). Doing the class meant 7 dives in 3 days, and some book and class work. We did our book work on a pier overlooking the Caribbean sea. Now that’s a classroom!

Our first day was actually snorkeling and hanging out on piers and enjoying the island. Because, for whatever reason they decided to do the classes the next day. We’re on island time now!

Well, at 3 am I woke… and did NOT feel good. Nausea. Headache. Really?!?!? I just got here. That’s gotta be a record. My best guess was the Poke I ate at the beach wasn’t so good. So my first morning was sleeping while they started diving. It was the right call as I felt better 12 hours later, but still. Whew.

The diving here is AWESOME. We were at Parrot’s dive shop. This rag tag, lovable place with great instructors and a real family fun feel to it. Arjen, our teacher, who’s from Holland, was great, and we dove down to 100 feet multiple times. We did an awesome wreck dive, on the USS Haliburton (yep, that company). It was purposely sunk a number of years ago, and was a really cool cargo ship to float around. It took me all of 2 minutes to get used to diving again, and after the 7 dives I really felt like I had improved a lot.

Highlights included the wreck, a night dive with some bioluminescence and tons of fish (more came out at night!). I loved the deep dive egg trick, where Arjen cracked an egg at 30 meters (100 feet) and it stays together. We could push on it and toss it around like mercury on the surface. And on the birthday dive, there was a free swimming eel that followed us for 12 minutes or more. It came up next to me, like 5 feet away, then swam up the sea mount… then came back. The dive master had skewered a lion fish and fed it to the eel, and then the eel spit it out and got really sassy. It swam up underneath some of us, and even went right up to the dive master, who shooed it away with a harpoon. I’ve never seen a free swimming eel before. Arjen’s passion for the undersea life makes me want to learn more about what I’m seeing down there. It’s another world I recommend to anyone.

BIRTHDAY FUN!

So November 21st was my birthday…. and Stefi and Franzi’s bday too!
Yep! Triple birthday fun!
It started with cake and candles and sweet gifts that Hannah and Fabian had made or got for all of us. Cool stickers with nice notes on them. Then we did our two great dives. And after we came up from the 2nd one: Champagne on the boat! The dive shop got us a bottle and we all celebrated on the ride back.
Then back at the shop:  More cake! The DIVE SHOP had a cake made for us! What?!?! How nice! Then later on the bar gave us one bottle of champagne each! It was pretty great! A fun special day indeed.

3 LIES OF UTILA:
So there is a really funny video about Utila. This island where people come for a week and stay forever. It’s apparently pretty common. I loved the island, but I don’t think I’d get stuck there. (Supposedly it’s Robinson Crusoe’s island. There are signs and maps up all over by someone claiming this was the spot. So they sure got stuck! lol).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX-H-zF9PJ4

So the video has 3 lies:
1.  “I think I love you.”  and the response “No, you don’t.”
2. “I’m leaving tomorrow” — “No you’re not.”
3. “I’m not drinking tonight.”  — “Yes you will.”  “Cause the truth, not the lies, you’re in Utila still”.

It’s a great place. With great people, and a great vibe. And it’s super safe, and super friendly, and really… it is amazing. And if you love diving: buy that ticket to Utila and enjoy!

CRAB-AGEDDON 2019!

The Bay of Pigs.

Famous for scuba diving and, oh yeah, a botched CIA supported invasion of Cuba in the 60s.

The only real reminder of that was a museum that I was really interested in seeing in the town of Playa Giron.

A museum that was closed for the few days I was there because it is the 58th anniversary of the invasion on April 15 and they were spiffing it up!

So there were tanks and planes out front we could see.

(In fact there are a lot of places in Cuba where there are tanks and planes to see if you'd like to.

Also a lot of bloody uniforms, and hats supposedly worn by Che or Cienfuegos or Fidel himself!

What's interesting is some of these hats and other items look like they are brand new and have never been worn.

Maybe the guys didn't sweat much back in the 50s? In Cuba... where it's really hot and humid.)

So the fabulous Fabian and Hannah and I came to the Bay of Pigs to do some scuba diving and to snorkel a sink hole.

"The fabulous who?" you ask.

Well, Fabian and Hannah are two totally awesome German's I met while rock climbing in Vinales. They are some of the most fun folks I have ever met backpacking and I hope to see them again somewhere in this amazing world of ours. (Currently they are in Mexico working in a commune, adopting baby possums and playing in drum circles. :)

In a classic bit of traveling I had set up a climbing day for 9am on Monday, the day I returned my scooter. There's one Casa in Vinales that knows the rock climbing, so I stopped by there on Saturday to set up the climb. (One thing I learned about Cuba is you have to be 1 or 2 steps ahead of where you are currently at, planning for what you are doing in the future. Cause if you don't... odds are it won't work out how you planned...

which sometimes is just as it should be.)

So Monday rolls around, and I go to return my scooter at 8:30.

Well, it's Cuba.

It takes a little while to get it taken care of.

Then I had to book a bus ticket to leave the next day to head to the bay of pigs.

There's two options of places to book a bus ticket. Both of them were helping other people.

I waited patiently, but at this point it was 9:10, and I was late for climbing. So I asked if I could come back later,

she said If I was back by 3:30 or 4:00 I should be fine to book for tomorrow, but she can't reserve without making phone calls and collecting money.

Well that will work out. I'll come back...

So off to climbing. Meet my awesome guide, Yaroby, gear up in a shed full of quite a lot of rock climbing gear. All donated from travelers because officially climbing is not legal in Cuba. Even though there are hundreds of bolted sport climbing routes in the Vinales area and they have competitions and it is a favorite place to climb for people from all over the world. But for some reason the Cuban government doesn't see how it can make money?  Or maybe there is something else going on?

Then we pick up Fabian and Hannah from a random outdoorsy restaurant on someone's ranch.

Originally I was by myself, but they had called in last night around 9pm. (Right about the time I was writing in my journal how it would be really nice to meet some cool travel friends to travel with... I'm not kidding. It was at almost the exact same time.)

We spend the day climbing in this AWESOME almost cave.  It was really a crevase between the rocks of the Magote near town. Walls 30 meters tall (that's 99 feet for all us Americans. ).   It was shaded almost the entire day, but for about 15 minutes when the sun shot straight down on us. Fabian did all the leads, and I went up the routes afterwards. I was really happy with myself. As some of you know I used to rock climb all the time, but have drifted out of it and haven't been climbing in 10 years... 12 years... maybe more. Likely more.  It was SO FUN!  I was really happy how quickly the techniques came back. And sure, my forearm strength eventually gave out on the 4th of 5 routes. But it was awesome to be on the rock again.

Yep, I'm way up there!

Meanwhile making friends!

Afterwards we all sat on the guides porch. Talked about climbing, and they invited me for lunch... and as one of my travel guidelines (stolen from "the Beach") is to "Never refuse an invitation". I said yes and off we went...

which means I was not going to get back in time to get the bus ticket.

Which means I would likely stay another day in Vinales.

And that seems like the perfect plan. :)

We ate, we explored caves, walked into this hidden valley inside a Magote that was like Jurassic Park (minus the T-Rex). Though there were PIGS! One mama and 3 or 4 little ones that kept coming up to us as the night fell and we told stories in the dark. We were "attacked" by a strange insect that looks like a cicada with glowing eyes. We thought it was a lightning bug until it flew into my headlamp and landed on the ground next to us. Don't know what it is. But we made up stories about it.

A grand day with some great people.

Traveling done right...




 

So after that day and another exploring caves and riding in the rain, we rode a taxi collectivo to Havana... The car was a beat up old Cadillac with a Jesus gear shifter and eyelids on the lights.  It dropped us in some field next to the highway along with a bunch of other travelers on the south side of Havana. Somehow everyone ended up in other Taxis, cars and these classic old ford buses to get to where they are going. It's amazing that any of this works and that anyone gets paid. But it does... and I guess they do.

Bus Stop, Cuban Style

As our bus rolled down the 2 lane road along the east side of the bay of pigs I noted to Hannah that "It smells like death."

She said "The bus driver just said its the dead crabs on the bus tires."

Apparently the crabs live on the swamp side of the road, and in April they cross from the swamp to the sea to bathe...

then back across the road to get the naughty-naughty on.

Then BACK across the road to lay their eggs.

Then return to the swamp side to live out the rest of the year.

Two months later the babies cross.

And strangely the next month the BIG crabs cross to do the same thing.

It smells pretty bad, but when we got into Playa Giron, a one horse town if there ever was one, the smell had passed.

But the whole place felt like the apocalypse had come.

It was grey, overcast and there was almost NO ONE AROUND.

So Strange.

We even walked to the "resort" to check about diving and there was almost no one there.

Peeling paint on the "bungalows" (which are just cinder block buildings painted in bright colors").

They are building a lot more... but they are almost all empty.

As was the pool area and the lobby.

Well the next morning we go DIVE!

And man... it is GREAT DIVING!

And only $25/dive!

Hannah and I did 2. Fabian isn't certified (yet!) so he snorkeled. And of course there were other folks there...

almost all German or Swiss. (I'm noticing a pattern in Cuba. :)

I haven't gone diving in 4 1/2 years, so I was a little nervous to get a refresher and make sure it was all safe.

Talk about "riding a bike" It all came back really quickly. And the nice thing is, you just climb down a 4 rung ladder into the ocean with all your gear on, and start scuba diving right there. The reef wall is about 30 meters (100 feet) off the shore. So you don't even get in a boat.

You just take a bus... that smells like death cause it is running over crabs.

On the second dive we saw this HUGE soft coral the size of a person that looked like a giant Horn. It was bright purple and swaying in the current.

And also there as a shipwreck! Which you could swim through. So beautiful and amazing. I love it!

Back in town, we enjoy lunch, then rent bikes to ride the 19km to the flooded Cenote to go snorkeling. Because that is what one does.

The bikes were actually pretty good, brought by some random person the Casa owner called up. They cost 5CUC a day I think.

So we mount up, Fabian starts singing "Push it to the Limit" by Survivor (from the movie Scarface) and I laughed out loud. I sing that song regularly!

 

So we pushed it to the limit and rode north out of town.

Along the 2 lane road that few cars drive on.

Past the occasional smashed crab. Or maimed crab. Or crab flipped over cooking in the sun.

There were a number of them, but not toooo crazy.

We stopped to swim at a little beach resort cove. It was a pretty hot day, so it felt great.

And I took some pictures of the lines of dead crabs in the "yard" of the place. I figured I might as well get some pics to remember. I mean, dozens of dead crabs. It's pretty gross and weird.

RIDE ON!

So I put Survivor playing on my iPhone and we're riding free and fast. The road is flat and clear. It's a pretty great day!

Fabian and Hannah were about 100 meters in front of me.

This crab had crossed 3/4's of the road in front of me... safe from harm... good job Crab!

Then the little ass hole turns around and runs right back in front of my bike!

Not wanting to kill him I slammed on both breaks....

The bike stopped...

I did not.

I flew right over the handlebars going pretty fast. Cursing as I went and thinking "Protect your head!"

So I slammed into the ground hands first and rolled over... popping back up to my feet and stumbling back a few feet.

THEN THE PAIN HIT.

My wrists and palms were all cut up. My knee. My shoulder. My finger.

ANd my ribs...

The crab lived and wandered back into the grass.

Hannah and Fabian eventually rode back as I was bent over.

Now conveniently Hannah is a doctor!

So she checked my wrist (that was bruising pretty badly) and my ribs and said that she thinks its just bruised.

"Do you want to keep going? Or head back?"

Oh, if nothing is broken, we keep going. There is a Cenote to snorkel.

At this point you might say: "Craig. Why did you hit BOTH brakes??"

Great question. And it occured to me that the scooter that I'd ridden for 2 days, the back break is on the left hand... and on a bike the left brake is the FRONT brake.

So habit of two days.

Well, the sink hold wasn't much further. Maybe 3 or 4km.

I did NOT hit the brakes if a crab ran in front of the bike.

I did try to avoid them, but if they charged, I will say a few crabs might likely have crunched under the back tire. In fact I guarantee it. It was a nasty sound, but I'm not wiping out again.

We get to the Cenote around 4:45 or so. And the path in has crabs in the rocks all around us.

We get to the largest flooded Cenote in Cuba and jump in. We snorkel.

And collect trash, because there was a bit of trash around. Not India level of trash. But there was some ,and figured we would leave it better than we found it. With Fabian leading the charge to collect bottles and cans.

And on the far side of the Cenote, all along the rocks, coating the otherside in fact... were crabs.

I'm talking hundreds.

Probably thousands of crabs.

Lined up next to the edge of the cenote. I don't think they swim, so they just stop there... thwarted on their way to the sea.

We swam back into the darker passages of the Cenote. Where the water was only 3 feet wide. With this rock wall of crabs next to us. Climbing over each other. Squirming around. It's pretty creepy and gross. And really surreal.

Around 6 we figured it was time to head back. About 2 hours ride and the sun sets at 7:45.

We put shoes on and I notice we are the last people there besides the two people who had closed up the snack shop hours ago and were watching some Spanish language action flick on the tube tv.

As we walk out, we notice the path has quite a bit more crabs on it than on the way in...

Now the silly thing about the crabs is if they feel threatened (or want to be intimidating) they PUT THEIR HANDS UP IN THE AIR!

And they can't walk forward. So they walk sideways really slow, or stumble backwards like a strange child's wind up toy.

Now if YOU put YOUR HANDS UP IN THE AIR... they will respond in kind.

It's pretty hilarious.

So we started singing the Trance song "Put your hands up in the air!" and would put our hands up and the crabs would put their hands up and stumble back...

We reach the road, walk out onto it, and look left towards Playa Giron...

And the ENTIRE ROAD AS FAR AS YOU CAN SEE WAS COVERED IN THOUSANDS OF CRABS.

 

Look right... and the same sight.

Um....

Fabian asked the two workers how long the crabs would be there. An hour or two.

Manana. Tomorrow.

So that means we have to right up to 19km down a road covered in creepy, crawly, skittering crabs.

Yes it does.

Oh boy.

So we start... and when they are in mass, the crabs will slowly part if you ride slow and steady.

Sort of.

Because some of the little suckers would charge you. They would attack you.

They would try to claw the bike tires (with their wind up toy precision).

Sometimes they would grab hold and get rolled up and over and down.

Sometimes they would somehow make it THROUGH the spinning spokes of the bike tires safely...

and sometimes they wouldn't.

The CRUNCH of a crab under the tire happened quite a number of times.

It's a nasty sound.

More than one got hit by the pedals and rolled along.

Often I would just lift my feet up in the air and roll straight and hope I didn't hit any.

Seriously, WTF???

Now both Hannah and Fabian are vegetarians... and even they didn't like these crabs by the end of this.

I mean, they are really dumb. They attack bikes... and TRUCKS.

Every 10 or 15 minutes we would hear the sound of an oncoming truck or car or bus...

and here it would come...

SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH, CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUCH just obliterating crabs by the thousands.

And then we would race after it in the wake, trying to cover as much ground as possible before the tide of crabs closed on the road again.

One car creeped past us, everyone inside videotaping the silly gringos bike riding through the crabs.

It was pretty funny.

In truth I shot quite a lot of video too, because the whole thing seems out of this world.

In some sections of the road there were dead and maimed crabs everywhere. One with only one claw and no legs dragging itself across the road.

Others with broken legs.

Some we ran over... and they were fine.

Some crabs were eating their crushed or maimed kin.

And every once in awhile a turkey vulture would enjoy the dead crab buffet.

Now you might ask: do people eat them?

Nope. They are toxic to people. (The big ones next month aren't thought! So feast up!)

In fact these crabs have no natural predators in the area.

And even though they must die by the tens or hundreds of thousands.

Maybe even millions.

The locals say there are WAY more crabs now than 5 or 10 years ago.

Eventually they started to thin out, and then it was just the flattened crabs killed the day before or whenever.

So we could stop and take a breath.

And Fabian looked down and said "Did you notice what the red sand is?"

Because red sand lined both side of the road.

But on closer inspection it was clear it was not sand...

it was pulverized crab shells.

Kilometers of pulverized crab shells lining the side of the road.

Did they die yesterday?

Last week?

Last year?

Who knows?

The sun set before we reached town, and we watched it from this old reef coastline... surrounded by crabs crawling around the old rocks. It was lovely.

The crabs were hanging off the edge by the ocean. We contemplated what it must be like, to just live going back and forth across a road that wasn't always there (But likely has been since before the CIA tried to take the bay of Pigs.).

We did make it back in one piece... mostly.

There was a field in town, dotted with crabs about every 3 feet (1 meter). It reminded me of the shot from the Walking Dead where the zombie wanders through the

grass field. Only there were hundreds of these.

We rode to the beach and met with our diving friends.

We drank beer. Ate. And toasted one mans new grand child he just found out he was going to have.

Life goes on.

For us and for the crabs...

So the apocalypse we felt when we arrived wasn't for humans... it was for crabs.

And yet still they live and grow and spread....

Maybe someday they will spread beyond this little corner of the world...

CraigO

PS:  As I finished writing this, PUSH IT TO THE LIMIT just kicked on. I'm not kidding. :)

PPS:  It's almost 4 weeks later and my ribs still hurt a little bit. I've had it checked after I got back and it is just a bruise. I guess they take 4 weeks or more to heal so I'm right on track.

Everything else was good in like a week. Though it looks like I might have some small scars on my knee. Was it worth it?  Well, I'd double check the brakes before riding ANYTHING again. But otherwise, hell yeah!

I’M GOING BACK TO BALI

 May 9, 2013

For the finale of Indonesia it's time to return to where it began: Bali.

But first some scuba diving in Komodo National Park. Supposedly some of the best in the world, and I can tell you that it's really great. The coral was perfect. The fish innumerable. And we had turtles swim withing a meter of us. I just watched the dude and he was checking me out as he cruised by. Now the currents are really strong here, so you really have to pay attention to your guide, and when he says to stop and turn around, you best do it. Or you'll be pushed down into the deep.

On the second dive it was a drift dive along this coral wall. And I have never been on a ride like this. The current is so strong we were FLYING over the coral. There was no way to slow down and if you drifted away from the wall you got pushed along even faster. It was pretty wild.

To leave Flores Island we took a flight. It was a propeller plane, that was actually pretty good sized. Maybe 45 passengers. A/C. Comfy seats. Much more elaborate than I thought it would be. The airport in Labuan Bajo is an old cinderblock building, but it fortunately had an air conditioning unit which we stood by for 45 minutes to cool down. They're building a new one right next to it, so things are changing. The dive master said 2 years ago there were 5 dive shops. Today there are over 20. My suggestion would be to get your ass to Flores now. It's an amazing place with the sweet balance of tourist services and local flavor that is hard to come by. It's really a wonderful place. The islands are impossibly beautiful. I stood outside our room on our last night and watched the sunset and every single direction was a postcard for tropical perfection. This place rules. I wish we hadn't already bought our ticket. I wish we had more time.

But the time has come to go back to Bali... and we did.

Bali is an entirely different animal with all the tourists and traffic and people. But it's wonderful as well. We headed up to the "mountain" town of Ubud. This is where Julia Roberts found "Love" in "Eat, Pray, Love". And it's a cool town. TONS of stores selling art of every conceivable kind. The art represents all the villages from all around. Wood carving. Bone carving (very cool). Kites. Textiles. Dresses. Penises.

Yep, I wrote that. There's a strange amount of phallises all over. Some small. Some HUGE. (Like 3 feet huge). Some on kites. Some on dragons. Some as ashtrays. Not sure what the fascination with the cock is. But hey, what you gonna do?

We saw a "fire show". It involved 50+ men chanting in a circle as folks in costumes danced around. There was a crazy monkey-man. Burning coconuts. And it even rained during the performance, which was really cool. They performed it at the temple where they've done it for hundreds of years. It was cool.

The next day was the Eco Bike Ride. I think they say "Eco" cause that's what all us traveling hippy tourists give a shit about. Not sure what's Eco about it, but it was super awesome anyway. You ride in a van up to the crater rim of Mount Batur. The view is awesome. Apparently it blew it's top in 1963 and created the lake there and knocked the top 1000+ meters off the top of the mountain. Nutso.

Then we hit a coffee plantation. You get to sample beans, chilis, and shit coffee. Not that it's bad, but it's literally made with shit. Yep. There are these little ferret like animals that eat the beans, which are fermented in their stomach and then they crap out the bean whole. Then some brilliant Balinese person decided to roast the beans and make coffee. And sell it for a shit ton of money (pun intended). It cost $6 for a cup there. $12 for a cup in Ubud. And you know what...

...it's bitter like coffee is. I'm not a coffee conneseur, so I'm not the best judge. But the other samples were good. Some much so.

Then it's no the bikes for a 25km downhill ride where you stop at a traditional village, where we take pictures of people making bamboo mats. And it occured to me how weird it is that we come into peoples homes and take pictures. That's weird. It would be like someone coming into my room while I"m editing and taking pictures, going "wow, that's so cool and different." Not sure how I feel about it. But I did learn alot about traditional Balinese family life and beliefs, so in the end it's probably okay. They do get paid as well.

We stop at rice paddy's and other cool spots. It was fun.

The end has an optional 8km uphill portion, which me and a gal Jennifer from Germany went for. It wasn't to hard, but it was hot as balls. And the last 1 km was on a busy main road with big trucks.

A great trip.

This is a car road too, not just for bikes

The rest of the time in Ubud was spent eating, seeing shows, enjoying the swimming pool at our totally awesome tree house temple homestay. Homestay because it indeed is someone's house. However, it's like the coolest multilevel, temple, castle place ever. Our room was at the top and looked like a treehouse with ornate carvings of Hindu scenes and swastikas.

Um, what?

Yep, swastikas. Lot's of them. Some vertical. Some at the 45degree Nazi angle. What's up with that?

Well, turns out the swastika was and is one of the oldest symbols in history. It means all sorts of stuff and was only corrupted by the Nazi's during the 30's and 40's. So for much of the world it still means peace, prosperity, good luck, good fortune, good health etc etc etc.

And so ends the Indonesian portion of the trip. I can tell you, it was awesome. Alicia was a great travel buddy and the country is an awesome place. It's so cool how each island is different and unique. The people are wonderful. The terrain spectacular. It really is much cooler than I even thought it would be. It was a place I always wanted to go, but didn't know much about it. Very little in fact. Now I know enough to recommend it. I definitely say GO.

Bali is the most tourist friendly. And parts of it are challenging. But overall Indonesia is a wonderful, fascinating, beautiful country.

So we both left today. Alicia is on her way back to LA. I flew a few hours and landed in another land. A place that already feels very different. Malaysia.

I rode a bullet train from the airport. I saw the Patronas towers in the distance. I ate beef balls at a stall in Chinatown at 10pm. I'm staying at a hostel. I'm on my own and ready to see where the road takes me...

Craig O

PS: I appologize for the lack of emails, but I've been having big issues with Gmail security. Often when I log in from a new computer the security locks me out and the ONLY option they give me to verify myself is through a text message. Guess what? My phone is in LA. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know as I'd like to keep the updates coming.

HERE THAR BE DRAGONS

--> Four days. 25 people. One small boat. And dragons. 

As is the case when traveling, sometimes I like to do things outside of my comfort zone. Things that are a challenge. Things that push my limits. And here in Indonesia I decided to do so by taking the four day / four night boat ride from Lombok to Flores with a stop or two in Komodo National Park to visit the dragons. And as if it wouldn't be hard enough on it's own, I decided to take a long ride and attempt to meet the boat at the port rather than meet with everyone else at the originally meeting spot. Why? In order to see some of Lombok off the beaten path. And my friends, it was.

This started with us leaving Gili T on... so many days ago I don't remember. :)

We took the $1 public ferry over and hired a car to take us to Senaru where the waterfalls were. (This will be another email, as the waterfalls were AMAZING and very Indiana Jones).

Wow.

It was 2 hours away and there was no Wi-Fi. No Internet. No ATMs. Sweet.

Rather than double back we decided to head over the mountains the next day. Now, this is a 4 hour drive. Cost about $50 to have a driver take us. The road was barely 1 1/2 lanes wide but has 2 way traffic. (In fact that is the normal here in Indonesia. Tiny roads that somehow manage trucks and buses and mopeds). It was so steep and full of blind curves that we would race up, horn honking and somehow noone ever got hit. The views were incredible. Steep slopes with tiny towns at the base. It felt more like Switzerland than Indonesia.

We arrived in Labuan Lombok, the port town that has a blurb in the Lonely Planet saying "This is where you come to take the ferry". There are no hostels, guest houses, tourist services. The ATM wouldn't take my card, but did take Alicia's. Otherwise we would be in trouble. Though we do have some US $100 to change if need be. The only place to stay, and supposedly where we're meeting everyone the next day, was a hotel for $7 a night with no sink, no shower and no fan. It's hot. Balls ass hot. So no fan is no good. And we're about to be on a boat for 4 days, so no shower is no good.

So we have the driver take us north, back along the coast, hoping to find a place to stay. Any place. We kept looking for a sign with the indonesian word for "Lodging" on it. We drove and drove and I thought... hmmm, this might be a problem. Then we lucked out and found a little bungalow place. It wasn't fancy. But it had a fan and shower. It was in a dirt, tree covered lot. Had a little shop. A bunch of folks who didn't speak English and a town with one tiny shop and one warung (food stand). And it was awesome. Black sand beach. Nice sunset. Frogs. Geckos 18inches long. Sweet. We ate at the warung and it was Soooooooo good. We sat on the floor. Chatted with this dive instructor who was also eating and had a lot of smiles with the locals.

So good!

The next morning we had mom and dad who ran the bungalows take us back to town, we got some supplies, spent 1 1/2 hours buying our return plane ticket from Flores to Bali, and sweated. The ticket had to be gotten from a travel agent and they had to ride a moped to another office because of some issue. There were all these super cute kids that kept coming in to say "hello" in Indonesia (which happens to be "Hello" :). We took pics. Ate some food. Made some friends.

Hello!

Then we got picked up by the Kenchana Tours dude on a moped. One at a time he took us to the port and our boat. I went second. As I rolled in I saw a nice big boat with multiple levels. Sweet!  Oh wait, that's the Perama tour boat. A different company. Oh well, the one next to it is good sized, if not as nice... oh, wait, we're driving past that one too. And stopping in front of a boat that was so small I couldn't believe we were about to take it on the open ocean. I don't know the dementions, but it looked to be maybe 45 feet long. By 9 feet wide. There was a "simple toilet", meaning a squat toilet with a hole to the ocean. There was an upper deck that you could barely sit up in that had dozens of mattresses. There was an open front area with a shade cover. And then the front deck on the bow you could sit on.

Hmmmm.

I'm on a boat?

The Lonely Planet says this is no luxury cruise. In fact they say it's often sketchy. That a boat sank last year year. Yep, sank. (It was a Perama boat (which is why they have a new boat now!). (I'll find the link and include it later to the story of the sinking. They unfortunately for them, had a travel writer on board when it went down). I made sure to see all the life vests and Alicia and I were thinking... hmmmm....

Then the buses arrived. And the people started filing out. Like a clown car. They kept coming on board. The boistrous Canadian dudes, the Dutch gals, the Russian, the Aussie, the Brits etc etc etc etc etc. As they piled on with their gear and bags and selves there was literally no place to sit and barely any to stand. Hmmmm...

Alicia and I thought about getting our money back and taking the Perama boat 3 days later. But we didn't.

We didn't jump ship.

The boat sailed.

We were in it. No turning back.

It took awhile, but it was interesting how little personal space I needed. How much it didn't matter that we were on top of each other. HOw we all found our spots to chill, to visit, to experience. They put the big bags in the holds which opened up space.

The first day was 5 hours of cruising with a beautiful sunset. BEAUTIFUL sunset. Over Mt. Rinjani on Lombok. We sailed into the dark, ate a decent meal cooked by our kind crew of 5. (yep 5 crew folks. 19 travelers. Sound clausterphobic yet?) I chatted with the Canadian's a lot. They're fun guys. We put music on the ipod speakers and had some fun.

The boat anchored by an island for about 5 hours. Not sure why. It was dark. Couldn't go ashore. I jumped in with a couple folks and we swam in the bioluminescence. It was pretty sweet. Creepy too. Pitch black ocean. Swimming in the dark. But cool.

We listened to Dark Side Of The Moon and looked that the stars. I think this is going to be alright.

We all go to bed around 11am. Silence. Peaceful rocking...

... and LOUD ASS engines. Around 2am they fired up and we set sail for the next destination. Earplugs helped a lot. But the waves were kind of wild and spray splashed in on the folks on the lower deck sleeping. I was at the front of the top deck, so I had a good breeze and even a little spot for my stuff.

DAY 2:

Paradise. Right there. We anchor off an island. Have breakfast. Snorkel about. Then head for a waterfall.

Now those who know me, know that jungle waterfalls are one of my favorite things. I love to trek through jungle and find some perfect waterfall, and this was one of them. Only a 15 minute walk, and there it was. Cold. Flowing over volcanic rock pools. The rock was rough enough you could climb up in the current of the falls. Which was awesome. Up at the top you could jump into a deeper pool. Ryan from England lept off this rediculously high tree branch, as did Oksana from Russia. (I was starting to get names down, though I often call people where they are from.)

I could have stayed here all day. In fact, me and a dude from the other boat were the last to leave. (Oh yes, there was a second boat following us. They were no where near as much fun as our boat. We were team Awesome. They were team... not so Awesome. :).

We move along to the next island. Easy crossing. Snorkeling and fun were had. Everyone is starting to get to know each other. It was fun... even though there was no place to sit. But I figured out to use the very hard pillows as cushions to sit on. That helped.

Then came ocean madness.

We left at 2pm for 18 hours of motoring to get to Komodo National Park. It was open ocean and felt like rough seas. The waves were half as big as the boat. It was tossed and turned. They came from the front and sides, so the boat would roll in odd patterns. It was hard to stand up. Harder to use the toilet. And impossible to do anything but look out at the waves. Sometimes the bow would drop so hard it would rocket spray up into the air and it felt like it would plunge into the waves... but it never did.

We enjoy the sunset... sort of. It was beautiful, but hard to truly enjoy. Alicia felt very ill, took motion sick meds and napped. I took some too before bed. Dinner was not good tonight. Some buttery fish stew. On a rocking boat. No good.

At 7:30pm, everyone went to bed. No shit.

Except me and 2 other guys. I put on the Pink Floyd. Yep, All about the Pink. And rode out on the bow. SPLASH! WOOSH! The biolumenescence was awesome in teh wake. The stars were bright. It was cool.

Sleep... 12 hours... kind of.

A number of times I woke up to a KABOOM! as a wave slammed into the front of the boat. I thought, why I am here?

DAY 3:

Calm.

Total calm.

We've reached the Komodo area. Which is AMAZINGLY beautiful. Island after island. And the water, though filled with wild currents, is very calm. We made it!

Team Awesome! (most of them anyway)

We passed where the boat sank in 2011 (the currents took the wreck to the depths, so nothing's there). We pull up to a beach and hop in. There's a path to climb to the top of the island and get a view all around. Pirate ships abound (okay,they're dive boats), and the view is amazing. It's interesting, the fauna and islands ehre look a lot like...

... Southern California! Yep. I came half way around the world and sailed 3 days to get to the Channel Islands Nat'l Park 40 miles from my house. :)

The vegetation and climate of Indonesia apparaently changes as you head east. From the jungles of Java and Borneo, each island become more arid and more like Australia as you go east. Cool.

This is the Tale of Captain Jack Sparrow!

After the hike and a quick swim we're back on the boat. Moods are great now that we're in calm seas. We listen to music. "I'm on a boat" is a favorite. As is "Captain Jack Sparrow"... even though no one had it. Shoot!

We snorkel at the red sand beach. It's more pink than red. But still cool.

Then lunch on the way to Komodo. Finally, there will be dragons.

We get off, join the rangers and go for a 1 hour hike in the heat. I felt like I was in Jurassic Park. I kept looking for dragons at every corner. Under every bush...

... but there were no dragons.

Hmmm...

We head to the cafe, gift shop (yep, even here) and ranger station...

... and there are dragons!!!!

The 8 foot long lizard just waddled up near us, under a stilt house and laid down. We got within 10 feet of it. They can move very quickly and their bite is deadly. Everyone thought they were poisonous until a few years ago. But apparently they have so much bacteria in their mouths that the prey dies of infection. That, and they eat their prey whole. Bones and all. They have 3 different kinds of poop. One for bones.

Nearby another sat in the grass. And just over there were 4 of them. ONe had to be 10 feet long. And a wild pig trotted in amongst them! Sweet!  We're gonig to see them kill the pig!  ...

... or not. Ballsy ass pig and four Komodo. ANd they just hiss at it a little, but the pig doesn't give a shit and gets to licking up the blood from the goat carcass hanging in the tree. Yep, this might be how they make sure you see dragons. It might be something the rangers were going to cook and eat. Not sure.

It was really cool to see. And when the dragons came towards us hissing and stomping, we all backed up pretty fast.

Back on the boat and set anchor on a calm bay as the sun got low.

ANd the flying foxes came out. Thousands of bats heading to feast.

We ate. We drank. We danced. We laughed. We listened to music. It was a blast.

It's Bintang Time!

ANd the sea was so calm it was like glass. You could see the reflection of the stars in the water. And the bioluminescnece flashing too. It was AMAZING. TOTALLY AMAZING. I've never seen anything like it. I thought that scene in Life of Pi was just fantasy with the stars reflected, but here it is. Totally real.

And yes, Pink Floyd came out again.

DAY 4.

Up before sunrise. We're tooling into the calm seas. Sun. Islands. Sand. Sweetness.

Not going to lie. Even though I've made many friends, I'm ready to be off the boat. Onto dry land. Take a shower. Yum, shower.

We head to Rinca (pronounced Rincha) Island for more Komodo. The island is smaller. The food is different. It's very pretty and full of rolling hills and grass and palms. Saw numerous buffalo, but the only Komodo were back at base camp. Though there was no goat this time. Our guide, Cuba, was awesome. A 20 year old from the island. He knew his stuff.

Welcome to Jurassic Park

Really? I'm watching you

Out to sea for lunch, and a final snorkel, frisbee, swim spot. It was fun.

Lots of laughs. Even saw some RBR's brewing. (Random Backpacker Romances).

We head to town, and with little ceremony all get the fuck off the boat and head for places to stay. There were some thank yous and smiles, and ultimately it was a great adventure, but I'm glad to get our room way up on the hill overlooking the bay and with the shower. Oh thank god. No Air Con, but a fan and the view is incredible.

View from the room

We all met at a bar that night and laughed and danced and talked of the future, of the adventure and where life will take us. Many don't know. Some will rent scooters to explore Flores. Some will fly back to Bali. We're going to dive before we go.

And there you have it.

I have seen the last Dragon's on earth.

Did they fly and breath fire and did the Kaleesi mother them?

No.

But they were dragons none the less.

Craigo

SNORKEL, SCUBA, SHARKS and SH**TS

--> Ahhh the Gili's.

It's paradise.

Sandy paths.

Snorkeling right off the beach.

Lounge chairs. swimming pools. Massages.

Snacks overlooking sunsets.

And some mean nasty ass shits.

Yep team, Bali Belly has hit hard. Not as hard as it did in Guatemala. But hard for a day. Whew. Yeah. Rough times. chills, shakes, fever, only a little puking and a lot of the other stuff...

but, as is the case when traveling (and probably with life) it's best just to go with it, rest for a day and jump back on that donkey-cart in the morning. :)

Sunset view looking at Bali from Gili T

The Gili's have been fun. We rented bikes the first day, for $3.50 a day. We rolled around the island. SNorkeled a little, but the water was too shallow at first. We also went for a scuba dive and saw sharks and lots of turtles. It was nice.

I've got to go because Right now we're waiting for the public ferry to cross to Lombok. It's supposedly what Bali was like 50 years ago. :) They only need 4 more people and we'll be on our way!

Yum!!!

We're going to check out a waterfall and maybe more before the big Komodo sailing adventure. 4 days/3 nights on a boat with 10+ other folks. Snorkeling, adventuring. These things only sink... sometimes. So, keep an eye out for the next email and if it doesn't come in a week or so, start the search party.

CraigO

One More Adventure... okay Two :)

Hey Team,

So just because I'm back in the states, doesn't mean the vacation was over.
I flew straight from San Jose, Costa Rica where it was warm and rainy... straight to St. Louis, Missouri, where it's cold and... rainy.

Hmmm...

But not for long. On Thanksgiving it snowed! It was fierce for a while and me and my second cousins Gabi, Brady and Jordan had an awesome snowball fight! Love the snow. And love spending time with them, my Uncle, Aunt's, Cousin's and more. It was a wonderful trip, with great conversation, silly games being played, TONS of turkey and pumpkin pie, and...

Scuba Diving.

"What? Scuba Diving in St. Louis? Where, in the Mississippi? Was visibility 2 feet?"

No my friends. After 10 years of knowing about it, I finally sucked up the cost and went scuba diving in the Bonne Terre Mine. And all I have to say is... WOW.

WOW at how expensive it is: It cost $320 for 3 dives with gear rental.
and
WOW WOW at the total surreal, bizarre, abyss like experience of diving in a flooded mine which still has mine carts, jackhammers, shovels, blast pans, and "the structure".

So the Bonne Terre mine was used as a lead mine from like 1860-1963, when it closed it's doors. At that point the pumps were shut off and the lower 3 levels of the 5 level mine flooded creating a billion gallon underground freshwater lake. It's the largest such lake... in the world. I'm not sure how the diving company that operates it got involved, but there's only one, and they run an interesting ship. They're nice-ish, and seem to groan about us silly tourists. But they do take you on amazing dives, and heck, maybe people have done stupid things in the past, so it's warranted.

I want to get past the negatives of this fast. It's expensive (noted already), but it's not to bad if you have you're own scuba gear (which oddly enough a number of folks in our 16 person dive group did). The group was too large, and should have been kept to 10 or less. But I'm sure finances dictate large groups. If you get past the first days of diving you will be in much smaller groups. There's no real customer service: when I said that I usually suck up a lot of air and if I could get the tank topped off or get a bigger tank they said "You can rent a bigger tank, just talk to the desk." I'm already spending 100 bucks on rentals and you want me to pay an extra 10 bucks PER DIVE for a bigger tank (that costs you nothing)... for the last dive I did just that. And speaking of rental... 100 bucks... really? I've NEVER had to pay for scuba rentals in all 30 dives I've done. Now maybe things would have been cheaper if I'd said "I have my own gear". But even places that do rent gear, it only costs 15-25 max for the whole day. Then again, these guys are a monopoly at a totally unique diving destination... so you either pay or go home.

And I paid... and I'm glad I did.

The dives here are done on trails. You have a guide and 2-3 safety divers. They're marked with blue glow sticks. Us silly tourists are marked with green. A good idea, since everyone looks the same in black wet or drysuits underwater. You suit up upstairs in the shop. They go through the dive plan: what you'll see and how it will work. When the air checks are and so on. Then you walk down a tunnel marked: Mule Entrance, and enter the mine...

...which is a lot warmer than outside. It's a constant 63 degrees or so, which feels balmy compared to the 35 outside. At this point you descend some stairs into a huge cavern with giant pillars holding the ceiling in place. It's bizarre how smoothe the ceiling is. You walk to an underground dock on the edge of the "lake", suit up and jump into the abyss.

And man, it is like the abyss. Blackness descending to... oblivion. In reality the mine ranges from 20 feet in the shallows, to 150 feet in the main lake, to some passages that are more than 300 feet deep. There are 27 "trails" they take you on, in order. So to see all you can see would take 27 dives. There are places where you can surface on the lake, and others where you have an overhang, a tunnel, or some other obstruction.

This is the reason that when you jump in, and hover over the blackness, they take you to the shallows and you practice clearing your mask and sharing air. Because if something goes wrong when there is an overhang... and you panic... you die.

That's it.

Cave diving is the most dangerous "recreational sport" in the world, and this is one step shy of that. That's probably why they don't joke around a lot. Why it's all pretty serious until the dives are over. You fuck up... you die. And in the end it's your responsibility to make sure you do it right.

Now that little factor is, what I think, made it so hard for me to get my balance underwater here. I've dived in the fricking OCEAN... it's a little bit deeper than 150 feet. But it isn't lit like James Cameron's "The Abyss" and look like the Mines of Moria from Lord Of The Rings, where the Balrog lives.

So the first dive we cruised along huge walls, over a mine cart where you could play with an axe, next to a jackhammer in the wall, up over this wall and onto a platform of rock with drops on both sides, which is where we did our air check. I passed on the first one: but was sent to the "watch em close" section. By the time we circled the pillars and came back, i was bumped to the "tough shit, dives over, goto the surface and swim back the rest of the way" section. It was okay here, since it was pretty much a straight swim to the dock. I kept my face underwater, and enjoyed the views, surreal cliffs and watching the other divers.

Back with 200 psi of air. You start with 3000. 500psi is considered where you should surface...that's why I was sent up when I was, because that's what I had left.

You leave your gear, head to the divers lounge: "DIVERS ONLY: All Others Are Trespassing" on the door. You try to warm up. Eat a bit. Let the nitrogen out of your body.

Then head down for dive 2.

Dive 2 wasn't a good dive. I kept breathing fast. I was trying to balance my air so I wouldn't miss the end of the dive. I couldn't get my bouyancy correct, so I'd keep floating up and down. I kept running into the many other divers, or them into me. We got to this overhanging spot, that was super dark: There was light shining through the "keyhole", which we were to swim through to a lighter area. Dynamite blast pans floated up at the ceiling, as did the air: which hit the ceiling and looked like mercury trying to find a way out. Totally surreal.

I was able to wedge myself against the ceiling as people went through the hole, and I took a nice pee in my wetsuit... and got more relaxed. Yep, as all divers know, peeing in your wetsuit is something you often do. Some won't. I think they're lying. You're in water. You pee. And when the water is 58 degrees, the warm pee feels good. (You can go "ewww gross" now :).

I swam through the keyhole, was nice and ready for more dive... air check. "Tough shit, your dive is over". I'd only gotten about half of it.

Now we swam back underwater, but I was pretty bummed and annoyed. At myself for sucking up all the air and being freaked out. And at them for not giving me more air when I asked for it. The solution: "You can rent a bigger tank".

Ugh. I bought lunch. Warmed up. And decided to get the bigger tank for the final dive. At this point I'd spent 300 bucks. What's another 10?

So glad I did. The last dive was INCREDIBLE. One of my best scuba dives ever. Ranking up there with the Jellyfish dive in Austrailia. The night dive in australia. The sharks in the Bahamas. WOW.
With 20 percent more air, I focused on keeping slow breaths. And i stayed up near the guide so I wouldn't have to deal with all the other divers. Great call.

The views were incredible. Sometimes complete blackness, with just the guides flashlight cutting through it. Sometimes lit from above and beyond. Deep blue. Swimming down staircases. Through the keyhole again. Into the "Smoke Room", where the decay from the metal floats like smoke because there is no real current down there. Around the corner to "The Structure": A 50 foot tall oil derrick looking thing that you could play on. You could jump from rail to rail. Swim through the holes. And hold yourself above a 300 foot pitch black shaft that descends into the darkness. This was a blast. I felt like Spiderman. The channels, the tunnel of love: IT was about 40 feet long, maybe 50, and 6 foot square... and you swim along it. Something goes wrong here... whew.

It's always hard to describe how awesome dives are when they are awesome. If you scuba, you've probably had some where you say "This is why we do this", and here's a dive. If you don't dive... get certified. It's relatively cheap to do (in fact it's cheaper than the dives I did today), and it's one of the most amazing things you can do.

When I got back to the dock: 500psi. Perfect.

Met some cool folks, and took some pictures (to come soon), and felt good that I'd finally done it. I don't know if I will again until I own my own gear... or win the lottery. :) But seriously, it was absolutely worth it.

Only downside: It wore me out for ADVENTURE 2:

CITY MUSEUM.

The next day, me, Brady and Jordan headed to this place that I can best describe as the
GREATEST. PLAYGROUND. EVER.

I'm not kidding (and Jeff, you know), this place is amazing. It's in an old warehouse. And this guy who invented it, just created this place out of recycled materials: pipes, pie pans, chimneys, cranes, firetrucks, AIRPLANES. And welded them together into a maze of amazing adventure! There's wire cages 50 feet off the ground. Slides that are 3 stories high. Fake trees you can climb in: and real ones too. Theres an 80 story slide build into a CAVE. And the CAVE is nearly endless. You can walk, climb, crawl, shimmy, squeeze into places you never imagined. If you look at the wall and see a hole 18inches in diameter... it probably goes somewhere. Crawl through and find out. There's a skate park (which no skateboards) that you can run, climb and slide all over. We finished our day with a 40 minute Matrix, slo mo battle where we'd shoot at each other in slo-mo and get hit and slide down the ramps, then get up and do it all over again.

CITY MUSEUM... AMAZING. It's why Jeff named his band after the place. Because there is No Place Like It (Just like there is no place like the Bonne Terre Mine). It's so fantastically adventurous and dangerous, and there's only one real warning sign at the front. I love it. It's almost like someone realized you can build places for people to have fun and they can take responsibility for their own safety. But I shall step off my soap box now. :)

So a great day was had with my relatives... though I was a bit sore from the day before.

But I've got no complaints. Only happy memories.
And a note to my friends who think the only "real" travel is out of the USA (You know who you are :)...
there's no Bonne Terre Mine or City Museum anywhere else. There's no slot canyons of Utah, no Colorado Rockies, no Grand Canyon, no New York City, no New Orleans... you get my drift. We've got amazing adventure right here in our backyard... so even though I highly recommend getting out of the USA to see the rest of the world, it doesn't mean you have to get out in order to travel. The USA rocks to travel in: Just ask the friends I met from other countries on the trip who have been here and love it. Jump in the car, slam on the gas, and see where the open road takes you.

So I got back to LA on Tuesday night late. Got picked up by my buddy Tom, and was glad to be back. It's funny how these trips are always exactly how long they should be. (I think I said that already). Walked into my house (that needs some cleaning), and felt really shitty... as in... oh no... I got food poisoning shitty.

Not Guatemala bad food poisoning, (for those who remember that pooping, puking story in the middle of nowhere), but pretty bad. It makes me wonder if my relatives were trying to get rid of me by giving me that ham sandwhich...hmm.... :)

Still getting recovered, but it really didn't bum me out at all. Why feel sorry for myself about food poisoning? I just had an incredible adventure, saw and did incredible things, met incredible people and had a blast with my wonderful family.

Awesome.

Now for real, until next time,
this is Craig Ouellette
last surviving member of the Nostromo,
signing off.