Hey everyone, greetings from Leon, Nicaragua. We are in a great hostel called Lazy Bones and will most likely be chillin for a few days. If things go as planned we will be hitting up some volcanoes manana, potentially even skiing or boarding down the molten ash, should be sweet if it happens. Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day. We got to have a vegetarian one, spaghetti bolognese with soy, which is sort of an oxymoron from what we´re used to in the states. I can´t think of any time that I didn´t have a fat turkey leg in my hand since birth on that magical third Thursday of every November.
A brief update of what has happened. We left Guatamala for Honduras near Puerto Barrios with only minor issues. From there we headed to La Ceiba on the coast of Honduras, where Henkes & Seeley picked up two, small classical guitars to replace the progressively deteriorating other two. While in La Ceiba we got to see Quantum of Solace, pretty good, and planned on heading to the Bay Islands, namely Roatan the following day. Before this happened though, both Mike & Alex proceeded to get violently ill from the always reliable, Applebees. Fortunately for myself, I avoided this disaster since it turned out both of them got Ecoli from eating something there that I did not partake of. Mike and I ended up leaving for the island ourselves, leaving Alex to recoup his strength in the hostel with the plan to have him meet us there when he got to feeling better (sorry Mrs. Henkes). Later that day in Roatan is when it caught up to Mike and he had to go to the hospital in town to get back to feeling better. Being tip-top, I proceeded to go out to find a good bar to watch the Honduras v Mexico game, which Honduras won 1-0. There was a great party celebrating the victory and I definitely embibed way too much. I ended up getting to know a few locals there and went to one guys house to chill out before heading to the dance club. While there, things got a little sketchy as the owner started doing massive amounts of cocaine from the end of a dinner fork in the kitchen as countless other guys kept coming over looking to score some for themselves. Turns out I managed to make friends with the local drug lord, which probably explains why he had such a nice place. Anyway, we ended up leaving there after 30 min or so and went to the dance club where it was 80´s night and I managed to snake away from the drug czar as quckly as I could, not wanting to be associated with their wackness. I met some other people and hung out with them until I could no longer see straight. I stumbled home and passed out, the following day being spent nursing my hangover.
Nothing much else happened in Roatan, it rained every day. I did go Scuba Diving, which was cool. We met some more cool travellers, namely Natalie from Bristol England and Lisa from Atlanta, GA but living in Miami. We left Roatan after 5 days or so, the final day being spent watching the overrated Giants defeat the Cardinals. After getting back to Ceiba from Roatan we headed out the next morning at the but crack of dawn to get to the Nicaraguan border, which we managed to do. One hiccup happened while crossing the border. Since we didnt have any money other than my travellers checks, I used one to exchange with one of the guys who deals in money transfers. He gave me a terrible exchange rate and what made it worse is that I had to write my passport number on the back of the check. Fearing identity theft I chose to put down a fake number, not a smart idea. After handing him the check he pestered me to show him my passport so he could verify what I wrote down. I refused, so he got the chief border official to get it from me, and after he saw it, he said some things in Spanish that made me thin kI could be headed for a jail cell. Fortunately, Mike calmed everyone down, I got another check for the same amount and wrote the passport number down with them watching. We proceeded to get the hell out of dodge and stayed the night in Chinandega. The next couple days were spent on the beach in northern Nicaragua where we ate our vegetarian Thanksgiving. Bringing us to here, Leon, where we plan on enjoying the party scene this weekend, hoping for more good stories.
has distracted us from taking an active interest in relaying our experiences back to you - even though we miss you all. So far things have gone smoothly ie: no major heists, police bribes, debaucherous events etc. . From Mexico City we headed south to Chicahau and then to Porto Escondido where we made a few noteworthy friends (pictured below) and immersed ourselves in varying degrees of hearthdom. After 5 days in that area we headed northeast through the Yucatan (San Cristobal, Palenque, and Chetumal). From Chetumal we headed south into Belize to a town called Dangriga and from Dangriga to Key Whipray off the southern coast of Belize near Placencia. The key was an exceptional experience as I was attacked by a hostile needle fish which, irritated by my fishing lure firmly hooked in its mouth, decided revenge on my leg and hand was necessary (unfortunately he suffered a worse fate). After our time on the key we promply sped off to Guatemala and here I am writing you from Tical. 
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Menu Mind Games
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Get your diners right where you want them!
What do anchors, bacon, and grandmothers have in common? They're all
tactics used to make menus more enticing...
14 years ago
