Wrote a long piece yesterday on ex-pats and the dislocated communities they create.  I opined that there was a higher deviance factor in ex-pat communities and that most of them were ‘ex’ for a reason. I thought I was on a roll.

Sal said it was boring, stupid and probably politically incorrect so it went into the ‘drafts’ folder.  Seems absence (no post) is preferable to showing up boring or stupid.  Or controversial.  Gotta stay funny but not rude, interesting but not provocative, personal but not intimate and I have to minimize the creative use of hyperbole.  This blog is a tightrope.

I have a tough editor.

I think I also have West Nile Virus (which is easier to live with sometimes than a tough editor).  It is here in Guatemala and I have been exhibiting WNV symptoms for awhile.  No big deal.  A few extra aches and pains.  Sometimes hard to differentiate from the old, usual ones, actually.  But it slows ya down a bit and my natural pace is pretty glacial as it is.  Symptoms are much like the flu but with weird cramps in your back, arms and legs.

But, it passes, they say, and I think I am near the completion stage.  Nothing to worry about although Sal’s idea of treatment is long hikes.  I have a tough partner who thinks dwelling on disease is the mark of a sissy.  “Suck it up, man!  And march!”

We are leaving Guatemala for El Salvador Monday morning.  A shuttle bus to Monterico and then a swampboat connection to a chicken bus that takes us across the border into a national park famous for – you guessed it – hikes.

Hikers on the Tourist Trail

What the hell is it with this new-fad-like appeal of hiking?  I remember perfectly well the joy and happiness associated with the discovery of the motorized wheel and it was good enough for me then and it is good enough for me now.

Did you know that there are companies dedicated to ‘taking you hiking’.  What the hell is that about?  I don’t need anyone to walk ahead of me saying ‘its this way‘.  I can see the trail.  The volcano is looming in front of me.  The incline is obvious.  What the hell?!

And while I am at it…….what the extra-hell is the appeal of a mangrove swamp, anyway?  I remember reading books on people lost in mangrove swamps and it was no picnic for them, I can assure you.  But today?  Today the adventure-traveler feels obliged to trek about in the swamps for at least a few hours.  Looking at bugs.  Pulling off leeches.  I don’t get it.

But I will.

Of course we are scheduled in to a swamp somewhere near the border (Master Drill Sgt. Sal) with the obligatory hike amongst the snakes and mosquitoes. Yippee.

I guess what I am saying is this………my wife is now some kind of intrepid hiking-masochist-cum-Amazon and I am now some kind of blobby-white doofus.  How did this happen?  And are more margaritas going to improve or exacerbate the situation?

Well, I can be intrepid, too.  I’ll just have to find out and report back to you.