it's a small world..........after all

beed has had more than one small world occurences and is gonna share dos (two) of 'em with u. the first one involves another trip to honduras and the second occured when dahbeed was in the marine corps.

okay, beed is on a medical/dental mission trip in honduras. several times in the past, beed would not fly back with the team. he would stay in country for another week and travel. this time beed was accompanied by a good buddy that had been in the marine corps with beed and now lived in texas.

when we were in the marine corps we had been on a med cruise (trust beed here, it's nuttin' like a love boat cruise). one of our ports of call was alexandria egypt. beed and his bud took off immediately for cairo and got to see the sphynx and the great pyramids of giza. so beed wanted to see some mayan pyramids in the northern part of honduras.

we had 4 little boys with us that we knew from previous years. we were trying to show them some things that they would normally nevah have a shot at on their own. if we're doing a story on a third world trip, u will inevitably be treated to a bus trip story. the first bus from the capital city tegucigalpa to san pedro sula was nice. a very clean greyhound style bus with only tickets sold for number of passengers. air conditioned and comfy as hell.

we arrive at one bus station in san pedro sula and have to take a taxi the other bus station. on the way there we saw a dead man in the street and there was military and cops everywhere. it turns out he was a union organizer and was assassinated by some big money folks that didn't relish the idea of paying a fair wage. anyhoo, we get to the new place and buy our tickets. it was one of those old blue bird school buses. we leave san pedro and are on our merry way

we stop in every little town there was and pretty soon the bus is starting to fill up. and guess what......it was a chicken bus.....the kind of bus where people are bringing live chickens on the bus and sitting with them in their laps. beed knows that is a stereotype but he'll swear on a stack of bibles that it happened.

anyhoo, now the bus is packed. beed and his buddy tere, and the 4 boys could not in good conscience sit while there were beat down poor little old ladies standing in the aisle. we gave our seats up to them. none of the men down there were giving theirs up.

we reach the end of the line and have to take another smaller bus from la entrada a copan to copan. it was not crowded at all and we had a nice trip. probably around 8 hours total on the 3 buses.

we got a room at the nicest hotel in the city......pretty decent rooms but nothing like you are used to in the states. and the showers even had hot water. not like here but there is a little device attached to the shower head and u turn it on and it heats the water as it passes through the head. the key is to not turn the water on high volume so it heats it better.

we had met two young girls that were travelling together. one was a brit and the other girl was german. they were around 19 and the adventurous type. anyhoo, they were travelling on a limited budget so we offered them the use of our showers since they had hot water. not while we were in the room mind u, we would let them use it and we would wait in the restaraunt.

we had met some big wig professor from penn state who was working on a dig down there. in the states he prolly wouldn't have given us the time of day.....beed has seen this guy quoted in old national geographic articles chronicalling his dig at the ruins. but a white face and english is a welcome thing when u are living in honduras and he invited us to dinner with him and we in turn had invited the young ladies.

it was a great time.....good food....pretty girls......an interesting as hell professor and really good conversationalist. and if u been readin' the beedster for awhile u can tell he's quite the conversationalist himself. anyhoo, the young ladies arrive at the table and say "thanks A LOT for the hot shower" we replied quizically "what do u mean by that?" huffily they said "the water was NOT hot".

we questioned them again "did u turn the switch on the widowmaker (slang term for the device...picture electrical wiring in a shower) on?" "errrrr, what switch?" we all had a big laugh over that one as beed and his buddy had already had a few adult bevarages with the prof.

the professor axed us when we were going back and we replied on saturday. he then axed us if we would like a ride back to san pedro sula in a s.u.v. instead of taking the buses. we're talking the difference between over 4 hours and chickens on the buses and only two hours in a chevy suburban. it's a no brainer.

we had dinner every night with the professor and just had a very good little vacation. btw, the pyramids, tho' very interesting pale in comparison to those big mammer jammers in egypt. not even close.

saturday arrives and the prof is not going, he's sending a couple of his workers and a grad student to pick up some supplies. so we pile in the s.u.v. and start chatting. beed axed the grad student where he went to school and he told beed "vanderbilt" beed says "oh really, i live pretty close to vandy, bowling green to be exact.....do u know where that is"

he said "not only do i know where it is, i used to live there when i was a kid. my dad was a professor at western and i attended jones-jaggers elemenary school". this school used to be a school for the western professors kids. beed axed him what years did u live there. we started asking and answering questions and it turns out that this kid had been a friend of beed's best friend in elementary school.

so here we are, a couple thousand miles from bowling green, way up in the northeast corner of honduras and beed runs into someone like that. it was cool as hell and made for a really nice drive back to san pedro sula. he drops us off and we make sure that he let the professor once again know how much we enjoyed his hospitality and and his kindness. he assured us that he would.

this damn thing go so long beed is gonna have to wait for another day to do the other one. how about u guys. where is the strangest place that u have had a small world experience?

sinceremente (sincerely)

indiana beed (in honor of indiana jones....that's who beed felt like amid those ruins)