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Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Outsmarted by a 10 year Old in Honduras – 27 December 2017

27 December 2017 – I decided to give it another day before I crossed the border because the other helper had pre-warned his buddy that I was coming.  So, I sat out one day so I wouldn’t appear to be to predicable and easy pickings. Instead, I walked downtown because I saw on Google Maps that there was a Shopping Center / Mercado. I went down there and bought apples, bread, sandwich meat, cheese, water and a Pepsi. I saw something in the Mercado that would alarm weight watchers around the world. Two women bought a 12 pack of Pepsi. Each bottle was 3 quarts / 3 liters or roughly 9 gallons / 36 liters. It took both of the women to carry it. That’s a lot of teeth rotting out of somebody’s head and a lot of extra pounds around the middle.  Or maybe they were going to soak their car in it to remove the paint, as I’ve heard Coke will do.  I have wondered about this from time to time. I have seen one and two-liter bottles of Coca-Cola under people’s arms and that’s all they’re drinking. I know for a fact that Coca-Cola and Pepsi dehydrate you. I can’t even think about drinking Pepsi or Coca-Cola when riding my motorcycle. I would be a sugar junkie and probably kill myself. I wonder if the people realize how addictive that stuff is! Off course you can always ask this question: could that money be better spent on the children, clothing, schooling, medicine, home repairs or vehicles? This is the kind of stuff I shouldn’t think about. I’m just a time traveler passing through somebody’s else world. You are allowed to look but not judge.

I left the Mercado and was walking down the street and saw fresh bananas for sale from a street vendor. I had to have some. So, I asked the lady how much it cost for 2 bananas. She said the minimum quantity of bananas was four. Her daughter whips up 10 fingers for the price. So, I countered with 5 fingers. She wasn’t buying it, 10 Lempira. I countered her price with 7 Lempira. Nope still 10 Lempira. I countered with 9 Lempira. She said, nope 10 Lempira. I paid her 43 cents / 10 Lempira. I was out dickered by a 10 year old girl. While I was dickering with this girl I almost cut my forehead on the sheet metal roof. That’s how low the roof was, or how tall I was…..mid forehead on me. I took my food and water and went back to the hotel. I ate a pretty nice lunch and supper.


On my computer, I was checking into the Honduras / Nicaraguan border crossing when I found a website from May of 2016. It spelled out the different steps in crossing the border. I read it and tried to commit it to memory.  I decided I could leave Honduras by myself. However, getting into Nicaragua would be a different story. I was going to cut down the copying fees which cost money. I’m going to use my own copies which I printed out before leaving the U.S.A. If I have to I will walk with my helper from one window to another. I want to make my presence known. So that was my plan. I put a short cut on my cell phone desktop so I can read about other border crossings the site talks about. I found the guy’s comments helpful. I also spent considerable time looking at how I could bypass the capital city of Managua. I don’t want to drive through it. I found a route around the city.

The question is how can I tame the wild beast Blanche to follow the route I want to go? I’m going to research making or plotting a route on Blanche. Maybe I can build a route and she will follow it blindly. Wouldn’t that be a novelty? I wrote down all the roads I would use. I double checked all my paper work I will need for tomorrow. I want to be organized and look like I know what I’m doing and not be at the mercy of some individual leading me blindly. So, I got that completed and now I must get to bed because I want start mobilizing at 4:30 a.m. I would like to be at the border by 6:00 / 6:30 a.m.  

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