Today on NPR. . (Poor Little Donkey).

Today on NPR they had this excellent show, an interview with a dude from Lonely Planet about a book called "Seat of My Pants" or that. Oh, I am so sad for you if you missed it.

Anyhow the book (and thus the interview) was about the crazy misadventures that happen when you go traveling that at the time can be a nightmare but later make the best stories.

So, people were calling up and telling their stories of hilarious woe. It's good I didn't crash my car and its good no one called 911/psych teams on the loopy lady laughing hysterically all alone in her car.

I got to thinking (always a bad thing) about my own misadventures while traveling so heck, why not write them down here and invite ya'll to tell me your own. ( Just click on comments and word me up. ) Then I can run yours on here too. YAY. A certain brother of mine has the best ones of all so I'll have to see if he feels like sharing or not.

So, the one in particular I was thinking about today is about, well, we'll just call it Learning to Dodge Donkey Guts Like A Pro in Mexico.

I was in Oaxaca, Mexico, one of my favorite places on Earth. My house mate at the homestay and I decided to go to see a true natural wonder commonly called el llave (something like the faucet) in the mountains surrounding the city.

What it is is a high cliff with a sulfur spring that bubbles up through it and out onto it's plateau forming these surreal hot spring pools on the peak of a cliff. The minerals have deposited and sculpted themselves into an indescribably strange and beautiful creation down the cliff's descent in colors you cant believe. You sit in there enjoying the hot springs and looking off the edge of the cliff into a deep valley. It Rocks!
(The place is called Hierve el Agua just in case you pass that way one day "This petrified waterfall is formed from the calcium carbonate and magnesium in the water. There are two such sites in the world, the second being in Turkey." -www.planeta.com/)

So, we went and it was all it promised to be and more. Sooooo relaxing and interesting. We were blissed out all day long. Sadly, the last bus of the day was coming much too soon and we lined up wishing we had planned to stay the night at the little ecotour cabin sites there. They were all full. Ah well, next time.

It didn't seem unusual to me that the line for the bus was really long. After all it was the l a s t bus. We packed on, in classic Mexico style, ignoring all common sense as far as any max capacity/weight limitations for the bus, and off we went.

As I mentioned before we were at the peak of a mountain. We had to wind down down down back into the Oaxaca valley along a narrow road with a steep cliff drop off one side. Along the route were little tiny villages and not a few, or a number or even a bunch but every single one of them was a stop for the bus. And lo and behold at evey single one of them were passengers waiting to hop on. Did I mention the bus was full beyond belief already? Take a whooooollle bunch of tourists and all our excessive first world crap and cram them into the bus in your mind until there is standing room only (and that is the first stop, you know, at the very top).

I'm not worried though, it's Mexico! We are livin'it!

SCREEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!! go the brakes doing a holy mary version of a stop, at a serious grade, in about one millionth the time and distance I would try to stop my own little car on a grade free road.

Clunk clunk clunk passengers climbing on, tucking in somehow to the tiny spaces left between already smooshed bodies.

SWAAAAYYY,SWAAAYYYY, SWIIINNNG goes the overstuffed bus around the increasingly curvy curves as we snake our way down.

Crush, crush, crush, swing oooouuuuuuutttttt- everybody leans hard with the pull of gravity - -trying not to lean too hard on the person next to you/ trying not to topple over if you are standing.

Swuush,swusshhh, screeeeeee (brakes) leeeeaaaannn into the curve, everybody now!

SCREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! stopping on a dime again- this guy must have seen too many car commercials.

CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK. Hmmmmmm that's amighty big bag that guy has and . . WHOOOOOOAAAAAHHH we're off again, poor dude, not even a chance to find his footing falls right into us, but catches himself. He's up,it's cool. We all smile, the it's cool smile. WHOOOOOAAAHHHHH that was a mo-f---- CURVE!! Here he comes again zoooooommmmm in and ahhhhhhhhh zoooooooommmmm out. Okay,okay it's cool, it's Mexico, we're livin' it!!
But yeah,I need to recollect a bit, I wont lie. I gaze down,kinda letting my eyes go unfocused until. .

WHAA!!!! OHHHH SHIT! There's . . is it? I mean, wait, is that? yeah , yep, yep undoubtably it's blood, a pool of blood on the floor. it's growing, it's running along those little bus floor lines, like rows in a field. Geeeeze, blood, yeah ,yep. Blood. Okay,it's cool, it's Mexico.... SCREEEEEEEE!!!! SWAAAAAAAAYYYYY Leeeeeeeaaaaannnnnn, crush. OH, OH, OH, FU-K. FU-K BIG MO-Fo off-the-charts FUUUUUUUUUUU------KK !! it's the guy, yeah, it's the bag, it's leaking, yup, leaking --no make it more like dripping or well what the hell I'll be honest the bag is oozing blood out the bottom corner and . WHOOOOOOOAAAHHHH !!!LEEEAAANNN!!!SCREEEEEEEE!!! It's coming closer, shit shit shit the nasty oozy stream is leaning too, leaning right towards us. Every out swing the little red sticky river is coming through the air closer and closer to us with the guy and the bag and the . .

No. Oh, no.
I soooooo should not have looked up. I'm an idiot. Yep, yup that's a foot. No, wait, not just a foot, it's a hoof. A hairy, muddy, poking-out-the-toppa-an-oversized-but-clearly-not-well-sealed-at-the-bottom leaf bag. It's leaf bag full of fresh chopped up donkey parts,so fresh they're still bleeding and WOOOOOAHHHHH ohmyGODohmigodohmigod it's gonna SHIT! I shove my house mate into the window with all the strength in my body to get the fu-k away from the blood as it leaaannnnsss towards me with the guy with the bag o donkey bits, right up in my face.

Poor guy, he's standing, totally insanely crammed in, no chance of getting his footing and now his donkey bag is bleeding all over the place (BIG DEAL) and these little guera girls are making an embarrassing scene for m. He's got to be thinking, " Fu-kin tourists overfillin' the bus, here I am just trying live my life make a buck and now these girls are screaming bloody murder over a little donkey blood. And making it seem like I'm out of place. Tourist season suuxxx!" --yeah.

Now she sees it, my house mate, she sees it all and WHOOOOOOAAAAHHHHH we're both screaming like idiots. We realize right away that screaming is such a shitty shitty wrong thing to do so we hold it in and look at the blood then each other then the blood and our veins are pounding in our faces and our eyes are huge and verging on tearing up then we look at eah other again and something happens.

It's dawns on us, I guess. We've got oh maybe another hour to go and there is no option and you know what in a way, in a way, this is insaaaaanely funny and that's all unspoken but we must be totally syncronized in this realization because we start to lose it, just lose it. And we get louder and louder and tears are running down our faces cause we are laughing so hard it hurts and every time----SCREEEEEEEEE !!! SWAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!! LEEEEAAAANNNN!!!
drip drip drip closer closer closer like a distorted version of Chinese water torture---- every time we hit another curve and the blood comes towards us it gets funnier and funnier and now we are screaming, even louder than before, but in a whole other dimension than before. And we cant stop, we just cant.

We'are livin'it Baby livvvv'innnnnnn it!
!Viva mexico!

(Per request- more Oaxaca photos)