As of today, I have been gone for exactly seven months<\/strong>. This date is special for me because 1.) it\u00b4s the first day in seven months that I used a telephone, and 2.) it\u00b4s the first day in my life that my health and life are completely uninsured (my travelers insurance lapsed today!). Thus, reason number one was in last-minute-and-ditch-attempt to rescue reason number two. Claro? But it didn\u00b4t work. Those silly insurance agencies insist<\/strong> on having “working hours” which apparently don\u00b4t coordinate with my everyday-is-Saturday schedule *scoffs*. So we will go uninsured for the weekend<\/strong>, a risk that holds a rather lofty position on the danger-and-death barometer of life given my most recent adventures with chicken busses and Bruces (see update entitled “Where\u00b4s My Double?).<\/p>\n Actually, in the last week I got two questions from readers regarding the “chicken busses”… which I will re<\/strong>-address now. (Since I <\/strong>can\u00b4t be bothered to to rummage through the archive dump, I shouldn\u00b4t expect you<\/strong> to).<\/p>\n Reader Question 1: What is a chicken bus?<\/strong><\/p>\n Chicken Bus:<\/strong> As defined by the completely unofficial and unrelated to Solgersauras<\/em>:<\/p>\n A “chicken bus” is essentially an old-American-Yellow-BlueBird-School-Bus converted into a Rainbow-Repainted-God-Proclaiming-Dice-Swaying-Mean-Machine mode of Central American transportation. To get from point A, to any point E, L, S or E in Central America, a traveler WILL, inevitably, adventure in one of these buses, (which is a sweet skip down grade-school-memory-lane when you see “MC Hammer Rules” or “Johhny and Susie 4 Ever, San Jose, California – 1984” carved on the back of the seat in front of you). The “chicken” part?<\/strong> Now I WAS about to launch into the basic common traveler-route-rumor about the orgin which claims roots in the idea that when riding in one of the these busses, there is a 90% chance that you will have a chicken or a few children on your lap for the duration of the trip. (Think “Opening Scene” of the original Indian Jones Movie.) OR that they pack in passengers like they would a truck full of chickens (7 persons per 4 seat row). BUT, that was before I dropped the word “chicken” into www.dictionary.com and got the following: (and this IS official…yet still unrelated to dinosaurs<\/em>)<\/p>\n “Any of various foolhardy competitions in which the participants persist in a dangerous course of action until one loses nerve and stops.<\/strong>”<\/p>\n Again, please refer to last weeks entry entitled, “Where\u00b4s my Double?”. Judge for yourself if it qualifies for the above definition.<\/p>\n Leading me to the SECOND reader question:<\/p>\n Reader Question 2: I saw a picture of an overturned chicken bus in Guatemala in the news. Was that related to terrorists attacks?<\/strong><\/p>\n I, too, saw a picture of an overturned chicken bus on the front page of the paper today. And there was a picture of one that went over a cliff in yesterday\u00b4s paper. And I saw a picture of a chicken bus in a river the day before. And tomorrow, there is a 99% chance that, in the paper, there will be a picture of another chicken bus in some other precarious, life-threatening, doom-inspiring and goose-bumping scenario. Fact of Guatemalan life: At least one chicken bus per day will LOSE in their chicken game <\/strong>of “various foolhardy competition in which the participant persists in a dangerous course of action until one loses nerve and stops.” And the next day, the outcome will be recorded in bloody detail<\/strong> (because unlike the US, Central American press has NO shame in printing photographs of decapitated, dismembered or otherwise destroyed human bodies in full color) and *oh so ironically* distributed ON the busses, during morning commute, to passengers.<\/p>\n *contemplates for a minute and makes note to self*<\/p>\n