BootsnAll Travel Network



Traveler Profile: Meet David

I hung out with the Yale TGIF’s (Thank God I’m a Forester), Caroline and Bridgid in San Marcos, and after dinner we chatted with a fellow American, David.

 

David is a middle aged guy from Colorado, and has spent the last few weeks in Guatemala, Honduras,  El Salvador and Nicaragua.  The following are this thoughts and may or may not be the truth, but they are his feelings about the people and places he has traveled to.  Pretty fascinating guy, so I thought I’d share with you the most striking parts of our conversation.

 

– When he travels, he tries to keep his feet washing to a minimum.  Whether or not  he changes his socks every other day, or every other week, I do not know.  He does this so that when he is in a crowded bus or train compartment, if he wants some privacy, all he needs to do is take off his shoes.  The putrid odor of his feet are usually enough to get people away from him.  I am not  going to include his picture, so just in case you run into a traveler with really horrible foot odor, you might as well as him if his name is David.

 

– He doesn’t care much for India or most of the people.  He says folks that travel to and through India either love it or hate it.  He believes their society is corrupted by money.  You can’t trust anybody because they’re just trying to rip you off or take your money.  Kids, mothers, fathers, men, women, pets, cows and everything else in between poop and pee in public everywhere.  Sanitation is a huge problem.  (Sidenote:  my friend Shirley once told me  that there is a certain smell about  India that you can never forget…could it be the public bathroom odor she is referring to?). 

 

– David adds that he knows a guy who manages a factory in India.  They make radiator caps for cars.  The failure rate is 6 parts per million.  Million.  But the the European automobile manufacturers rejected a shipmet because of the high fecal bacterial count once the boxes were opened.

 

– More India.  Electricity is not reliable, so refrigeration is a problem and you should probably eat vegetarian when you go there, since the chances of eating spoiled meat are high.

 

– He recounted an experience with trying to use the public buses in India.  Another Swiss guy was stuck in some town for 3 days, as transportation officials stated that all the buses and trains are full.  But David discovered that it is all a sham.  This particular town had this thing going where they steer all the foreigners and tourists away from the public transportation and towards private cabs and similar services.  This way the charge will be higher and everyone gets a kickback.

 

–  He doesn’t like dogs because they won’t leave you alone.  He prefers cats.

 

– He had his bag slashed in Guatemala.  On the bus.  His bag was in the overhead rack and they still got to it.  They didn’t take anything important, but he did have to spend some money to fix his bag and jacket.  He is the 5th person I’ve met that has had his/her bag slashed.

 

– Out of the four countries he has visited, he feels most unsafe in Guatemala, especially walking around at night.  He prefers to hike volcanoes and go to the natural areas without a guide, just on his own, but in Guatemala it is just about mandatory because of all the armed robberies that have occured on mountain trails.  He also says that in El Salvador, there is not one tree left in the  entire country (I’ve heard this from many people).

 

– In Phoenix, his brother puts the legs of his baby’s crib inside glass jars.  That way, scorpions can’t climb up the glass and into the crib.

 

One of the greatest aspects of traveling is meeting other fellow travelers, swapping tales and stories and seeing what makes them tick.  David is certainly one character that I had a fun evening with.  For those of you that have been to India or have lived there, feel free to respond.



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2 responses to “Traveler Profile: Meet David”

  1. Mike Jones says:

    I loved India!!

    Got sick (real real sick) on avarage of every 2 days.

    Just before I got healed from one sickness I got another.

    Looked like a war zone but there was no war.

    Just people. A lot of people.

    And Poverty.

    But there was great history and culture there.

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