What's in the Box?

When I walked through the airport terminal with a 6"x6" cardboard box I could feel eyes on me. And the box. At the security checkpoint I emptied the pockets of my cargo pants into one grey trey and in another I placed the box and gently pushed it along onto the TSA conveyor belt and through the black flaps, pretending it was getting an airport car wash. As the box passed through the x-ray machine I wondered what it would look like to the screener.

"Sir, is this your box?" the burly, seemingly annoyed woman with the Homeland Security badge asked.

"It is".

"Can you step this way?"

I did.

"Please open the box".

I did. She looked in, probed around with her latex-gloved hand, looked up at me, shook her head, pushed the box in the trey towards me and said "you can go".

As I stood in line to board the plane a woman behind me in line, but standing next to me as if I might not notice her and let her sneak by looked over at the box tucked under my arm and asked "An urn? Sometimes people carry the ashes that way."

"No, but close" - I said, slightly sarcastically.

On the plane I placed my laptop in the overhead compartment above seat 3D, I reached down, grabbed the box and placed it gently in the little space that was left.

"Whatca got there?" the flight attendant asked in a half-joking, half-gruff, suspicious tough guy tone. I could feel the people around me wondering the same thing. What is it? Should we rush him? Grab his box from him? He has a goatee. People with beards can't be trusted. I closed the compartment hatch and sat in my seat.

I've never asked anyone what was in their purse. Or what's in their laptop bag. Why should I tell anyone what was in the box?

Pre-Flight Burrito

There are many things in this world that you just shouldn't do.

• Wave a red cape at a bull.
• Throw rocks at a beehive
• Take a laxative and sleeping pill at the same time

and perhaps one of the biggest mistakes one can make is to partake of a burrito just before a flight. In fairness, the item I ordered was simply called the MegaWrap and scratched in chalk just to the right it said (1lb) whatever that means. It didn't say burrito on the menu, but rest assured it had all of the necessary requirements to meet the FDAs standard for such non-sandwich meal. Beans, cheese, guacamole, chicken - all wrapped up with some spicy dipping sauce on the side....not the items you want to ingest before a flight. And yet I did.

My flight to Boston was scheduled for 3:50 PM today and like a good patriotic citizen I arrived 2 hours beforehand to face the challenge of the airport decathlon including the porter baggage toss, screeners switchback relay, 50 meter barefoot fungal walk and wheelchair dodging. I then parked it and awaited the pre-board announcement, content to surf the web with free wi-fi.

Lost in the invisible waves of the internets, I was jolted to attention not by the grumblings of the MegaWrap, but by a collective groan from the crowd - sounding as if they were all watching a video of someone being hit in the groin by a child trying to whack a pinata. I looked up and noticed the flight departure was set back 3 hours.

Three hours passed - in which I could have watched 3/4 of a baseball game, cooked 15 pots of corn on the cobb or written another rambling blog like this one. Finally we boarded.

I won't bore you with the details of the heavily intoxicated upper-class middle-aged woman with a Pekingese that was occupying my seat and couldn't find her wits enough to move, but I will say that for the 90 minutes that we were sitting on the runway, I was reminded of the perils of eating a giant burrito before a 3 hour flight.

The flight was cancelled. Not because of the burrito, but because of a mechanical failure on engine one. I love it when pilots are so honest. They debarked everyone and after 10 hours at RSW airport I am comfortably resting at a hotel near the Fort Myers airport, 5 miles from my apartment where I will try this all again in the morning.

I think I'll skip the breakfast burrito.

Random Monkey Bonus

Welcome to Ecuador - land of beautiful surprises, amazing vistas and random monkey bonuses. After a late arrival in Guayaquil, Ecuador last night, Ma-Le picked me up at the airport and brought me back for dinner with the family. They were nice enough to wait until 11:30 pm to eat. I was nice enough to not fall asleep in my dinner as well as having the stomach to eat again. That is if you can count eating on the plane. I do. It's exciting and I can never fall asleep until after the chicken and rice served in a soap dish is placed in front of me God forbid I miss a meal. (and Walnut Shortbread Cookies? - sounds gross - quite good. Maybe it's the euphoric amount of oxygen pumped throughout the cabin that provides this assessment). But I digress. NO PHOTOS PLEASE! (The Ecuador paparazzi pestering already.) I hadn't been in the country for 12 hours when we were lucky enough to get a glimpse (albeit at a great distance) of our first monkey. We traveled south to a park called Cerro Blanco (White Hill) and hiked the mountainous terrain in search of mostly birds and lizards but this little scene played out much to my delirium. These photos were taken well over 1/2 a mile away, but you can see the Red Howler monkey, hanging by a prehensile tail and swinging out to a very large flower. The leaves have fallen and most seeds and flowers are prominently displayed for seed dispersers like monkeys, squirrels and birds to find.

A few discarded petals and the lettuce head-sized flower is gone.

On to the next flower....I was lucky enough to see one up close. They are huge! The pollen covered stamens are bent inward, requiring pollinators like bees to crawl inside for the nectar and covering themselves with the pollen which they then bring to the next flower to cross pollinate. I learned this after leaning in to take a giant whiff of the pungent flower and a pollen encrusted bee zipped out.

I had forgotten what it's like to climb mountains. The highest point we reached today was near 1200 feet above sea level and that's about 1190 feet higher than I have gotten used to this year.As we left the park, Ma-Le recognized a friend who is a biologist and vet at the park and although my Spanish is terrible, I distinctly overheard them talking about a mark on his throat and I understood the words "Ocelot" and "Attacked". We headed back to his clinic where he brought out this little guy. Turns out this baby Ocelot had only been nursing on David's neck which left the mark. This 2 month old cat had been taken from the wild to be sold as a pet. It's mother was killed to get it and when the poachers were nabbed for this crime, the police brought the kitten to the refuge where it will now live.

They are carnivores, but at this size, their teeth and jaws can't do too much damage to me. Ma-Le's brother Juan Jose was still cautious, afraid the cute fluffy little thing might rip his face off.

I'm off to the Jungle for the next 9 days!