OK… So I am a bit late writing about the last part of the ‘moon. Sue me.
After the few days we spent in DF and Taxco, it was time to again board Mexicana… also known as Mexi-arrogante… for the short flight to Cancun. As you might glean from my comment, Mexicana is not my favorite airline and in fact are probably toward the bottom… not bad considering this was the first time I have flown the airline. They work quick to impress!
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OK… So I screwed up. I am not sure why I thought we could properly visit a city of maybe 24 million people in four hours… but I did.
Mexico City is special. I have always wanted to visit, but was scared away by the numerous traveler’s warnings.
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For some reason, I thought it would be a cool idea to leave really early the day after the wedding. You know… get to Mexico City early enough to actually DO something. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time…
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Sheesh… It appears I simply cannot take any time away from my business. Since returning from the honeymoon, it has been 14 hour days and I never get a chance to write in my blog. I did have time though to add some of the photos from our trip to Taxco, Mexico and you can see them in the gallery here or just browse the gallery here. There are also a couple of Cancun photos… more coming.
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Costa Rica lags the US in women’s fashion.
Sometimes, lag is not the right word. Sometimes Costa Rica simply ignores women’s fashion in the USA. Often, this is a really good thing as the ladies of North America seem to queue up like lemmings to blindly follow whoever comes out with whatever is the dumbest, most offensive, least attractive item that a woman could possible wear. Some items I am sure, were designed to simply humiliate women because there is simply no other reason for their existence.
Sadly, the absolutely fantastic ladies of this country have lost all use of their mental facilities and are now buying (and worse… wearing) those incredible and stunningly ugly pointy toed shoes. Good Lord… am I the only one who sees this?
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Buying wedding rings should be simple. As with so many things in Costa Rica, it was not.
First was the size thing. Costa Ricans are a smaller people. Ticos over 5 feet 10 inches are not common. Large body parts are apparently not either. (Naw… don’t go there. I have no knowledge in that area).
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I am getting married on the 8th of October and I am REALLY getting nervous.
So is my bride to be… known in this blog as ML, Maria, Luisa, Guisa and other assorted names,
She has not been married in almost 20 years. I have not been married in about 15 years. 35 accumulated years of flying solo. We bounce around each other like 7th graders.
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I received a comment this AM on my Aruba rant… Lily comments, “Do you really think a judge in training has so much power? GIVE ME A BREAK, don’t let fox think for you my friend.”
Well if you think I allow anyone to think for me… it is pretty clear you haven’t read too many posts. Also, I have never heard Fox voice this opinion. I own this, and I base it on the fact that I have lived long enough to know exactly how the system works, especially in small countries.
While this guy is a “judge in training”, he is a hugely powerful man in Aruba. Hugely powerful men (or I guess women as well) wield hugely powerful influence in any country, but more so in island Carribean nations. They have the ability to make problems “go away”.. for themselves or for their children. This is true in any country of course, including the USA. Remember Bill Clinton, Mayor Richard J Daley (the father, not the son),or less successfully, Richard Nixon? I mean really… can you imagine how different our government in the US would be if the Kennedy boys (most specifically Teddy) were made to actually be responsible for their actions?
In small countries as Aruba (or Costa Rica), these families are interconnected in business, society, the works. They strive to cover each others backs at all cost. I am of the opinion that this is exactly what happened in Aruba.
Baring the incredibly remote possibility that this girl met the love of her life that night and eloped (and is now to scared or ashamed to surface), I believe the more likely scenario is that she likely hooked up with these boys, tried or was given a bit of ecstasy and had a bad reaction or perhaps was slipped a roofie, or maybe forced to do something against her will, resisted and was killed.
Stop and think for a moment how hard it is to make a body disappear, especially given the (now) huge number of people searching with dogs and sophisticated equipment on a very small island.
I doubt her remains are still on the island. I think she was taken out to sea, and that her remains will not be found. I hope I am wrong. I also think her remains were on the island the day after her disappearance. Someone made them go away.
Questions I have:
- If the body was placed in the ocean, how did the body get out there? It is my understanding that tides were incoming, so just dumping her would not be a safe option that night… had to be done later.
- Who took the body out to sea?
- When?
- Who would have the resources to get a boat to do it?
- Who would have the resources cover up using a boat to do this?
The authorities incredibly arrested and released these boys after but a cursory interview. Why? While the laws of countries vary tremendously, basic law enforcement and investigation do not. Naw… I don’t buy it.
I believe the Aruban government made, at best, a lackluster attempt to find both her and those connected to her disappearance. I believe they made the decision to show the world an all out effort to find out what happened to her in order to save their tourist trade. I believe they made a big show of trying to find her body, but did little. I am suspicious of arresting and releasing these boys. In general, I believe they stalled the process until the media (Fox excepted as they seem fixated on this) lost interest or until other news items (i.e. London or Karl Rove) became the top stories.
I believe they were 100% successful.
Now… after all this… I also believe there has been simply too much coverage on this whole thing. Too much commentary (including mine). Too much Natalee. There are other things more important going on in the world, and Natalee has received way more than her 15 minutes of fame. I am still not going to Aruba for the honeymoon as I really do believe what I wrote above and I refuse to support a system like that.
And if ever so remotely, Natalee is sitting on a beach somewhere knocking back some tropical drink with a little umbrella on top and dreaming of the time when she and her lover can re-surface… I say to you… “You go girl! You got us all”.
I am also done with Natalee postings. Two were probably two too many.
With some real justification… there are of course anti Natalee blogs. Here are one or two that I liked. One is a bit brutal, but makes his point.
Tags: Aruba
Natalee Holloway
Got your attention?
My TV news fix in Costa Rica is pretty much limited. Thank God for the Internet.
We get the Clinton News Network (CNN) in both English and Spanish and Fox, Fox gets most of my news viewing time as CNN is just so freaking pinko and biased I cannot deal with their constant flow of left-wing drivel.
Fox, however, lately seems to have taken an almost fixated view of this Natalee Holloway deal in Aruba. They have built nearly their whole news coverage on this case.
It is impossible to tune in for more than 15 minutes without an ALERT or some “BREAKING NEWS” on this poor girls disappearance. I feel terrible for this girl’s family.
CNN pretty much ignores the whole thing and there is almost no coverage elsewhere on the net.
What bugs me the most though is that although Fox is investing a ton of air time on her disappearance, they just don’t seem to “get it”, or if the do, they are not saying it aloud. I feel like the kid that was yelling “The king has no clothes!”.
What I mean by “get it” is THE GOVERNMENT OF ARUBA IS COVERING UP THE ENTIRE CASE BECAUSE THE PRIME SUSPECT’S FATHER IS AN ENORMOUSLY INFLUENTIAL PERSON AND A JUDGE-IN-TRAINING!
In the beginning, they were terrified of the loss of US tourism.
Now, they have strung this thing out to the point where few people care.
They do not want this case solved. They want it to go away!
This has been clear from the first week when the Aruban “police” allowed these miscreants (the suspects) the opportunity to get together, build a story, and impede the investigation. There seems ample evidence the father of the chief suspect has been advising his son on this issue.
What a joke this is, and shame on Fox for not getting nasty on this issue. Fox should be taking the lead on this since they have appointed themselves the Natalee Holloway experts!
The Aruban government, with Fox’s cooperation, has successfully stalled this case to the point where there is no righteous indignation and the story itself has withered from the mainstream news.
What WILL get the attention of the Aruban government would be a full-court press by Fox encouraging their viewers to boycott Aruba until this case is resolved. Aruba depends almost entirely on tourist dollars. Cut off those dollars and I can guarantee a change in attitude. Even the precious son of an Aruban official will not be worth the loss of an entire country’s economy. Fox did this with the French and the resulting boycott has cost France dearly.
I am not going to wait for Fox to lead this. ML and I are now planning our honeymoon. For the past few months, we narrowed our choices to Mexico and Aruba with Aruba taking a slight lead as seemed more “exotic” and sexy.
We made the decision yesterday to go to Mexico.
I realize our measley few thousand tourist dollars will not make much difference to the future of Aruba, but it makes me feel a bit better to know my dollars will not be going to fuel a corrupt government. To this day, I still will not buy products from France.
There are a ton of beautiful, tropical island destinations in the Carribean, not to mention Costa Rica and Mexico.
Planning your trip? Put a pass on Aruba until they get serious about this thing.
For the (maybe) 2 people who regularly follow this blog, I am happy to report that I am now officially engaged to marry Maria Luisa Fallas.
I had planned this thing for weeks… ML and I would stand up at our joint birthday party and welcome the guests. She would speak first… then I would welcome them as well.
The unscheduled part was where I would say something really romantic about how much she means to me, how I want to spend my life with her… and of course the biggie… will you marry me?
This worked swimmingly until I was handed the mic, at which point I forgot:
OK… the name thing was not a huge deal as guys can always get by in Costa Rica with Mi Amor, Mi Corazon, Mi Vida, and others. These are the Latin equivalents of Darling… though ours are much cooler!
The Spanish thing was considerable more of an issue as only about 8 people of the 80 at the party actually spoke English… the only language that I could remember at the time. Sadly, my bride to be is not one of them being of the Tica (Costa Rica) persuasion… she speaks little if any English.
So I did what I always do in time of sheer panic. I panicked! I also sweated bullets… looked vastly uncomfortable. I then remembered the word “hola”, which means “Hello”, and is not a particularly helpful word when you have a lot more to say. Thankfully, I recovered, did the welcome and proposal thing
She accepted… and now I am compromised
Then… I got the hell back to some serious drinking (which I never do!) because I knew the Costa Rican Traditional, Country and Western, Can Can and Square Dance Dancers were coming!
The dancing thing was her idea. “Let’s have professional dancers at the party!” sez she. OK, sez I.
Those of you who are aficionados of dance may indeed wonder how a dance troupe can be Latin traditional, Square Dance, and Can Can, all at the same time! This would seem to be a conflicting situation involving not only vastly different cultures, differing periods, and certainly different costumes!
HA! If you do not understand how this can be done… you are clearly part of the great unwashed! You probably voted for George Bush in the last election and live in states that New Yorkers feel should not even be PERMITTED to vote. Any New Yorker can could easily explain this.
Sadly, I am originally from Ohio, so you will have to find a New Yorker to help you with this.
In any case, we were treated to a hour of really interesting dancing with the dancers wore can-can skirts (sort of) with cowboy boots, and cowboy hats who danced the Can Can mixed with a tad of do-see-do! I sure got MY money’s worth!
Cowboy? Cowgirl! Oh Oh! Possible PC alert!
As I no longer live in the USA, I have sort of gotten away from the Politically Correct silliness that had invaded the US just as I made my departure! Forgive my gaffe! I do not wish to offend! Should I have said cowgirl boots? Is cowgirl now offensive to girls? What if the girls are women? If they are women, should these now be cowwomen boots? Is there such a thing as a cow woman? Should it be now be cowPERSON? What about the COWS! Do they now have a PC word of their own? What is the PC word for cow? I am so confused!
Back to dancing!
Veronica, the lead dancing lady, the one without any body fat and who has not broken a sweat since she ran a iron man in the rain forest came running up breathlessly to ask ME to participate. I tried to warn her that this approach would affect the size and availability of her tip, but I had still not sufficiently recovered my Spanish.
I have advice for all of you, especially those of the male persuasion.
Men, in general, should never can-can, and if they DO, they must never can-can and square dance simultaneously. To do so brings on pain in one’s nether regions. For those of you who do not know what a nether region IS, please check with long time NY resident Hillary Clinton.
I hurt myself… and I almost had a myocardial infarction. I really didn’t, but I am testing a new blog tool called BlogJet and I want to see what the spell check does with myocardial and infarction.
It fixed the first and couldn’t find infarction… which is maybe cause there is no such word.
I did suffer severe strain to my nether regions, and I am feeling it today.
Everyone seemed to have a good time. We got some nice gifts… and a surprise gift from my daughter Karen and her family in Chicago. Thanks sweetie!
In summary… I am an engaged person and my sweetie is happy.
Most people now plan the wedding… but we spent all morning planning the honeymoon (luna de miel or moon of honey, in Spanish).
