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January 25, 2005
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January 25, 2005 Change
of venue We
are sorry to announce that the "Adventures of Kyle Marker" will be
changing locations. Yes,
though it won't be a surprise to many of you, I have been kicked out of the
Peace Corps. No, it wasn't for
anything worthy. Hell it doesn’t even make a good story, like having illicit
relations with a Sultan's daughter or running a small smuggling operation along
the Mauritanian border or (my favorite) touring the countries of West Africa on
a 250 cc Honda named "La Formidable II" and leading an armed
revolution to overthrow a corrupt dictator. Nope, I simply spent an extra day in
the capital to without permission. Yep,
I wasn't expecting it, maybe a good tongue-lashing but not "I want you on
the plane next Tuesday". The
only thing that could explain it is the director is new and he needed to make an
example of me for the new recruits. To
say the least, the parting was less than cordial.
So,
it’s on to plan B and I am currently sitting in my most favorite bar on the
planet (Casa Babylon) drinking a lemonade and enjoying the sun, surf, and beach
life of Puerto Escondido, Mexico. After
arriving back to civilization I quickly found out that several of my best
friends where heading south of the border for Christmas.
Sensing a perfect opportunity to begin a new adventure, I packed up my
motorcycle and with reckless abandon headed out. Passing through the snow covered fields of Colorado, braving
the frost of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico, and dodging a blizzard in eastern
Arizona I happily arrived to a rain storm in Phoenix where I could recover from
the journey with my good friend Zack and a few mightily needed drinks.
After regaining feeling in my toes I bolted down Pacific coast of Mexico
at an ass-numbing pace. I made it from border at Nogales to Puerto in 5 days,
covering 2000 miles. I highly
suggest doing that trip over a longer time frame and camping at the countless
lonely beaches south of Puerto Vallarta. But
the road was heavenly; it’s a deserted highway with hare-pin turn after
hare-pin turn for hours and hours, with pacific 400ft below to your right and
the mountain side steeply rising to your left, heavenly I say.
I was enjoying the ride so much that my mouth hurt because I was smiling
constantly. I arrived in Puerto two
days after my friends (the aforementioned Zack and Adrian, in from Amsterdam) to
a waiting hotel room and quickly slipped into the beach life that is Puerto
Escondido. The
only mishap on the journey was losing a saddlebag to one of the car-eating topes
(speed bumps) somewhere north of Acapulco. I lost nothing irreplaceable but
those in the RIM will be saddened to know that my faithful green hat was in that
bag. A
month of surfing, siestas on the beach, cervezas at sunset, opening Christmas
presents over looking the beach, many many Mohitos, some wonderful strawberry
pie and an insane week with Josh (those who know him will understand), it would
be an understatement to say “I’ve had a good time.”
But now all my friends have gone (to wherever people with jobs go) and
I’ve recovered enough from my Peace Corps experience, so I’m off to Oaxaca
City tomorrow to find a Spanish school and truly begin my journey.
Hopefully I can stay there for a couple months and then continue south,
as for how far south I’ll go… that
has yet to be determined. Kyle
“Che” Marker P.S.
To my former associates in the RIM, I figured after you finish reading all the
advertisements in Newsweek you might want something else to read so I added you
to this list. And
thanks to the beauty of high speed Internet all my pictures and a select few
from other volunteers are now online. They
can be reached though my website www.kylemarker.com
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