It seems whenever you go on a tour there’s always that one person who the rest of the group scoffs at for being a true fool. The lady who goes out on an eight-hour boat ride, forgets her sunscreen and ends up being mistaken for lobster dinner or the guy who takes a call from his divorce lawyer in the middle of a serene cathedral. “I want you to fry her ass!” Well this time the schmuck was me.
While I was packing for five days on a tropical island my grandma came into my room to offer me a bright orange poncho that she had kept in a mission tortilla bag. “No thanks, Grandma I bought this great windbreaker at the Gap.” Twenty-four hours later, the rain is coming down in ropes in the el Yunque Rainforest and the gift shop won’t accept my debit card for the $5 poncho. The windbreaker is no match for the tropical downpour and I end up soaked to the bone, dripping all over the tour bus as the rest of the Texans and Midwesterners marveled how their khaki shorts and Bacardi T-shirts were kept dry under their ponchos.
I also had the brilliant idea of trying to document this harrowing experience with my ancient digital camera. I got some great shots of me looking like a a sad version of the Jack Johnson Brushfire Fairytales album cover before my camera died of water inhalation. I spent the rest of the trip hanging around a group of international writers snapping pictures with a disposable camera.
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