Again I must mention, don't take offense, turtlecest readers and writers. Like it if you will.

June 24 –

We haven't seen many of these supposed bad guys. We did have one incident on the road last night though.

I can't believe that I can even write this. I'm eating Subway tonight. A honey oat veggie sub. It tastes identical to the subs I've eaten at home. Radioshack is eating a meatball sub. I cannot believe that I travelled halfway down the planet and now I'm eating the same food that I ate at home. I never went into a Subway of course. April or Casey always bought it for us. I sent Radioshack to Subway with our last money.

"Bet you can hunt with those swords, right?" Radioshack asked. I am disgusted watching him eat. He licks his hands just like Raph and Mikey. Those two slobs.

I think I must eat like a sissy. I know I do. Raph's told me so. Even Don thinks so. I said, "I don't use my katanas for hunting. I have a knife for butchering animals. I prefer not to use it though.

"You're a vegetarian?"

I am not strictly a vegetarian. I eat meat when it is served and I don't go out of my way to avoid it. I feel rude demanding alternative food and I don't think it's necessary to be a burden. Sometimes I make my own meals if I don't feel like eating a heavy meat loaf. I just don't like the full feeling from meat. I prefer the light feeling from vegetables and fruit and nuts.

And there is that issue that we're also animals. I feel like a hypocrite eating meat when my ancestors lived in pet shops. Something about it feels wrong to me. Mikey thinks I'm insane.

I explained my position on eating meat very briefly to Radioshack. Thankfully, he didn't care.

Oh, yes. I was talking about our spot of violence on the trail. We are hiking in the wilderness now. He wanted to buy bus tickets, but I pointed out that I would not ride in the cargo area of a bus through the whole country. Suffocating would end my journey pretty quickly. I suggested that we walk for a while and then find another truck and ride in the back. I teased him and said, "I know you're probably impressed by the glamorous life of the ninja. All of the money and fame and beautiful groupies." As opposed to the poverty, anonymity and loneliness.

He's complaining about sleeping on the ground and I said that I thought Mara Salvatrucha were tough.

He said, "They are. I'm not one exactly. I mean, they never beat me in or nothing."

"You just sold drugs for them?" I was preparing my hammock and I didn't much care where he was going to sleep. He attached himself to me. It's up to him to come up with a solution. I think I'll show him how to make a hammock tomorrow.

Oh, no. Now he wants to sleep in the hammock with me. He is afraid of the animals on the ground.

Now I am sitting up in the tree. Maybe I'll try to nap up here. Maybe I'll fall out and break my leg. Eh. I can hear monkeys chattering a few trees away. It's so miraculous to sit in a tree and listen to monkeys. Radioshack is asleep. Maybe I'll swing through the trees and try to peak at them. I wonder if I could sneak up on them.

Oh, they're fast devils. And they heard me coming too. I wonder if Mikey could sneak up on them. He's good at that. Better than me. I just picked an interesting pink flower. It doesn't smell very good. I always assumed that all flowers smelled nice. I suppose that's narrow minded of me.

There is a large cat in a tree. I believe that it's a jaguar. The night before I left, Raph told me that he didn't think I could sneak up on a jaguar. I told him I could not only sneak up on one, but that I could pet it too. I was falling down drunk at the time, so it seemed like a reasonable assertion. So we broke into the zoo and Raph tried to force himself into the jaguar display, but he couldn't find a way in without letting the cat out of its cage.

Oh, I was so close! That was so cool. I got four feet away from it and then it woke up and jumped down out of the tree and ran away. I can't believe I was that close to a jaguar. Even in the dark I could see that it was lean and muscular. I've always thought of cats as natures ninjas, if that makes any sense. Silent and patient as they stalk their prey.

Where is Radioshack? I told him not to wander off. I can't find him anywhere. I'm so tempted to just get back in my hammock and go to sleep. I'm exhausted. It would be such a nice thing to see a jaguar and chase monkeys and pick exotic flowers and then go to sleep in my hammock and feel the warm night air. But no. I have to look for him and then sleep in a tree.

Found him. He's urinating. I'll relate our violence, since I was distracted yet again. We were setting up camp, or I was rather. Radioshack was doing nothing. I heard something coming in our direction. We were far off the road and I could hear that it was a vehicle a long way off. He didn't hear it or else didn't pay attention to it. I grabbed him and shoved him under the overgrowth. At least he didn't complain and seemed to take it as a sign of danger. He has that going for him. He's lived around criminals so long that he knows when it is a good idea to be quiet and he can recognize danger.

The car pulled up alongside our camp and stopped. They were about twenty feet away, but they were still much closer than I would have liked. The car was quite small and there were three people inside. Two of them got out and disappeared into the undergrowth. I traveled across the road to keep an eye on them. I couldn't understand what they were saying. They were speaking Spanish very rapidly and I could pick out the word for bus, but that was all. My Spanish is pathetic.

Within fifteen minutes a bus came thundering down the road. Now this is not a good paved road like back in the states. This is a muddy two track. The bus looked like it had seen much better days. There were about ten people inside.

And I could not believe what happened next. One of the men pulled a grenade from his pocket and crept to the edge of the trees. I understood then. These men were going to lob that grenade at the bus and then rob the passengers' dead bodies. So I dropped down and took them both out. It wasn't terribly impressive. Just gave them both a knock and they went down. I searched their pockets and found more money. So we'll have food tomorrow. I feel like such a reprobate doing that, but as Raph says, "It wasn't theirs to begin with."

I must look for my traveling companion.

We are back now. He was afraid of the monkeys. Now I'll just sit up all night and lose my mind.

June 25 –

I was exhausted to the point of tears today. I need sleep. I hate staying up all night. I know that I can stay up for days, but I don't like it at all. I need to find another hammock for Radioshack.

I screamed at him mercilessly today. He was slow and wouldn't keep up with me and then he said I was being unreasonably cruel to him. How could I expect him to keep up with me? He isn't a ninja. I said, more like screamed, "You're the one who invited yourself along. It isn't my fault if you can't keep up me. Either pick up the pace or you can travel to Honduras by yourself and hope that MS-13 doesn't cut off your head when they find you."

"Why are you being so mean today? You were real cool yesterday. I thought we were friends."

I really lost it here for a second. It has made me think quite a bit about my attitude. I said, "Do you think I haven't seen this buddy cop movie before? I don't want to play the Dean Martin to your Jerry Lewis. I don't need it. I do fine on my own." Then I bit my tongue. I didn't come here for me. I came to help people. If he needs my help, then I should help him.

He was offended, but he was very kind to me and I didn't deserve it at all. He said, "You look real tired, man. You need to take a rest. Just sit down and I'll get some food for you."

I've been quiet all day since that moment. I didn't say anything too biting. But my attitude was clear. I'd rather be alone. I don't understand that. I like company. I don't sit around being emo like Raph. That isn't fair. He doesn't do that. But I have the chance to make a friend and I literally tell him that I would rather be on my own. It had little to do with his behavior, I now realize. I keep grumbling to myself that it would be so much better if I didn't have a human following me. He's such a burden. Stupid humans. They're so slow.

I hope that I don't look down on humans. I shouldn't. But maybe I do. My few friends are human. I am in no way superior. If anything, we're less. I shouldn't say that, but I feel it sometimes. We're like some sort of subspecies to the human race. Too human to escape them, but not human enough to be part of the real world.

I would never tell this to my family. I wonder if they have the same feelings. Not that I would ask. That would be rude and awkward. "Hey Don, do you feel both superior and inferior to humans at the same time? No reason. Just wondered."

Speaking of our Donatello. I hope he didn't blow up the lair yet.

Radioshack has been telling me about his village and his mama and his first girlfriend all kinds of things. I could write a book about this man.

We passed by a small village in the back of a truck today and he pointed at a billboard and said, "My abuela was born behind that sign."

I decided to be a smartass and said, "It must have been a difficult birth for her mother, squatting behind that sign in the open. I hope it was a warm day."

"Well, there was a building there, homes."

I told him not to call me that.

He asked what he should call me.

I almost said, "Fearless." I said instead, "Just call me by my name."

"What was your name again?"

"Leonardo." I couldn't resist rolling my eyes. "Call me Leo if you must."

So now he calls me Leo.

And then to pass the time I told him stories about my brothers. He seemed particularly interested in Raph's exploits, especially the time that he crashed his motorcycle into a Victoria's secret display in a mall. I told him that he showed up for a battle with a thong still stuck in the crook of his shell. A foot ninja laughed at him and lost an eye because of it.

He said, "He sounds like a scary guy. He looked real scary in his picture."

Raph? Scary? I said, "I suppose you could consider him scary if you hadn't bathed, slept, gone to the bathroom, fought, been sick with and every other bodily function available together. Well, except a few things. There are a few things we don't do together."

He had to say, "What, like, had sex? Ain't you two adopted?"

Actually, I hadn't been thinking that at all. I'd been thinking that we don't like the same movies and that he likes to do more solitary things, like ride his motorcycle. I gritted my teeth and said, "Yes."

And he said, "So you two could hook up then."

I could not believe that. I said, "Well, it doesn't matter. My aforesaid list… Look, if you found out that Hilary Clinton wasn't your blood sister, would you jump right into bed with her?"

He made some disgusted noises.

"No, because she's still your sister. And Raph's still my brother. And plus, he's not my type."

"Too mean?"

"Too male." I don't know why I was talking to him about this. I had to add, "And I don't know what woman would want to date him anyway. Talk about epic project. She'd have to be the most saintly and patient woman on the face of the earth."

Then he asked me if I have loads of girlfriends back home. He assumes that I must get a lot of action because I carry swords and look "epic" as he puts it. I said, "To the contrary, not many women are interested in… let's not talk about me anymore. What about you, Romeo? You talk about romance so much. Enlighten me. Tell me about your 'epic' womanizing."

That was a mistake. I assumed that he was full of hot air. He has had lots and lots of… romantic encounters and seems to remember each one.

At least his stories passed the time. Otherwise we would have had nothing to do but listen to the goats breathing. He finished one story with, "…and then my parole officer found me and my girlfriend knew that she would go to jail and so she was going to jump off a bridge and kill herself but she picked a real low bridge and it was when no cars were going by and she jumped and broke both her ankles and they took her to jail."

"She's the one who had the furry pink handcuffs?" I cannot believe I said that to someone. It creeps me out just thinking about it. I believe I will have nightmares about women named Consuelo who are covered in tattoos and run guns for MS-13. And likes furry pink handcuffs and calls him Daddy during intimate moments. I hope he made that up. Please get out of my head.

Eventually, his troublesome romantic reminisces ended. We are still headed towards Honduras and I'm wondering how much a waste of time this trip will be. Then we talked about mechanics for a while. That was a much better topic.

I just sent Radioshack into town to buy himself a hammock and to keep an eye out for nefarious activity. I told him not to join in, but to come and get me so that I can stop it. I was only half joking.

We are getting closer to a Mayan ruin that is open to the public and must be careful of tourists. But Radioshack has just come back with his hammock and just told me that tourists are often robbed here and that there is some kind of gang working this crime. At last. Some action.