Saturday morning finds me in Dallas, Texas once again for a brief one week stay with my most gracious hosts and very dear friends, Sara and Chon. I've been at the north Texas "centre of operations" since Wednesday night. Wednesday morning we woke up in Copan Ruinas and a world away. By driving to Honduras we did not go through the time-space compression phenomenon one usually experiences when flying between the US and Honduras or any other developing country. However, the flight from Honduras to Miami (where I re-entered the industrialized world) only takes about two hours, but I may as well have been sucked through a portal into a parallel universe where things might be similar, but never quite the same.

Some of the more notable differences are the abundance of food in the supermarket, the good state of repair of the built environment, the orderly nature in which traffic flows, and the dimensions of a Texas-size city that manifests itself in the distances one routinely travels within the city. However, there's something missing. Always noticeable is the emotional distance between individuals and the surroundings. You don't get the noise, chaos, and friction of daily life that reminds you at every moment (whether you want to be or not) that you, those around you, the city, and even the air and the earth, are very much alive.

For the time being though, I have to admit that I'm enjoying immersing myself in the tranquility (splendid isolation as well?) of lazing away the days poolside with my beverage of choice not too far away and always at optimal temperature. The rigor of today's activities will be limited to preparing and consuming obscene quantities of an assortment of avian and mammal carcasses lubricated with fermented, brewed, and/or distilled spirits. To be sure, our own noise-chaos-friction micro-bubble of sun, water, food, music, and most importantly, good company is a given.