Unlike Alanis Morisette, I'm not one to casually throw around the word "irony." But while waiting for my bus to leave from a bus station in suburban Tegucigalpa, I was hit square across the face by some biting musical irony.

I'm jammed into yet another old American school bus, sweltering as we wait for our driver to show up and drive us away. They don't even bother painting over the old lettering on the sides here and I think mine was from Fairfax, Virginia's public school system. There's a small store across the way with one of the ubiquitous obscenely loud stereos out front. Their choices of music were quite ironic... yeah, I really do think.

"Half the HIV cases in Central America."
First up... as I sit among people who would be considered unthinkably poor at home, in a city covered in litter and sewage, in a country home to something like half the HIV cases in Central America... Phil Collins brings us a touching rendition of his memorable hit "Another Day in Paradise."

Then... this being the first full day of the war in Iraq, we hear from the Scorpions. Remember their number about how wonderful and peaceful the post-cold war world will be? Yes, we were treated to two consecutive presentations of "Winds of Change."

"But instead we go deep into the archives..."
At this point I'm seriously expecting to hear Alanis chime in with "Isn't it Ironic?" But instead we go deep into the archives and come up with Martika and her one hit wonder, "Toy Soldiers." I know she's not really singing about soldiers like in Iraq... but still the lyrics seemed appropriate and, yes, ironic on that day.

It took an overnight in a town near the border and about five different buses, but I found myself in Granada yesterday afternoon. It's like a small Antigua in Guatemala. But it's more of a Cancun-like crowd. Some students, some low-life US expatriates and some fat Europeans in speedos... like the one smoking in the sun across the patio right now. Lovely. There's more on the hostel I'm staying at here.

"A 14 hour ferry ride."
Granada's nice, though. An old Spanish colonial town located on the enormous Lago de Nicaragua. I think Monday I'm gonna take a 14 hour ferry ride across to the other side of the lake and a town called San Carlos. Then maybe to a river town called El Castillo and eventually across the border into Costa Rica at a remote crossing on another river.