00DD: A Campy Cloak-and-Dagger Extravaganza

14/04/2025

💄 A drag queen funeral. A glitter-soaked inheritance. A mysterious letter. When Big Mama dies, the queens of Club Salvation discover her final secret. 👠🔥

READ THE FULL CHAPTER ON SUBSTACK
Link in Comments.
BE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE & COMMENT PLEASE!
I want to know how you like it so far. :)

31/03/2025

Chapter 2: Big Boobied Assassins

The crimson leather jumpsuit, frankly, was doing a lot of heavy lifting.

And not just in a “wow, that’s tailored” kind of way. No, it was supporting, reinforcing, and possibly under contract with a structural engineer. Svetlana Orlova, a woman with the physique of a female wrestler and the emotional range of a chainsaw, filled the doorway like a Russian, brutalist, stone monument.

Svetlana Orlova entered without ceremony.

She didn’t need theatrics. Her presence alone altered the physics of the room. The air seemed to hold its breath. Even the lamp’s flicker steadied, as if unwilling to offend.

Her short, flame-red hair flickered like it was freshly ignited, and her eyes—icy blue, devoid of warmth or anything vaguely human—scanned the room with the precision of a laser-guided missile and the enthusiasm of a DMV employee on their fifth espresso. She didn’t blink much. She didn’t need to. Why blink when you can kill someone just by making eye contact?

Throughout the house, muffled polka music played on. Its jubilant presence was not a mistake. With hidden speakers strapped to the walls with the sound pounding directly into the plaster, this was a tactical decision to render any outside surveillance microphones useless. So, the music bounced on, cheerful, chipper, deeply inappropriate. It sounded like something you’d hear at a German beer hall or inside the mind of someone having a full-blown psychotic episode. The wallpaper, tasteful in that Southern grandma kind of way, curled slightly at the corners, as if trying to quietly excuse itself from what was about to happen.
At the center of the room: a man.

His name was Henrik Lenz. Most people never noticed him, and Henrik liked it that way. He was the kind of man who remembered birthdays, sent thank-you notes, and apologized when he bumped into furniture. A quiet, middle-aged logistics coordinator for a boutique travel agency that catered—very discreetly—to clients who valued privacy above all else.

It wasn’t his fault that many of those clients were criminals, spies, and people with enemies.

Henrik never asked questions. Not out of fear—but out of principle. His job was to reroute plane tickets, update passports, schedule crossings at border checkpoints nobody officially acknowledged. He helped people disappear, but not all of them were bad. Some were just… scared. Women fleeing violent husbands. Journalists avoiding extradition. Whistleblowers.

So, Henrik helped. He bent the rules when the cause felt right. Slid a forged identity through a customs backdoor here, arranged a midnight ferry ride there. In his mind, it balanced out. A quiet kind of justice. The kind nobody wrote poems about.

He never considered himself a spy. He didn’t carry a gun. He didn’t eavesdrop or steal files. But the information passed through him—who was going where, when, and under what name.

And someone, somewhere, was a client of his, and Svetlana needed their information.

Blindfolded. Sweating. Tied to a chair so ostentatiously baroque it looked like it had been stolen from a haunted French opera house. The kind of chair that screamed, “This won’t end well, but at least we’ll look fabulous.” The man sat slumped, blindfolded, hands bound tight to the arms of the chair. His breath came in panicked bursts, short and uneven, a heartbeat trying to outrun time itself. Blood—old and new—matted the collar of his shirt. His body twitched occasionally. Whether from pain or fear, it no longer mattered. He had been in this room for hours.

He whimpered. Not a word yet—just a sound. A sad, wet sound. Like a raccoon in a washing machine. Svetlana’s lip twitched. Maybe it was a smirk. Maybe a muscle spasm. Maybe gas. One could never be sure with Svetlana, because Svetlana didn’t emote. She calculated.

She stood tall and terrible in the doorway, framed by darkness, wrapped in a crimson leather jumpsuit that clung to her frame like a second skin. It reflected the light in shifting planes, gleaming where her curves caught it, disappearing into shadow where her silhouette narrowed into something sharp and lethal. Her short red hair flared like a warning signal. Her eyes, a glacial, expressionless blue, fixed on the man with clinical detachment.
She closed the door behind her.

Her steps were slow, deliberate, heels clicking like a metronome for dread. Each step said, “I don’t need to rush. You’re not going anywhere.”

What followed wasn’t loud. Not the way people imagined torture. There was no yelling. No taunts. No sadistic monologue. Just the slow, meticulous unraveling of a human being.

Svetlana moved like a surgeon—precise, economical, disturbingly calm. She began with the hands. When the man screamed, she tilted her head slightly, listening, not with malice, but interest. As though she were tuning an instrument.

She didn’t rush. She never rushed.

Sometimes she asked questions. Her voice was quiet, almost kind. A gentle lilt undercut by something cold enough to frost bone. He would try to answer. Sometimes she let him. Other times she interrupted—with a sudden twist, or the use of a tool.
There were pliers. Scalpels. A coil of thin wire. None of them gleamed; each had been used too often for that.

She then focused on his ribs—slowly, methodically, her knee pressed against his chest as she applied pressure. The sound was loud in the small room, competing only with the man’s guttural gasps, and a muffled polka tuba solo. The track seemed to loop. Again. And again. The tuba never tired. The clarinet never questioned its purpose. But no. It wasn’t looping. That was just the song.

At one point, he passed out. She revived him with smelling salts and a slap that left a handprint the color of wine.

She asked another question. He answered too slowly.

She paid a little more attention to the whimpering man.

Eventually, the pain broke him. The words spilled out. Names. Locations. Codes. He talked until his voice failed, then whispered until his breath grew wet and useless. Svetlana never wrote anything down. She never repeated a question. She listened, nodded once, and when he stopped shaking—when she was satisfied—she stood.

And then the knife.

It appeared like a magician’s trick—sleek, silver, and terrifyingly small, like it didn’t need to be big to do what it was born to do. She twirled it between her fingers with the bored ease of someone flipping through radio stations in search of something violent.

The man must’ve sensed it, because he used his last energy to beg—a garbled plea.

The knife didn’t care. And neither did Svetlana.

With the practiced motion of someone peeling a grape, she slid the blade between his ribs. He je**ed once. Twice. The final blow was swift. The man’s head fell forward with a soft, wet thud. Blood slid down his chest in lazy rivulets. His body remained in the chair for a few seconds more, swaying gently as if unsure it had permission to die.

Svetlana watched, unblinking.

The rest of the band suddenly rejoined the tuba player from the polka, of course. It just kept going. A relentless, chipper soundtrack to murder.

Then, with the toe of her boot, she tipped the chair sideways. The body crumpled to the floor, a rag doll in a business suit, limbs bent at odd angles. She bent slightly—not to inspect, but to retrieve the blood-slick knife, wiping it clean against his shirt without looking.

She left the room with the same silence she’d brought in.
Her gloved hand smoothed a wrinkle in her jumpsuit.
Professionalism.

The scent of blood mixed faintly with her perfume—something French and expensive, with top notes of lilac and bottom notes of “oh god she’s behind me.”

She turned and left. But before leaving the room, Svetlana murmured a phrase in Russian—low, like a benediction or a curse. Something about “snow melting in spring.” Henrik wouldn’t have understood it. But it wasn’t for him.

The door shut behind her with a soft click, as if the room itself was trying not to draw attention to what had just transpired. The polka continued, cheerfully blaring on as if nothing had happened, which, to the stereo, was true.

Outside, a black sedan waited at the curb, engine idling low. She slid into the driver’s seat, her jumpsuit creaking faintly as leather strained against muscle. She adjusted a side mirror with a manicured finger, shifted into drive, and pulled away. The tires whispered across the pavement. No hurry. No rush. The job was done.

Back inside, the house settled.

The lamp flickered once, then died.

And silence—thick, metallic, and final—settled in.

30/03/2025

My name is Forrest (aka Snoopy Taylor) and in 2013 I was a bit depressed while living in Bangkok... and to get over that depression, I decided to write a comedy. I wanted to write a story as crazy as I could possibly imagine. So I created a drag queen spy story called '00DD'.

‘00’ = a reference to a certain international secret agent series
‘DD’ = a reference to a monstrously large bra size

It took me a month to write out the completely outline of the story.. but then I got a job in South Africa and I filed this project away. But it has always been one of my favorite things I have ever written.

Now, 12 years later, I am living in southern Chile, working on a ranch, and I have all the time in the world to start fleshing this out and writing the chapters, and I have 5 the first 5 chapters done already. I am a writer (mostly travel stuff) and this is probably better than anything I have ever written before. LOL

If you wouldn't mind just taking a look at the first chapter and letting me know what you think, I would appreciate it.

Read Chapter 1 - A Fabulous Will Reading from the story 00DD: A Drag Cloak-and-Dagger Saga by SForrestMallard (Forrest...

22/03/2025

Scene 1: A Fabulous Will Reading

Setting: A cramped boardroom in a small southern town’s law office. The overhead fluorescent light flickers like it’s got the jitters. A musty scent of old paper and stale coffee lingers in the air, mixing with the unmistakable hint of drugstore perfume and Jack Daniels. The long conference table wobbles slightly, its veneer peeling at the edges, a relic from whatever budget office last occupied this space. The room feels as though it has absorbed decades of hushed legal battles, whispered confessions, and broken promises. And now, it holds six drag queens—resplendent in sequins, feathers, and sorrow—waiting for the reading of Big Mama’s will.

Snoopy Taylor (Narration): Honey, let me tell you, that boardroom was stuffier than Aunt Lurleen’s whalebone corset on a July afternoon. Six of us—Trixie, Magnolia, Miss Peaches, Jolene, Gator Gurl, and yours truly, Snoopy Taylor—perched on one side of a rickety table, staring down two lawyers who looked more nervous than a preacher in a strip club. Our Mama, Big Mama, had left us something, alright, but the way they were clutching those papers like their pearls told me this wasn’t gonna be a simple affair.
We sat in varying states of distress. Magnolia was dabbing at her tear-streaked makeup with a lace handkerchief, Miss Peaches was stiff-backed and poised as ever, and Trixie…well, she was halfway through a bottle of something potent, muttering about how “a proper Southern lady don’t mourn without whiskey.” Gator Gurl, bless her wild heart, had been whispering to a stray cat hair on her sleeve like it might give her a message from beyond the grave.

The Will Reading

Mr. Henderson, a lawyer with the personality of a boiled potato, cleared his throat.

“To Miss Trixie Biscuit,” he began, adjusting his glasses, “through the years with a heart as big as Texas and a mouth to match, Mama leaves her entire collection of vintage vinyl records and her, ah, extensive collection of vintage gay pornography.”
A hush fell over the room. Then Trixie let out a whoop, nearly toppling her drink.

Trixie Biscuit: “Well, slap my ass and call me Loretta! Mama always knew how to take care of her girls. Patsy Cline and Playgirl? Oh, honey, the next drag brunch is gonna be a history lesson and a scandal!” Girl already had a new musical number forming in her Botoxed head, I swear. “Now, if y’all will excuse me, I need to make room on my wall for some new material.”

She raised her glass in a toast to the ceiling, where we all hoped Mama was watching.

Mr. Henderson continued, his hands trembling slightly as he shuffled the papers.

“To Magnolia Thunderpussy, the collection of beaded gowns, each piece a true relic of drag history.”

Magnolia took a sharp inhale, her grief momentarily replaced by the sheer magnitude of couture.

Magnolia Thunderpussy: “Darlin’, Mama always said that a lady should never be caught dead in anything less than a showstopper. And wouldn’t you know it? She made sure I got my inheritance in fully-sequined form. I’m sure I’ll have to take these in a bit though.” She then looked around quickly with an instantly judgmental face to make sure nobody questioned her.

Her laugh was watery, but her pride remained unshaken. She then smoothed down her already immaculate dress, as if mentally pairing accessories with her newfound treasures.

Mr. Henderson moved on, his voice carefully neutral.

“To Miss Peaches LaRue, the collection of antique tiaras, jewelry, wigs, and designer shoes.”

Miss Peaches LaRue, all quiet grace like the politest southern lady you’ve ever met. The sheer elegance of her grief was heartbreaking.

Miss Peaches pressed a delicate, gloved hand to her chest, her tears quiet and composed.

Miss Peaches LaRue: “A queen’s crown never gets dusty,” Mama used to say. And now, she’s trusted me with her legacy, her sparkle, her dignity. This isn’t just jewelry, y’all. This is history. And I swear on every rhinestone in that collection, I will wear each piece with the grace and reverence they deserve. Even if I gotta shove my size-eleven foot into a size-nine heel. Pain is temporary. Elegance is eternal.”

A solemn nod sealed her vow.

Mr. Henderson hesitated before reading the next line, eyes flicking nervously at Gator Gurl, who was already vibrating with excitement.

“To Gator Gurl, five Persian cats.”

The reaction was immediate.

Gator Gurl (Monologue): “FIVE CATS?! Y’all, my coven just got stronger! Spirits, familiar, call it what you want—these babies are about to be accessorized. Mama knew I needed more members for my midnight rituals, and bless her, she done delivered from beyond the veil! Now, which one of y’all is allergic? ‘Cause you’re about to be tested, honey.”

She punctuated this by hissing at the visibly unnerved Mr. Henderson, who shuffled the papers with new urgency.

The room grew still. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.
Mr. Henderson cleared his throat one final time.

“To Jolene Buckshot, the deed to Club Salvation.”

Jolene didn’t move for a moment, her lips pressed into a thin line. Then, slowly, she exhaled, gripping the arms of her chair like she needed grounding.

Jolene Buckshot: “Club Salvation ain’t just a bar. It’s home. It’s where we found each other, where we fought, laughed, drank too much, and lived out loud. And now, it’s mine to protect. Mama always said I was the responsible one—God help her soul. I promise you this, ladies: I ain’t gonna let it fall into the wrong hands. And I sure as hell ain’t lettin’ it turn into some sad, straight karaoke bar. Over my dead body.”

The weight of responsibility settled on her shoulders, but she took it like a queen who knew her duty.

Then, it was my turn.

Mr. Henderson hesitated before reading my name. My stomach clenched.

“And to Snoopy Taylor," he read, his voice surprisingly soft, "in recognition of your unwavering devotion and selfless care, I leave the entirety of my bank account... and one return ticket to Bangkok, Thailand, to retrieve my most cherished possession, a treasure I always kept near and dear to my heart.”

Confused silence descended upon the room.

Trixie stopped drinking. Gator Gurl stopped hissing. Even Magnolia stopped judging.

A treasure in Bangkok?

My mind whirled. What could it be? A diamond necklace? A secret drag dynasty? A child?!

A treasure in Bangkok? The lawyer continued, "It's mentioned only briefly in the will. It simply refers to 'my most cherished possession' and adds that it 'must be collected in person'."
I looked at my sisters, their faces a mixture of bewilderment and morbid curiosity. Maybe Mama's final act was the ultimate drag performance. A grand finale that even she wouldn’t spoil. Only one way to find out. Bangkok, here I come! And maybe, just maybe, I'll bring back something worth more than Mama's bank account. Because honey, some treasures are far more precious than money.

One thing was certain—Mama wasn’t done making an entrance. And neither was I.

Snoopy Taylor (Narration): My hands trembled as I clutched that ticket like it was the Holy Grail. Bangkok. I had never even left the state, much less the country. The closest I had ever been to an international experience was watching reruns of "The Amazing Race" with Mama and daydreaming about faraway lands where the air smelled of spices and mystery, where temples stood tall like they held the secrets of the universe. And now, here I was, being sent off like some heroine in a Tennessee Williams play, armed with a plane ticket, a broken heart, and absolutely no clue what I was walking into.

I wanted to cry. Hell, I wanted to throw myself across that wobbly table and beg Mama to come back, to tell me what she meant, to give me a sign. But I could hear her voice in my head, clear as day: "Now, now, Snoopy. A lady does not unravel. A lady reinvents."

So, I tried to channel the excitement, the adventure of it all. I imagined stepping off that plane into a humid rush of jasmine and street food, the buzz of motorbikes, neon lights reflecting off rain-slicked streets. I pictured myself weaving through bustling markets, my suitcase dragging behind me, a wide-brimmed hat perched just so atop my head as I searched for whatever treasure Mama had left behind.

And yet, beneath all that imagined glamour, there was fear. What if this was all a mistake? What if there was nothing waiting for me in Bangkok except disappointment and another layer of grief? What if this was Mama’s way of giving me a push, a final, loving shove out of the nest to force me to fly?

I glanced around at my sisters. My dysfunctional, ridiculous, wonderful family. They had always been my home. And now, I was being sent off into the great unknown. My lip trembled, but I steadied myself. If Mama believed I could handle it, then damn it, I would.

So, I straightened my spine, squared my shoulders, and lifted that ticket like a queen raising her scepter. "Well, ladies," I said, forcing a smile. "Looks like I better start packing."

** What do you think is waiting in Bangkok? Drop your guesses below! **

NEXT WEEK: MARCH 28 CHAPTER 2
A BON VOYAGE AT CLUB SALVATION

03/08/2024

I graduated today from the MITAGS Basic Maritime Safety Course here in Seattle. Three days in the class room. One day in the pool for water rescue and survival. And finally today we spent 5 hours in 'The Dragon' fighting every kind of inferno including natural fiber fire, grease and gas fires, and electric fires.

In a room filled with thick black smoke so that you can not see your hand in front of your face, we had to go in as teams and rescue a missing person. With the oxygen masks on to muffle our voices, and with helmets and protective clothing over our ears, we still had to try and communicate as a team, and that took a bit of work.

At one point when we entered the main chamber, a fire ignited and a massive carpet of flames spread across the ceiling over our heads. I was leading the team on the firehose at that moment, so I had a front row seat for that spectacle.

We learned so much in such a short time. Nowhere near what we would need to know to become actual firefighters, but enough to give us the confidence and the knowledge to actually fight a fire if we ever had to. It was still scary, but with the gear and the training, we know how to survive and help others without succumbing to hat fear.

A really amazing week and honestly quite the unexpected adventure.

Off to Alaska in a few hours to start packing for my next National Geographic Expeditions / Lindblad Expeditions 4-month trip.

30/07/2024

MY JOURNEY TO POPEYE

Today I began my training at MITAGS Seattle.
Marine Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies.

I tried to dress comfortable, but in a nice shirt and black pants.
I was the first to arrive, and sat at the front of the room so that I could get the most out of the classes.

As the first person in the front row, I was told to go first and introduce myself to the rest of the class, and share a bit of my background and why I was there.

"Hello. I'm Forrest and out of High School I joined the Marine Corps for almost a dacade. -- Then I worked in New York on Broadway and in theater. -- After that I decided to travel the world for almost 20 years. -- I recently spent 4 months on a Lindblad/NatGeo expidition ship and I am here to take the required courses so that I can become a deckhand."

If I hadn't gone first, this would NOT have been how I introduced myself, because, literally EVERYONE else in the room was either from a 'Deadliest Catch' type fishing company in the Bering Sea; had been working for decades on an oil tanker; or had lived most of their lives on a cargo ship in the middle of the ocean. -- In a room of about 25, as each person introduced themselves and told their stories of a life at sea, I felt more amd more out of place.

I wish that I hadn't been the first one to introduce myself. I thought that all of these salty, sea people in the room must really resent me trying to be a part of their community with such little experience.

Today was our day to focus on First Aid training.
Everything from CPR to treating puncture wounds, hypothermia, fractures, burns, heart attacks, strokes, concussions, EVERYTHING.

Guess who got called on to act as the accident victim in every scenedrio....

"Forrest... Mr. Broadway... please come to the front of the room and pretend that you are suffering from seizures." And as I did so, to the very best of my abilities, one person from the class had to treat me.

The instructor then would tell me in secret of an ailment, or a puncture wound that I was suffering from. One by one others from the class took turns trying to diagnose what was wrong with me. They had to poke parts of my body and if they were in the right area, I had to wince in pain. Not only was it all incredibly fun, but I was able to have an amazing interaction with everyone in the class at some point. By the end of DAY 1, I think we all know each other amazingly well and we had a lot of laughs.

++ THEN ON A MUCH MORE SERIOUS NOTE ++

The lovely lady sitting next to me had worked on the ship 'MV Conception.'
This ship caught on fire in 2019.
34 people died, 5 crew survived.
The captain went to jail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Conception

She worked on a boat that had a maritime disaster that we actually will be studying in this class.

So while today was fun as we learned first aid, the reality of why we are here in this school, to avoid disasters such as what happened on the MV Conception, and how we must train and be vigilant for the safety of both passengers and crew... it was real... and so relevant it practically smacked us in the face.

This training will include one day in a pool at the university for water survival and rescue. And then on the last day I will be in full fireman gear with oxygen tanks, in a room ablaze. We have been cautioned NOT to war any synthetic fibers... I'm guessing because they might melt to our skin in the heat. Seems reasonable.

I doubt I'll be able to work my camera with a fire-suit on.
But I'll post photos if I can.

29/07/2024

This morning I was up at 5AM to have my coffee and get excited for a 7AM interview on Broadway Radio regarding my new documentary "DISNEY THEATRICAL PRODUCTIONS: AN ORIGIN STORY."

OMG I was so excited to talk about this baby... and I'm so thankful for Michael Portantiere for inviting me on... and it is just too bad that James Marino had the day off as I would have loved to have had him in on the chat. One of my oldest Broadway friends in NYC. -- Maybe next time. :)

Link below if you have any interest in the interview.

‎Show BroadwayRadio, Ep This Week on Broadway for July 28, 2024: Forrest Mallard, Steven Pasquale - Jul 28, 2024

23/07/2024

Here it is.
Almost a year in the making.
The crazy, never-before-told origin story of how Disney on Broadway came to be.

When I began working on this documentary, I was still working at Walt Disney World. I was thinking I wanted to do a short film on the history of 'Beauty and the Beast LIVE', the show that has been running since 1991 at Hollywood Studios. I was facinated that it had its first performance on the very same day that the Disney feature film of Beauty and the Beast came out.

I called Disney historian Greg Ehrbar (an incredibly nice guy!) to chat with him about it. Greg suggested I chat with the very first on-stage Belle from the park show, Andrea Canny. Andrea and I hit it off as if we were old friends, and she suggested I speak with more people, and she put me in touch with everyone.

As I spoke to more and more people, the story kept expanding. The focus was no longer on the theme park show, but about how the park show and a random awards dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in New York finally propelled Beauty and the Beast on towards Broadway.

Don Frantz and Chase Senge, two Disney entertainment powerhouses, spent so much time with me, sharing their stories and relating the fascinating string of events that brought them all together.

Then, months after I began this project, I randomly complemented the set designs of a new production of Beauty and the Beast on LinkedIn... and I got a friend request from Stan Meyer, the set designer of the Broadway show. We met for lunch in Orlando and I was able to share the details of this documentary project so far. It was really incredible how all of these conversations from so many people dovetailed together into such a solid, wonderful, and unexpectedly compelling story.

Then I want to sea for four months with Lindblad Expiditions/National Geographic, so this whole thing was put on the back-burner.

In mid-June I flew to Guatemala with the intention of spending two or three days to finish this project. But I spent the next four weeks, 8+ hours a day, at coffee shops in Antigua, finishing this monster.

I've sent the finished video to everyone involved, and the response has been incredibly positive.

This project, the biggest I have done so far, actually SCARED me so much. At one point it felt TOO BIG for me to tackle. I wrote to Disney legendary producer/director Don Hahn and told him about the project and that I wanted to maybe even hand it over to him as I felt like it was beyond my capabilities. But he encouraged me to finish what I started, and for that I am very grateful to him.

So today, on my birthday, I'm setting this baby free.
It is kind of the best present I can ever give myself actually.
The gift of closure.
This is now, no longer looming over my head.

I am so proud of it... and I hope you enjoy it.

The fascinating and untold story of how Disney Theatrical Productions was born. From the many failed proposals to get a legit theatrical show on stage, to be...

13/07/2024

The evening that I arrived at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala it was raining to hard that the driver could barely see past the windshield. I had been told that arriving at the lake was a magical experience as while you are descending from the mountains you can see the lake was completely surrounded by tall, sharp peaks.

Over the next few days I posted several photos of the view from my hotel. Dream-like views of mountains across the lake in front of me. What I didn't know, and what I didn't see until I was in the transport taking me back over the mountain to leave, was that the village I was staying in was directly at the base of two magnificent volcanoes, but I didn't see them because they were BEHIND ME. They were so much more awe-inspiring than all of the photos that I had taken of the lake during my stay.

But there is a metaphor there that is not lost on me.
Don't be so dazzled by the beauty in front of you that you forget to TURN AROUND and see what's behind you.

My journey into the remote jungle village of Flores began at 4am yesterday. The first half of the journey was slow moving gridlock complete with the exhaust fumes from a million diesel trucks and busses. From the lake to Antigua (transfer), to Guatemala City (transfer), and then 4 hours outside of the capital, the roads finally cleared and we sped north toward the island city of Flores.

Flores is a small island hill city with a cathedral perched on the top of the hill. It reminds me of a very humid and moldy Mont Saint-Michel rising out of a Guatemalan jungle river. Though there are many inexpensive hotels right in the center of Flores, I chose a very nice place just across the water (the boat shuttles to/from the island are 24 hours and free).

Hostel Casa Grethel ($13 per night) is a lovely place with an extremely high rating (9.1) on the booking aps. The staff do not speak much English, but they were so nice to me when I arrived at 3am, completely shattered from the journey, and let me drink a beer to relax while I checked in. They aircon in the room was already going full blast when I arrived, so that alone is worth all the stars in the world.

The next few days here are going to be filled with so many special moments. I don't want to give anything away, but another huge adventure begins at 3am tomorrow morning.

Stay tuned.