At a Starbucks at LAX, awaiting flight 244 to Mexico City. Finally.

The last few weeks have been a lesson in the utility of checklists and the satisfaction that comes with the tying of loose ends.

There have been seemingly endless errands: The acquisition of a crisp new passport (painfully expedited); the shopping for comfortable shoes and a sturdy travel bag and travel toiletries; the hard emotional lifting of hellos and goodbyes; the packing and repacking of bags—bags too small to both fit comfortable shoes and the necessary electronic gadgets, not to mention the small stack of books and extra large zip lock baggie of tiny-sized toiletries.

All of this comes together as a white noise of busy work. But it's also a month-long ritual, one whose purpose is to prepare our lives in Mendocino to hibernate in our absence and to prepare ourselves—emotionally, physically, intellectually—for a life lived from a suitcase in Mexico. As rituals go, this one is not for the faint of heart.

But now that we’re at the airport, all of that, by definition, is done. If it wasn’t accomplished, it’s not going to be. There is, therefore, a relief that comes with sitting at this Starbucks counter, having spent two much money on a Playdough bagel, listening to Britney's “Oops, I did it again” over the sound of travelers slurping down their desperately needed cups of pre-flight coffee.

Even so, my fear of flying is churning in my gut, joining with my anxiety about starting a new job—a job for which I'm ill-prepared, if adequately funded.

I’m looking down the barrel of months of all-day, everyday work as a Lonely Planet “author” (really, in this instance, a gloried fact checker). God willing, I’ll visit 30 some towns in six weeks. In each town, city and pueblito, I'm obliged to step foot in every hotel, restaurant, museum, architectural site, discothèque, market, tourist office, national park, and so on and so on listed in Lonely Planet’s previous guide. It's an endurance test and a scavenger hunt. My prize is the right to do it again somewhere else.

Leon, Nicaragua

On Thursday night, firecrackers exploded in machine-gun bursts along Leon’s streets. In the city's main plaza, the cathedral teemed with people. The largest in Central America -- a bulky and dilapidated Gothic structure, mausoleum like -- was lit with Christmas lights. For once, is seemed welcoming.

Through the open doors, and the crowds of on-lookers, we could see a nearly-life size statue of the Virgin, draped in a blue robe and surrounded by angels with golden wings. The altar was in honor of "La Griteria Chiquita," a holiday that celebrates the day, in 1947, when the city struck a deal with the Virgin Mary: if she protected it from the erupting Volcan Cerro Negro, the residents would honor her every year with altars and a Halloween-like frenzy of door-to-door gift giving.

Instead of candy, there are all matter of gifts. Our guest house was offered boxes of matches, which they'd piled high near the front door. A house nearby was giving away ice cream. Some houses, clearly, are more popular that others with the children -- hurried parents in tow -- that raced from house to house with backpacks strapped to their fronts.

Leon, Nicaragua

Among the "dangers and annoyances" listed in one of our Central America guidebooks is this word of caution: Unlike Mexico, it says, you won't find many animals on the roads. People are too poor to risk their livestock. But, they warn, drunks wander the roads, day and night. Be careful.

Nicaraguans are poor, but there's no shortage of animals -- goats, dogs, cows, horses, pigs and mules -- wandering Nicaragua's pot-holed roadways. But there are also people, lots of them, drunk and sober. There are few cars and many bikes. Along every road, urban and rural, there are scattered parades of pedestrians, going to work or school or church. They carry groceries, seem impervious -- without umbrellas -- to the pounding tropical rain and pay interest to oncoming cars only when absolutely necessary.

The other day, Paul drove me north from Esteli to meet a Fair Trade coffee farmer he's known for years. Paul drives fast. As he passes cars on blind corners, uphill, in the rain, he says things like, "Don't worry, it's not your time," which are meant to be comforting but are actually terrifying. At one point, we round a turn and see a man passed out on the concrete, dead drunk. Curled up, the highway's yellow line was a guiotine at his neck. His head was perfectly aligned with the right wheel of northbound traffic. Paul deftly avoided the man. "He's going to lose his head," he said. We didn't stop.

Drunks here are like drunks everywhere. But the public reaction to them -- the casual way of avoiding a man's head on the road, not stopping to pull him from it -- seems different. Americans tend to be self-righteous and indignant in the face of such self-destruction. Here, it seems understood. The man splayed on the doorstep, unconscious in the mid-day sun -- his shirt open and a plastic plate of half-eaten food tottering on his stomach -- doesn't illicit the sneers and grimaces he would on a New York City stoop. But there are also none of the pitiful looks, the liberal guilt. There's nothing fraught. There's just a man on the ground.

Mule on the mountain, above San LucasWhatever Tim had, I caught.

In me, it’s a low level pain-in-the-ass, just enough sick to keep me from the things I’d rather be doing. Not enough to merit genuine sympathy. Not enough to send me to the doctor, which is a relief, as I’ve had enough excitement for one week.

There was my triumphant return to reporting, a road trip on a highway with swimming pool-sized potholes and a run-in with an ant, which left my foot swollen to roughly the size, shape and rosy color of baby’s butt.

All during my interview with Paul Rice, the founder of TransFair USA and the man who brought the fair trade movement to the United States, my foot was swelling. By the time IPaul Rice, of TransFair USA made it back to Hotel Miraflor, it had grown too big for my right shoe. It hurt and itched at the same time. My sandal straps strangled my toes, turning them bright red and numb. Sitting on the bed, looking at my overstuffed sausage feet, it seemed possible that my skin would stretch beyond it’s capacity and split open.

Earlier in the day, I’d seen a dog laying still on the sidewalk. It had tumors bulging everywhere from its body. One had grown so large that it had burst open, exposing the white, fatty mass beneath. Since then, I can’t keep the image away. So gruesome, so sad. But also fascinating, the way all gruesome, sad things are.

Nicaragua has the same ability to throw me into tailspins: emotional, political, psychological, physical. We arrived just over two weeks ago, The valley below: San Lucas, Nicaragua rented a place to live, month-to-month, and have begun to settle in. I love it, but it also scares me. Nicaragua is not Mexico, a place that feels familiar, and therefore comfortable, in comparison.

Nicaragua is safe. Much safer than Mexico, especially for journalists. But the poverty here -- the roughness of the infrastructure (the only functional highway is the international Panamericana), the way water is always running out, the way Nicaraguans are still waiting, hopeful, for the promise of the revolution to arrive -- frightens me. Not for more, but for them. Seeing the Sandinista’s red flags flying from street lamps and their red swaths painted on city streets, Nicaragua feels sad, like a couple that was once in love, but now just trying.

But then, I’ve only just arrived.

Leon, Nicaragua - Our new home.

Our new home, courtyard and all, in LeonYesterday, Tim was sick with something that resembled a sinus infection. Whatever it was, the sickness made him sprawl sideways on the bed and groan like a dying dog for two days. Meanwhile, the power was out at our house (actually a hotel, mid-construction) and all through the neighborhood. A transformer had exploded somewhere, leaving us without the two most luxurious features our new home: a ceiling fan, with five speeds and blades as long and robust as wings, and the internet that I steal from a nearby “ciber.” It was a slow day, without power in the baking city, and only Scrabble and old New Yorkers to entertain us.

Because Tim was sick, and not up for the three block walk to Salman, our new neighborhood grocery, I went alone to buy drinking water and ice. We usually buy water in bulk, for $1.40 / five gallons, but we’d run out and had been buying liter bottles of bubbly water, one liter at a time, for two days.

At Salman -- because I was there and because I was hungry -- I bought a few extra things, including a large bottle of Extra Lite Flor de Caña rum, which was deeply discounted, for no apparent reason, along with the spoiling meats and cheeses. Limping along, barely managing my two bags, pain jetting up my already injured right arm, I peered at the city that is now my home and felt weak and overwhelmed. Everything was heavy.

But despite the heat, the throbbing arm and the cabin fever that I’d settled into during Tim’s sickness, I was weak not with exhaustion, but with that goofy kind of kid-like wonder. Maybe I was just dehydrated, but I felt drunk.

I was romantic at the color of things: the way the old tin roofs are green and the new tin roofs are orange, the way the clay tile roofs look like so many fingernail clippings stacked one on top of the next. I was overwhelmed by the palm trees and long, banana leaves crawling out of unseen courtyards -- the courtyards remind me of the forts that I used to make, that every kid makes. They remind me of how it feels to hide away, behind blankets and chair legs and table tops, with the light of the house coming in through the sheer, over-washed sheets.

Yesterday, the color of the Leon sky was terrifying in it’s crispness. It was a beautiful day.

Now, water is obviously necessary for our survival. But the ice is necessary only for ice coffee (also, in a way, necessary for survival). And the rum is necessary for nothing, but good for many things, including Scrabble. But walking with those bags was a feat, and I had to stop often to set the ice and the bottles on this stoop or that, while I let the blood return to my fingertips and my elbow throb a big “Fuck you” to my love for ice coffee, rum and bubbly water.

While standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the pain to fade, a kid on a bicycle rode by. He was maybe 10. Or 12. I’ve never been good at guessing kid’s ages. He could see, as clearly as anyone could see, that I was not a Leones. As he passed, he said, in big bright English -- television English -- “Hello, bitch.”

I thought of my brother and I and how, when we were that age, we delighted in Spanish swear words. I remember once, on a family vacation, I opened the door of our rented minivan and triumphantly called out, “Ching-a-te!” To me, the word sounded like the quick, smooth sliding of a door opening. To anyone who understood, it sounded like, “Fuck you.”

Later, when I was 15 and my brother was 12, in Mexico, just days before Christmas, Marco became obsessed with the most insulting of Mexican slang. By then, Marco and I were growing into our separate adolescent lives. He was quicker than me to adapt to the freedoms of adulthood. He beat to me to sex, drugs and almost everything else. And in Barra de Navidad, he spoke Spanish with a fluency and passion that I wouldn’t muster until years later. As we walked the tidal wave ravaged streets, looking for churros and other Christmas-time treats, Marco recited his newfound vocabulary: Pendejo! Puta! Chinga tu madre!