messiestobjects

If It Weren't For The Fence, I Could've Sold This As A Dino-Battle

I thought I would go ahead and post this little vignette I witnessed while in Guantanamo Bay since it's going to be another week or so before I can post the rest of my Gitmo pix and junk.

Two Iguanas! One big, one slightly bigger! A battle for territory, or a chick Iguana, or who knows what! Both will survive! But one will be slightly more bloodied than the other! Who will it be? The face-off commences!

I'm In Cuba, But Oddly Enough, It Feels A Bit Like Being On An American Base.

Hi! That's me there, in Cuba! There isn't much to look at here at GITMO, but here's what I have so far. This was my first photo op after landing, as I waited for the ferry to take me over to the main side of the base. 

I have an interesting tale about my flight to GITMO actually, but I want to wait until I can get the pictures off of my phone, which I won't be able to do until I get home. Well ok it's not that interesting; I flew in a really really small plane and got to sit in the co-pilot seat, therefore getting a spectacular night view of the super long bright fence around the base. No photos of that though, unfortunately. Phone cameras are limited. But here's a shot of downtown GITMO, with a McDonald's and a church and everything.

Well I told you there wasn't a whole lot that was picture-worthy around here. I will try harder in the next week or so, promise. Here's a picture of the bay though. In case you wanted to know what it looked like.

And here's a Coast Guard ship, in the Bay. Two for one! 

There are a whole bunch of Iguanas running around here. I saw two of them today alone. This guy was just hanging out in the back yard of my hotel.

And thank you telephoto lens.

Interesting fact: Here at GITMO, Iguanas have more rights than some humans. Iguanas are an endangered species, and under American law, anyone caught harming one can be charged, fined, imprisoned, yadda yadda. A base-wide speed limit of 25 mph is strictly enforced for this reason. But you know, there are those people in that prison somewhere around here who are harmed all the time, so I hear. There are no American Laws or speed limits in the prison cells, sadly. An odd dichotomy.

Ahm Goin' Down t' Git-Mo, The Git's A Friend O' Me; It Lies Beneath The Ocean, It Lies Beneath The Sea!

There's nothing like getting ready for a week in Guantanamo Bay by eating Cuban food specially kept warm since this morning by hotplate at some crappy airport cafe in the jankiest terminal at Fort Lauderdale airport. It seems right somehow. It's not really Cuban food, in the same manner that spaghetti and meatballs from Alfredo's Pizzeria isn't really Italian food. And after all, Guantanamo Bay isn't really Cuba. I mean sure, technically speaking it's on Cuban soil, but it's also a chunk of land that for all intents and purposes is American soil, stolen from Cuba (Sorry, given to us by the 1903 Cuban-American treaty under threat of force, supposedly) without any sense of shame and used for the purposes of incarcerating undesirable foreign "criminals" and to torture them whenever "necessary". And to add insult to injury, we not only do not have a standard SOFA agreement (Status of Forces Agreement) with the country being occupied by us, but we have trade sanctions against them and refuse to allow any form of compromise or travel to or from other parts of the island until they give up their present form of Government! I can't wait! The whole situation reminds me of being in the Green Zone. I've been feeling homesick for a little morally gray international action lately. And you know what? To be honest, that hot-plated Cuban food wasn't so bad. Huh.

So yes I'm headed down to GITMO for work. Have I said, lately, that my job is the awesomest, bestest, coolest, most fantastically righteous job ever in the history of the everything that ever was? We have a computer class down there and I have 2 exams to proctor. Two. Over a ten day period. Apparently the scuba diving down there is fantastic. And I hear the Water Boarding is pretty radical too, can't wait to try that out.

Okay, that's the last time I use that joke, I promise. But It's just too good not to use. Anyway, hopefully I'll have some good photos to post at some point. If there are no more entries posted on my blog before June 1st, I've been thrown into Gitmo prison, so please send lawyers. And a new camera with a wide-angle lens, please.