BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jos Stratford" data-source="post: 1247311" data-attributes="member: 12449">Ah, this reminds me of one ...in my early days of travelling, I developed a habit of travelling world trouble spots, but rather than freak my mother out, I actually said I was going to a nearby, but safer country. One example was telling her I was going to Mexico, but then crossed into Guatemala and thereafter El Salvador, at that time in the last flings of its civil war. Needless to say, I'd been in the country for less than an hour and the bus was hijacked and myself and the only other westerner marched off into the bush. Lots of things happened, but to cut the story short, we were released and hitch-hiked into San Salvador. Next day, we contacted the British Embassy (the other guy lost his passport) and to say they were surprised to see us is an understatement - the bus company had informed the police that two foreigners had been taken off the bus, they had gone to the border and found out who we were, then they contacted the embassy. The ambassador or someone had flown back to the capital from somewhere, a search had been done of the area we were taken, then the embassy was in the process of contacting my parents to inform them their son was missing (in a country where they didn't know I was!), last seen being walked off by hijackers! I can imagine the reaction.As for calls from myself, I generally used to only call once a month or so anyhow, telling the mother this would avoid her worrying when I couldn't get to a phone - this worked well till I happened to get macheted in Kenya about three hours after my monthly phone call. Phoning the second time in 24 hours rang all the alarm bells before I even opened my mouth! Thought saying I had been knifed would be more diplomatic than saying macheted, it didn't seem to work. I put her through hell, I guess that was irresponsible.</blockquote>

Verification