What happened to my friend?

Last year I wrote a post about meeting people on the net and mentioned the advantages of making friends that way. I have since discovered the downside.

Just after that piece was published I saw a note in a now defunct forum from someone who had just started a personal blog called Bonhead under the name of Orso I Tink. This was a rather silly pseudonym but here was something about what he wrote which suggested he would be interesting to know so I left a comment. He wrote a friendly comment back and over the next five months there was an exchange of messages between us, some in comments on his blog, some on mine, and some by email.

When we began writing he was just setting off in a camper with his dog to travel from Albuquerque to Oaxaca, buying craft products on the way and planning to start a retail business when he got there. He wrote an amusing account in his blog of his adventures on the journey and many other things. He also won a little competition I posted (see comments to the post) and we had a friendly argument about the prize.

I used to look forward to reading whatever he wrote and clearly he was enjoying the correspondence as much as I was.

Then, five months later, his blog suddenly disappeared from the net; after a few weeks I emailed him but there was no response. All that was nearly a year ago and I have since heard nothing, which makes me sad. I very much fear that something has happened to him and he never reached Oaxaca.

His first name is Miguel and he was born and grew up in Puerto Rico. He speaks English, Castilian and Catalan and had some Scottish/Irish ancestors named Fletcher and O’Farrell. I know nothing more about him: if there is anyone out there who knows (or knew) him I would be very happy to hear from them.