In the nine days since he was booted from the Honduran presidency by force, Manuel Zelaya as been to six cities in five countries.
He flew over a sixth.
Zelaya's country-hopping campaign to reclaim his post started at the airport in Costa Rica last Sunday over gallo pinto and crackers and is expected to continue Tuesday with high-level meetings in Washington to hatch a plan of action.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was expected to meet Zelaya late Monday or early Tuesday, a Latin American president told The Miami Herald. And he may not like what he hears: The Obama administration is irked by the fact that Zelaya sought much of his advice from Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.
But Washington has joined leaders from across the Americas in trying to bring end to the crisis and seek Zelaya's return to Tegucigalpa. The Organization of American States, which has stated that Zelaya's return is not negotiable, is seeking a compromise with Honduran legislators and judges.
The stakes are high: as early as Tuesday, Washington may cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid Honduras gets.
Zelaya is one of two men currently claiming to be president of Honduras. The Central American nation of 7.5 million people currently has two presidents and two foreign ministers, several Cabinet members are in hiding, and it's unclear who represents the nation in Washington: the ambassador who served under Zelaya has pledged allegiance to his successor, Roberto Micheletti.
Zelaya's zeal to reclaim the seat he won with a slim majority four years ago has taken him to Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua three times, El Salvador twice, New York and Washington. He has met with at least a dozen presidents, as well as the head of the United Nations General Assembly and the secretary general of the OAS.
Venezuela has spoken out on his behalf and provided aircraft for his travel. But as heads of state throughout the hemisphere huddle and offer assistance -- both material and diplomatic -- the deposed leftist former rancher appears no closer to winning back his post in the short term.
''He's got very little on his side except for these demonstrators, which number in the single thousands,'' said former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich, who has been accused by Venezuela of orchestrating Zelaya's ouster. ``You can't govern with just rioters in the streets. He needs the institutions of government -- all of which have turned against him.''
The Honduran powers of state turned against Zelaya because he was so determined to hold a nonbinding referendum last month, calling for a constituent assembly to change the constitution, that he defied court orders declaring the vote illegal.
His brazen confiscation of ballot materials from an air force hangar led Honduras' Supreme Court, attorney general, congress and the military to gang up against him. He was ordered captured and shuttled off to Costa Rica in a predawn raid at his residence.
Costa Rica inadvertently became the first of a series of nations dragged into one of the hemisphere's worst political crises in years.
'When Zelaya stepped off the plane, he said, `Good morning, there has been a coup,' '' Javier Sancho, the head of protocol for Costa Rica's ministry of foreign affairs, told The Miami Herald Monday in a phone interview from San José.
Zelaya did not say he had been kidnapped. Sancho said Zelaya first used that word at the press conference two hours later. Had Zelaya uttered it earlier, then Costa Rica's Public Ministry might have gotten involved, Sancho said.
He added that Costa Rica's civil aviation received the requested flight plan before the plane left Honduras. He said the plane was civil registered, not a military plane, which would have required the permission of the Legislative Assembly to fly into Costa Rica.
The Honduran pilots who submitted the flight plan did not say they were flying the presidential airplane, nor did they say that Zelaya was aboard.
That information got to Costa Rica through a 6 a.m. phone call to Costa Rican President Oscar Arias from Costa Rican ambassador to Guatemala Lidiette Brenes. She received an early morning call from appointed Honduran foreign minister Enrique Ortez Colindres saying Zelaya was being exiled and on his way to Costa Rica.
Zelaya spent the first hours of his arrival in his pajamas on the phone at the airport administrative office, Sancho said. He called his wife and mother, among others. Those calls may have included chats with Castro and Chávez, according to Latin American sources familiar the happenings.
''He received a lot of phone calls,'' Sancho said.
Zelaya was also given a medical checkup and had his blood pressure taken. Everything was normal as he sipped coffee and ate gallo pinto and crackers.
From there, Zelaya went on to a presidential inauguration in Panama, a meeting with fellow heads of state in Nicaragua, spent two nights in El Salvador, gave a speech at the United Nations, and went to Washington, D.C., twice.
''I want to go back to my country, because it's important we have peace,'' he told those assembled at the Organization of American States on Sunday. ``I'm simply fighting to restore democracy to my country not just for myself. I'm fighting for all of us.''
Efraín Díaz, a member of Honduras' Christian Democratic party and a one-time presidential candidate, said he is not sure if all the world leaders Zelaya has reached out to will be able to broker an accord, because there are too many ideologies in the mix.
''Not everyone who he reaches out to will be able to help him or the country find a solution,'' Díaz said. ``I think Costa Rica, which is viewed as a more neutral country, could help mediate an agreement.''
A delegation of Zelaya's political enemies went to Washington as well Monday in an effort to tell their side of the story.
''The State Department wouldn't meet with them,'' said U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. ``I mean, if this is a regime that we don't recognize.''
Kelly said he was certain that if Zelaya comes to Washington as anticipated he would meet with someone at a ''senior level,'' but there are no definitive plans. Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon and Obama special advisor Dan Restrepo met with Zelaya early Sunday morning.
''Of course, we're very focused on the need for a dialogue to restore him back and restore the democratic order,'' Kelly said.
But even while the U.S. lobbies on Zelaya's behalf -- and offers refuge to Zelaya's wife, who is staying at the home of the U.S. ambassador here -- Venezuela has accused elements in Washington of backing the coup.
Citing no evidence, Venezuela pointed a finger at Reich, the former State Department official who once served as the U.S. ambassador to Caracas. In a speech to the emergency session of OAS diplomats, Venezuelan Ambassador to the OAS Roy Chaderton said Reich was among those who had been in touch with ''top officials'' from the de facto regime.
''I am not the architect of the coup -- I am not even a mason,'' Reich, president of his own Washington-based consulting firm, said Monday by telephone. ``I didn't even carry any water.
``It's typical of the Cubans and Venezuelans. They're trying to find a scapegoat.''
This story was reported by Miami Herald staff writers Frances Robles and Laura Figueroa in Honduras; Lesley Clark in Washington; Trenton Daniel in Miami; and special correspondents Tim Rogers in Nicaragua, and Phil Gunson in Caracas. It was written by Robles.
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