last bits

4/04/12

I got into Masaya in the late afternoon. The hotel room I had reserved, it turns out, is in Managua. So I went to another. After dropping off my things, I went to find somethingto eat. My "Last Supper" in Nicaragua. On offer at the Central Park were expensive meals, pizza, and different forms of fried meat dishes. I sat down with a bag of cut mango to consider my options. On the bench next to me sat a young woman in very shabby clothes. She looked very dirty, quite pitiful and smelled incredibly bad, a mix of sweat, dirt and urine. An older woman sat down next to me. I offered her some mango. She accepted. I then took a chance and mentioned that I was looking for somewhere to eat. She said she knew just the spot. 3 blocks away and she would accompany me as she was heading in that directions. The smell of our neighbour was now very strong as we headed off together, me with my stick, she limping beside me. 4 blocks later, we are still walking. Eventually we reach a small plaza with many food stalls. Yes, she was right. The food here is more than adequate . Cheese dumplings, plantain, vegetable patties all deep fried with a coleslaw salad on top. I invite her to eat with me. We sit down at a table. The vendor brings us our drinks. Mine is a spicy ginger drink. I finally ask her her age. I figure she must be between seventy and eighty. She says that she is sixty years old. She was sick with arthritis but now she is cured, she says. She wraps up 1/2 her meal with the 1/2 plantain that I can't finish for her breakfast tomorrow. When we are done, we part ways.

My hotel room is a sweatbox. The fan on the wall seems to be going fast enough but the wind never seems to reach me. I lie awake most of the night soaking in heat for the return. I will be in Montreal tomorrow night.

almost home

12/04/02

Sitting in the vegetarian restaurant/yoga centre in Esteli. I have just finished my meal, which I heavily laced with a homemade chili sauce. I am waiting for my penultimate Spanish class. My teacher is a very sweet woman of 42 years. We discuss politics, religion etc. and she gently corrects my grammar mistakes. (I have just moved tables to get away from the cell phone music that started just behind me.)

Yesterday I came back from a 2 day visit to the mountains. Beautiful pine forests. Vistas of volcanos and distant mountain ranges. Hot in the day and cold at night. A preparation of sorts for the coming return to the cold. I sit here and reflect on the past 11 plus weeks. Lots of travel. Many buses and boats. Many hotel rooms. 33 to be exact. Lots of packing up and moving on. I saw beauty in so many forms: the enormous trees, the flowers, the birds. All the colours. Beautiful beaches, rivers, lakes. And such kind people. Such gentle sweet peope. Reading the Dalai Lama at this moment, it is easy here to recognize the innate Buddhanature of people. Returning back to the cold and fast paced reality, it will be a greater challenge to see inherent gentleness in all beings around me.

And what did I learn on this trip? That in stopping and staying, I get more rewards and understanding than in movement. That travelling alone has its benefits - I follow my own rhythm, I am forced to make an effort to meet others - and its disadvantages: The adventure is mine alone. No one to laugh with about all the memories. 11 weeks was too long this time. There is only so much movement, so much beauty one can integrate. I look at all these travellers I meet with their yearlong, 6 month, 2 year around the world trips and I don't envy them as I have in the past. I need to stop and give back. It is time to look beyond this solitary mind.

And of course, the body and its frailty. My assumptions of my strength, my capacity to endure and overcome were tested. Sure, I endured. Sure, I overcame. And I was not afraid. But there was alot of physical pain and discomfort. Lots of enduring. And then that night alone in my lovely room. Diarrhea and vomiting. Severe abdominal crampìng. Do I go and bang on the door of the tourists next door? I think they are German. We barely acknowledged each other today. It is the middle of the night. Am I sick enough to go and ask for help? I guess not. I endured and survived. And took the bus, boat, bus and bus the next day.

I guess from where I sit, it is the end of an era. I will be 60 this year. There are others older than me who travel in this way. But it no longer pulls me to take the tough route. Was it the length of time? Was it the solitary travel? Was it the body fragility? Perhaps a bit of all of it. Am looking forward to new possibilities. Other options.

And I have a Spanish lesson to go to.

life on the grid

12/03/27

Everywhere in Nicaragua, to find a location, there is no exact address. No street number. The streets have names but no one knows them. Directions are given by landmarks: 2 blocks west of the church. 1 1/2 blocks east of the park. And it works well. I give those directions and people are able to direct me. Here in Esteli, it is different. Streets are clearly marked. Avenues are perpendicularto streets. Everything starts at the central park and progresses accordingly. And directions follow suit: 2nd street noirthwest and 3rd avenue south west. Seems somehow logical. And yet, people join me in the absence of an internal map. They too have no sense of direction. I get to a corner and ask, do I go left or straight here and I get directed to ask somewhere else. Finally at the cultural centre, they call the school for me. Someone will come and get me. Just tell me which way to go. No, sit and wait. Someone is coming.

to esteli

12/03/25

I told myself - enough with bus travel stories. I´ve already taken so many buses and boats - they've started to blur. And yet, here recovering in Esteli, I do believe, yesterday again I passed over the line. Esteli is not far from Ometepe in kilometres but it demands many changes in bus and boat. A crowded bus to the boat. A ferry over to the mainland. Another bus. All along, I was not sure whether I would make it. I told myself, I will stop when it gets too messy or I get too tired. Maybe I will stop in Granada. Then the bus was heading to Masaya. Maybe I will stop in Masaya. And then, it was midafternoon. The bus had just dropped me off on the outskirts of Masaya with instructions to take a taxi to Tipitapa. OK. A taxi driver tries to hustle me into his taxi. I stop him and join a group of two others.Then I realize that Tipitapa is 20 k away. I am no longer nowhere near Masaya. I am dropped at a noisy intersection where people are standing waiting for the buses coming from Managua. There is garbage everywhere. People looking hot, harassed, tired and unfriendly. The buses arrive, packed. People are jumping on, squeezing on, holding on. I think, oh shit.

A well-dressed woman sees my distress and comes over to help. I say - are all the buses this full?. Yes, she says. To get a seat, I would need to go back to Managua. Or go down the road to a hotel (questionable at best) and try again in the morning. I go off to the toilet -a wet stall which doesn't flush. I pay 25 cents for the service. When I get back, she says: come quickly. Your bus is here. Someone grabs my suitcase and stows it under the bus. She tries to tell the boy - This woman has a problem. She needs a seat. But he isn't listenng. I move quickly to the front. Stick in hand, I push onto the bus. I can barely get on. I have visions of being stuck one foot off as it starts to move. Impassive faces No one is offering a seat. There are 2 peoiple sitting on the triangular engine cover next to the driver. I ask the woman if I can sit too. She moves over as much as she can. I sit on one buttock for a while. Peope have to step over me to get on and off. It is ultimately too uncomfortable and I stand. After a long while, someone gives me their seat as they are getting off. The rest of the trip is uneventful. I have a seat. It is wonderful.

We arrive at 7:30 pm. A taxi to the hotel. I wake this morning at 6:30 am. A church group is having a celebration, the music echoing outside my window. A block from my hotel is a little cantina that sells homemade yoghourt with fruit. I have bought 2 containers. I had been craving yoghourt for days. One is with papaya, the other with pineapple. Heavenly.

socialism

12/03/24

A man sits down beside me at the bottom of the hill. I am waiting for the bus. He has just carried down a big bag of produce for a woman. She has been visiting his farm and heading back with her 2 children to the town. He is so happy that I understand Spanish. He wants to explain to me the injustice he feels has been done. He tells me that he had lived in Managua for 20 years but had come 30 years ago to work on the coffee plantations on the island. Then the revolution and the land was nationalized. The plantation owners went home, he said, and the land divided up and given to party members. Those who had paid for their cards, he said. He hadn´t paid so he had to buy his land from another. And work it to survive. Now there is no money. Only working to survive.

Another man, the other day, told me that he had received a portion of land. He has built a hostel on it and his family works hard on it. Nonetheless, he too is not happy with the government. They gave us land, he says. But nothing else. It is true, the roads are beyond belief. The electricity service is pretty off and on. "What about health care?" I say. "Drugs are free." Free for you, he says. We get prescriptions and have to buy them ourselves at the pharmacy.

And yet, I must say, the general feeling is one of great contentment and stability. People are very famiy oriented and appear happy enough.

giggling

12/03/23

It is not as hot today. I am sitting on my verandah. I hear giggling in the room vacated by the American. Two of the cleaning staff have been in there a long time now. The door closed. Finally they emerge. "Did you have a sleep?" I ask. Yes, they say giggling. They are both about 5 months pregnant. The one who is 26, it is her first. The other is 30 and it is her 5th. Her oldest son is 17. Yes, she was 13 when she had him.I say: "You started so young. You must have worked hard." referring to childrearing. Yes, she says, I worked in the fields in the rice and the corn. They finish off the room and take their things and leave. Giggling.

crippled divers

12/03/23

An American man sits down on a hammock near me and begins to chat. The light flickers and goes out. Another power outage. The stars shine very brightly. There are no mosquitos.

He tells me he has been coming to Nicaragua now for 15 years. He initially came with a church group but he quickly got disillusioned and continued on his own. He records the names of lobster divers who have been left paralysed by faulty ascents from their deep dives. The government has promised to help. NGOs come down with fancy hyperbaric chambers and dive instructors. But the damage continues. The divers still dive poorly. He says it is ignorance but also machismo and that youthful sense of immortality. "It won´t happen to me." And the indifference of the boat captains. He has gone into the small villages up above the port town to collect his names. The divers are young Mesquito men as young as 16. Never over 30

Now he is hanging out waiting to do dental work.