san pedro 2

12/01/21

Cold at night. Hot in the day. In the early morning, I don´t want to leave my bed but now I am roasting in the shade, my legs browning in the sun.

I walked up the steep incline to the market this morning. The fruit ladies are still at the entrance. The bakery I liked is not there any more. I buy fruit, vegetables and peanuts, and a small package of smelly laundry detergent. There is something so familiar in all this. I have lived this so many times in so many places. I am in my comfort zone of travel mode.

From this veranda - I am looking straight at Volcan San Pedro. It is very green and very big. I can't believe I had the energy to climb it 8 years ago. Even then, it was a brutal climb. I ascended with a young 18 year old who was in the middle of a ¨peine d'amour¨. His girlfriend had rejected him because he was getting drunk too often. He would run ahead of me and then double back to wait and smoke a cigarette. It felt like a 60 degree incline the whole way except the top which was close to 90 degrees. Today I am happy to look at the mountain, sweat and remember.

(And did he marry the girl and have 3 children?)