Talking to the Other World, Part I

Group Email: 16/07/07

Dear Friends,

*Just a note-- I began this email yesterday, but ran out of time as predicted! I fear this will be another two-part-er, as there is much to say, and my attempts at brevity rarely work out as they should.*

It seems I am behind again. So behind that I doubt I can catch up, at least not in the over-priced over-air-conditioned Mayanet, in Lake Atitlan. In lieu of a full report on recent goings on I have decided today to write the way I remember; not dates, towns, and itineraries but people, images, and those strange inexplicable moments that stick out in your mind and transform your memory of a place.

Since I last updated we have added 9 new people to our little company. Here are some random statistics I came up with on the last bus ride from Antigua: 7 Brits, 6 Americans, 2 Canadians. 2 teachers, 2 accountants, 2 political science students, 2 returning to school to study a different subject, 2 vegetarians, 2 celiacs, 2 named after plants, 3 named after saints, 3 who aren't sure what's next. An interesting collection, though I've not had time yet to ferret out the little details I do so love. I tell you nothing brings you closer to people than travel-- sometimes a little too close, as anyone who has ever ridden a ¨Chicken Bus¨ can tell you.

¨It's not, like, 5 Star, but we'll have some things, like, running water and power in the rooms.¨ Jon N.



When I last wrote I had progressed as far as Ometepe. Ometepe is a small island in Nicaragua, that appears to be operating entirely on its own time. I was still not feeling very well after the border nightmare (I have since been told this is the worst border in Central America-- makes me feel slightly better about passing out!) but it was too hot to go to bed early. Instead we sat out on a patio facing the water and passed a bottle of bug spray around the table and counted the geckos on the wall. Someone ordered a bright purple drink and no one seemed to know what it was. Then the power went out.



The power came back on about half an hour later, though personally I found the darkness just added to the intoxicating where-am-I-now sensation that had been trailing me all day. The next day the power went out again, and that time it stayed off. No explanation was ever given as to why the drinks became warmer and warmer as the hours passed, but the staff seemed so nonchalant about it I decided not to ask. Besides there was much to occupy oneself with-- like watching a cross-eyed volcano-guide hit on Lisa, and watching the moody sky so you'd make it back to the house before the rain began again. By early evening the clouds were so thick it was impossible to tell what was dusk and which was storm. I went for a walk and, just because, sang something from Anything Goes and felt the sound yanked away by the wind.

The next day we travelled to Granada (3rd largest city in Nicaragua). Where there was still no power, and little water. Apparently the whole country is having an energy crisis. I ended up with heat exhaustion and spent the night sleeping on the floor of the hotel, because it was cooler.

''Can we come back again tomorrow?'' N.S.

In Leon (still Nicaragua) we stayed in a beautiful hotel, and I had my own room, which was a nice change. I took advantage of this by washing my clothes in the sink (which had no plug) and hanging them from every surface, praying they had time to dry before the trip to Utila.

That night we went to a cinema nearby and saw Die Hard 4, which was the only thing in English. I had never seen the other 3 in the series, and while I expect I will see them eventually I don't think I'll ever hear of Die Hard again without thinking of Leon.



¨This would be way less creepy if I understood it!´´ Random American tourist

(Also in Leon) Somewhere in my epic search for a post office which I never found, I stumbled across a museum called Legends and Traditions. The building had originally been a prison (another of those political torture and death prisons), which closed down in 1979. The walls of the larger cells were covered with childish murals of prisoners sitting on beds, smoking, playing cards; in a somewhat puzzling organizational decision, the displays for the advertised legends and traditions were in the same rooms.

The legends were illustrated by full sized paper mache figures-- a headless priest, a golden donkey, a row of skeletons pulling a black shrouded cart. I´m afraid I didn´t get much out of that part, as all the signs were in Spanish. What I can tell you is that when the sun came through the prison bars, making the skeletons glow, it didn´t matter how disorganized or badly run the museum was-- there was something eerie in the air then that made me eager to get back to the real world, to the ice cream trucks and abandoned churches of old Leon.

´´This place has become my own personal hell!´´ C.C.



The trip from Leon to the Utila Islands was, without much exaggeration, hell. The 16 of us got on the bus at 4 AM, and didn't stop til we crossed the border into Honduras about 6 hours later. Then back onto the bus, and another 6 hours driving. By early evening we had arrived in a town who's name I can´t remember (made a real impression, obviously), checked into a equally ambiguous hotel and wandered around looking for a grocery store. We slept about 5 hours, then it came to 1 AM, and we got back on the bus for 10 more hours of driving. This was the low-light of the journey, as I couldn´t sleep (characteristically) and was crammed with 3 others into the back seat with no room to move my legs, nothing to do, and nothing to look at. To make things even more comfortable, there was a serious disagreement over the temperature, and even when everyone else had gone to sleep I couldn´t move to turn off the blasting air conditioning. About 8 AM we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts, and I was not the only one considering hiding out in the parking lot, rather than getting back into that miserable vehicle.

After that we had another hour, a ferry ride, and a walk that seemed endless. All that stands out about the two days in Utila was my spectacular lack-of-sleep-induced bad temper and that the town wasn´t worth the trip. (I also fell off a motor bike, but that was actually pretty funny; both at the time, and in retrospect.) On the plus side I finally found a post office (hey, a mission is a mission) and had some excellent falafel at a Middle Eastern restaurant on the beach.

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If you are still with me at this point, I´m impressed. I will aim to send you Part II tomorrow, so I can be back on track by the time we leave Antigua. A month today I come home.

Thinking of you all, with love,

Nel

--
´If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.´ Tom Peters