CENTRAL AMERICA NOTEBOOK (a cocktail)

Tom S. Thomas

Posted February 9th, 2006

Updated January, 2009

------------------------------


1. -----

The notion to reinvent myself as a travel writer sank like the Ometepe ferry at its dock. There it sits half submerged, loaded to capacity with three banana trucks.

2. -----

I don't want to innundate you with emails comprising my daily spittle.

Even less, do I want to start a blog and remind you of new entries.

3. -----

I want to write an old fashioned letter in caligraphy. A letter praising your innate goodness and heart's desires. I once received letters to that effect. But whose delusion is this, anyway?

4. --------

I've no desire to climb volcanoes, nor to view up close their sulphurous ejaculations.

5. ------

Nirvana Cafe. San Pedro la Laguna. December 7, 2005.

The sublime symmetry between the burning of the Diablo effigy stuffed with firecrackers and the pain from my root canal infection helped me cope.

6. ------

My Guatemalan dentist is a mensh. Has a passion for reptiles.
Pythons and boas slither in and out of terrariums at his house.
It's a family affair. It's unthinkable I stay at a hotel henceforth. Insists with sweeping gestures of his hand that there will always be a room for me in his house when I return.

7. ------

Her cleavage inspired bungee jumping.

8. ------

I asked a pretty Nica girl out for coffee. She showed up in a wedding dress.

9. ------

Her approving eye caught me standing at the corner. From across the street I heard her gasp the Spanish equivalent of "omigod."

10. ------

I resolve to never again give money to beggars.

Hookers have a bottom line. When you decline their solicitation,
they ask for a regalo (gift) to buy comida (food), leche (milk) for their babies.

I invite the young prostitute to the supermarket. She fills a basket. I'm filled with wonder.

The next morning she comes by my hotel, her child and mother in tow. Demands medicine for her ailing son.

11. -----

I wrote a poem about oligarchy and razor wire in Guatemala.
A manifesto for art; art as agent for social change.

The poem was too clever for its own good.

12. ------

La Cruz, Antigua. I conceived a poem about the large cross facing the volcano. An eternal stand-off between two arch enemies whose mutual legacies lie in varions states of ruin at their feet.

A boy flies a kite, jarring the sky like static on a screen, momentarily breaking the spell. I never wrote the poem.

13. ------

The mind reels, lurches forward teetering on the abyss, clings to dear sanity. The explosion is THAT loud. It's 4 A.M. The building vibrates. Highway blasting. Yes. Construction. It's 4. You turn back to sleep. Several more explosions ensue until dawn.

By late afternoon the mind acquiesces, accepts they were firecrakers.

14. -----

Granada, Nicaragua

She's American, tall, attractive, menopausal and brainy.
Lives in Paris. Conducts exclusive tours to the most exotic
places on the planet. Understands the metaphysical dimensions of good espresso.

She waits two full days before making an oblique remark about the PDA. Meanwhile, scores of curious waitresses, shoeshine boys and toothless old men delight in my demonstrations.

15. ------

San Pedro inspires a would-be photo documentary on the Tz'utuhil Maya in their dazzling traditional dress and weavings.

I'll acquire the latest in digital technology: a Nikon, archival inks and papers. The mind's eye sees the mailer, the prints on the wall, the lights, the wine and cheesers, the little red dots, the guest book.

The mind's eye wavers.

16. -----

Antigua has more pharmacies than Vancouver has Starbucks.
San Jose more clothing stores than the aforementioned combined.

17. ------

There are no street hookers in Antigua. Granada has a cluster, plus the odd freelancer. In San Jose it's mostly guys in drag everywhere.

18. -------

San Isidro de El General is an ugly town. But it's a refreshing reprieve from the manicured gringo trail.

Featureless, its only architectural point of interest is the white central cathedral. A modernist affair with two spires that looks anorexic and sad.

The Hotel Astoria is a relic worth mentioning. It's a vast two storey complex spanning almost a city block. The long hallway leading to the front desk has an instutitional polish and sheen that's unmistakably sanitorium. Rooms are tiny and bare with hospital green clapboard walls whose top perimiter ventilation openings are covered with wiremesh (Mini-storage Manor). A shared bathroom configuration costs $4 per night.

San Isidro seems to have more shoe stores per capita than any other place on the planet.

19. ------

San Francisco Hotel, San Pedro.

He lights a joint. It's to be my first of the trip. Our bodies slacken. Sunk deep into our chairs, we imbibe the lake vista. It's a defining moment.

Absence makes the mind grow fonder.

20. -----

The predominant architectural style in Guatemala is cinderblock and rebar. Long tufts of rebar stick out from every rooftop and wall. Is anything ever finished here? It's not unlike our tar paper phase back home. The rebar residue, I'm told, is by design. It signifies a gesture of intent: to build that second or third storey.

It's called the rebar of hope.

21. -------

Going to the bank in Guatemala is a dreadful business. If not for the stolid lineups, the trigger-ready heavily armed guards at every entrance. Handguns are routinely slipped from cabinet drawers to plainclothed men with reversed baseball caps.

At some banks you can see the faint outline of a guard lurking behind a creepy tinted window high up on a wall. A frozen silhouette of stealth.

One bank has has a television monitor beside the lineup. It's playing Mr. Bean episodes. Mr. Bean doing 'jumping the queue' sketches. What stroke of PR genius! What art!

22. ------

Number of US casualties in Iraq since the occupation began two and a half years ago: 2000.

Number of homicides in Guatemala in the first eight months of 2005: 2,566.

23. --------

Homocacophonicus: I make a noise, therefore I am.

One thing the Latinos have mastered is the art of the boombox.
Banks of black refrigerator-sized speaker consoles appear out
of the blue on the streets. At times accompanied by an MC.
They blast various techno-beat rythyms in aid of anything as
minor as the selling of raffle tickets, to holiday festivals.

Sometimes on a hot, languid afternoon, ribcage reverberating decibels from speakers stacked in a store doorway suddenly rupture the stillness of a street.

It's the most ordinary thing.

24. ------

The bus ride to Antigua from Guatemala takes about an hour.
Departing from Zona 1 the traffic noise equals that of ten
jackhammers going at once. Never mind that the human ear
can't possibly distinguish anything over ONE jackhammer.
The bus speaker blares Latino pop. The driver slows to a crawl
and leans towards the entrance, screams his customary ferocious ANTIGUA!! N'TIGA..N'TIGA..N'TIGA..N'TIGA..N'TIGA...N'TIGA!

The bus is crammed with dark, pressing, sweating flesh.
Street vendors board, work the aisle, disembark. A young pimpled-faced preacher boards for the duration. Opens a Bible and begins his sermon next to my ear. He soars above the cacophony reaching ever ascending rhapsodic plateaus. He's radioactive.

When we pull into Antigua he's spent. He thanks everyone and shuffles to the back of the bus. His face is beatific, his smile sublime. He has climbed down from the very knee of God...shuffles to the back, and collects a few coins.

25. ------

The epiphany struck several times. That I was neither travelling nor on vacation -- but that THIS (the moment) was in fact my life. A state of pure potentiality. And it felt grand!

26. ------

Ometepe Island, Nicaragua.

The Holy Grail.

It was showdown at high noon between the coffee connoisseur from Hell and the other guy from the Pacific Northwest. They exchange shots. Freshly roasted coffee beans do NOT emit aroma. They must rest (de-gas) for at least eight hours before brewing. To sample, you crack a bean under your nose; a tiny puff wafts up your nostril. You swoon.

Did you know Delaney's on Denman serves espresso with two-finger thick crema in a glass? They put Starbucks across the street out of business.

27. ----

Eating out in restaurants when travelling is important irrespective of need or nutrition. It's entertainment filling great blocks of time.

28. --------

Bocas del Toro, Panama.

Bocas is but a B grade film set. A wide road runs through it. It's the pilot for the horror film to be shot on Bastimentos Island, ten minutes away. Eight hundred condos on pristine Red Frog Beach. Not 80, not 180, but 800 with attendant infrastructure: a road where none exists, a car ferry where water taxis serve a way of life.

The complex will sit adjacent to Mr. Polo's beach. Polo, the affable hermit who's occupied his private paradise for 42 years.

Not content with a mere 800 condos starting at 500 k USD, and unlikely to succeed in buying out Polo, the indomitable developer is pitching the book rights for his story. Bedtime reading for the absentee condo owners to come. Won't they?

29. -------

Pueblo de Bastimentos, Panama.

On a sunny day the palms glisten, sway to the regea rhythms pumping from the dockside boom boxes. The water is heart stopping clear turqoise. When it's overcast, the flat light accentuates the trash and pvc sewer pipes along the concrete walkway and shoreline. The boom boxes thump as usual -- but now it’s the sound of melancholy and malaise.

30. -------

My ideal Central American country would have the roads and buses of Panama, the civility and beaches of Costa Rica, the women of Nicaragua, the relative obscurity of El Salvador, the prices of Honduras and the colour and cultural diversity of Guatemala.

31. ------

I take no for an answer.

32. ------

I suffer fools.

--------------

Notes:

1. December 7th marks the beginning of Christmas festivities in Guatemala. The burning of devil effigies is to expel bad vibes and a symbolic house cleaning. In Guatemala City the practice is widespread and has become a public hazard in recent years because of smoke and fatalities from house fires.

2. PDA stands for personal digital assistant, also known as Palm Pilot or Pocket PC. It's a superlative travel accessory and an indispensible tool for the backpacking writer who happily leaves the laptop at home.