Before I left on this journey into The Americas people were all to happy to tell me how how corrupt and violent Central America would be when I got there. American tales and American fears projected onto anyone who would listen to help them validate their fears and confirm how smart they were not to travel to these savage uncivilized places.
Even my dentist was concerned that I would not be able to get my teeth cleaned, as if there would be a total absence of the dental profession where I was going. I listened and frowned then had my teeth cleaned in Mexico and Panama. Camus said it best in The Stranger, One always has exaggerated ideas about what ones doesn't know.
Then a year into the journey it happened. A bribing situation arose when a Nicaraguan traffic cop told me to pull over at a check point. It was a good time to speak very little Spanish. He began by expressing pleasure that I was wearing my seat belt then promptly found problems with my out of date car papers and lack of an emergency triangle. I lied and said I had flares, but that didn't help since I did not know the word for flare nor could I produce one. Then came the explanation:
I will hold your licence while you go to the bank to pay the fine, then you can return for your licence. Or you can pay here.
Here?
Yes, here.
How much is the fine?
$20 dollars.
Twenty, that's a lot.
Then how much?
Aha, I thought what a fair system they have here in Nicaragua the amount of the fine is up to me, I counter with, $5 dollars
$10?
No.
$5 dollars.
OK.
That was my first bribe and the experience was well worth the five dollars and time spent haggling. I suppose that will make some people happy back home, a vindication of sorts. I was prepared to go through the legal process of receiving the multa, ticket and visiting the bank to settle it.
While traveling I have observed a dichotomy between the Law Abiding foreign traveler who criticizes the corrupt nature of Latin American institutions (an ingrained part of the culture), then the same person is more than happy to "pay" a bribe when they get themselves into a sticky situation. Can't have it both ways I say.
Contrary to all the fear mongering I heard prior to leaving the U.S. I have found all interactions with federal and municipal authorities in Central America to be professional and prompt. Thus far, my experiences have been the furthest thing from uncivilized. In general, the people of Central America are friendly, open and helpful to the stranger. Had I listened to the exaggerated ideas people had about places they knew nothing about I might not have been able to tell you otherwise.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
Friday, December 18, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Dispatch Number 51 -Jeff
Jeff was a gregarious story teller that could get anybody talking even the shy ones. Gabby and free spirited. Jeff was a travel know-it-all dispensing an endless stream of advice to unsuspecting travelers who recently arrived. He'd lure them in with where are you going?, then launch breathlessly into five minutes of advice about how to get somewhere and where to stay. As for our time together in Guatemala and Honduras we laughed a great deal, enjoyed mild adventure (the coup d’état had just happened in Honduras) and witnessed two dead men on the roads we traveled. I silently wondered if it was an omen since the sightings were at point blank range and came in the span of days.
He loved the sound of his own voice and I told him so, he smiled like I was in on some secret of his. Once he pointed out after lunch with new friends that I was obsessed with washing my hands before and after I took meals. True to being an American I took it personally and felt compelled to defend it with some blubbering about keeping sanitary, I think I even evoked the swine flu to shield my sudden feeling of exposure. I learned after a few weeks with Jeff that he saw everything. Everything. To me it became one of his most heartening qualities.
Jeff had a peculiar quirk for a shoestring traveler accustomed to doing things the least expensive way, he would compulsively window shop and catalog the prices in his head. Once the data was collected he would take perverse pleasure in confronting a store owner with the price discrepancy and make an issue of it.
When we went our separate ways I did not want to part from his company. He was adventurous, even minded, open to suggestion, mixed quickly with new people and would act without hesitation. He was an avid student of Spanish and spoke it whenever the chance presented itself.
I miss the Australian. In his company I felt stronger. I have a rule that I do not write about the people I get to know and travel with, however, in this case Jeff suggested I write something and I took up his offer. I hope we meet up again.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
He loved the sound of his own voice and I told him so, he smiled like I was in on some secret of his. Once he pointed out after lunch with new friends that I was obsessed with washing my hands before and after I took meals. True to being an American I took it personally and felt compelled to defend it with some blubbering about keeping sanitary, I think I even evoked the swine flu to shield my sudden feeling of exposure. I learned after a few weeks with Jeff that he saw everything. Everything. To me it became one of his most heartening qualities.
Jeff had a peculiar quirk for a shoestring traveler accustomed to doing things the least expensive way, he would compulsively window shop and catalog the prices in his head. Once the data was collected he would take perverse pleasure in confronting a store owner with the price discrepancy and make an issue of it.
When we went our separate ways I did not want to part from his company. He was adventurous, even minded, open to suggestion, mixed quickly with new people and would act without hesitation. He was an avid student of Spanish and spoke it whenever the chance presented itself.
I miss the Australian. In his company I felt stronger. I have a rule that I do not write about the people I get to know and travel with, however, in this case Jeff suggested I write something and I took up his offer. I hope we meet up again.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
Monday, December 14, 2009
Dispatch Number 50 -Drinking With Russians
We took the truck as far as it could go, the end of the road where the Mosquito Coast begins. From here on the remote wilds are only accessible by boat in the deepest reaches of Honduras along the Caribbean coast. We were in a damp, musty, mosquito ridden dump of a hotel drinking on the patio saying our goodbyes. My friends were getting on a boat in the morning and I was turning back. The booze everyone packed for the journey was consumed that night.
I listened as attentively as my numbed head would allow to the Russian's explanation of the proper way to drink. I have always been curious about Russia and her culture and the beautiful couple from St. Petersburg presented a rare chance to learn more. They explained the proper method to drink so one could avoid a hangover. By consuming liquor and beer in a particular order one could dodge the morning bullet; due to my fueled state at the time I will pass over the details since I cannot recall them clearly. To drink any other way was to invite a hangover and the most damning of class remarks, it was, to drink like a whore.
Olga was beautiful and I could not resist what I said next. I noticed that we were drinking in precisely the way they said not to, we were heading for a hangover. Far from caring at that stage about manners I told Olga we were drinking like whores. Lovely Olga replied with a frown.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
I listened as attentively as my numbed head would allow to the Russian's explanation of the proper way to drink. I have always been curious about Russia and her culture and the beautiful couple from St. Petersburg presented a rare chance to learn more. They explained the proper method to drink so one could avoid a hangover. By consuming liquor and beer in a particular order one could dodge the morning bullet; due to my fueled state at the time I will pass over the details since I cannot recall them clearly. To drink any other way was to invite a hangover and the most damning of class remarks, it was, to drink like a whore.
Olga was beautiful and I could not resist what I said next. I noticed that we were drinking in precisely the way they said not to, we were heading for a hangover. Far from caring at that stage about manners I told Olga we were drinking like whores. Lovely Olga replied with a frown.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Dispatch Number 49 -Over The Rainbow
This group has bled my interest dry. They were a lethal mix of personality: all-knowing and incurious. A collection of amateur artists, freaks, dopers, dreamy revolutionaries, drunk spiritualists, malcontents, gypsies, and hangers-on who presented themselves as fashionably reincarnated hippies with blind ties to that fabled past. One thing was obvious -they all needed to feel loved, to feel important and to impress others that they were special and unique when they were full of stale dead and unoriginal opinions.
My friend Stephanie and I tried to make it to the Rainbow Gathering, a month long festival near La Paz in Baja California, Mexico. These Rainbow Gatherings are the current form of the hippie commune lifestyle where most everything is permitted and money is not used in daily affairs, the intent is to get people back to their roots of community and away from capitalism. However, the charms and delights of the Baja peninsula kept us from making it to the gathering in the desert. Reflecting back I am glad we never arrived.
My chance to meet some Rainbow people came a short time later when I invited a group of them to ride with me from Baja to mainland Mexico. I was curious about them and heard positive things they propounded like consciousness towards mother earth and her people. I traveled with them for over a week and said my goodbyes as quickly as possible when we arrived in Sayulita a pacific coast fishing village turned tourist haven. There was an informal Rainbow Gathering at this beach town where I met more of the Tribe. Successfully catering to the tourist the beach front was filled with lounge chairs and umbrellas for rent occupied by people feeling comfortably rich among the colorfully poor. After several months of back-roading it in dusty Baja California accustomed to finding my own way I did not care for the ready made feel of Sayulita.
I shared late night beach fires with the Rainbow people curious to understand their outlook and enjoy their company, however, my curiosity was thwarted because of their copious consumption of alcohol and drugs. I discovered the modern hippie was deaf the way most drunks are and little different than the heavy drinkers at my old neighborhood bar that was full of artificially happy people with unhappy depressed lives that eventually let their anger fly after a few. Like bars, the cultural component that held these Rainbow people together were drugs and alcohol -finding them, talking about them, and taking them. They never complained about the price of beer or a bag of weed, but they would complain about the $4.50 camp fee while they ate your food.
Many had swollen faces and limbs from a steady diet of pills, pot, hash and alcohol; malnutrition and poor self-care were obvious. They looked as unhealthy as the resident drunk on his semi-permanent stool nursing a warm beer clutching a pack of cigarettes. With drugs there is a difference between self-expansion and self-deception.
Their behavioral promiscuity at the fire pit was shocking. With all the unity and consciousness messages the Rainbow Movement promoted I was unable to find it here. The unity was through drugs and getting smashed together. Common ground or intelligent debate was absent, and consciousness was curiously absent at the fire pit. The pit always felt like it was delicately perched between peace and war, a violent undercurrent was always underfoot. Over and over I would be told or hear others say, everything is O.K. and peace. Little of it could be found at night. They were angry. The mother earth chatter I heard during the day held no water at this hour.
Actions and words knew no relationship. They talked about revolution like bystanders hoping someone else would do it. One could see they were scared to death of the world and chose to cloak themselves in the safety of the tribe. I am down with their anti-establishment views and anti-corporate sentiments, but I am not crazy about them. They have a herd instinct and I noticed they talked about what they were told to yap about -repeated ideas. Over the years I have learned to cherish original thinkers.
Their life experiences seemed limited to psychedelic drug journeys mixed with lots of talk and little participation in life. The Rainbow Tribe was jammed with phonies, many of them unfeeling and false people. I think of the suit and tie lifestyle, the corporate lackeys pulling the 8-5 grind and the Rainbow Tribe people are against this and I am down with this too. From where I stand neither the lifestyles of the hippies or the 8-5ers looks appealing. I used to think the hippie was more alive than the stockbroker, now I am not so sure.
Maybe I am getting old. I left them in their tourist town excited about my next stop to meet up with new friend Carlos, a Mexican who owned a coffee plantation with 35,000 of the world's most beautiful plant (yes, I love coffee that much). Carlos invited me to learn how to harvest the red bean on the steep mountain slopes that lie northwest of Guadalajara. I spent several days with Carlos and his mother, Guadalupe who treated me as a son. They helped replenish my heart that had become so depleted while in the company of the Rainbow people.
In life I discovered that one group leaves you depressed and another group of people can bring you back. I love humanity and the magical ways in which it works. I accept the Rainbow people, I just do not want to be one of them.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
My friend Stephanie and I tried to make it to the Rainbow Gathering, a month long festival near La Paz in Baja California, Mexico. These Rainbow Gatherings are the current form of the hippie commune lifestyle where most everything is permitted and money is not used in daily affairs, the intent is to get people back to their roots of community and away from capitalism. However, the charms and delights of the Baja peninsula kept us from making it to the gathering in the desert. Reflecting back I am glad we never arrived.
My chance to meet some Rainbow people came a short time later when I invited a group of them to ride with me from Baja to mainland Mexico. I was curious about them and heard positive things they propounded like consciousness towards mother earth and her people. I traveled with them for over a week and said my goodbyes as quickly as possible when we arrived in Sayulita a pacific coast fishing village turned tourist haven. There was an informal Rainbow Gathering at this beach town where I met more of the Tribe. Successfully catering to the tourist the beach front was filled with lounge chairs and umbrellas for rent occupied by people feeling comfortably rich among the colorfully poor. After several months of back-roading it in dusty Baja California accustomed to finding my own way I did not care for the ready made feel of Sayulita.
I shared late night beach fires with the Rainbow people curious to understand their outlook and enjoy their company, however, my curiosity was thwarted because of their copious consumption of alcohol and drugs. I discovered the modern hippie was deaf the way most drunks are and little different than the heavy drinkers at my old neighborhood bar that was full of artificially happy people with unhappy depressed lives that eventually let their anger fly after a few. Like bars, the cultural component that held these Rainbow people together were drugs and alcohol -finding them, talking about them, and taking them. They never complained about the price of beer or a bag of weed, but they would complain about the $4.50 camp fee while they ate your food.
Many had swollen faces and limbs from a steady diet of pills, pot, hash and alcohol; malnutrition and poor self-care were obvious. They looked as unhealthy as the resident drunk on his semi-permanent stool nursing a warm beer clutching a pack of cigarettes. With drugs there is a difference between self-expansion and self-deception.
Their behavioral promiscuity at the fire pit was shocking. With all the unity and consciousness messages the Rainbow Movement promoted I was unable to find it here. The unity was through drugs and getting smashed together. Common ground or intelligent debate was absent, and consciousness was curiously absent at the fire pit. The pit always felt like it was delicately perched between peace and war, a violent undercurrent was always underfoot. Over and over I would be told or hear others say, everything is O.K. and peace. Little of it could be found at night. They were angry. The mother earth chatter I heard during the day held no water at this hour.
Actions and words knew no relationship. They talked about revolution like bystanders hoping someone else would do it. One could see they were scared to death of the world and chose to cloak themselves in the safety of the tribe. I am down with their anti-establishment views and anti-corporate sentiments, but I am not crazy about them. They have a herd instinct and I noticed they talked about what they were told to yap about -repeated ideas. Over the years I have learned to cherish original thinkers.
Their life experiences seemed limited to psychedelic drug journeys mixed with lots of talk and little participation in life. The Rainbow Tribe was jammed with phonies, many of them unfeeling and false people. I think of the suit and tie lifestyle, the corporate lackeys pulling the 8-5 grind and the Rainbow Tribe people are against this and I am down with this too. From where I stand neither the lifestyles of the hippies or the 8-5ers looks appealing. I used to think the hippie was more alive than the stockbroker, now I am not so sure.
Maybe I am getting old. I left them in their tourist town excited about my next stop to meet up with new friend Carlos, a Mexican who owned a coffee plantation with 35,000 of the world's most beautiful plant (yes, I love coffee that much). Carlos invited me to learn how to harvest the red bean on the steep mountain slopes that lie northwest of Guadalajara. I spent several days with Carlos and his mother, Guadalupe who treated me as a son. They helped replenish my heart that had become so depleted while in the company of the Rainbow people.
In life I discovered that one group leaves you depressed and another group of people can bring you back. I love humanity and the magical ways in which it works. I accept the Rainbow people, I just do not want to be one of them.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Dispatch Number 48 -Errant Thoughts VI
Greeks, Germans and Afghanistan
The German is good company, his Greek wife is a terror. A woman of anger, agitation and pettiness. A female powder keg in a petite body. She trembles with frustration when she talks about the weather. We meet them on the magical Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, a stunning coastal rain forest full of rare birds and mammals.
Her husband supports Americas attempted conquest of Afghanistan by working for the German government teaching Afghans how to be police. He thinks it is about human rights and the rights of women. A casual look at military bases in Afghanistan, the big ones, and their proximity to the soon to be built oil pipeline tells you it is about oil company rights. Afghanistan has defied foreign conquest for all 2,500 years of its recorded history. America wants to succeed where Alexander the Great, and numerous others, ultimately and ingloriously failed.
Coffee
I collect coffee from the region like I once collected red wine. I have seven or more different bags of coffee from countries throughout Central America. A traveler acquires interesting habits and comforts along the way.
On War
"...priests provide religious justification for wars of conquest..."
-Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel
Statistics
On walking.
"93% of all trips outside the home for any distance or purpose Americans get in their car. On average the total walking of the average American these days adds up to 1.4 miles per week. Barely 350 yards per day. Walking of all types- car to office, office to car, around the supermarket and malls. If you are hiking for twenty minutes you would cover the same distance an average American does in a week."
-Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods
Under a Shade Tree on a Hot Highway
A review of the mileage log revealed the following:
I have traveled an average of 25 miles per day in the last 14 months since crossing into Mexico in October 2008. That adds up to 10,500 miles driven covering six countries in Central America. Draw your own opinions about me, but I did meet a French couple doing the same journey and it took them twice as long to get this far. Their Spanish is much better than mine.
In 2007, I drove the United States in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX. It took nine months and 20,000 miles to get home.
Bad Honesty
Relatively speaking the brunette backpacker is attractive, but the poor thing has been cursed with awful legs. Awful. A twenty something from the waist up and a sixty-something from the waist down. Observation is brutal for everyone, including me. Those legs are nasty and belong on a retired motor home Mama.
Dostoevsky
"He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner."
-Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Coffee II
It was the best to go coffee I had ever had. Black water from a Styrofoam cup in a cramped seat of a small and fast river boat. The seduction of morning mist over glassy water, the sun weak, and a densely dark jungle with birds in dawn symphony. Coffee, me and no conversation -just the sound of water rushing by and the drone of the outboard motor.
Happy or Harmony?
It is not about being Happy. It is about being in Harmony with the self and the world that self lives in. This may not in turn bring about happiness or sadness. It is a question of contentment.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
The German is good company, his Greek wife is a terror. A woman of anger, agitation and pettiness. A female powder keg in a petite body. She trembles with frustration when she talks about the weather. We meet them on the magical Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, a stunning coastal rain forest full of rare birds and mammals.
Her husband supports Americas attempted conquest of Afghanistan by working for the German government teaching Afghans how to be police. He thinks it is about human rights and the rights of women. A casual look at military bases in Afghanistan, the big ones, and their proximity to the soon to be built oil pipeline tells you it is about oil company rights. Afghanistan has defied foreign conquest for all 2,500 years of its recorded history. America wants to succeed where Alexander the Great, and numerous others, ultimately and ingloriously failed.
Coffee
I collect coffee from the region like I once collected red wine. I have seven or more different bags of coffee from countries throughout Central America. A traveler acquires interesting habits and comforts along the way.
On War
"...priests provide religious justification for wars of conquest..."
-Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel
Statistics
On walking.
"93% of all trips outside the home for any distance or purpose Americans get in their car. On average the total walking of the average American these days adds up to 1.4 miles per week. Barely 350 yards per day. Walking of all types- car to office, office to car, around the supermarket and malls. If you are hiking for twenty minutes you would cover the same distance an average American does in a week."
-Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods
Under a Shade Tree on a Hot Highway
A review of the mileage log revealed the following:
I have traveled an average of 25 miles per day in the last 14 months since crossing into Mexico in October 2008. That adds up to 10,500 miles driven covering six countries in Central America. Draw your own opinions about me, but I did meet a French couple doing the same journey and it took them twice as long to get this far. Their Spanish is much better than mine.
In 2007, I drove the United States in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX. It took nine months and 20,000 miles to get home.
Bad Honesty
Relatively speaking the brunette backpacker is attractive, but the poor thing has been cursed with awful legs. Awful. A twenty something from the waist up and a sixty-something from the waist down. Observation is brutal for everyone, including me. Those legs are nasty and belong on a retired motor home Mama.
Dostoevsky
"He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner."
-Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Coffee II
It was the best to go coffee I had ever had. Black water from a Styrofoam cup in a cramped seat of a small and fast river boat. The seduction of morning mist over glassy water, the sun weak, and a densely dark jungle with birds in dawn symphony. Coffee, me and no conversation -just the sound of water rushing by and the drone of the outboard motor.
Happy or Harmony?
It is not about being Happy. It is about being in Harmony with the self and the world that self lives in. This may not in turn bring about happiness or sadness. It is a question of contentment.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Dispatch Number 47 -Children
In Central America children are put to work at the earliest age possible. In the cities kids peddle trays of candy or shine shoes as young as five or six years old. In the countryside they help with carrying wood bundles or babies on their backs. These little children perform these tasks with all the seriousness of adults at an age when the most a child in North America would be made to do is put his toys away. For the children of Central America there is no prolonged period of learning or easing into responsibility like it is in America.
In the mountain regions of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua the children carry their heavy loads up 60% slopes not for yards, but for miles. Hiking on these same mountains I grow winded carrying nothing except water. In the countryside a remarkable amount of time is spent gathering wood for cooking. This precious fuel is never used to warm a house, even those in the Guatemala highlands at elevations over 3,000 meters (10,000 feet).
Life in these poor indigenous villages and settlements is striped down to bare essentials where gas stoves, concrete floors, electric fans, electricity and running water are considered luxuries, most go without. In Nicaragua 80% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, (the indigenous population lives on less than $1 a day) it is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The poor Nicaraguan wants my relative wealth and I want his slower and simpler life. As always human nature presents itself -we want what we don't have. As a traveller I spend more than $4 per gallon for gasoline, $2-4 per meal and $5-8 for a place to sleep. What travelers like myself spend in a single day the average person in Nicaragua could live on for 12 days or more.
Even though I do not feel like it the Nicaraguans and Guatemalans view me as a very rich man. While traveling these countries I am a petite bourgeois for I have the freedom to travel about in a private car and can take my meals in just about any restaurant and sleep in nice hotels. In my actual case, I travel third-class eating $3 meals instead of $12 ones, sleeping in $6 places instead of $30 ones.
Everything is relative, but can be shocking when you take a closer and more thoughtful look at the income differences between yourself and the countries visited. It influences my behavior as a visitor and keeps me humble and respectful. A travel philosophy I have adopted is to spend my money in small locally owned businesses and eat in family-run restaurants.
When I drive about the countryside I offer rides to locals who pile in with baskets of tomatoes & peppers for market, some with babies, other times at the end of a very hot day it is the campasinos, (country folk and farm hands) who hop in with their three foot machetes and reused radiator jugs for drinking water. Exchanges are fun and I ask about their crops and things like that. I am open to it all and largely avoid the yuppie backpacker tourist path- a class of traveller who is hopelessly caught in the guidebook syndrome. I avoid the cities and take the dirt roads over the back country where the cows are and I need to ask for directions at every road split; real cowboys and the penetrating stares you get when driving through small settlements. Dust swirls around the cabin of the truck because my windows are always open.
A friend of mine who I have not talked to in a long time was fond of saying, The beach is out, the city is in. Today, the city is out and the country is in. As a traveller I have discovered that I am not fond of big cities anymore. I am a rural tourist.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama
In the mountain regions of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua the children carry their heavy loads up 60% slopes not for yards, but for miles. Hiking on these same mountains I grow winded carrying nothing except water. In the countryside a remarkable amount of time is spent gathering wood for cooking. This precious fuel is never used to warm a house, even those in the Guatemala highlands at elevations over 3,000 meters (10,000 feet).
Life in these poor indigenous villages and settlements is striped down to bare essentials where gas stoves, concrete floors, electric fans, electricity and running water are considered luxuries, most go without. In Nicaragua 80% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, (the indigenous population lives on less than $1 a day) it is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The poor Nicaraguan wants my relative wealth and I want his slower and simpler life. As always human nature presents itself -we want what we don't have. As a traveller I spend more than $4 per gallon for gasoline, $2-4 per meal and $5-8 for a place to sleep. What travelers like myself spend in a single day the average person in Nicaragua could live on for 12 days or more.
Even though I do not feel like it the Nicaraguans and Guatemalans view me as a very rich man. While traveling these countries I am a petite bourgeois for I have the freedom to travel about in a private car and can take my meals in just about any restaurant and sleep in nice hotels. In my actual case, I travel third-class eating $3 meals instead of $12 ones, sleeping in $6 places instead of $30 ones.
Everything is relative, but can be shocking when you take a closer and more thoughtful look at the income differences between yourself and the countries visited. It influences my behavior as a visitor and keeps me humble and respectful. A travel philosophy I have adopted is to spend my money in small locally owned businesses and eat in family-run restaurants.
When I drive about the countryside I offer rides to locals who pile in with baskets of tomatoes & peppers for market, some with babies, other times at the end of a very hot day it is the campasinos, (country folk and farm hands) who hop in with their three foot machetes and reused radiator jugs for drinking water. Exchanges are fun and I ask about their crops and things like that. I am open to it all and largely avoid the yuppie backpacker tourist path- a class of traveller who is hopelessly caught in the guidebook syndrome. I avoid the cities and take the dirt roads over the back country where the cows are and I need to ask for directions at every road split; real cowboys and the penetrating stares you get when driving through small settlements. Dust swirls around the cabin of the truck because my windows are always open.
A friend of mine who I have not talked to in a long time was fond of saying, The beach is out, the city is in. Today, the city is out and the country is in. As a traveller I have discovered that I am not fond of big cities anymore. I am a rural tourist.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Dispatch Number 46 -Locals
Keep on Truckin'
I met Costa Rican truck driver, Mr. Perez, a driver for hire, who hauls cargo in other peoples trucks while at the border crossing between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. We were standing in the hot sun processing our vehicle documents. I learned from my conversation with him that he drives loads all over Central America for $65 per run, driving up to 12 hours per day. Perez's favorite truck: Freightliner.
Spacemen
I came to watch a gaseous volcano kick out newly minted rocks by the hour and instead met Freddy a Costa Rican wood craft artist and UFO fanatic. We were standing at the base of the very active Arenal Volcano. When we first met I thought he had alive eyes, after he grew comfortable he asked if I believed in those silver discs that fill the skies his eyes grew to the size of small plates. Before I realized what my answer would trigger he had me watching a DVD filled with amateur clips on his portable player.
Do you want to watch? he asked.
Sure, I said sensing the trap, I have to leave soon, so only a few minutes (I detest getting trapped in these kind of webs whether it is UFOs, Bibles or the worst of the lot looking at some one's personal picture collection usually delivered by the 100's.)
We view the clips...more than once.
Now, was I convinced? he wanted to know.
No. Not a believer., I replied.
In my reckless thinking I thought I could convince him that they do not exist explaining that they were anything but UFOs, as I proudly pointed out the technical problems with lens reflection in most of the amateur clips. Either my Spanish was too vague or he chose not to take my points into consideration. I suspected the latter as the two of us became Missionaries in our own right. As often as ever people dislike being caught between their self-delusion and hard practicality.
While traveling I learned that language can keep doors shut or open them beyond one's wildest expectations.
Coming Home
While Azulita, my 1986 Toyota Land Cruiser was in the shop for repairs I met Costa Rican, Enrique who recently resettled in his home country after twenty-plus years in New Jersey raising a family and running a small business.
Why did you return? I asked
To be closer to the greater family. We paid for many visits for relatives to see our home in New Jersey, we can't invite them all to visit that way. We are all close together now.
What do you miss most about life in the United States?
In the States it is easy to get stuff. Like at Napa Auto Parts you can get this distributor rotor in every shop, right now, I can't locate one in Costa Rica.
So, you miss the shopping convenience?
Yeah, in Costa Rica, if you go to one place a tire costs $40, then down the street they charge $32 for the same tire. In the States the prices are pretty much the same. It's a lot of work to buy stuff.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama
I met Costa Rican truck driver, Mr. Perez, a driver for hire, who hauls cargo in other peoples trucks while at the border crossing between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. We were standing in the hot sun processing our vehicle documents. I learned from my conversation with him that he drives loads all over Central America for $65 per run, driving up to 12 hours per day. Perez's favorite truck: Freightliner.
Spacemen
I came to watch a gaseous volcano kick out newly minted rocks by the hour and instead met Freddy a Costa Rican wood craft artist and UFO fanatic. We were standing at the base of the very active Arenal Volcano. When we first met I thought he had alive eyes, after he grew comfortable he asked if I believed in those silver discs that fill the skies his eyes grew to the size of small plates. Before I realized what my answer would trigger he had me watching a DVD filled with amateur clips on his portable player.
Do you want to watch? he asked.
Sure, I said sensing the trap, I have to leave soon, so only a few minutes (I detest getting trapped in these kind of webs whether it is UFOs, Bibles or the worst of the lot looking at some one's personal picture collection usually delivered by the 100's.)
We view the clips...more than once.
Now, was I convinced? he wanted to know.
No. Not a believer., I replied.
In my reckless thinking I thought I could convince him that they do not exist explaining that they were anything but UFOs, as I proudly pointed out the technical problems with lens reflection in most of the amateur clips. Either my Spanish was too vague or he chose not to take my points into consideration. I suspected the latter as the two of us became Missionaries in our own right. As often as ever people dislike being caught between their self-delusion and hard practicality.
While traveling I learned that language can keep doors shut or open them beyond one's wildest expectations.
Coming Home
While Azulita, my 1986 Toyota Land Cruiser was in the shop for repairs I met Costa Rican, Enrique who recently resettled in his home country after twenty-plus years in New Jersey raising a family and running a small business.
Why did you return? I asked
To be closer to the greater family. We paid for many visits for relatives to see our home in New Jersey, we can't invite them all to visit that way. We are all close together now.
What do you miss most about life in the United States?
In the States it is easy to get stuff. Like at Napa Auto Parts you can get this distributor rotor in every shop, right now, I can't locate one in Costa Rica.
So, you miss the shopping convenience?
Yeah, in Costa Rica, if you go to one place a tire costs $40, then down the street they charge $32 for the same tire. In the States the prices are pretty much the same. It's a lot of work to buy stuff.
David
Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama
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