Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Dispatch Number 88 -Two Years: Nicaragua

This is a continuation of a series recapping the past two years of travels through Latin America by car, each Dispatch is a single country summary from Mexico, through Central America's Guatemala-Honduras-Nicaragua-Costa Rica-Panama and through South America's Columbia-Ecuador and Peru. The loose plan is to continue driving to the bottom of the world, Ushuaia, Argentina. These are stories of characters, experiences and hardships.



Nicaragua
August 2009

Traveling alone. Stocked up with Pop-Tarts. I stood in the breezeway waiting for the border officer to process car papers and stamp my passport, when I began chatting it up with the shoeshine boys and 'expediters', the young men who hustle a buck helping people move paperwork through border control.

It was the same remote crossing that exiled Honduran President Zelaya, just two weeks earlier, had tried to re-enter Honduras from Nicaragua to reclaim his presidency, he and a throng of supporters were turned back amid a media storm. Third World politics as practiced in Latin American are a form unto their own, colorful and dramatic with ample chest thumping.

Zelaya later, did successfully sneak back into Honduras in the trunk of a car, his hope was for a popular movement to sweep him back into power, but ended on a less exciting note, holed up in the Brazilian embassy for a month. Imagine that, a head of state sneaking around in the trunk of a car! An earlier attempt, before the trunk stunt, his private jet flew to the capital and circled around for an hour trying to land, Honduran authorities refused him by placing army trucks on the runway. In other parts of the country armed men parked old buses on unimportant runways defending against persistent Zelaya.

This day at the border, with it's shoeshine boys and 'expediters', was devoid of activity, empty and lonely.
While my papers were being triple-checked by a third policeman, a prostitute winked and gestured, I smiled and drove on, thinking, A rough and tumble border crossing, like this one, is no place for a moral lapse.


The Price of Rum  
Esteli, Nicaragua. The first night. The price of rum, Flor de Cana, was more in Nicaragua, the country it's made in, than it was in neighboring Honduras. This started an argument with the liquor store owner and two locals who made doughnuts on the side. Over beers, the question of price was left unresolved, while I made friends with the doughnut guys, Merdardo and Pablo.

Although he was pleasant to be with, Merardo wore a natural expression of fury on his face that showed in his eyes and cheeks. He grew agitated debating the coup in Honduras and tossed back the last half of his beer with a fury that matched his natural expression. His friend Pablo, watched with curiosity.

Nicaraguans, like Hondurans are passionately expressive and would talk about anything and debate freely, unlike Americans who tend to be fearful of sharing opinions with each other. Merdardo surprised me with a business card, he was a multi-level marketing man; he had his fingers in a hotel, doughnuts and Herbalife. I still get email blasts telling me how I can lose weight and live longer with Herbalife.

In the morning Pablo and Merdardo were making doughnuts by hand for their upstart, Super Donuts, in the kitchen of the hotel. Made by hand without tools to cut or shape the doughnuts, cooked in a large pot of oil that held less than a dozen at a time. Nearly rolling with happiness in the sugar and cinnamon the doughnuts were covered in, I ate them still hot, right out of the cooker.

Coffee Plantations and an Island
Preferring back-country travel with its smaller towns, I avoided the big cities and spent most time in the coffee region with its cool climate, staying at plantations from another era. In contrast to this natural setting of low green hills and the beloved coffee plant, it was here, after nine months on the road, I had my first case of traveler's burnout. I weathered it out by hiding in a cheap hotel, avoiding decisions while watching movies and nursing a bottle of Flor de Cana in a pink room. I half-recovered. 

The second half of recovery came on isolated Isla de Ometepe, in the middle of gigantic Lake Nicaragua, riding horses and taking walks. I gained weight eating Marie's home-cooked food, the only restaurant on my side of the island and spent afternoons playing with her pet monkey. It was a tiny Capuchin monkey with a trumpet-shaped penis, cream colored and always sticking out.

Coping with burnout and conversations that repeated themselves, I needed the small world of island life that let me return to my cat-like solitary ways, a world of walks, books, and journals. I was looking forward to meeting Marjolein in a couple weeks time. Like one savors a fine piece of chocolate, I begin re-reading Dostoevsky's, Crime and Punishment.

The first night on the island, I slept in my truck after drinking aguardiente, moonshine with a group of local men. I met them at a bull-riding contest, it was a comical event, as we sat passing the bottle on the rickety stands; it is an easy to drink, hard hitting sugar-cane liquor. It was rumored that the old men who went crazy, did so from drinking too much aguardiente over the years (I met three or four while on the island, I'd give dialog of the conversations, but could not understand one mad-slurred word).

It was Saturday night and the place was packed with people, beer, loud music, lazy bulls and cheap food. The rides were pitiful: a man would mount a bull tied to a post, then released for a 'ride' on a sad-looking barn-sour bull. It was more akin to a walk, than a ride. So we drank. And I slept in the truck. During the night a drunk tried to break in twice. Once he realized I was inside, he asked to come in to sleep. Island life.

Tarantula
The El Porvenir was set on the slope of a stale volcano, surrounded by raw jungle. In the middle of a lake the island was far from city lights, at night it would turn the darkest pitches of black, like a horrible dream of being stuffed into a sealed closet without a trace of light.

It was two or three in the morning when I got up to pee, remembering to grab the flashlight before I set foot outside the bed. No sooner than I switched it on, a juvenile tarantula was walking the floor. I relieved myself. Went back to bed. And let Junior be. In the morning, I bought stolen fruit from an old man without shoes or money. He was begging for spare change and I wanted something in return and that's when the fruit appeared.

The same routine the next night, a midnight pee, and there was Junior defying gravity, walking up the lime-green wall.
Enough, I thought, If he can do that, then very little stands between me, him and the bed I sleep on.
I was much calmer than I thought I'd be when I released him outside after capturing him with a shaving mug (surely this dates me) and a piece of cardboard.

Friends of the Tarantula
A mouse visited nightly and left droppings throughout the brown-tiled room. A cycle began: black blunty shits left in the night, swept up in the morning by cleaning lady, and repeated on the mouse's night-shift. A giant cricket-like insect, the size of my hand, came out at night and would sit perfectly still on the mint colored wall for hours. The last night I saw her, she laid eggs, or rather inserted, fat wood-like splinters into the sheets and mattress. Life at El Porvenir. I wondered how Marjolein would like it.
 
It was at El Porvenir and Marie's three-table restaurant that Marjolein joined me for three months of travel in Central America. She met the hard-on prone monkey, who promptly peed on her after gaining a perch on her shoulder.

The American Cafe. I parked in front and walked off to do errands in Moyogalpa, a two-road village on Isla de Ometepe, it's where you went for internet and food stuffs. It had several two-shelf food shops and idle taxi drivers drinking beer waiting for fares. I contributed to the evils of drink & drive by buying a group of them a beer while I drank mine. After errands I stood in front of American Cafe, and decided it didn't look inviting, until I saw the Used Books sign. Like a chronic drug addict, lacking any resistance walked in.

Before I could set foot inside the cafe, I was pressed by an aggressive, prickly old white woman with an English accent, Is that your car? You're parked in my spot, that spot is for customers. Are you staying here? Came the blast in a village with fifteen cars.
Her pettiness was out of place, No, just the books.
If you want some good American food, come here, she continued on.
Yeah, but you have an English accent, and you guys aren't known for decent food, I thought to myself.
It was an unpalatable combination: a British cook with American territoriality.

While real estate man and I tried to start conversation, she began interrupting, The books are over there, they are .35 each.
OK, thanks, As real estate man and I tried again over his plate of pasta. We hadn't exchanged a full sentence yet, because of our pesky host.
She hovered over us, We have super chocolate cake, she blared, cutting in, if you want a slice.
No, thanks, I ate, hoping real estate man could finish with how the market fell out and how small plots on the island were hard sells.
How about you, an investment?
No, not looking to buy land, besides I'm a nomad, it just wouldn't work.

Our travels, the first Marjolein and I were to make together, on the Rio San Juan were amongst the most memorable on the Central America isthmus; setting off in boats across the lake and down river to the Caribbean coast staying in settlements along the way. The San Juan is an old pirates highway that runs along the northern border of Costa Rica. The road-less jungle remains undeveloped since the 1850s, when the U.S. government wanted to develop a rival shipping canal to the one the French started in Panama.

It was the best coffee to-go I ever had. Black water from a Styrofoam cup in a cramped seat of a small 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. It was our last boat on the San Juan.

Before leaving Nicaragua I paid my first bribe to a traffic cop, who graciously opened the conversation with a compliment on wearing my seat belt, then promptly found fault with my car papers. I haggled from $20 to $5 and Marjolein and I were on our way for Costa Rica.
After the exchange with the traffic cop, I thought, They are so flexible, the Latin American legal system rocks!
I learned bribes did not come at gunpoint or under threat of jail, but in Dollars, in a friendly flexible way. The horror stories people back home told with such glee were not coming true.

For Select Past Dispatches on Nicaragua hit these select links and look for the Costa Rica summary in next Dispatch Number 89- 
 
The Cost of Rum with Merdardo and Pablo-
My First Bribe, Glad to see You are Wearing Your Seat-belt-
Reflections on Material Wealth: North vs South-
Brief Observations in a Short Format, Errant Thoughts-
More Errant Thoughts-

David,
Paracas, Peru

Monday, April 11, 2011

Dispatch Number 87 -Two Years: Honduras

This is a continuation of a series recapping the past two years of travels through Latin America by car, each Dispatch is a single country summary from Mexico, through Central America's Guatemala-Honduras-Nicaragua-Costa Rica-Panama and through South America's Columbia-Ecuador and Peru. The loose plan is to continue driving to the bottom of the world, Ushuaia, Argentina. These are stories of characters, experiences and hardships.


Honduras
July 2009

With My Own Eyes
The coup began at 5am on Sunday morning. I planned on entering Honduras around the same time Zelaya, the Honduran President, was forcefully removed from office in a coup d' etat that left him standing on a runway in Costa Rica, still wearing his pajamas. It was Latin America of old, a coup hadn't happened in almost twenty years and I was itching to be closer to it.

I waited another week to assess the volatility, which at the time, was full civil disobedience and international political pressure. Everything was in play, the whole gamut: demonstrations, border closings, a media-storm, clashes between protesters and police with a smattering of political killings.


I was apprehensive to go alone and wanted to have someone who would watch my back with a sense of adventure. I found two men ready to leave Guatemala for turbulent Honduras. Jeff, a talkative Australian who was fluster-proof and Alex, a tightly wound journalism student from Mexico City with something to prove.

We wanted to see it first hand, to talk to the people and confirm or dispel what the press was saying. Jeff and I tended to be the more practical, while Alex's temperament was to run the streets of San Pedro Sula after curfew, when the streets would flood with trucks of National Police that played for keeps.

I attended rallies protesting Zelaya's removal from office and interviewed many about the coup d' etat. At the time, the running argument made by the government, was that Zelaya's removal was constitutionally mandated and this was used to great effect blunting domestic anger. After a few days in-country, Alex managed to find himself a journalism job in the turbulent capital, Tegucigalpa, as an assistant reporter. Jeff and I were relieved to have him go, for Alex had too much unbound energy and was a bullhorn of constant criticism for the two of us. Jeff and I headed for the mellower environs of the Caribbean coast. Along the way, we saw a couple of dead men (due to road accidents, not political violence).

Despite conservative cries from the extreme-right, there was no important liberal movement in Honduras. The oligarchy cried Communism and blamed subversive activities on an unnamed movement (there was none), and the people bought it like docile servants shaking their fists at the Communist threat branded with the flags of Cuba and Venezuela. Watching tv and reading newspapers at the time, felt like it was the 1950s in the United States, when Americans were mobilized against the Red Threat.

Ricardo, a heavy equipment salesman and I argued over dinner, the merits of the coup, (he was in favor of it), while he got a lady friend or his sister (my Spanish was so bad at that time) on the phone and attempted to match-make. My position was that if Zelaya's removal from office was constitutionally mandated, then he should have stood trial, instead he was led out of the country under gunpoint, hardly evidence of a legal mandate.

At the end of my stay, what impressed most was the effectiveness of the state propaganda machine and how it influenced public opinion and people like Ricardo. The lesson: regardless of the facts, tv matters more than any other single media when shaping public opinion. Reflecting on the effectiveness of media in Honduras, I could see how the propaganda model was deployed on Americans during the run up to the invasion of Iraq, how quickly and easily the majority of Americans bought into military adventurism.

Political Epilogue
Since Zelaya was unceremoniously stranded in his pajamas that morning in June 2009, the new government of Honduras has increased the use of political violence to suppress popular movements. The violence escalated dramatically since Pepe Lobo was elected President; union leaders, resistance organizers and journalists have been systematically murdered.

In 2010, Honduras was named the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist, ten were assassinated in 2010. The United States and Canada are the only countries to recognize Lobo's government; in a rare show of unity, Latin American countries have denounced his government because of the illegality of the coup d' etat and sham election that followed.


People
Hondurans were friendly people with hard faces, until conversation started, then the faces softened. Compared to the overly-polite passive Guatemalans, they were direct and gruff. Greetings in restaurants were rare and when entering a shop or hotel, it was, Diga me, tell me, skipping the usual courtesies.

More people rode bicycles and the women kept their youthful figures later in life, whereas, in Guatemala and Mexico the women turn plump in their early twenties. An enjoyable part of the Honduran character is how open and expressive they are, opinions freely shared on politics and social issues. They were refreshingly direct.


Far away from the protest burdened cities and blocked highways, I met a Dutch woman on the Caribbean coast in Trujillo, not knowing at the time I would fall deeply in love with her. Marjolein and I made plans to travel together in Nicaragua.

On a rain soaked mountain road along the Caribbean Coast was my worst get-the-truck-stuck pickle to date. A land bridge, barely as wide as Azulita, my truck, gave way and crumbled from under us as we tried to cross it. The truck settled on its axle, at the edge of a hole large enough to swallow it.

Before this episode, I had some experience getting stuck, in Mexico trapped on a beach, buried in sand, another time, semi-submerged in a small river with water running inside the cab; all of them workable situations, but this one was bad. There was nothing we could do on our own, to move it forward or backward would send the truck into the hole.


The Russian couple, Dmitriy and Olga went down the hill for help, we needed a pull-out. He came back with a old Toyota FJ40, and after we built a rock ramp with a tree and an old door to help it pass out of the hole the yank out went well. The big Sunday drive I promised everyone was spent getting unstuck. We made it two kilometers up the road.
Dmitriy an adventurer in his own right and a survivalist trainer put it this way, The only difference between a regular car and those with four-wheel drive, is in a 4x4 you get further down the road before getting stuck.

After I left the Russians and New Zealander, Michaela at the edge of the Mosquito Coast, where the road stops, I drove into the Wild West interior of Honduras, Olancho Department, known for rough-hewn ways, it is the same region where exiled President Zelaya came from. A region modeled on the old west of farmers and cattle ranchers linked by dirt roads and dry dusty towns.
Men worked on horseback, Real cowboys, I thought.

I met Oscar in these remote reaches, a traveling salesman who sold guns, but I could only see him hustling leather-holsters. We both stayed in a hospedaje that had cell block rooms with shared bathrooms for a few bucks a night.

After gun talk with Oscar, I got bored and thirsty, and was tired of yellow dust in my mouth, and went for a beer on the plaza. Without local guidance I was at the mercy of the place, I had set foot in cross-dressers bar. Even the owner was a feminino. It was the last thing I expected to find in Marlboro country. They stared at me like fresh meat, I steeled myself for my mistake and ordered a beer.

They had hunting lurid eyes. I squirmed and was conscious of every move, making nervous tick after nervous tick unable to mask my discomfort. A group of cross dressers sat at a table looking my way whispering, smiling and winking.
Is this how women feel? I'm sorry, I'll never do it again, passed my thoughts.
My bravado had to be propped up with a second beer, leaving after the owner told me to come back at seven when he'd have a nice girl or guy for me.

Strawberry Pop-Tarts
After months of craving Strawberry Pop-Tarts, I finally found them, in Danli, a small city known for cigar making, near the border with Nicaragua. I ate them for dinner and for breakfast the next morning in bed, crumbs all over my chest. I stocked up and refused to let other travelers see them. The secret supply ran out soon enough, left deprived, the cravings started over again and lasted for months, until Marjolein found them in Panama City. I had all but given up on seeing or tasting them again. In every city I stayed in, during my walks, I would search every grocery store for Pop-Tarts. Once, I found fig newtons. I dreamt of care packages with Pop-Tarts in them.

Did you know:
In 2001, the United States' military airdropped 2.4 million Pop-Tarts in Afghanistan during the US invasion. Cultural and political imperialism comes in many forms.

Today he said, more than ever before men had to learn to live without things. Things filled men with fear: the more things they had, the more had to fear. Things had a way of riveting themselves on to the soul and then telling the soul what to do..
-Bruce Chatwin, Songlines

For Past Dispatches on Honduras hit these select links and look for a Nicaragua summary in next Dispatch Number 88-

A Colorful First Night in Honduras-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/08/dispatch-number-28-my-corner.html
Presidential Coup with Alex-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/09/dispatch-number-36-alejandro.html
Presidential Coup with Jeff-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/12/dispatch-number-51-jeff.html
With Love from Russia-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/12/dispatch-number-50-drinking-with.html
When I Almost Lost the Truck-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/08/dispatch-number-30-russian-saying.html
Oscar the Gun Salesman-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/08/dispatch-number-27-oscar.html
The Cross Dressers-

http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/08/dispatch-number-33-bar.html

David
Ayacucho, Peru