Meaning to Life

Barrio Martha Quezada – the east west divide

The landlady in my excellent Barrio Martha Quezada lodgings in Managua said, “don’t go to the west go to the east”. So I chose to walk precisely down the line between east and west. I have never experienced so many people sitting around watching me with not very friendly faces. One hobo yelled at me to stop which I naturally ignored especially as a woman sitting in a rocking chair in the same property signalled behind his back that he was up to no good. Half way down what was rather a long road I just couldn’t take the looks any longer and asked three guys working at the road side what the heck was going on, “why was everybody watching me?” And by the way these three just as much as the others except they did appear to be actually doing something as they had shovels in their hands. “Oh, usually people like you get robbed around here and we are just watching that,” one of them answered. I naturally scampered right along on my way.

I finally got to an area of open ground and away from all those prying eyes and then things began to start looking up. I think it was the haircut I got which made the difference, making me look oh-so-like one of the young locals. There was what seemed like a shed for battery hens except they had chairs in a row for customers to sit down and be de-feathered. The very young man attending me had extremely spikey hair which made me hesitate until I heard the irresistible price quoted as slightly under $2 (40 cordobas in local currency). I certainly got my money’s worth considering all the hair he shaved, chopped and cut off. I finished with my own very spikey affair, which seemed to be a kind of sculpted self-portrait, from my $2 stylist and made me immediately blend right in with all the young guys sitting around having their haircut. This sensation extended itself usefully beyond the chicken shed to the great outside because I never got so much as a peep or a strange look from anybody the rest of the day – almost. It was, as befits daytime in the subtropics any time of the year very hot so to test out my new disguise I headed for the noisiest sleaziest bar around, actually there was only one but it was noisy and sleazey. Things immediately got off on the right foot because the beer was oh so cold, so very cold. I had found the temperature of the beer disappointingly variable in Central America in spite of the obvious benefit it would offer when it is so very hot. On reflection it was one of the few things that I reflected on that Dominicans could actually be constant about. Cold beer. Remarkable especially when you consider how they are so plagued by electricity power cuts. Makes you further reflect on priorities in the process of prioritization.

Anyway back to the bar. This was a first in many ways. I sat plumb in the center of the bar with young (not all but some spikey haired) guys drinking and carousing all around me. Within a very short time I felt extraordinarily comfortable. The sweat was no longer pouring down my shirt, the beer was pouring down my throat and the very loud salsa music was pouring into my ears. Not a single person shouted at me with or without spikey hair. The disguise was now tried and tested. Afterwards I wondered if they even looked at me – was the disguise so good I had become invisible?

With my success with my new haircut and a little bit of beer now nurturing me along I walked back to the hotel but very much in a roundabout direction to the way I set off, clearly not wanting to really test my invisible theory in “irksome alley”. Down one particular road people greeted me and beckoned me over to join them for a drink as they rocked away in their chairs on the sidewalks. I couldn’t resist one particular group who indulged me in a friendly but also heavily politicized discussion. It was very obvious that they did not like the incumbent Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega, one of the members who seemed to be the only one drinking alcohol gave him the ultimate epithet of “Gran Puta”. I did get out of one of the less acerbic members of the group that Daniel’s current popularity was running at about 38% and that would mean that probably the opposition leader of Eduardo Montealegre would probably get in next time next year.

I bid them adios and was thinking about how good it is to have a haircut in foreign territory because when people meet you they do not see or comment on the great change in your appearance and in this case my spikey hair do was definitely a great change. Just to put the nail in that silly idea too, as I approached my hotel the very same taxi driver, that had brought me there the day before was delivering another customer, and so that everyone within earshot that previously didn’t know I had just had a haircut immediately found out, “what on earth have you done to your hair?” she yelled.

My taxi driver but immediately behind her is the Martha Quezada east-west divide road

Starting the day a lyrical way

Considering the delightful sounds that I am privileged to wake up to each morning at present I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate than sharing some of those sounds here and at the same time recalling the words of an even more appropriate Robert Browning poem.

English and Nicaraguan morning calls

The first clip indeed focuses particularly on that voluble little chap the chaffinch and was recorded in my mother’s garden early one morning this fine spring week. By way of transatlantic contrast the second was recorded at Nathan’s Rancho Esperanza equally early one morning in Nicaragua. The Rancho Esperanza can be found in Jiquilillo, a small Nicaraguan community at the end of a remote road on the Pacific coast.

To assist with some visual reference here follows a short photo slideshow of Jiquilillo and the Rancho Esperanza in particular -

Don’t mess about in Masaya or even tiptoe into Tipitapa!

In a perfectly uncorrupt, prison-free and selfless world (another reasonable Obama goal?) there would be no headline news items talking of man’s inhumanity to man just the occasional accident and natural disaster accompanied, of course, by stories of man’s humanity to man.

A similar picture would hold when people meet up travelling from country to country exchanging stories solely on their experiences of how well they had been treated in previously visited villages, towns and cities. It has to be noted that most of the unseemly stories that are chewed over on the subject of safety and security are what people have heard or felt with regard to a place, rather than necessarily a matter directly affecting them; thank goodness. Where there is a notable discrepancy between poverty and wealth the ugly matter of theft often raises its head. At this juncture please allow me one more deft knee to the groin of the British Members of Parliament recently charged with theft: they, too, surely couldn’t have believed they were being rewarded insufficiently in life and therefore had to carry out a little wealth distribution of their own?

Anyway, how safe is safe in Central America? If you never have anything stolen then it is as safe as anywhere else you haven’t had anything stolen. Conversely if you are held up and/or lose money and possessions then you just might think it is the worst place in the world. The very general consensus from what I have heard in my travels so far is that Costa Rica and Panama are some kind of step ahead of the others and the others namely: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras rank fairly equally in terms of security. There are measures you can take that will reduce the possibilities of problems but of course bar never leaving your accommodation nothing is foolproof. Touching a very large piece of wood, so far I have been untroubled by theft but have certainly picked up some tips as I move along that if I had not known could have got me into the kind of trouble certain other souls have had to endure.

In Costa Rica I was witness to a taxi driver being punched in the face -for what reason I have no idea- and also the theft of a bag (not mine!) from immediately above my head on a bus from La Fortuna to San José. I saw the bandage on the nose of a fellow hosteller who had been attacked and robbed immediately outside our hostel in downtown San José by some form of taxi connivance (legally registered taxis or not I do not know). Unfortunately this sequence of unnerving incidents took a much more serious turn for the worse when my hostel neighbour Steve from Davis, California tried to get to Masaya by bus one typically gorgeous day in Nicaragua from the much-vaunted and visited colonial town of Granada.

Over breakfast Steve and I had had one of those very enjoyable penetrative humanity-examining conversations before he skipped off to see some “events” in Masaya later that day. The next time I saw him was the same evening when I stretched out my hand to welcome him back “home” to the Hospedaje Cocibolca, our hostel in the centre of Granada, only for him to shockingly reveal that his day had largely been taken up with a very unenjoyable penetrative and humanity-examining phenomenon called kidnap. His ordeal was extremely unpleasant for what actually occurred but far worse for what his kidnappers led him to believe they were going to do to him. Thankfully one could sense Steve’s relief that at the end of the day because he was still in one piece and had “only” lost a camera, a couple of plastic cards and cash, perhaps as much as US$400, presumably together with as much adrenalin as the body can manufacture in a day.

Although being a very experienced traveller Steve’s mistake was overshooting Masaya on the bus and then trusting the apparently innocent woman who coincidentally descended from the bus at the same point as him while talking on her cell phone. The cell phone was the key because the seemingly friendly group (of kidnappers) turned up on cue in a car to “help” Steve, and the lady who Steve thought was another wayward traveler, back to Masaya. It all looked fairly innocent at this point and in usual foreign fashion Steve, not understanding too much Spanish, was liberated from thinking about any suspicious innuendoes they no doubt were making. However, when he began to suspect something, for example the car going back in the reverse direction and then not stopping at the gas station as they had explained was the motive for retracing their steps, and then actually tried to get out of the car, the five incumbents revealed their collective hand by immediately and forcibly restraining him on the back seat.

It is quite a few years since Nicaragua had a problem with roving bands of terrorists. In fact, ironically, Steve last travelled through these very parts back in 1978 when his travel plans were severely hampered by a major military incident on the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border at Peñas Blancas between the Sandinistas and Contras. Almost knee-jerk reaction-like he jumped to the assumption that they were terrorists. They took his spectacles and covered his face with his hat and began to punch him with the intention of intimidating him into not only handing over everything he had but revealing the pin numbers to his cards also. He was surprised that the women were worse and being the forgiving kind of fellow he is Steve defended their circumstances by not only recognizing that they were poor but that they might have been as scared as he was. They threatened to kill him especially if he did not give them those pin numbers: not sure if Steve’s forgiving nature ever came up with an altruistic excuse for that because surely at that point he had to be far more scared than they were! After a lengthy and very frightening ordeal, by which time he realized they were all just thugs and nothing to do with any kind of political terrorist group, they actually gave him back his spectacles, passport, antibiotic medicine and just enough money to get the bus back into Masaya the right way. Steve even mumbled to me something about them actually being quite nice after all, considering this parting sliver of a gesture of man’s humanity to man.

In Masaya police station he made a full and difficult report to the police with the help of a few local people who could speak some English but realism indicated that the perpetrators would not be caught for this crime because Steve recognized, again either realistically or excusingly, that the police just do not have the “resources”.

While Steve was busy on the internet trying to recover his financial situation I became immersed in a conversation with the hostel management who had been contacted by the police earlier in the afternoon to alert the staff to the fact that the villains probably had Steve’s room key although there was no indication on the key as to which establishment in Granada it was. The conversation with the management put the blame immediately and exclusively on a band from Tipitapa. According to them this was a town near the capital Managua where there is a very high percentage of delinquents and malcontents. According to them this group came from there without any shadow of a doubt whatsoever.

What can one learn? With varying degrees of importance: don’t stop anywhere near Tipitapa, be very careful when you get into an unknown vehicle, don’t trust single women with cell phones who get off the bus in out of the way places with you, and proven -yet again unfortunately- there are just too many people in our world who want more than they have and will stop at nothing to get it.

Steve, to his excellent credit, recovered quickly and fully and continued happily with his travels after several laborious hours in communication with various financial institutions in the USA and the American Embassy, the latter making the customary almost entirely unhelpful token offer of a list of telephone numbers of “reliable” taxi services in Managua should he want to head back that way again.

Goodbye Masaya and Tipitapa as Steve takes the safer travel option.

Wherever the Spirit Takes Me!

Where I am has been quite fully explained but how and why rather less so. This could be considered relevant especially as I gave most friends and acquaintances the distinct impression that I was headed for Managua in Nicaragua.  I too had the distinct impression I was headed for Managua in Nicaragua. In fact my travel plans had hardly been less firm in that I even had an air ticket that clearly stated Managua in Nicaragua.

The crux of the matter was an admittedly tight 45 minute turn around to make the connecting flight in Fort Lauderdale after leaving Santo Domingo. It was so tight that the check-in assistant in Santo Domingo suggested I might like to take my roll-on case on to the flight with me – for some reason unknown to me she wouldn’t let me check the case all the way through to Managua. I hesitated on that point because I had to unfortunately throw out anything resembling a container with liquid in it including items I had recently replaced after having had to throw them out on leaving Lima airport a few weeks before.

Immediately I boarded the aircraft the flight attendant announced that all the rear overhead luggage spaces were full and invited any more passengers sitting to the rear to bring their baggage to the front for storage. “And where would you be travelling to, sir,” she chirpily asked as I handed her my case. “Managua,” I replied of course thinking that everybody knew that already. “Don’t worry then sir we will see that your case is checked right through to Managua for you,” she reassured me.  “Great, wonderful, perfect, that is what I wanted originally,” I more than chirpily extolled. Super spiritual omen I thought for this new journey of mine as I settled into my Spirit Airlines seat. About 10 minutes after take-off the same attendant had kindly remembered me and kindly came to inform me of a change. My case was now stored in the hold, would not be going through to Managua and I would have to pick it up in the regular way and pass through security. My chirpiness dissipated and I forgot the spiritual association for quite a while.

At Fort Lauderdale I ran everywhere it was possible to run between points and breathlessly asked the attendant at check in if I still had time for the Managua flight. “Not a lot,” she said but valiantly offered to give it a go. Unfortunately the next piece of “Spiritually” misplaced information added significantly to the unfortunate delay. The telephone assistant that I called in Florida prior to booking had informed me that a one-way ticket to Managua was fine; no onward travel documentary proof would be needed. Unfortunately the check-in assistant had doubts about this, went to check with her boss and then insisted I had to buy a return ticket. I thought that was the end of that; where the heck would I be able to buy such a ticket at this stage and in time? “Right here,” my new found angel said as my sinking spirits rose again. She also offered that I could purchase a fully refundable ticket just in case I wanted to change my plans afterwards (what a novel way to get around the bureaucratic nonsense of satisfying immigration requirements I thought, although I didn’t give it a lot of thought because I had this image in my head of a plane, my plane already taxiing down the runway).

With all the necessary tickets in one hand but also still the infernal case in the other because there was no way the case was going to make the flight unless it was with me, my new-found guiding angel had insisted. At this point I thought it was a done deal. I thought that once you were checked in they didn’t actually go without you barring extreme delay so I stopped sprinting while maintaining a rapid walking pace. I passed very swiftly through the remaining security checks to arrive at gate H6 and just couldn’t understand why the door was shut and not even lots of people milling about at the entrance like usual (I quickly adjusted to that in full recognition that nearly everybody, okay everybody, was already on board. The gate was shut stupid, because the plane was indeed about to taxi down that runway!) The sole remaining member of the ground staff calmly pointed out that once the connecting canopy was rolled back then that was it. “But there is my plane, all they have to do is open the door and I could jump the distance,” I pathetically whined. “Sorry, canopy back no can do!” she repeated.  Spirits had naturally spiraled in the downward direction but there was still some life in the optimistic standpoint. I was watching the plane and it did not move, not one inch. “What,” I offered, “if there is a delay for some reason then surely you could let me on, and you wouldn’t have to move anything if I jumped? “ “No sir, you don’t seem to understand, the canopy is BACK!” she re-repeated. Rather a nice personal case in point of actually NOT WANTING to understand, don’t you think?

I sauntered, perhaps it would be fairer to say more between a trudge and a saunter, back to the lady who had handled me at the check in. “Oh, but sir, you can get on the next flight,” she enthusiastically offered. I had to applaud her optimism but for the first time I was more informed than her, regarding flights at least. Spiritual flights to Managua were just a weekly event! “What else have you got then to offer, leaving Fort Lauderdale tomorrow in the Central or South America direction,” I asked. Now this was going to be stretching the limits of that geography for dummies course because we had no map just a list of names and doesn’t San Juan sound like San José to you? It was all in all quite chaotic because my dear angel kept interspersing with places on today’s list so from time to time she threw in Managua again and even Santo Domingo where she had forgotten I had just emerged from – I guessed that was just to keep the game of raising and lowering spirits going. She would mention a place and sometimes I would have to ask her or anybody around which country that might be in? Colombia came up a few times and I don’t like to admit that I was swayed by all the bad press that the country gets regarding its drug related problems –shame on me for toeing the mass media line on this occasion.

In the far from comprehensive list you will now know that I chose San José carefully separating it and myself from the capital of that American dependency not many miles from the Dominican Republic where I had just come from called Puerto Rico. As this was quite a spiritual journey then I guess those Colombian drug barons must have got wind of my decision. In the same way I had seen the plane taxiing down the runway I now saw them crying volubly into their beer lamenting the extraordinary spending wealth I would not be taking to Columbia, not to mention poor old Nicaragua. Somewhere out there I suppose I owe Columbia something and probably Nicaragua too!

Footnote: That’s the Spirit!

In full recognition of my value to their future and in response to my explanation that their misinformation had caused me to miss the flight by the skin of my teeth Spirit Airlines have quite honorably and fairly credited me with the US$110 that they charged for needing to rearrange my flight to you know where. I am now very much looking forward to knowing where the Spirit will take me next.