Homeless By Choice

Uvita to Cortes via chicken bus.
Cortes to Palmar Norte via chicken bus.
Palmar Norte to David, Panama via Tracopa Bus.
David, Panama to Lost and Found for a couple of days.
Then off to Bocas del Toro.

A lot of long layovers.

Somebody needs a four wheel drive and a long term traveling companion.

Don’t overtip the maids unless you want a very extended sheet turn down service.

Ten thousand colones is a huge amount of money to these women.

Class is dismissed.

Oh, what have I done? Why have I done it?

This should be a lot of fun, but parting is such sweet sorrow. It might hurt me badly.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Keith, my real estate agent met me after breakfast at my hotel. He brought with him listings of a large number of properties. Costa Rica is crazy expensive relative to the rest of Central America. For me, this proves to be an attraction. The bay islands in Honduras are wonderful and very cheap. Dives are $25 to $30 a tank. Here they are $150 for a two tank dive. One of the reasons is that in the bay islands the reefs are ten minutes off shore, here it is a two hour boat ride, that’s a lot of gas.

Why would I want to run an eco lodge and then rent out cabins for $25 a day when they can be rented out here for three or four times as much? Besides, there is so much more wildlife in Costa Rica.

We looked at many lots, some on the beach and much more expensive ones up the mountain. A ten minute drive can get one fantastic panoramas of the ocean and mountain views in a much cooler setting. We dined in Dominical where I had mahi-mahi tacos. They were wonderful, but they should be at eight bucks for two. In Nicaragua they would have been about $3. Right after we sat down a very hot tica waitress came over and handed Keith some money. I held my hand out but rather than give me money she just gave me wonderful little giggle. I raised my eyebrows inquisitively but did not vocalize a question. Keith explained that every time somebody comes down to visit he has them bring a bunch of panties from Victoria’s Secret and that every barmaid and waitress in town has bought from him.

Keith has pretty much persuaded me that I should just build a really nice house on a great location. He assures me that I could rent it out on a weekly basis for $1,500 to $2,000 with at least 50% occupancy. Any real estate company in town will market the houses and charge 15% of the rental. That would yield a ten percent return or so on an essentially passive business. Tuesday I shall go over some of his booking numbers with him. Property values are temporarily depressed so there should be appreciation. The neighborhood is very upscale with many homes between 1.2 and 2.6 million dollars. We shall see, I think some of these property owners need to realize that they overpaid four years ago.

As I paid the internet fee for the last post I bought a BonBon and gave it to the hat girl. She acted like had just given her a car. I walked past an electronics stall and saw three micro speakers and thought that they might be a nice addition to my iTouch. A woman and a young woman, presumably the daughter worked the booth. I saw three sets of speakers labeled with three different brands, all of the speakers were the same price. A truly horrible communications non exchange occurred as I attempted to inquire which one was the best. The older woman backed away with my initial question, she was not going to subject herself to talking to me. The young woman tried valiantly to understand my question as the older woman tried her best not to break out laughing. I finally asked her which was her preference and she took one out and showed it to me, then I asked her why. She took out her cell phone and plugged it. Ahhh… they are different connectors for different cell phones, the brand name indicated compatibility not manufacturer. I finally understood why they were so confused. I just said “Loco gringo” and they both broke out laughing and gave me a big smile.

Despite my general aversion to eating Yankee food I stopped by Burger King to get a burger. Three guards armed with shotguns stood by the door. I said “These must be the most valuable damn hamburgers in the world.” None of them understood me. A street vendor was hawking oranges, 20 for a dollar. Remembering the BonBon I bought a bag and walked past the police station. I took one out of the bag and underhanded it to one of the cops on the porch. The next cop held out his hand and I threw him one then walked down the sidewalk and threw one to each of the cops in succession. One cop reached over and intercepted one intended for the next guy in line. I wagged my finger at him and threw the cop another one. People started to point and watch. I walked down the street and every time I passed a traffic cop I handed him or her an orange and never broke stride. Not a one of them didn’t hold their hand and accept it. Then I strolled back to the bus stop. A while later a guy was waiting for the bus and I asked him if he wanted to go out for an ice cream. As we walked by the police station I threw an imaginary orange, he made an imaginary catch. We walked into the mall and I repeated my universal crazy person gesture to the cell phone woman and they burst out laughing. The guy I was with wondered why people responded so strongly to my strange and apparently arbitrary gestures. We walked by the girl in the hat, now Miss BonBon and she gave me a big wave and a smile. My companion was completely befuddled. I offered no explanation. I just said, “I’ve been told I have a strange affect on people. It seems natural to me.”

When I returned I ran into Kris, who turned out to be my new travelling buddy. At two o’clock we boarded the huge double decker bus. My seat was a full recliner. The bus had WiFi, this was going to be a good trip. The audio for the movies was played softly, if you wanted it loud, you plugged in your headset. These guys had it down. We headed out.

We stopped at a bus transfer station, a lovely hotel. I walked across the street to get some food. Painted on the wall of the store was a notice that they had turtle eggs for sale, I inquired inside, yes they were sea turtle eggs; I felt a wave of nausea but bought two large chicken tamales for a dollar anyway. There was a high level of agitation in the store indicating that my bus was about to leave. The tamales were too hot to carry. I insisted on a bag and they scurried to accommodate. I ran back across the street, there was no great urgency, people were slowly boarding. Unfortunately our new bus was a Mercedes Marco Polo, not nearly as roomy, no reclining seats, no wifi, no headset jacks. The rest of this trip was not going to be nearly as pleasant.

Time?

A woman came down and handed out immigration forms for the crossing from Honduras into Nicaragua. A swedish woman came back to me, all distraught “Jim, we don’t have the $26 dollars that we need for the border crossing, nobody told us. Can you lend us some money?” I indicated that I didn’t have it either, but that I would change some limpare at the boarder and I would go with them through immigration; she didn’t have to have the bus company handle it.

The bus conductor was trying to fill out forms but couldn’t see because it was dark. I pulled my trusty flashlight out of my fanny pack, attached the diffuser, set the flashlight on high and illuminated half the bus.

18:54 We exited the bus. Money changers stood by with fists of cash four inches thick ready to exchange money in the dark. Out came my flashlight again and we all calculated our exchange rate able to count the money. Some kids came over trying to sell some tiny little chinese shitty flashlights. “Fuerte?” Strong? “Si, muy fuerte!” “Yes,very strong” I turned one on pointed it at the ground, the light could barely illuminate my boots. I took out my light again and shone mine over the top of theirs; it was like daylight. They let out a gasp and then offered again to sell me a flashlight. I gave the swedes a sufficient amount of Nicaraguan Cordoba and walked them over to immigration. They were quickly processed. The guy looked at my passport for 10 minutes, flipping page after page looking for my entry stamp, I told him it was on page 17. He ignored me and kept looking through the book. What the hell, now? Finally a woman went over to him, flipped to page 17 and pointed to the stamp. He gave me an exit stamp. We all reboarded the bus and headed over to Nicaraguan immigration. The officer had the passports for every other passenger on the bus; they had been delivered by the conductor. He would not process mine until he went through every one of them. Ten minutes later he picked up mine and examined it for at least five minutes. What the hell is going on here? Finally he stamped my passport. He told me I owed $12 which I handed to him. Then he told me I owed the woman at the next window a dollar. She refused to take and told me to pay the first guy. This time he accepted the dollar. This was very weird.

19:50We gathered by the bus waiting to board. Kris was talking about a hike he took and said the guide held the group back. He indicated the guy was “Really old. Over fifty.” I said nothing. We all boarded the bus and it just idled for over an hour. Apparently they were missing something. Finally immigration figured that the Swedes had shorted them what amounted to one dollar, which collected, and we left.

We pulled in Managua a little after twelve. The Swedes, Kris, and I huddled at the entrance with Pedro, a new guy. The guide books were consulted and we reached a consensus on our destination. A cabbie said he could take us for $10. We walked to his cab, no way we could all fit with all of our luggage. I said we should just take the station wagon out front. He indicated he would make two trips for the same amount of money. We left Kris and Pedro. Pedro asked us not to pay the guy, wanting to be sure that he would return.

The Swedish woman kept inspecting rooms, they were too small for her taste. Jesus, it’s one o’clock what activities are going to be up to in that room? Pedro and Kris showed up. I said I would partner if somebody wanted to save $5 but I would be just as happy to have my own room. Pedro and Kris partnered. Pedro asked the guy at the hotel to go out and buy a six pack. He returned with four warm and two cold beers. Kris a Brit was happy to take two warm beers. We shot the shit, swapping travel stories until we realized it was three in the morning and retired.

My bed had a thin sheet with no top sheet or blanket.

This is getting way too long. To be continued.

Yesterday I bought a round trip ride to Playa Maderas yesterday for 100 cordoba, around $5. Eleven passengers in the back of a pickup, seven male youths from all over Europe and Australia, a Portuguese woman and a woman from Quebec. The guys were all going surfing, the woman just to enjoy the beach. A few minutes after I arrived I ordered a fish taco which turned out to be a nasty bit of work. There was not a lot to do or see so I bought a bottle of water and headed back up the road to check out the pigs that had triangles of wood lashed around their necks, presumably to prevent them from crawling under the barbed wire into the jungle. Within minutes it began to rain and I returned. I sipped my water while being subjected to awful hip hop played unpleasantly loud. I just wanted to get the hell out of there, but there was no transport until five. Two more joined us on the return trip. Rather than subject the Quebeci to the last seat I took it and rode the half hour back to town with one cheek hanging off the bench. This is not my kind of town. To be fair, I could only get a hotel room, in a grotty little hotel with horrific internet. One chair on the top balcony has sufficient WIFI strength to connect. The hostels are all full, so I am without companionship, which results in a serious downgrade in my estimation.

It is seven thirty in the morning. Get some coffee, pick up my laundry and buy a Tika Bus ticket to San Jose, Costa Rica. With any luck I can get on the ten o’clock bus, make it San Jose by five, buy a lens cap for my SLR camera, which was lost in the salt flats of Bolivia, and catch a bus to Uvita on the south Pacific coast.

Tomorrow or the next day I will attempt to rent a house on the beach and stick around for a couple of months. A place to hang my hat. Me? Yeah, I know. I have some serious catch up to do on the computer science book I am writing and some miscellaneous business to transact.

Friday, November 19, 2010

As I was transcribing my notes from my discussion with the old Indian a couple approached the kitchen and palapa which serves as a gathering place for people staying here. They related the fact that they had seen a kid kill a boa constrictor with a rock the other day and that this morning they found a scorpion in their bed. A bit later as I walked by reception there was a bit of a fuss as one of the volunteers here was turning over rocks, attempting to locate the coral snake the couple had just seen. I tried to tell them how fortunate they were as I had never encountered a coral snake in all my years of snake hunting. Erin was not overjoyed by their encounters. TODO elapid fingers, toes,,

Later in the evening people sat around and smoked massive amounts of pot and sat in stoned silence. TODO As I headed off to bed, Sanand, the husband saw me and came running out of his cabin. Apparently they were concerned about a large tarantula that had taken up residence in their cabin. I asked him to get me a cigarette and I would take care of the problem. Several minutes later I returned and attempted to replay the manner in which I had observed an Indian in Bolivia passivate and catch a tarantula. I took a big hit and bent over to blow on the big spider my face six inches from the big spider. As soon as the smoke hit it the spider jumped. I jumped back and loudly emitted the most profane of obsceneties. Erin screamed. Time to use traditional techniques. We located a large plastic bowl and I covered the spider and coaxed it over the lip of the plastic lid of a recycling bucket. I walked down the path a couple of hundred yards and dropped it in the jungle next to the trail.

Saturday November 20

For my final adventure in Ometepe I decided to Kayak the Istiam River. I walked through the nearby town of Santa Cruz, hooked a right and walked for another 10 minutes. I found a place that rented Kayaks but there was no river access. I grabbed a bus but it let me off in the town of Santa Cruz; it did not continue to my intended destination which was midway between Santa Cruz and Merida so I started the one hour walk. I have no particular aversion to walking, but I was burning daylight. Ten minutes into my walk a van drove by, I flagged it down and for $2 they took me to my destination which was doubly fortunate as there were no signs indicating that this road led to the kayak rental place.

Within a couple of minutes I had secured a kayak. With no paperwork or deposit I was set to go. I emptied the contents of my pockets into my boat bag and headed out across the lake in search of the river; I had declined the opportunity to be accompanied by a guide. After I rounded the first corner the vegetation betrayed the location of the river which was sure to be on one end or the other of the marsh grasses. I set a course for the far side and half an hour later entered the mouth of the river. The poster described the location as having, among other things, “infidad de aves”, an infinite number of birds; it wasn’t far from wrong.

I alternated paddling with drifting. After building up as much speed as I could muster I coasted over to various locations where there were interesting birds to observe. Even without paddling this disturbed many of them but by staying completely silent and motionless the birds would return or those that had stayed but froze themselves resumed their activities, hunting for fish in various ways and singing. Occasionally I had to traverse large extents of lilies, duck weed and other vegetation. I stopped near some monkeys who decided to come over and investigate although I refused to allow them to position themselves directly overhead as they are known to express their discontent by urinating or defecating on intruders.

Deep in the canopy under trees that were formerly on the banks that were now in the water of the rain swollen river I failed to observe that the sky was darkening. When I pulled into open water I decided to head back. I proceeded downstream and found my self in an impenetrable morass of water plants. Ok, where did I come in? I returned back up stream and found another branch with the same result. How many branches of the delta would be blocked? I stopped, looked at the two volcanoes to determine which way was west and set another course. After spying the lake I turned around and lingered for a bit and watched an egret hunt.

It was pizza night and the sun was setting so I paddled back to the kayak rental hostel setting a direct course, no meandering near the shore on this pass. In getting out of the kayak I almost collapsed. My legs had been straight in front of me for five hours and they buckled. A few minutes of walking around and I was fine. The sunset was about to begin, I decided I would rather miss dinner than the sunset so I stayed and read for a while while watching the sun. Three kids played near the shore and jumped off the top of a boat into the water while they sky palette was in constant flux, reflecting off the calm waters. TODO colors

After it got dark I headed back. Ometepe is very safe, unlike very many places in Central America, walking the rural roads alone at night is not a life threatening proposition. Five minutes into my walk a bus passed by and I got a ride back to Santa Cruz. Fifteen minutes later I met my friends at El Zopilote for another evening of the usual.

Sunday, November 21

While attempting to copy yesterday’s pictures on to my external hard drive I encountered failure after failure. Windows would just hang, explorer would crash. I couldn’t navigate the drive. Damn thing is failing or has failed. I rebooted into linux, mounted the drive and a five hundred gig drive that was filled to 97% capacity with music. After deleting about 70 gb of music from bands I had never heard of I started to copy off that which I could. Viewing the error log I was appalled to see how many bad sectors were on the drive. So I sit here and write boring stuff while I wait for the copy to complete. Sony, why, oh why did you give me one type two USB ports and two type ones? Slowly, ever so slowly the files are being copied off. Combine the slowness of USB type one with hundreds of retries on a failing drive and hours into this I have but 33 GB copied over.

I made a cup of coffee in the fashion. A pot of water was put on to boil, the gas turned off and very finely ground coffee was stirred into the water. A mesh bag of the fineness of pantyhose was lowered through a hole in the upper crossbar of a wooden frame designed for this purpose. A plastic cup was placed beneath the net and the coffee strained through it.

Later in the evening the crew watched “White Cat, Black Cat” from a DVD in a notebook computer. I lied down in a crib and read a book. When it was time to retire, I noticed my wallet lieing on the crib. All my pockets should have zippers and everything I own should be cabled to me.

Monday, November 22

“What time does the eleven o’clock bus come?”
“Around 11:30”

“What time does the one o’clock ferry leave?”
“Around 1:30 because the bus will be late.”

Hmm. Two hour bus ride to cover something that a mini van can cover in forty minutes. I have things to do. We’ll see what happens.

I packed up my stuff. The clothes I set out to dry didn’t. My shirt, strewn over a stump had a couple of worms on it and was covered with ants. I shook out the shirt, beating it against my cabin and placed it and the funky socks in my laundry bag. The rest of the goods I had brought were placed in my backpack and I headed down to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Most of the crew were leaving or planning to leave. Jessica had her usual level of commitment which was vacillating between some sort of action or lieing in a hammock reading arcane literature. Most of the rest were going to Grenada, a market town. I decided to head to the beach, San Juan del Sur, on the Southern Pacific. For a couple of hours I frustrated myself trying to recover pictures from this year. I had accumulated over seventy gig of pictures and my hard drive was failing fast. I booted my notebook under linux and ran an rsync operation in verbose mode.

Around eleven I headed down the hill and encountered Lee hobbling down with the aid of a makeshift walking stick. She had previously had a bad encounter with a bus, snagging her backpack in the door as the bus moved on. Elizabeth was carrying Lee’s backpack. The bus showed within minutes of 11:30 . We traveled for thirty five minutes and disembarked at the transfer point with a dozen other tourists heading for Moyagulpa, crossed the road to join another half dozen or so that had reached the transfer point, presumably from the opposite direction. I stood in the aisle with eight other people for about twenty minutes until a seat freed up. We arrived in Mayagulpa at 1:10 and I wasted five minutes trying to assist Lee with her pack. She headed down to the ferry a walk of less than 100 meters. I asked the man at the ferry to wait while I ran back to Hospidaje Central to grab my boat back. No luck. I sauntered up the hill with my backpack and daypack, which was, as usual, crammed with electronics and photography gear.

The old Indian was behind the restaurant counter; I told him I needed my bag and I had to run. He was very disappointed that I wasn’t going to sit around for weeks documenting his tales. Burdened by yet another thirty pounds I headed back down the hill. The ferry was gone. Ahhh well. I turned around and headed to my favorite restaurant. I had a huge order of ceviche, a fish the size of a serving platter and a separate plate of cucumbers, tomatoes and rice. The sauce, served separately was a mayonaise base with onions and jalepenos. No wonder those girls the other night said it was the best fish they had ever had. The fish, served whole, was lightly fried with flaky white flesh and large bones. It was a hell of a meal. The bill came to 200 cordoba, around $19 USD.

As the time for the three o’clock launcha neared it started to rain. I have wet bags, boat bags, ditty bags. I am pretty much ready for any unforeseen expedition on water in boats of dubious merit. Accommodations for the rain were made and my rain cover for the backpack was put in place. I walked the 100 yards down to the dock and was told there was no three o’clock launcha and that I would have to wait for the four o’clock ferry so I returned to the restaurant.

Nearing four I returned to the dock, the next wave of tourists were flooding out of the boat. I approached the registrar who was filling in the names, ages and nationalities of people who walked past him, all locals. I, of course, had to enter the information into the passenger manifest myself.

This time I took a seat in the lower salon. After freeing up some space in my windows partition I copied files from my camera storage and edited my pictures of the previous three days and headed astern in the vehicle area, encountering a Spaniard. We chatted for a bit, his girlfriend, from Miami joined us. They related their stories. Their exploration of the island was in the dual cab Toyota Luxman truck next to which we were standing. As we docked the Spaniard asked me if I wanted a ride to Rivas. Hell yeah! Two other Nicas asked if he was going to Managua and if they could hitch a ride; after receiving an affirmative response they hopped into the bed of the truck. The girl’s sister had been living in Nicaragua for six years and now called herself a Nica. As we pulled into Rivas a woman recognized the truck and went into excited animation. What a sight. Shake it, baby, shake it. She got in the back seat next to me and asked me where I was going. I wanted to say “wherever you go, I will follow” but I recognized that I was ten years too late for that action. Within a block she told me that this is where I could catch my bus, or a taxi, “Don’t pay more than $15”. Thanking all, I exited, my pulse elevated from the most delightful woman I had seen in five hours.

I stood at the bus stop for less than five minutes, a car drove by, “San Juan del Sur?” I flagged him, he turned around, I asked him the price… $15, “Bien”, and we headed out. My chosen hotel was fully subscribed and told the driver, “Necissito otro hotel” I took the room in which I am currently writing this. Ostensibly they had WIFI but there were but a couple of hotspots, about the size of a chair. I tried to connect in the balcony and banged the living shit out of my head on a beam while traversing it. The room is $15, I proffered a 500 cordoba note, the matron didn’t have the 180 change. Nobody has change north of Costa Rica. I’ll find another place tomorrow, I don’t like hotels, I like hostels. I want to mingle with other people. I’ll give up TV and air conditioning for companionship.