A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu

March 30, 2006

Photo site updated…http://photobucket.com/albums/g317/dolphinvoyage    (password dolphin)

In Nicaragua, we visited the zoo. Run down, small, and under varying haphazard construction projects, the zoo was an odd place. Almost all the animals, apart from the lion and tigers, were native to Nicaragua: toucans, vultures, snakes, chimps, parrots, tapirs, jaguar, crocodiles, turtles and panthers. As we watched the monkeys screech and climb and enact various obscenities, a baby chick came wandering over to my foot. I picked it up, cradling it against my shirt. We wandered through the zoo, looking for its mother. The few chickens we found only pecked harshly at it if we set it down near them and the chick would inevitably come running after me, chirping in fear and following me like a mother hen. When I held it in my shirt, it snuggled its head against my chest and went quiet. We briefly discussed a cage on the back of the dolphin and free eggs for the trip, but discarded the idea (nyek nyek). The chirping caught the attention of the huge jaguar, who woke from his nap to snap his head in my direction, ears pricked to the sound of clucking. Near the snake tanks, Jonas happily found a group of wandering baby chicks and I set my adopted Nicaraguan baby down with them. She appeared calm and happy in their company and I stooped to take a picture of the group. As I focused on the little puffy rump of the yellow chick, I noticed, behind it, a cage. Through the cage protruded the black and silver snouts of two fox, who were eyeing the chicks with a wolfish, Little Red Riding Hood kind of blood lust. As I stood to move the chicks away, two sets of fox jaws snapped out of the cage and grabbed the passing chicks in a second of lightening flash movement. I stared as my little charge kicked its legs from the canine jaws enclosing it, and watched as the fox ate my chick for a midday snack.

Jonas and I, more upset and disturbed then we wanted to admit by the Discovery Channel episode we had just taken part in, carried the remaining chicks away from the cage. As I wandered the rest of the zoo, I began to realize an odd layout. Deer grazed on grass in their cage four feet from the lion dozing in a shady spot on his cement. Chickens and their chicks ran about clucking nervously in their cage next to the fox, with only wire mesh separating the two groups. Snakes sniffed the air from their cages on the other side of the chickens, and tigers lounged only feet from the enclosures of panthers and jaguars. We realized that the baby chicks were most likely kept in the zoo as snacks for whichever animal could grab them through the bars or whenever a zoo keeper or guest decided to throw one in for entertainment. The tiny zoo was a bizarre spectacle of animal frustration – prey sitting feet from their worst predator and biggest nightmare, carnivores salivating over tantalizing meat chunks running around on their silly legs only inches from their teeth, yet out of reach. This reminded me of a story Jonas told about a Nicaraguan dictator who kept his wild animals in a cage in his front yard and his political prisoners in the cage next to it. In the local paper was an article detailing the complaints of the zoo’s neighbors, worried that the lion might jump the wall and enter their back yards. Not once had we even seen a zoo official – not when Jonas stuck bamboo through the cage to play with the little jaguar cats (who, like typical cats, climbed the edge of the cage, batting at it and him through the bars); not when the free ranging, humongous female turkey charged me; not when a huge red parrot climbed onto Yoshi’s shoulder and began rooting in his hair for treats, pulling harshly at his hair tie and snapping at his hands with its immense beak. We left the zoo, impressed with the beauty of Nicaragua’s animals, but depressed and convinced that it is most likely a bad idea for Nicaragua’s flora and fauna to be in such close quarters.

In Nicaragua we sensed more frustration and tension than any previous country. After a brutal civil war and war with the United States, who used Costa Rica and Honduras as military bases during the conflict, Nicaragua is attempting to right itself. We were told that many Nicaraguans go to Costa Rica to search for work, as Costa Rica is substantially better off, but are frequently killed there due to hostilities between the two groups. There is no love lost between Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica and it appears that Nicaragua is the worst off of the three, most likely due to the fact that they refused to be lap dogs to the US like their neighbors. We were fortunate enough to stay with the family of a friend near Lake Nicaragua in a small town in the mountains. They were wonderfully warm, welcoming people who had little but were extremely generous in their hospitality. They told us that although Nicaragua has a surplus of water, most places in the country go for days or weeks at a time with no water. This they claim, is due to the disrepair of the water pumps and stations and is the fault of the government’s lazy, corrupt reign. They say the Sandanistas were no different than previous corrupt rulers, that it will never really improve…the more things change the more they stay the same. In Latin America, it seems you can only count on one truth - the poor always get screwed and the rich always end up bitching and complaining and driving a Lexus in Miami.

Our last two nights in Nicaragua were spent on one of the loveliest beaches in all of our travels. 10 miles down yet another rocky, bumpy, dusty road near San Juan del Sur, a small surfer campground and restaurant were the only inhabitants of the long white beach. The Pacific ocean crashed against the shore and the cove was surrounded by rock outcrops identical to those at the Oregon coast. It resembled a bit, I guess, a hot, tropical version of a beach at Bandon or Astoria, with stunning sunsets as I have not seen before. The sun would turn a bright pink and move slowly into the horizon, a giant fluorescent ping pong ball sinking into the sea. That night, we slept in tents under the trees. Unfortunately, a troop of howler monkeys had set up camp in the canopies directly above us. They resemble small chimps and have vocals to rival King Kong. WOOO WOOO WOOOO WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! It was as if we were sharing our tent with Gorillas in the Mist. Needless to say, our dreams were of zoos and attacks and strange nightmarish shapes during the rare 20 minute intervals when we were able to doze off. It was worth it though and I know I will always regret spending only two nights there…

 

Mango

One does not eat a mango; one makes love to a mango. I have been rationing myself to only a couple per week in order to handle the dependency which comes with the exquisite flesh. One must eat a ripe mango with great care and forethought – there are to be no interruptions, no irritating questions about the location of someone’s shoes or if we need to fill the water tank or if the brakes are melting because it smells like burning or whatnot. Mango Time is a time of absolute devotion to the joy of consumption. One must prepare the layout carefully – napkins to cover the entire front side of one’s body, as the sweet juice is a poisonous stain if allowed to run free as it wishes, down your cheeks and neck onto your shoulders and arms, streaking and staining your white top a lovely yellow while you mindlessly gorge on its flesh, unaware of anything but the sensation in your mouth; a sharp knife to cut through its rainbow skin with ease, as your impatience with a dull knife will only lead to heartbreak and loss; dental floss to clean the fruit’s tendons from between each and every tooth you used to filet and devour the thing; a wet wash rag to clean yourself after the act, glancing up ashamed at your mess and the wanton display of lust for such an obscene little fruit. God made mangos to test our resilience to desire. Mangos are perfection and addiction and guilty, unadulterated pleasure wrapped in the unassuming skin of a normal fruit. How could one ever put an apple, something called a “Granny Smith” for God’s sake, in the same family as the MANGO? No, a mango is not a fruit. A mango is a divine truth which teaches us humility and loss. As soon as one’s lips first meet its ripe innards that are not quite orange not quite yellow, one begins to mourn the approaching end of the sensation and the cliff of love over which one is falling. I try always to discourage mango eating while driving, reading, typing or talking. To think one can concentrate on anything other than the ingestion of the golden chunks, is, well, almost blasphemous. Mango is of God and of Lucifer, all their delights and their dangers wrapped up in one small package and sold for pennies on every damn corner in Latin America. One must be very careful with the intake of the mango, and never abuse its grandiose generosity of the senses, or one will lose herself in a chaos of orange and beautiful and gorgeous and scrumptious and perfection, and will be found lying in a pool of yellow, a small smile of delight upon her face and they will look down sadly, shaking their heads and they will
say, “Well…at least she died happy….”

March 21 One of the gas station attendants is poking his head against the screen to see inside the back of the Dolphin. He hasn’t seen me sitting here yet, but I know from ... [Continue reading this entry]

Not sure this will work either...The photos are not uploading from the computers down here. Try this...The password, as smarty pants Alexandre figured out (hey, he doesn't have a phd for nothing!) is dolphin. I will try to add a ... [Continue reading this entry]

March 20   The American Army is stalking us. Or rather, one unit leader who is semi-retarded or half-crazy or both is stalking us. [Continue reading this entry]