March 8th, 2009

This morning is as windy as the last. A bit quieter, though I can hear a little shark dog yipping excitedly outside. Last night was much like any other here; Toñas, Flor de Caña, walking about and exchanging stories and inside jokes. Everyone got up pretty late, that is except for me.

*Editor's note: Lizzie and Heather have "fallen in love with" Natasha's friend, Carina.

After lunch, we decided to try out the beach again. Once again, the wind picked up and blasted our skins with sand, which stuck to our sun lotion and quickly caused general irritation. Natasha and I left almost immediately, deciding that our time was better spent reading at Iguana's (I was reading "The Graveyard Book" at that time). After a frozen limeade, we walked around a bit with Heather and ate ice cream, went to the internet café, and returned home briefly before walking back down to the shore to watch the sunset. A parrot was perched on a fence, so we stopped to take pictures. There was a green wagon on the beach, so Heather sort of climbed into it which I took pictures. The sun set, and we returned to our flat.

After meeting up with Reuben, Lizzie and Patrick, who had spent their day lounging around the luxury pool, we went out for pizza. What it lacked in flavor it made up for in cheapness, so all was well.

After dinner we went to Republika, a small canadian-owned bar furnished extensively with interesting communist regalia. Many of the drinks are actually served in children's beach buckets, which was interesting and cost-effective. We played jenga, chess, and card games as we sipped electric lemonades, long island iced teas, and piña coladas. After a while we left Reuben and Patrick, who insisted that they wanted to keep playing games, and later claimed to have been rather close to death on account of a certain mysterious, potentially murderous chap, but that story is not mine to tell.

We, on the other hand, made our way to Iguana's, enjoying the company of an excitable German, a stocky Australian, and a few pasty American businessmen.

Next, we were off to the Crazy Crab dance club. Upon arrival, I noticed that the employees were doing pat-down searches of customers before they were allowed to enter. I felt my pocket and quickly realized that I had my swiss army knife in it. This is going to be interesting... I thought to myself.

Sure enough, the knife was discovered immediately. They refused to let me in. Too tired to deal with the situation, I decided to get my knife back and go back to the apartment, which was a few blocks down the road. The bouncer, who understood no english and had milky cataracts forming in his eyes, was surprisingly stubborn and may have intended to keep the knife for himself. After some persistence, I retrieved the knife, and walked home with it in my pocket, blade drawn in case I needed it.

Such a lot of trouble for such a little thing.

March 7th, continued

After breakfast, we went walking for a while and bought a few more necessaries, namely potable water. Even tapwater is scarce here, and whenever our building has it for a few hours we immediately fill up every jug we can find.

We decided to go someplace and find a pool to go swimming in, as the beach was so consistently windy (re: stingy with sand) as to be profoundly unpleasant. We made our way up the great hillsides of San Juan del Sur and, posing as affluent tourists, entered a luxury resort property with ease. We quickly found a wonderful pool and an expansive panoramic view.

At the same resort we found a small animal shelter with monkeys. While taking photographs of a particularly vivacious simian (too close, of course), the brute snatched my glasses from my face! It proceeded to bite and bend them out of shape until a resort employee, warning me to get back immediately (muy peligroso señor!), dumped a bucket of water on its head. Annoyed by this unpleasant surprise, the monkey dropped my glasses to the ground and I quickly snatched them up. I was very lucky. I bent them back into shape and left.

March 7th, 2009

Today I awoke to a conflagration of dawn calls, both of introduced European roosters and of native tropical fauna. How these reminded me of the calls that woke me on a daily basis during my time in Australia! Grabbing a water bottle, I headed out to the balcony to listen--the first awake, as usual. The mighty wind continued to roll across the tin roof and through the long corridor connecting our apartments. It never rested, never slept.

From the balcony I can easily see the ocean. A semicircular lagoon is there, with many boats and moorings. On the street below a man is loading hundreds of grey cement bricks into the metal bed of his truck, scraping them as he positions them into place.

WHAM! Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. WHAM! Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape...

Taxis drive by frequently--they seem to make up 90% of all compact cars in the country--accompanied by the occasional speaker car, announcing some sort of circus show or bar opening or local event. Despite the earliness of the hour, the giant cones atop the trucks roar thunderously through the little neighborhood.

Peddlers begin to wander the streets selling their wares; large plywood sheets festooned with all styles of counterfeit sunglasses, huge rolls of hand-woven palm mats, pots, pans, and jewelry. Men with coolers and rolling carts announce the catch of the day, no doubt harvested from the sea as we slept.

"Mariscos! Pescada! Langostas!"

Occasionally someone arises from their porch for a pound of fish or a live lobster.

Equally abundant to these tradesmen and women are children, who follow you and beg for money; on occasion for small trinkets they have found or made from palm leaves, but most often not. One small child was so brazen as to climb the stairs to our apartment and enter our flat, demanding 20 cordobas (~1 dollar). What can be said about these lost little ones but that they are an unfortunate truth. They exist all around the world, especially where a living can be made from tourists and foreigners. In a perfect world, they would go home each night to clean sheets and a good meal, but with the real world stacked in the favor of the rich, powerful, and willfully ignorant, this possibility is very far away.

*Editor's note: Natasha reminded me that a Nicaraguan local told me I looked like Harry Potter at the bar last night. I told him that Harry had round glasses, while mine were square. I took off my glasses, and he said I still looked like Harry Potter.