Incidents of Travel in Latin America

by Lars Holger Holm

  This is how we ended up on Juan-Guillermo’s property, a very friendly, most capable and efficient Antioquian in his early 40s who had grown tired of city life and sought refuge on a patch of land he had turned into a Garden of Eden of his own. Notwithstanding some minor inconveniences — which I shall soon describe more in detail — being received on his turf turned out to be a stroke of pure good luck. A lush enclosure no more than 70 yards from the beach, with its own little pond inhabited by a young cayman, a wealth of plants carrying sweet, delectable fruit, flowers big as trees, the trees in turn housing an entire family of fierce and dragon-like but in reality peaceful iguanas, sculptural art work, a kind of tropical loggia with a second floor acting as a platform for beds and hammocks, shower and toilet on ground level decorated with mosaics and a well equipped kitchen just waiting for my eager hands.

  If only I could find the ingredients to occupy them. Here too all the local stores were eerily empty of produce one or two days before the arrival of the cargo boat carrying weekly fresh supplies to the coastal communities. At this time there weren’t even potatoes, let alone tomatoes, to be had for money, and this in a country where all you need to do to make a stick grow is to plant it in the ground. But this is where ever-resourceful Juan-Guillermo himself came into the picture. Not only did he have some left over vegetables in stock; on my request he also put an order together for ground meat, chicken, wine and a bottle of whisky to be brought by the next day’s afternoon run from Turbo, where he’d be sending a local boy with the morning lancia anyway to run errands.

  Meanwhile he got us installed in the treehouse in the corner next to the entrance. It was actually a bungalow of sorts built on stilts and accessible from beneath only by a ladder. One could close the hole in the floor with a kind of sliding hatch, otherwise folded up against the wall, but it was a business that required both timing and precision as the planks constituting it were heavy and the bipartite platform, divided by hinges, always had a tendency to come crushing down by force of gravity threatening to crush a few violinist fingers en passant. The abode with its high ceiling and ample natural light was charming and had a nice double bed covered by a mosquito net of suitable dimension. A toilet decorated with mosaics and a circular outdoor shower room filled with plants and round pebbles directly under sun, moon and stars completed the picture. Once again we were facing a situation where the house had indeed large window openings but nothing in them, not even mosquito nets.

  But we had our own arsenal of insect repellents, the application of which was quite necessary after nightfall provided we didn’t want to take refuge under the mosquito tent of the bed right away. But while insect repellents are there to fight off smaller marauders, they can’t prevent one inch black bugs, enticed by the electric light, from infesting an open space such as this. Asíle had an amazing hand with them and would simply collect them off the ceiling lamp shade, designed and stitched together from palm leaves (she’s an excellent seamstress) and amass them in jar where they would roll in wine for a while only to eventually perish happily by an overdose of alcohol. The frogs, on the other hand, were too big to be put in jars and killed off by a cheap round of drinks.

  Readers of Gabriel Marcia Marques, widely regarded as one of Latin America’s finest representatives of a narrative style sometimes subsumed under the heading ‘magical realism’, may recall mind boggling episodes from his books where pink frogs start to rain from heaven. The reader may admire, accept or dismiss this image as a product of suggestive creative fancy, poetic license, call it what you will, but he will not normally believe it can actually happen. But whereas it’s true that cats and dogs don’t actually rain on you, in spite of the rhetorical figure insinuating it, the raining of frogs, I assure you, is not uncommon in Colombia, where what is sometimes also referred to as ‘surrealism’ makes up an integral part of the everyday. Thus, I repeat, frogs do fall from heaven in Colombia. It all starts with a regular rain, always conducive to open wide the sluices of heaven during the monsoon season.

  At ten o’clock, every evening all year round, the local power grid in Triganá shuts down to save precious gasoline, since that what it runs on to produce electricity. It can also seize the opportunity to shut down for two weeks or more, but that is a slightly more exceptional although not too infrequent occurrence. Whatever the situation, the light at your disposal is now either a torch, a candle or a fluorescent insect. The rest, the entire universe around you, including the impenetrable jungle, is black as pitch. It is in this situation — at first rather cosy since the roof actually does prevent the water from inundating your bed — that you’re brought back to reality by a sudden thumping sound indicating a big UFO has just landed in the dark a couple of feet away from you. This dull, wet, subdued sound is followed by a squeak so loud that at first it freezes the blood in your veins to ice. Seconds later, as you realise that it’s ‘just a frog’, there is a second landing followed by the same squeak, then a third... And now they begin to converse for real at your expense. Your house has turned into the most perfect shelter for their chit-chat and flirting during a squall. But mind you, the rain can go on for several hours and their conversation correspondingly.

  Facing the challenge with incomparable presence of mind, Asíle again proved to me why I must infinitely admire and love her. These frogs are no small and cuddly creatures that you can allow paternally to crawl around in your open palm; they are moist-eyed, light green, slimy toads, four to six inches long and half as wide, legs and feet not counted. At the mere sound of them Asíle would jump out of bed with her flashlight and, although they clearly inspired horror in her too, grasp them with a plastic bag to protect her precious skin and hurl them out of the windows. You would perhaps imagine this to be a vain effort, but frogs are intelligent creatures and after a while seemed to realise they were party crashers, and so would either stay outside or gather around the oeil de boeuf under the gable roof where Asíle couldn’t reach them. Over there they were sufficiently distant not to overly bother our night sleep. As for the rest we could only pray to Rainman that our mosquito net would be strong enough to resist the impact of a frog landing on its roof, so as to prevent him, or her, from competing with El gran Capitan Papi Camaron navigating the twin peaks of Mount Bora Bora from beneath the cotton sails.

  Speaking of shrimp, it was Juan-Guillermo, again, who managed to find us two pounds of large shrimp fished straight out of the Caribbean. By the Capurganians we had been told shrimp had to be bought and brought from Medellín, which seemed quite a detour for them to arrive at our table. Of course it wasn’t true. More likely the Capurganians are just too lazy to fish for them and therefore prefer to pretend that they don’t exist. But Juan-Guillermo knew his fisherman. At this time the grocery and wine shipment from Turbo had arrived, so there was olive oil, garlic and lime to marinate the lot. Peeling and marinating them, I couldn’t help coming to think of two comparable moments I had once enjoyed.

  One was on the island Ko-Chang in the south-eastern archipelago of Thailand, part of the Trat region bordering Cambodia. There is a fishing village there famous for being constructed on wooden piers. As it is a tourist attraction it has certainly changed character over time, nowadays featuring several hotels and restaurants on the water, or rather, just above it. I was drawn into one of the latter by a small pond in its centre filled with unusually large tiger shrimp. Ordering them on my plate involved selecting the ones I wanted with a net on a rod from the school, with the subsequent result that I was served eight of these bastards straight from the grill together with an old bottle of Chablis that I miraculously found waiting for me inside a transparent cooler in the middle of the restaurant. It was reasonably priced too and, in spite of the vicissitudes it must have traversed in order to end up in this exotic show case, still delicious, leaving behind iridescent curtains inside the glass when moved around. Sitting down at an outdoor table by the rim of the lagoon into which the moon placidly poured her liqu
id honey, savouring my charcoal grilled gambas with lime and a perfectly cool white Bourgogne of exceptional quality, was an experience that almost certainly must have made me shed tears from sheer bliss.

  Which leads me to the other unforgettable experience attended by members of the shrimp family. This time in Nicaragua. A couple of years ago I rented for two months, straddling Christmas and New-Years, a cottage in San Juan del Sur on the country’s southern Pacific coast. It’s quite a picturesque town, attracting a fair number of tourists from both hemispheres, although the northern winter is its main season. It also has its expat community comprising Americans and Europeans alike, many of whom run bars and restaurants. It also, alas, attracts surfers — a single-minded crowd I’m only all too familiar with from my one year sojourn in Puerto Rican Rincón, one of the world’s top ten hotspots for this brain killing activity — or maybe it’s the other way round: because you’re stupid you find nothing better to do in life than to surf the waves!

  The main attraction of San Juan, Nicaragua, on the other hand, is not the height of its waves but its natural harbour: a true horseshoe bay with a beach of fine black sand. Still, the sand covers no more than two miles’ worth of coastline. Inversely it’s very wide, especially in ebb-tide. It’s framed by rocks rising to the size of mountains at both ends, protecting the town against sea and wind from this direction. But this natural barrier — as I came to experience during several days with almost scarily blue skies, when it was almost impossible to walk upright outside and certainly very dangerous because of all things flying through the air — doesn’t prevent turbulence originating in the Caribbean, given free reins over Lago Cocibolca and funnelled through a corridor of conical volcanoes, from hitting San Juan with gale force winds. Low lying hills, partly cultivated, partly clad in greenery, characterise the surrounding coastal plain and there is only a forty-five minute car ride to the shores of Cocibolca from which the island Ometepe, with its volcanic twin towers, raises majestically out of the lake.

  My visit to that island preceded my arriving in San Juan and was remarkable for several reasons. First it was the spectacular boat trip from Granada to get there. There are only two runs per week, but if scarcity of time is of no immediate concern, one of these departures is definitely worth waiting for. Sitting directly on the deck, pinned up against the wall with my mochila acting as a cushion and the rumble of the engines as a musical accompaniment, I enjoyed a fabulous afternoon and sunset over the volcano Mombacho as the ship steered clear of the islets off Granada, ploughing a furrow through the lake’s turbid waters.

  When we arrived to the island it was dark and I can only vaguely remember what the hotel in the town of Altagracia, where I came to stay overnight, looked like. Next day was vowed for exploration, but first of all I needed to get out of Altagracia which, in spite of its lofty name, was a bit depressing (Nicaragua in general has its share of poverty and although the Ometepe island certainly has a developed infrastructure capable of accommodating tourists, there are some gloomy places one happily avoids.)

  So from Altagracia I took a taxi to the beach community Santo Domingo where I found myself an acceptable fifteen-dollar room. The rest of the day I walked the alternately sandy/rocky beach and hung out in the hotel cafeteria, getting to know what to do and where to go. However, as dinner time approached I decided to try the restaurant of a nearby and slightly more upscale hotel. This is where I ran into Ricardo and his two female friends Sarah and Tonia. They were all three Nicaraguans, but Ricardo had once crossed the Rio Grande like another Rubicon, and after some adventures as an illegal immigrant managed to become a naturalised subject under Uncle Sam’s watchful eye. This of course didn’t happen just like that. Ricardo had been fortunate to arrive in the United States right before his native country was taken over by a government considered communist by the US presidential administration. Practically overnight he became a political refugee and allowed to apply for citizenship, which he was granted. Ever since he’s been a stout pillar of American society; since several years a civil servant in a managerial position.

  Tonia is his cousin and what I didn’t know then was that the lively two mature girls were actually lovers — I guess I hadn’t really met with lesbians that friendly towards me before! In fact, they were absolutely charming and so was Ricardo, whom I didn’t think of at the time as being gay either. We had a most inspiring and amusing dinner conversation, after they had asked me to join their table, at the end of which it was decided that we should explore one of the island’s major attractions together next day: the waterfall midway up the Volcano Madéras on the southern sphere of the island.

  I deliberately say sphere instead of hemisphere, because it seems like a more appropriate description. The island of Ometepe, seen from above, has the shape of an hourglass with a flat narrow isthmus as its waist. Each of the two spheres is the result of volcanic activity that over time has created two heaven-raging cones. The northern volcano, slightly higher than its southern twin, is still active, whereas the latter, apparently extinct, has a water filled crater. Perhaps this crater to some extent feeds the water fall of San Ramón. Whatever the case, in December the water was still abundant in the fall and the trip to get there a perfect adventure.

  The waterfall of San Ramón can be reached from the Finca Mystica, located above Punta el Congo on the coast. From there it’s roughly a two hour walk to the cascade, on a trail that gradually merges into a riverbed, turning the final ascent into something of a challenge. The landscape this day was immensely scenic under a brilliant sun, the trees full of monkeys and parrots. We had such great fun getting up there since Tonia had some problems walking the entire distance and, feigning complete exhaustion, theatrically fell into Ricardo’s arms, or vice versa. But our problems were all dealt with in excellent spirits and no one sustained physical injury. Sarah, the older of the two girls, and perhaps suspecting what lay ahead, had wisely refrained from joining us. Instead she was comfortably installed on the Finca’s terrace enjoying the views from there together with some coffee. Meanwhile Ricardo and I joined in with the crowd swimming in the lagoon and we were crying out like children from the sheer joy of taking a cool shower in one of the powerful trickles branching off from the cascade.

  But as though that swim had only wet our appetites, we found ourselves next day at the famous Ojo de agua, which is a natural pool, hidden in an oasis, only a few kilometres from where our hotels were located. It is indeed a natural pool but it has been enhanced in various ways, with a full service restaurant and deck chair service of drinks and snacks. The entrance fee is modest, the turquoise water fabulous, clear and temperate. To sit in the shade of some broad-leaved tree and watch the sunrays play in and out of the foliage and through the living water, is a truly poetic experience, making at least one visit to the springs of Ojo de Agua mandatory for anyone visiting Ometepe.

  Before our ways parted Ricardo, driving his cousin and her friend onwards to San Juan del Sur, told me that if I ever came to Miami and didn’t have anywhere to stay, I could always call him up. This subsequently happened and it was on this occasion that Ricardo straightforwardly told me that: ‘Of course you can stay in my home, but I want you to know that I’m gay.’ I remember answering that his being gay wasn’t a problem as far as I was concerned, hoping in turn he wouldn’t mind if I wasn’t. Seeing and confirming a relieving sense of humour in each other, this made for a solid beginning of our friendship. But even though Ricardo loves a good laugh and mostly sees the general craziness of life through the benevolent spectacles of comedy, he has, as can be expected in a person with his emotional disposition, some feminine traits that sometimes play tricks on him. For example, at one point he got very upset with me because I had told him (‘out of the blue’ as his version has it) that I thought it was ridiculous of him to even pretend being a woman (he does like to dress up and act like one on special occasions!) when for physical reasons alone it’s impossible. What I real
ly meant by this he never considered relevant. He was just hurt and, exactly like a woman pretending to be offended, would hardly talk to me for a couple of days. I finally had to ask him the compulsory: ‘What is it with you, Darling?’ only to receive the suffering-female-standard-riposte: ‘Nothing…’

  Of course it didn’t help trying to explain the reason for my comment was that I had once, when he was dressed up, put my arm around his shoulders to see what it would look like, only to realise that whereas my arms are normally long enough to not only reach around a woman’s shoulders (even if she’s quite athletic), but also to play with her tits, I could hardly even reach around his shoulder with my fingertips, let alone play with his tits. ‘With such a broad back there’s simply isn’t much hope for you to ever become a woman’, I concluded in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. But this obvious observation — necessarily if also perhaps tragically true — didn’t please him all that much, though I think he finally forgave me and even began to laughingly tell his friends about the terrible insult he had had to endure from me. As for myself, I was quite relieved to see that he had apparently gotten over his resentment.

  Over time I not only became close friends with his sofa bed in the living room but with his dog (may he rest in peace!) as well, entrusted as I was with the responsibility of taking him out during the day. I was also happy to cook for Ricardo and myself, meaning we from time to time ended up almost having a little bachelor household together. But then again Ricardo, as I soon realised, longed to be in a stable relationship, and not just have casual sex (nothing seems to come easier to these guys than to call each other up and unabashedly ask for sex, in this way simply spelling out what a man only dares to think when asking a woman he desires out for a drink, or even dinner.) As of late he’s been blessed with such a prospective life partner, and so has grown a little distant towards me. But I don’t consider this chill as a prelude to any major ice age, and besides I’m sure Ricarda will be very proud of having cut such a blazing heroine in Lorenzo el Magnifico’s latest book!