Playa Santo Domingo Day2

Last night, I got to see Isla de Ometepe the way God intended it to be seen. Natalie and I treated ourselves to dinner at one of the more expensive places on Ometepe (Villa de Paraiso), which ended up costing us $8.50 each for a whole broiled fish (done chinese style with the head still attached so you can recognize that this was once a living being that you´re now eating), rice, salad, and dessert, and tea. All served by waiters in uniform who would chase stray dogs away from your table. Outside the restaurant is a house that has a pigpen where a mailbox should be. But this was no standard pigpen. This pigpen only had -3- walls, with the missing wall being towards the road. The mama pig lay in there with her 8 little piglets and the huge boar hog lay nearby, sleeping. Or we think it was a boar hog. It looked like it might have enlarged teats, but it seemed too large to be female. And it somehow seemed masculine to me. Maybe because it was big, hairy, dirty, and lying on the side of the road instead of sleeping in the pen with its family like a civilized pig would.

Midway through dinner, the power went out. Natalie, who worked at a hostel in Costa Rica for 2 months, says it happens often here. Within minuts, the generators at our pricey restaurant kicked in. But we didn´t realize until after we left that the rest of the island was still in darkness. Both of us, blessed and cursed with overactive imaginations, only made it about 500 feet down the pitch dark road clinging to each other before we turned back for flashlights. It was so dark we couldn´t see landmarks or even signs on the houses nearby. There was no way to mark distance and no way to tell whether Hospedaje Buena Vista was further along, past, or right beside us. A worker from the Villa Paraiso walked us back with his flashlight. And I´ve never been so thankful. The round beam of light dancing before us seemed so friendly and comforting as it lit up rocks and stones and holes in the road that we would have killed ourselves on if we´d been in the dark. When we arrived at Buena Vista, our hostel was similarly dark, and everyone was laying in the hammocks that adorn the place (7 hammocks overall!). Natalie got her headlamp and I got my flashlight and we found our own hammocks. I went out to the water, thinking it would be nice to swim naked by moonlight on el Lago de Nicaragua from la Isla de Ometepe, but the moon was obscured by the clouds. Enough light shone through so I could see without my flashlight, though I flickered it on in a hurry when I heard a footstep behind me on the dark beach. A giant frog stared back at me. All around, I heard mating calls, and I kept waitin for my frog to chime in, but he jus stared at me silently from his place in the spotlight of my flashlight and I stared back at him expectantly. I even made a frog mating sound myself in the hopes it would prompt him to utter a sound of love, but no such luck. Like most males, he was probably scared and froze up from being put on the spot. Or perhaps my mating call just wasn´t that tempting.

I found out yesterday that Natalie is nursing a broken heart over an unanswered mating call of her own. Her particular frog didn´t end up to be any sort of Prince Charming a he left her for the next backpacker that came along. Like me, Nat doesn´t fall often, but when she does, she falls hard. It´s really quite an annoying habit we have.

We didn´t swim naked last night in the moonlight. Because we´re both a little afraid of water where you can´t see the bottom. Instead, we waded. And I went all the way up to my knees, quelling any fears of strange creatures nibbling on my toes. The lake remains shallow for quite a bit, so I went pretty far out. I looked back at the island, enshrouded in darkness, with the occasional flash of lightnin lighting up the sky. For a second, I felt like the Lady of the Mist from Mists of Avalon. Until I realized I was standing in the middle of a lake with lightning approaching. As I splashed back, the lights came back on, and I breathed a sigh of relief. What is it about light and electricity that makes us feel so much safer? So much more secure? Why is God always the Light and Satan the Prince of Darkness? I think Darkness may be getting a bad rap here.

Regardles oif the fear and the terrifying walk in the dark, I´m glad the power went out last night. But that´s all very easy to say now that it´s morning and the sun is out on the water. I brushed my teeth at the outdoor tap today so that I could watch the sun rise as Colgate, cinnamon flavored, foamed between my teeth. Then I washed my clothes and hung them on the clothesline. Funny, at home, I never wake up early. Yet here, I´m awake by 6 am without any alarm clocks. And I´m sleeping by 9 pm. I like Traveller Me. There´s something about travelling that brings out the best in me. I´m not neurotic (imagine that), or irritable, or cranky. even the 7 mosquitoe bites I´ve accumulated over 3 days don´t bother me that much. But I suppose everyone is cooler on vacation. There´s no stress, no parental expectations, no obligations. I think those things warp an individual like any stress would warp a piece of wood. There´s a freedom here to be myself. And spending a day in a hammock is not accompanied by a sense of guilt that I should have been doing x, y, and z.

There´s a white bird here with stilt legs and a long graceful neck that stands by the water. I tried to zoom in on it from the hammock to get a photo of it, but everytime I´d focus, it´d flap away a few feet. And I rose from my hammock to follow it, and it´d flap away again. Until it flew off into the horizon, leaving me with an empty camera and only a memory of what could´ve been.

I´m going for a morning swim.

Onward. Playa Santo Domingo. Isla de Ometepe.

Thus end my days at Finca Magdalena, at the base of Volcan Maderas, on la Isla de Ometepe, in Lago de Nicaragua, about an hour from the border of Costa Rica. The lodge itself is beautiful, and I´ve learned to live with the creepy crawly bathroom (by taknig showers in the afternoon as opposed to late at night) and the mosquitoes that attack me in the night, even despite my best attempts at prevention by spraying myself, the mosquitoe net, my clothes, and my bed down with¨"backwoods DEET" bug spray. I must be too tasty a morsel for the little buggers. My body is still suffering from the punishment it received yesterday, with surprising pain in unexpected places like the abdomen. Today, I´m heading down to Santo Domingo with a girl I met here at Finca Magdalena named Natalie. A Canadian, she´s quite a character and should prove fun to travel with until Saturday. I´m planning to arrive back on San Jose on Saturday evening and spend Sunday taking care of busines like laundry, groceries, ATM, etc. before Meels arrives on Monday. Then we´re off to the Osa. Though quite honestly, after yesterday´s hike, I may be all hiked out. The clothes here don´t seem to ever dry. Clothes I washed 2 days ago are still wet, so I had to pack them up with me. I hope they dont´mold. All in all, I´d say the long arduous bus ride and border crossing to Nicaragua was worth it so far. If I can stop itching, it´d be perfect.

Later.
I performed minor surgery on myself today. The blister on my heel from the hike yesterday started to collect sand. Sand on the skin is great, sand trapped in the skin is not so great. Considering how squeamish I am about even normal things like getting a splinter out, I was surprised I took out nail clippers to my heel as viciously as I did. I even doused it in rubbing alcohol without even flinching. All this in the beautiful setting of Santo Domingo. The beach here is just beautiful. Its isolated and we´re the only people here. I feel like its the ocean, even though its really just Lago de Nicaragua. The bottom of the lake is pure sand and the water is tepid warm. Natalie turned out to be quite the riot. Considering that our relationship started in Finca de Magdalena with ¨her innocuous question of "Do you think potatoes are vegetables?", we´ve come quite a long way. We missed the 11:30 AM bus from Magdalena (which came at 11:15, pulling away as we came down the trail). We managed to hitch a ride on the back of an Englishwoman´s truck. My tab at Magdalena for 2 nights including all meals, water, and one tour of Volcan Maderas came out to 495 cordobas. Approximately 30-some U.S. dollars.

We´re staying at Buena Vista hostel at Playa Santo Domingo. Natalie and I picked a coconut off a tree on the hostel property, and the owner cut it open for us with a machete. We drank right from the nut. An orange nut. It comes in green and orange. Funny, even the flies here dno´t bother me, and I´m normally extremely bug phobic. Even more funny is the fact that Natalie seem to be the Canadian versoni of me, down to our odd sense of humor and best friends named Ken. Santo Domingo is one of those places that´s great with the right peole, and just isolated enough to eb lonely if you´re alone. Lucky for me and Natalie, we´re each others perfect company. Flies and all.

Isla de Ometepe

The hike up Volcan Maderas today nearly killed me. Quite literally. I was genuinely concerned I might have a heart attack on the mountain, and only the fact that a physician was in my hiking group comforted me. Between the humidity of the air and the steep upward rise of the trail, my lungs were struggling, my vision was wavering, and my heart was on its last legs. We hiked up the equivalent of a creek bed towards the lake in the crater of Volcan Maderas. We paused at the halfway point to take in the view, and I seriously considered turning back. Me, who hiked the Grand Canyon with no problem at all. Our guide barely broke a sweat and didn´t even take a sip of water. The guide bringing up the rear was nice enough to lag behind with me when I slowed down, and tried to make small talk, asking me about life in the U.S. It was all I could to do gasp out a "No puedo hablar ahora. Lo siento." (I cannot speak right now, I´m sorry). I grew a habit of grabbing onto every tree beside the trail to lend me a hand up. I must´ve touched every single tree on that mountain, as well as collected every single molecule of mud on the seat of my pants. The rest of my group struggled up as well. The lake at the top though, was beautiful. We swam in it, despite nagging suspicions about the hygienic quality of it. The mud on the bottom was so thick I sank in up to my knees immediately. I wonder what makes up the sediment at the bottom of a crater lake. The clincher on the day from hell happened when I saw the rope we had to use to get out of the crater. Apparently, slipping and sliding our way down was quite alright, but climbing back up the rock face is a different story. I couldn´t even climb a rope in gym class in high school, so I clung as best as I could while the birds screeched and the guides called out to me in too-fast-Spanish where to put my next toehold.

The trail, summarized, consisted of 1 twisted ankle, lots of mud on my shoes and clothes, scrapes on my hands and legs, and one bared ass to the cloud forest (I had to take a bathroom break halfway through and had no choice but to drop my pants while the howler monkeys looked on).

I have never before been so happy to see Finca Magdalena. Getting to Finca Magdalena itself was a hike. After taking the bus from San Jose (Costa Rica) to Rivas (Nicaragua), I had to take a taxi to the shore, a ferry to the Isla de Ometepe, and then a bus ride over pot hole roads to Balgue, where I was dropped off with my backpack on the side of the road. The Finca is another 2 km along a dirt trail, but it is absolutely beautiful. Even despite its creepy crawly bathroom. I sleep in a room with a mosquitoe net and the food is comida tipica (typical food). Having a good time so far. But I´m not looking forward to the muscle aches tomorrow.

Mental NoteÑ Avoid all individuals under the age of 23

I made the mistake of reserving a night in a hostel filled with kids. I gave up trying to sleep at 3:30 AM when the music was still pounding and the drunk girl in the bunk underneath me started making out with someone else. Complete with lip smacking noises. She cried when he had to catch his shuttle to the airport for his flight. Half an hour when I was packing, I found the scrap of paper that he'd written his email on. She left it behind when she herself left to catch a bus. Ah, young love.

Today: hopefully find space on a bus to Nicaragua. hopefully get a good night's sleep tonight.

Arrived physically intact. Not so much mentally.

Quick summary before I keel over in grief.

Flight to Miami couldn't land due to weather. Ran out of fuel, had to detour to W. Palm Beach to refuel. Flight to Costa Rica delayed 4 hours. Finally landed. No single rooms available in hostel. Am living in cramped quarters with 4 girls who I haven't met yet, though I've made good acquaintance with their backpacks as I spent quite a bit of time in the room trying to figure out my money situation (Costa Rican money is colones).

Hopefully getting on bus to Nicaragua tomorrow for 10 hour ride to Lago de Nicaragua. Not sure if I'll be able to get a ticket as you're supposed to book 1 day in advance.

Browsing the web here is strange. Instead of 'create post' on blogger, it says 'crear'. And 'editar entradas' for 'edit posts'. The keyboard is also odd, and I can't for the life of me find the double quotation marks, so I'll have to do without them for a month. A shame really since I do love quoting people. I think I'm going to be a pooper and turn in for the night. Exhausted. And have 5 am bus to catch tomorrow.

Anchor her up, Matey!

My parents left this morning at 4 am for their own flight to Hawaii. Mine doesn't leave until noon. I wandered downstairs and realized with a shock that the kitchen table was empty. Though I often roll my eyes and sigh at my doting mother, who leaves me little "have a good day!" notes inside my lunch bag... even at my ripe old age of 24, NOT having the goodbye note on the kitchen table felt jarring somehow.

This morning was all about absence of things. And how the absence itself can sometimes be a palpable presence.

I felt that presence all too keenly. I was feeling petulant that my parents hadn't left me a goodbye note. No guy has ever left me in the middle of the night, so for that, perhaps I should be thankful. But I imagine this is what it must feel like. The sudden surprise of being alone. The search for a goodbye note. And the lack of results. I thought about the weekend as I showered, and about my dad's newfound sense of mortality. A family friend, Mr. Gao, had passed away about a week ago, prompting my dad to have talks with me about him and mom's impending age. I scoffed at him. He's 54 years young! He has nothing to worry about! He told me I didn't understand. And he was right, I didn't really understand. He's my dad. He can fix anything that goes wrong in the world. Anything. In the shower, I started to idly wonder, what would it really be like if my dad was to pull a Mr. Gao? We'd have to divvy up the assets of course, I reasoned. My brother and I could probably share the house. I'd be living in it and showering in an empty house... like I am now... Then the significance of it set in. Who would take care of my dad's garden? And his roses? The only thing I'm good for is pulling up plants. I can't keep them alive very well. Hot tears sprang up immediately. My dad's garden... That's what he would leave behind if he was to suddenly go. And I wouldn't even be able to take care of it for him. There'd be no mom and dad. No mom and dad. The enormity of that began to hit me, and I started to feel very small and very alone as I dried myself off from the shower. Sometimes I'm a little too good at playing pretend.

I don't think I give my parents enough credit. Even despite the fact that we fight constantly, and I always claim I'm trying to get away so I can be independent, they are the pillars that hold my life up. After all, I've never known life without them. I felt strangely adrift and lost. I think our parents are our anchors in the sea of life. And I suddenly wished that I would go before both my parents. So I wouldn't have to know life without them. Because even though I'm my father's daughter, I'm also mother's daughter. And it could be a toss-up between my inheriting the Zen personality or the emotional personality, with the odds favoring the latter.

As I wandered around the empty house, I knew my parents were likely safe on a flight to Hawaii. Hopefully safe (I did inhert my dad's sense of Worst Case Scenario coupled with my mom's worrisome nature). But I still couldn't shake that sense of being lost and adrift. All because of the lack of a note that I usually make fun of my mom for. Who's laughing now. Certainly not me.

As I packed up my backpack, I decided that no one should ever be allowed to leave without leaving a note of some sort. A proper goodbye is only polite after all. What if the plane was to crash? Wouldn't they wish they had said goodbye? I was going to have a nice talk with my parents about this when they got back. Then my laptop beeped at me. I had mail. I loaded up my gmail thinking it was a friend wishing me farewell, and instead, blinking at me was an email from.... my mom. I started to laugh. My mom never uses the computer. The only website she knows how to access is Oprah.com. I set up a yahoo account for her last week and taught her how to use it, and apparently, it had stuck!

"Hi sweetheart." It said. I bristled a bit out of habit. I'm no one's sweetheart! I'm not even sweet! But, I was proud of her. "Have a wonderful trip," it continued, "Enjoy, and be careful. Love you, always."

I felt much better. Now I can pack up and go with peace in my heart. I hate to admit it, but maybe I'm a bit of a mush. Maybe I'll leave my mom a little farewell email myself, so she can have something in her inbox when she gets back.