New blog location

I wasn't 100% happy with Blogger and wanted to try a different route.  My new updates can be found at www.travelbyfoote.com

Planting Feete

"You're a little young to understand, but it's not always about the money."  This is what one of my new co-workers told me tonight.  The job: Italian restaurant, great food, dirty, alcoholic-workaholic owner who is extremely non-threatening when he rages and flips over a plastic table in the fake grass courtyard.  The business is STRUGGLING and has been for the entire year and a half of it's existence.  I know I can make good money waiting tables and really good money behind the bar somewhere.  I use this information as leverage when my boss (impressed because I do work without being told) asks how much I need to make to stay.   I tell him an offer I can't refuse, which is based on a good server's wage. 40 hours a week, $15/hr.  The head chef makes $13/hr.   I think it's funny because I'm just some punk kid that's been working here for 2 1/2 days.  The boss is squirming (I am actually starting to like the guy) but I know it's too late to back down.  It's also logic too so simple to ignore.  I tell him, "Either I make $15/hr working hard in a kitchen w/ a bunch of dudes or make $15/hr with a bunch of cute local chicks and hot tourists.  I came to Key West to move a boat.  The boat is far from being ready.   Now I want to make money and get laid."  (This isn't exactly the sole focus of my existence, but it's an easier and stronger point with which to argue.)  He keeps saying we'll work it out, but mathematically, it's unreasonable.  He can hire someone for a third of the price, but good help is hard to find.  I would be OK w/ $500/week, but if I told him this I'd go home w/ $350.  There's something about this place though.  I get really good food whenever I want.  Most people drink on the job, but I don't think it's a smart thing to make a habit of.  I work in all positions (the Craigslist ad I responded to was for a jack-of-all-trades position): delivery, pizza cook, dishwasher, saute cook, server, even behind the bar.  My schedule is whatever I want and I feel confident I could take off for 2 weeks to travel whenever I want.  So there are some definite perks.  Everyone is really cool including the animated yankee boss with his shenanigans.  There is also the curious fact that 5 very well abled adults (retired surgeon, chef, D.O. of the busiest Panera Bread in the country, some cool surfer looking dude I don't even know about yet, and the business owner) have faith in this place.  Makes me wonder.

The surgeon sees value in me and lends me his rental car on day 1 for the entire night to run deliveries and refuses to let me pay for gas.  I have an interview tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday with three different restaurants.  I've turned down 2 jobs already, have 2 days next week on a delivery company's schedule, and another 25 or 30 applications being shuffled through HR spiderwebs all over the island.  The coolness of Key West will be another post.  I'm not making any predictions.  My next big focus is to enjoy life down here.  This brings me back to the restaurant.  Will I be more entertained at a normal restaurant, making pretty good money, easily, and meeting others doing the same or, take the challenge against odds and logic for the chance to build something.  When I'm grey and wrinkly, which will mean more?  Penstroke of genius: do both.  20-25 hrs at each place.  This may be the answer.  I believe you can have cake stockpiled while simultaneously gorging yourself on the same kind of cake.    hmmm......



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 Had a weird dream about my dad interrogating me about a low bank account.  This is an unrealistic dream because I haven't lived at home in 8 years and he respects my ability to make life choices.  But the emotions felt so intense, like a big rock sitting on my chest.  In the dream, I started asking myself how much money did I have?  How much do I have now?  Did I spend it all on drugs? (which is strange because I think the last time I bought a bag of weed was sophomore year in college)  Is my daily travel budget out of control? (we were in some foreign place with colors and physics that aren't of the U.S.)  And I woke up feeling terrible.

This has been the downstroke of my new roller-coaster emotion set since I've been back in the States.  There was about a 6 hour transition when I left Central America.  I went through a very thorough security checkpoint in San Salvador, flew for 4 hours, and after a 45 minute line in customs, was talking to a guy who was born and grew up in Nicaragua.  Sitting on the bench I began to notice the post-transition changes that had occured in my surrounding, like a thin, grey mist settling in a forest.

On the bus I felt it necessary to put blinders on, careful not to get caught in an eye contact fencing match.  While in Panama and Nicaragua I found it strange that people always looked away after I noticed them studying me.

Am I intimidated by people near the place I grew up in?  Am I triggering adolescent insecure memories?  Or is there something in the American air?  (I stopped differentiating between 'the States' and the American nations after enough canadians, and South Americans told me: everyone knows the U.S. as 'America')

I had just ended 3 1/2 months of total lack of ambition (from an American perspective) by laying around all day in hammocks.  What I really did was a bit more.  I stayed in shape, worked on photography, music, writing, worked enough to survive, read books, studied Spanish very aggressively, and attempted to unpuzzle the international social network.  I stayed busy and my ambition was free to grow in any direction.  Nobody cares what you do in Central America as long as you don't try to borrow money or get caught stealing.  Getting by is an admirable trait.

Back at home, 'just getting by' is frowned upon.  You gotta make it big or you wasted your life.  It's rare to find someone who doesn't use this philosophical pressure on me.  It's normally very subtle, but it's there.  Some folks have no idea what I'm talking about.  It took me only 2 days in Key West before I was out looking for a job.  And then a second job.  Now I feel guilty because I have to tell the third job that I can't fit it into my schedule.  In the last 3 weeks, I've had 2 days off.  I want to fix the boat I'm on to sell it, but just bought another 30' sailboat to do the same.

Today I finished my 2 weeks notice at the first job, not because they paid me well and treated me fairly (they did neither) but because I felt guilty.  I nearly break my back carrying unnecessarily dense work loads to appease people who really don't care if I show up.

The thing that intrigues me, is I don't carry this mindset when I'm traveling (I did, however paint myself into a corner at The Bearded Monkey by working 30 hrs/wk at breakfast and 30 hrs/wk behind the desk for a while.)

I had an older Russian traveler named Felix, tell me I need to have a focus and goal to move toward.  In fact I have several, but none of which are typical in a productive member of society.  A loose deduction I've ascertained is the similarity between post and current global superpowers.  Japan, Russia, and the U.S. share 3 similar traits: Isolationism, propagandising, and work-aholicism.  I could not find an English speaking person on the street in Russia or Japan.  (Germany has the same traits, but they generally speak English.)  The other 30 countries I've been in, no problem.  Japan and Russia don't learn English because they don't need to.  They're self-sufficient.  I went to a war museum in Tokyo that painted the Japanese to be the victim and savior in ever single skirmish.  Sound familiar?  Japanese and Russians are known for drinking and partying after work.  If anyone works more than Americans, it's the Japanese.  After work at 8PM, it's two hrs of heaving drinking and karaoke and then passed out businessmen on subways.

When I'm travelling I can dissect advice because I don't rely on it.  Felix lectured me, I could easily see, at 50+ yrs, he still did not have it all together.

Back then I had all the answers.  Now I depend on advice from locals to improve my life in KW.  This is the dependent state of guilt inherent in developed countries.  Now I'm gonna get a run and shower in before work.  My advice: make room in your schedule to have time for yourself.  But, the best advice I've ever heard: be wary of bad advice.



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I noticed a happy waitress last night at World of Beer in Key West.  Mario and I were coming up with reasons why she might be so vibrantly elated.

The setting is not important but her appearance is for my argument.  Dark, dark, tangled, long, nappy, warm hair, close but not quite to the point of dreading.  Silver nose ring, thin enough to be invisible for the first 20 seconds of conversation.  Mid-forearm leather wrist wrap with 3 or 4 silver bars in line with her radial bone.  Many more rings and bracelets.  Short shorts, lnog green and black striped socks.

I believe ther's a strong correlation between self-customization and contentment.  It's not difficult to qualify a follower and the same goes for someone who leads themselves.  For the last 3 weeks, tens of thousands of spring breakers celebrated their week of independence from tyrannical expectation. Most bought freedom costumes from t-shirt shops like the one Steve worked at.

This is the transparent facade I am referring to.  Under the neon fabric and appalingly vulgar designs are conditioned souls not sure what to do with their limited limitless freedom.  Clusters of early college students shuffle around daquiri bars and along the sidewalks of Duval St. generating random outbursts and checking to see if their friends are entertained.  Checking for approval.  Checking for permission to go further or stop the joke.  Wondering if it's ok to act on one's own impulses.  And each group has an alpha and/or zeta who decorates themselves for no other reason but to satisfy the mirror.

The waitress decoratres herself to her own satisfaction.  This is the only aspect I could inpsect through visual obersation, but I bet she adjusts other viriables in her life to her own pleasing.  She lives the way she wants, for herself.  She's free.  Freedom is what Jefferson and I believe is one thing that causes happiness.



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One of my neighbors asked me, "You're not one of those people that writes a blog are you?"  I said, "Yea, sometimes I do."  I started questioning my motive.  Tennessee Williams summed it up pretty well:

"Keeping a journal is a lonely man's habit, it betrays the vices of introspection and social withdrawal, even a kind of Narcissism ... It has certain things to recommend it, it keeps a recorded continuity between his past and present selves, it gives him the comforting reassurance that shocks, defeats, disappointments are all snowed under by the pages and pages of new experience that still keep flaking down over him as be continues through time, and promises that this comforting snowfall of obliteration will go right on as long as be himself keeps going."

I write this blog to help being honest and because it makes me feel good.  Information storage and organization is a bonus.

Granada to San Salvador to KW

Volcano Boarding

$30 to ride this ride.  Breakfast, water, transportation, gear included.  40 minute ride on the back of a Harley Compatible.  After 5 minutes we are out of downtown Leon.  The dude tells me he did motocross for 5 years in Panama City, I suppose to reassure me as we slip and slide through the 3 inch deep sand, dodging softball sized rocks at ? mph.  I tell him his resale will be good since the odometer has 00000.1 miles logged.  He laughs and holds up the unplugged cable leading to the specs.

You know you are in the country when a quick return wave sends a child squealing with delight.  My helmet does a switchback to process the size of the 15th male bovine we maneuver around.  True longhorn.  It´s fun chasing pigs for a change.  They try so hard to haul ass but move like really out of shape dogs or a classic, spastic Chris Farley (rest in peace) outburst.  Their quickly jiggling legs seem unconnected to the loose earth.

   ---Just had a thought: If you keep doing something you enjoy, eventually you will be paid for it.  Not sure if it´s a law of nature, but certainly a possibility.---

I periodically question the driver´s skill, the use of my classic thinking in terms of incentives keeps me relaxed.  He doesn´t want to ruin his livelihood.   He´s been doing this for a while and has no visible scars.  I decide I am just a sissy when it comes to bikes, analogous to past situations where I drove a 4-wheeler and a rookie was on the back trying to control involuntary sounds of terror as we fishtail around trees and boulders.

I travel from the present situation to the tune of Blueberry Wine performed by Rodney Crowell and revisit the old/new idea/fact that I can always make more money.  This hypothetical option is used to counteract anxious feelings looming over the inevitable relationship between me and  my bank account.  In addition to this fact, I have become increasingly aware since the age of 8 that I will not have the ability to transfer any of my net worth to my next manifestation of energy/matter.  Merging these two philosophies: after this state of living is finished, some of the elements bonded in molecules forming my cells will eventually find themselves rearranged and combined with others in a plant, which, if time never ends, is a statistical certainty to make its way into another inhabitant of the universe who´s livelihood is commerce based, part of me will again be able to make more money.

Giving up on worry, I focus instead on soaking in the farm-footed hills of balsa colored sugarcane alongside the endless sand road.  The road ends.  We get off the bike and I carry the board up the steep crumbly volcanic rock trail.  30 minutes of shoe slipping and stiff breezes brings us to the summit of an active volcano.  It last blew in 1999.  No damage, just some lava next to her and a little ash in the progressive university city of Leon.  Sulfur smokes in the crater with vibrant yellow-green-orange walls.  Scooting charcoal earth-ash with my foot reveals pitch black, steaming moist gravel.  It´s hot enough to toast bread.  This is a 1/2 inch below the ground we´re walking on.  

From the peak, I see 6 other smoldering volcanos, the broken glass in the grass that is Leon, 15 miles away, and the Pacific yellow icing, some 30 miles away.

I put on the denim HAZMAT jumpsuit and sit on the toboggan, which is 3/8 inch plywood with 3 - 2"x2"x20" segments -one for my asiento, one for my feet, and one for the PAC-MAN profiled PVC pipe rounded front.

The hill slants like a roof you don´t want to try walking on for about two hundred yards, during which I meekly try convincing myself that I can avoid veering off, catching an edge, and doing cartwheels with my head and ass.  After this duration, I am provided the luxury of relief, because the hill suddenly drops off at an angle of Holy-Shit!°.  Now I don´t have to worry about control because I am moving too fast to think.  I give an authentic yell of terror and glee while the front of board starts dancing and levitating the way an innertube does when being slung into a shrinking circle behind a well-powered speedboat.  Yelling = opening your mouth = catching volcanic ash in your (up to 54mph) mouth.  "Cerro Negro attracts extreme-sports athletes. In 2002, Frenchman Eric Barone set the land-speed record on a bicycle here. He reached 107 miles per hour before he crashed and broke five ribs." - copyrighted from http://www.theworld.org/2011/12/volcano-boarding-in-nicaragua/

Approximately 45 seconds after the onset, I reach the bottom and round up to a halt.  Breathing resumes.

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3 small bags of chips, box of strawberry milk, can of apple juice,  brick of bread with icing, half brick of chocolate bread.  48C$ is just under $2.00 - I will miss this.

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Jinotega

As Femi would say, I´m such a juicebag.  Explanation to come.

People in Leon ask, ¨Why do you want to go to Jinotega??  There´s nothing there!¨  Common response from a typical city person around the globe when confronted with inquiry of a small town.  The only consistent separation between people around the world is of those who live in small towns from those in cities.  I have argued this point with someone who has not spent much time in the country.  They can switch sides, but it´s rare.  My old roommates in NYC believe the only thing worth seeing between them and LA is Chicago.

The reason I am a juicebag today is due to my tendency to slant my views based on incoming information.  Human condition must be fought constantly.  I start to believe there was nothing to see in rural Nicaragua. My forecast canvas has some farm animals and a lean-to.  Well, they have a medevac helicopter.  They´ve got the same phosphorus flat screen computer desktops I used at GA Tech.  They´ve got swagger and pizza trucks.  There´s a couple of 50-inch flat panel tv´s back to back, dividing the room of late teenagers playing COD Black Ops II.  It´s just on a smaller scale because less people travel through.  Jinotega is a remote mountain town as charming as they come with old cowboys, bright flowers, warm sun, and crisp breezes.  Great place.  I even got my dreads dyed the color I´ve been talking about since 4th grade.  Finnegan remembers.

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Just as a sociopath cannot detect another´s disdain, Central Americans are immune to loud sounds at any hour.  In the middle of the night, movie, dinner, or even church, some child or adult will blare the radio, blow with durative ferocity into a whistle or just talk with an outside voice about non-related issues and nobody seems affected.  It is an over-sized safety pin securely buried in the top of my brain.  This is one thing I will not miss about C.A.

In an attempt to enjoy a situation that I can´t easily control, I record this.  It´s Wednesday around 9:30PM and I want to go to sleep because I´m getting up at 4AM for the bus to Honduras.  This is what I currently hear in my hotel room: Music that sounds like a rural scene in The Godfather, volume is that of a laptop on full blast down the hall.  Sounds like someone is trying to write their name in the steel siding of an airplane hanger by bashing it with the back of a hammer.  A dog with a terrible bark (sounds like a cartoon saying ¨Snarf!¨= has been going off for most of the day and night with precision intervals of 4 seconds.   Dirt bike after dirt bike after dirt bike after dirt bike roar past my window occasionally loud enough to set off car alarms on the street.  Hotel employees are having a party downstairs, a teenager is yelling ¨Mama¨ repeatedly in the street, the bass of a passing car is making my roof rattle (concrete walls are great insulators of sound, but if the roof is thin tin, you are now inside of a giant speaker which amplifies each and every sound for a half mile radius), more dogs, dirtbikes, someone sneezed or quickly turned into The Hulk, my neighbor occasionally slams an iron fence gate in the room next door (the door is wooden, so I´m confused), and I think a cross  between a helicotor and tank just passed by.  If you go to Nicaragua, bring some sort of ear plugs and get blackout drunk on the nights you want to sleep.

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A Bit of Luxury

The towel at the edge of my bed is warm to sit on after my shower (that´s right, this place has running water!) and it´s a double.  Paint on the walls, two rebar shower curtain rods, a mirror above my own sink, oscillating fan, and let´s not forget 12 inches of electrical entertainment (don't be lewd, I´m talking about a TV) The windows are even opaque and close like venitian blinds.  All of this comfort and coziness for an easy $8 a night.  I´m on the border town of Ocotal after a long day of mountain traveling.  When I say long day I mean my spider senses woke up at 5:15AM (security guard missed my wake-up call), barely caught the bus from Jinotega to Selvaco, waited in direct sunlight for an hour and a half for a bus that wouldn´t let me on, walked back to the local market, 2 hrs back to Managua, 5 hrs to Ocotal, cab rides and walking, and got to my hotel around 7:30PM.  Shower, dinner, movie, sleep.

8:00AM banana for breakfast, shave, another banana, bus to the border, meet two chicks from the States that give me a banana they are going to throw away so it doesn't get crushed in their bag, really nice bus for $4.50 to the capitol of Tegucigalpa on which I write this and eat another banana.  Tegucigalpa is the movie fitting, Latin American, 3rd world megalopolis.  Shacks embedded into steep, dusty tan hillsides dissappearing into infinity.  Think Brooklyn´s vastness of tool sheds built 300 years ago on the asteroid from Armageddon.  I´ve developed a habit of evading the onslaught of taxi drivers at bus stations and searching for a cup of coffee to plan the next move.  I find a gas station comparable to the nicest ones found in the States.  There are extreme changes in scenery through the city.  Rural Honduras that I see looks like a future scene from Terminator with more trash on the ground.

The "playa" I was looking for in San Lorenzo, had only tall pilings under expensive, waterfront restaurants and hotels.  No sandy beaches to camp on.  After some games of pool with locals, I wander around and meet a backpacker couple from the States.  We ask a local where the bus is to leave the disappointing town.  Henry, a Honduran who managed to get his U.S. citizenship, work 6 months on, 6 off, and live like a king back home, is stoked that we are from the U.S.  We play music at his house and are treated to way more beer than we could drink, and I sleep in the hammock on the back porch. In the morning, I make my way across the country and the Salvadorian border.  Around dark I arrived at San Salvador.  Every single Honduran I met (about 30) were really nice, great people.  The Caribbean side is supposed to be the place.

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The Most Dangerous City In The World!!! (not since 1992)

The museum was alright.  Some dude with really sweet hair and luminescant eyes (even in a grayscale photo) wrote the first literature on the genocide and revolutionary period in El Salvador.  He also had some powerful captivity of emotion in his paintings comparable to ¨The Scream.¨  He even made his own globe of his own world, which made me wonder why I haven´t the same.

My neighborhood, (in fact the whole city compared to where I´ve been in C.A.) feels like Asakusa, Tokyo.  This is only a relative, not absolute comparison.  There are still guys with shotguns on every corner to protect residents from gangs.

I dig the city.  It´s the right mix of danger, latin, and western culture.  Pupusa is a cheap snack, cornmeal pancakes filled with cheese, beans, and whatever else you want, for $0.25 (they are dollarized).  Mr. Donut is everywhere!  Another reminder of Japan.  Nice malls are a welcome change from tiendas, pulperias, and mercados.  The city is much quieter than any other I´ve been to in Central America.  Tall hills and a volcano surround it.  I didn´t visit the nearby Pacific, arguably the best surf in C. A.   Next time.  I felt in the first hour that I could live here for 6 months.

My flight is Feb. 19 at 2:05AM.  Spirit Air is cheap ($92) but they get you on the extras.  To avoid a $100 fee for checking my $77 guitar I sell it for $30 to the sweet Salvadorian girl that works at the hostel.  11:30PM.  Taxi, plane, shuttle, train, bus, bus, another bus, and walked into the T-shirt shop with $10.55 left, 6:00PM.  I am in Key West to get the Silent Runner ready to go to St. Thomas or where ever.

Leaving Granada

Right now I have to write.  It´s one of those restless moods (maybe becaue I only slept a few hours ) in which I can´t decide which of the 22 ¨immediately necessary¨ tasks I will undertake.  I want to book a night-tour of Mombacho Volcano before it leaves in 3 hours.  Before that is grocery shopping, lunch, exercise, a nap, reading (definitely putting this one off), and many more seemingly important options.  The nap is by far the most important, but here I am writing.  I just saw a shadow of an opportunity to capture the essence of this not-so-rare mood.

It is very annoying when a person (currently myself) walks around aimlessly, making pointless shoot-the-breeze conversation with anyone who will remain in earshot.  I will not try to target which facet of human condition is responsible.  The only curiosity is whether a unique reader will be perplexed because he/she  is immune or can control this temporary disposition.  Writing proves helpful as I just let out a ¨Granada sigh.¨  

Let´s see what is actually on the critical path.  Buying food for tomorrow and small padlocks will make me money.  After clean up and pushups, I can walk to the mercado and grocery story, cut back through tourist central to book the tour, and make it back for a 1-hour nap.  All else will have to wait.  For now, I must FOCUS.

(I did not book the tour.  After another hour of procrastination, I did the logical thing - laid in a hammock and studied the bamboo roof insulation.)

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The beer is always ice cold.  I cannot stress this enough.  Sometimes I have to give back the bottle because there is ice preventing the flow.  Never have I seen a culture, country, or even a bar outside of Nicaragua with beer consistently this cold.  (One gig I played in Atlanta had ice on the base of the taps, but for cans and bottles --especially for an energy $$ conscious society (they turn the fridges off at night)-- no one has come close.  I will miss this.

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Just read a quote: ¨If you stay in Nicaragua for one day, you´ll never come back.  If you stay for a week, you´ll never leave.¨

So true.  It isn´t just Nicaragua, though.  The human condition includes some instinct to ground itself and develope it´s empire.  One person will wander (through jungle or civilization) until resources are discovered (emotional, nutritional, sexual, habitational) and then it wishes to stay.  The urge to stay grows until enough time has passed and other tasks diminish in importance.  Then the person´s primary goal is to strive for comfort.  And then more comfort. Learning new information about the outside world is eclipsed by solving internal problems.  

This is an observation, not a judgement.  If I can internalize the admittance of differential behaviorial influences, it will not seem so crazy when a person is a homebody or vegabond.  As I´ve said many times (the idea originally proposed by my brother), ¨people act rationally¨.  The human mind works the same in 99% of the population and given the same information, we would all make the same decision.  But no two people have the same information.  To say you know best of anyone with an adult mind besides yourself is immoral.  Using control to ¨help¨ someone to create a ¨better¨ life for themselves is the biggest scam in the history of false philanthropy and is one of the purest forms of evil I´ve encountered.

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My very limited knowledge of Nicaraguan history is growing and I am wowed by it.  Just take a few minutes and read a little about Giocondi Belli, William Walker, Sandinistas, or wiki the Nicaraguan Revolution. If you can take the time to put yourself in the moment about whence the literature was written, you will also say, ¨Whoa.¨

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An email to my brother:

dude, I really do not want to be in a hurry.  I am going to leave this hostel soon and make my way to El Salvador, but I am not 100% sure I will take that flight at this moment.  It is only $100.

I dont think we should rely on eachother to make plans either.  Dependence leads to compromise which leads to discomfort, etc.  

The boat trip is kind of a big commitment.  Which way are you planning on going, Mexico or islands?  

It sounds like you still gotta work out some stuff internally, but thats just a far-off observation with very limited information.  Maybe Asia would still be a good option.  Didn't you already buy a ticket?  Let me know what you think.  I just know from doing both that backpacking is far simpler and gives you many, many times more freedom to explore yourself.  

I'm not saying I'm in or out yet, but I feel like I acted hastily when I bought that ticket.  I gotta make sure I do it for me, otherwise we'll both be uncomfortable.  Is there anyone else going?  Let me know when you need a definite answer, if that time has not already passed.

I'm gonna get a tattoo on my other foot that says in Spanish, ''Patience is the key to paradise''  That's what I learned here.  So one says Hurry Up and the other says Slow Down

Hit me back, hermano.

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It looks, at this juncture, that I am taking the flight from San Salvador to Miami to join on the boat trip to St. Thomas.  As we all know, I am really bad at turning down opportunities.  Like the messages of Big A´s senior quote (which was butchered in that horrible yearbook, which I think I was a part of) and my current mentor, Todd´s next tattoo: People are not remembered for what they didn´t do.

All I know is I am going north in a couple of days.  How far is mostly up to the universe and all her crazy happenings.  My favorite movie character of all time, Doc Holliday, said, ¨There's no normal life, Wyatt, it's just life. Get on with it.¨

Life for me in Granada

Anything can be had, simply by wanting it.  When more than one being want the same thing, it goes to the one that wants it most.

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The ant-head sized black pepper looks larger than usual on the potatoes.  They are cubed to the size of Travel Yatze dice.  Still glistening from the hot oil, the color is not too white, not too brown.  Not a crunch but not a mush either -more of a subtle resistance to my enamelic demand.  No hint of salt, although much was used in cooking.

The bread is a little on the dark side.  Pre and post butter proves crucial.  The freshly cut bakery creation disappears too quickly to be thoroughly documented.

The fluffy, folded egg doesn’t need to be spiced; the insides carry the flavor like a good vodka cocktail.  Hot Mexican sausage slipping through creamy cheese accompanied by chopped bell peppers, jalepenos, onion, garlic, and salted tomato cubes.  Himalayan pink salt and crushed peppercorn are hidden along with the cumin and basil.  Or maybe I am just too hungry to notice.  It’s our loaded omelette and it’s tasty.

The restaurant is just for fun.  That’s all it really can be, because it doesn’t bring in enough cash to be a good investment.  Just enough to keep my belly full and give me plenty of practice cooking.  I enjoy it.  The designated food cost used by most restaurants is 35%.  Our food cost is more like 65%, but the only overhead is a 10% commission to the hostel manager, and because it’s easy to live on $5/day in Nicaragua, we keep cooking.

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Bad Day Bias (The drawer came up short 1800 Cordobas when I was working last night, I couldn´t prove who stole it, and I take responsibility for my mistakes)

The culture really takes life day by day, and I believe one reason is the weather.  With no natural predators and no seasonal natural disasters (they don’t get hit by hurricanes, which only leaves volcanoes and earthquakes), the next necessary cause for planning would be inclement weather.  The only seasons here are wet and dry.  Buy an umbrella.  Done.  A long time ago some Scandinavians said, “I really don’t want to lose half of my family again next winter, let’s prepare a little.”  Today they have pretty much the highest standard of living.  Maybe the constant loom of a random volcanic eruption feeds into the Nica’s “what’s the point” attitude.

In Nicaragua, people are lazy because they can be.  There are no reprocussions except to continue their seemingly comfortable existence.  This laziness feeds into their general lack of morals.  If someone can grab a smart phone and put it in their pocket, then they actually believe it belongs to them.  If a smart phone is chained to the ground, and they can cut the chain and put it in their pocket, it’s their smart phone and chain.  The funny thing is how it is so nonchalantly accepted in their society.  Here are some everyday examples of being laid back to a fault:

- Two guys were hired to do work on the bathrooms throughout the night, when the toilets are not being used much.  Instead of getting started, they hang out in the lobby drinking and watching YouTube videos for the next 8 hours.  Around 7am, when people start waking up, they remember why they came to the hostel and hurry to work on the bathrooms.  The workers occupy 4 of the 5 stalls for the next 2 hours, while the 40+ travelers start their day.

- A wild 9 or 10 year old in the audience at a baseball game is running amuck, throwing food, kicking strangers, fighting with other kids, and just being an eyesore, but I guess only to me.  The security guard standing next to the boy doesn’t even notice.

- Kids are playing tag and hiding under shelves at the grocery store.  No one seems bothered.

- One of the employees at The Bearded Monkey has a box with trash on top.  My boss asks her what’s inside.  She says, “Trash.”  My boss lifts the trash and there are 4 new rolls of toilet paper underneath.  She does nothing.  This is actually reasonable, because firing an employee for any reason means you will get sued by the ex-employee.  Everytime she gets rid of one of her thieves (a quick look at the books will show they steal twice their wage nightly), she goes to court and spends hundreds of dollars, which here is quite a bit.

There are some wild attempts to use the judicial system to enforce anti-laziness.  I’m not sure how the Nica’s managed to leapfrog us on ass-backwards policies, but check out this 1984 parallel.  My boss has a dog on her back porch.  She is at work a lot and the dog can’t always go out to drop a deuce.  There is a Department of Heath official that goes into her backyard, peeks through her window, and writes her a ticket for her unclean back porch.  This is the same neighborhood where houses are made of fence posts, chicken wire, and whatever scrap wood was laying around.

The people seem beaten and down.  I noticed this throughout Central America by the lack of eye contact.  It is a little depressing and the only conclusion I can derive is that “rich” tourists have been showing them how “poor” they are for the last few decades. 

If this information seems scattered and hard to follow, it means I have succumb to the random, grabasstic, moving-target ways of the Nicas.  There are no systems.  There are no schedules.   As I write this, I don’t know if I have to go to work in an hour and a half.  I’ll find out in an hour and a half.  Everyday the policies of the hostel change, along with the prices.  The mood of the manager dictates the level of service given to her customers.  I have seen this all over town.  At the ticket booth for a ferry, the clerk looked at me and pointed to her sandwich.  I stood in front of the wndow, waited no less than 5 minutes for her to set her clean plate aside and say, “Hola!”  It is funny, ridiculous, exhausting, and sad.

My mind races looking for the answer to the question, “Where is the incentive for these people to change their ways?”  Another question: why should they?  They´re the ones laughing and smiling all the time.

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A Good (typical) Day

Knock, knock, knock, knock.  Eyes open, cover up with my sheet.  Teal; there is no color coordination in Nicaragua, which keeps your eyes pleasantly busy.  The door is forced open from its wedged position.  The night watchman tells me in Spanish that a guest ordered breakfast and hands me a ticket.  My voice cracks and the frog in my throat is made of sand.  ¿Que hora es?  ¨8:30,¨ he replies and walks out.  The restaurant opens at 8:00, but last night was a good one and the watch I bought last week for an alarm keeps resetting to midnight.  

Burrito.  I go take a long leak first, wash up, and turn on the light in the kitchen/my bedroom.  I tri-fold my mattress and slide it under the pancake table.  One burner on low for the wrap.  One on high for the filling.  Sausage and potatoes sizzle for a minute.  A handful of chopped green peppers, onions, and garlic are added and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and cumin.  Some oil helps cook it evenly.  I grab a plate out of the unplugged refrigerator (our dry storage) and prep cheese.  The peppers start melting, tomato chunks are added and spiced (salt breaks down and softens), plus garlic and chili powder.  Refried red beans glue the cooked cubes into a rolling pan shape as I scoot the pan to toss the temporary colloid.  Three eggs and a heavy splash of milk are samurai diced by fork and my twitchy wrist oscillation.  The cheese stats melting as I tuck the corner like a tightly fitted bed sheet.

Orders trickle in.  Chopping veggies and practicing guitar fill in the rest of my waking mind´s limited focus.  510C$ leaves me about 150C$ after groceries and commission.  This is enough for food, but I´m gonna eat cheap so I can better enjoy my birthday.

The only time I put on shoes and socks is to run.  This week I got Montezumo´s revenge and haven´t exercised my heart in a health focused way for 5 days.  My chest cavity feels small as I soak up the mixture of fresh lake breeze and rusty burnt fuel particles.  It´s possible that the grassless neighborhood inhabitants recognize the dreadlocked jogger.  The sun is pushed back by enough clouds so my shorts aren´t soaked when I reach the supermercado.

Temperature change glistens my skin and the metal basket handles slide on my my under forearm as I separate two bags from the roll.  Two tomatoes and a green bell pepper.  Buying two half cartons of eggs is cheaper than a whole one.  You always have to pay attention to price per quantity.  Bobbing and weaving across the shiny white floor, I circle through savory aisles in search of a pouch of refried beans.  The quickness with which my replenishment routine is completed suprises me.  Aloe vera drink and yogurt are my treats.  Including sausage, bread, and cheese, the total comes to 312.33C$.  A hundred cords in my pocket (the treats were 40) after 4 hours of work.  I´ll make another C$50 working the desk for 5 hours.  With a free place in which I like to live, I don´t complain often.

                

The walk home has a perfect record of reminding me why I remain in Granada.  The sky is uniquely clear around the top section of Mombacho today and the overlooking volcano must be saying the same of this town.  Nodding to some elders carrying random straw-woven sacks of common goods on their backs, I hold my plastic bags at my sides and turn the corner.  My favorite bakery is full of transactions.  I decide to grab a snack from the pulperia across from the hostel for lunch.  Tod is cooking me a curry chicken dinner with variables undetermined.  Crossing the street is a 360º observation game.  Granada, and much of Central America that I´ve seen, is about flowing around, over, and through moving obstacles.  A decaying Japanese sedan-turned-taxi breezes past the back of my t-shirt while I wait for the horse pulling a man above the waist-high axels to pass.  On the last left turn, I slip through two opposite moving bikes, one motorized, to get the full view of my favorite building portion in the city.  The feeling of a small sack of gold coins landing on the floor of my stomach is always welcome.  Darkly outlined, rounded, red bricks missing mortar beg the question: will the wall last another 5 minutes or centuries?  Below, the sparsely grassed earth dives swiftly to the river bottom some 35 feet below.  Colorful plastic, paper, and styrofoam give a pleasantly appropriate accent to the scene.  It lets me know I´m in someone else´s homeland though sometimes I want to believe I´m not.

Nicaragua and The Bearded Monkey

San Juan del Sur sits on the Southwestern corner of Nicaragua.  The steep walls of the quarter-mile circular bay nearly close off a cluster of sailboats from the Pacific.  The grid system of narrow paved roads and colorful, aged bed & breakfasts are connected to the bay by 30 yards of sand and smooth, two-foot waves that are as long as the beach.  I have the dumb idea to sell pancaces by the beach somewhere.  I run energetically around town checking prices of propane stoves, and ingredients. Sunset beers every night.  The town is kind of a run-down tourist trap.  Not much soul.  After a few days, we head for Omatepe.

Twin volcanoes in the largest freshwater lake of the Americas after the Great Lakes.  We´ve been traveling too fast, so its 99.9% local population (this is the only place I´ve been, since the Himalayas, without pizza) is sure to chill us out.  We chill.  We hike a volcano.  We chill.  We ride bikes to the beach.  The locals go all out for Inmaculada Concepcion and I feel the wrath of a $1 bottle of rum.  We chill more and talk about pancakes.  Next to my hotel apears a shelf of various propane stoves.  Accross the street, more propane stoves.  (Alright, I get it! I´ll buy one.)  I buy one.  Boat, taxi, bus, Granada.

First Look at a Central American jewel

Five-hundred year-old colonial architecture and every house has an interior courtyard like you used to make on The Sims.  Tile sidewalks and vibrant, randomly colored buildings.  From the bell tower of La Merced Iglesia, you can see palm trees poking through the middle roofs all over the city.  Beautiful city.  We go to a ballgame.  Granada vs. Leon is like Chicago vs. LA for Nicaragua.  We refuse to pay the $1.78 and are the only gringos in the away section, which sets us back $0.85.  Weird ballgame food.  Half cooked potatoes, unchewable cabbage, and ketchup in a big green banana leaf.  Beer is cold and the home team loses 4-1.  Half of the stadium leaves between the 8th and 9th, because it will take seconds, if not minutes, to get out of the parking lot.  Seriously, there might be 200 fans at the game.  Afterwards there is a crowd of Gringos at a local bar.  We play a long game of ¨Oh, you´re buying me a drink?  Well here´s two.¨  I promise two pancake deliveries por la mañana.  At 7:44AM I walk to the Super Mercado for Nutella, PB, mix, eggs (one order is crepes), and chocolate chips.  Next door goes 5 walkin-rolls of various flavors.  Across town I run over a Nutella and a pineapple-coconut crepe.

A guy who is part of the first group, passed out at the second group´s apartment.  He woke up to one of my crepes, winded his way across town back to his hostel and ate one of my pancake wraps.  Comprende?  Weird.  Lesson: if you cook it, they will come.

A Second Chance

A bee landed on my beer at dinner.  I reprimanded him as he tried to fly back up the neck.  Not enough pitch; if I tilt the neck, he will get swamped.  He denies the knife ladder I offer and ends up floating in my beer.  I finish drinking the beer about 15 minutes later, careful not to touch the bee.  I dump him and the last few drops on the table.  He lays there motionless for what seems like seconds.  He twitches his legs.  The drunk finds his feet and tries to dry his wings, but is too intoxicated to fly and stumbles around instead.  I share the miraculous tale with our server, who, in turn, tells other members of the bar´s staff.  His story was probably about a different drunk at my table.

-Places don´t matter.  Only the states our minds are in.-tmf

The Bearded Monkey

It´s hard to find a bad hostel, because the people staying and the owners are usually all travelers.  I´ve stayed at 50 or more hostels throughout Europe, Asia, Central America, and one in Georgia.  In my experience, every 10th hostel is not just another hostel.  I look for setting, vibe, and people.  Some travelers are just looking for bag storage, and expediently devour all of the regional offerings.  Some expect their $5 accommodation to include hot water, breakfast, and unlimited wifi bandwidth.  The vibe at the first hostel in Granada sucked.  This could have been solely due to the unfriendly travelers, but I believe it stems from something deeper.  Maybe long developed structural vibrations still echoing through the walls.  Nobody is happy.  Hilary and I are ¨left hanging¨ by a total of 6 guests with our attempts to strike up conversation or simply say good morning.  I cook pancakes at the community kitchen using some oil, which is often provided by hostels to preserve their pans and improve cleaning.  A girl snatches up the bottle and storms off.  When she returns I explain the confusion and offer to pay for the oil that I stole.  She just looks at me like I am an idiot.  Hilary and I walk around to find a new place to stay.

A week and a half ago, Hills and I decided to split up in Granada.  Today, we walk up and down streets, looking at half a dozen hostels around the city.  She likes Entre Amigos.  I like The Bearded Monkey, which is next door.  I could have chosen any one of the city´s 30 hostels, but this one seems right.  We hang out for another day and a half and she leaves for Leon.  I decide to give her a few days head start to avoid paranoia of an awkward accidental meeting in another city.  We were traveling together for a month and each need to regain our independence.

Inside Bearded Monkey is a 25´x25´open-air section of dirt, plants, and stone protected by 6 hammocks, 2 single-rope woven swing chairs hanging between twelve 16´ wooden columns supporting the edge of the inward-sloping, tiled roof.  Beyond the hammock fence is another 15´ deep perimeter of rustic red and white tile floor, covered with tables, leading to the 25´ tall walls.  The walls divide the open space from four 12-bunk dormitories, 5 privados, and the back half (kitchen, baños, 2nd courtyard) of the hostel.  Spending an afternoon in a hammock here has caused many travelers to extend their stay beyond original plans.  

I don´t love Granada.  I mention to Tod, the Texan ex-pat working the counter, that he has a cool job.  The next morning, Yolanda (Nica manager) tells me I can get a free room if I work the desk 4 days a week.  With my mind on track to reach Caribbean islands and an end-of-the-world party at some Mayan ruins, I don´t want to commit a lot of time to Granada.  I ask her for how long.  Four days is her reply.  Great.  I want the experience of working in a hostel and will be free for parties on the 21st.  Training takes 10 minutes and Tod says they want to re-open the kitchen for breakfast.  I write a menu on the chalk board and sell some pancakes and crepes the following mornings.  On the fourth day, I tell Yolanda I´m gonna leave for 4 days and then come back and work some more.  With a smile, she says, ¨Si.¨  Her reaction is my first glimpse into the laidback mindset of Nicaraguans.

Back to Omatepe I go with a very, very cool French chick called Sarah.  We camp near the hotel in the town of Chaco Verde, which lies on the southeastern foot of the north volcano, with 20 or so other festival tenters.  Two days of electronic music on the beach to celebrate the western contortion of the Mayan calendar.  The 25lb, yellow propane tank hanging from a blue nylon rope around my shoulder is not welcomed by the two Nicas running the festival.  They put it into storage and I put my stove in the tent, relieved that I can just enjoy the festivities.  The pancake nomad will have to revise his methods in the future. On day 3, I reclaim my tank and ride on the roof of a van back to the port town of Mayagalpa.  Boat, taxi, bus, and I´m back in Granada.  The day after Christmas, I ask Tod if he wants to take the restaurant seriously.  He does, so I decide to stay through the busy season.  I´ve made thousands of Cordobas selling omelettes, huevos rancheros, pancakes, and french toast.  The exchange rate from $ to C$ is 1 to 24.  After the cost of food, I´ve pocketed $60.  I spent $100 on a new mini fridge for the kitchen.  The busy season goes from the beginning of January to the end of March.

The characters that stay at and travel through the hostel make the place.  Bobby Love plays piano in the corner when he´s not arguing in his old school New York accent with some young backpacker.  We exchange light, philosophical comments and he extends his culinary knowledge from days of chefdom.  He is a riot and occasionally sleeps on tables around the hostel as a result of demasiado mucho cervezas.  After 4 months of living here, the only piece of information about his past that has been extracted is that he is from East Timor.

Tod and I have some pretty intense jam sessions when we aren´t riding around town on the bouncy roads in a truck with virtually no suspension.  Instruments sound great reverberating off concrete walls.

Mauricio takes me on his boat tour for the free through islets with a group of backpackers. He´s a local pool shark with smirking white teeth and eyes of a bandito admiring the fruits of his latest heist.  He and his Scandinavian girlfriend, Marion, teach me Spanish as we barbeque in the back courtyard.  

Yolanda´s oldest son, Francisco trades me Spanish for martial arts lessons.  I cook her youngest, Kevin, breakfast most days, and we stay up past our bed-times watching Hollywood movies in Spanish.

For Christmas, we made a pot-luck dinner for 10 and put tables together under the stars.  By New Years, Tod´s ribs are perfected and there are 7 tables lined end on end.  Even Bobby Love makes his self-proclaimed potato salad.  Primo.

We are a temporary family and this is my current home.