We sat like monkeys in a tree eating mangoes and peeing from high branches.

Sitting in a cafe on the main square, an old friend, from another country another time, walks past and we embrace; Small world, the saying goes, and its true. But just then a rickety old Westfalia jitters down the pedestrian promenade inconveniencing street peddlers before making a screeching stop that wafts hot break-pad vapors into everyone's lungs and Juan hurdles out maintaining the vehicles momentum. "Jeffffffff!! we go to the beach, get in.", I causally ask how many days, with no intention of trusting the response, but the question is left in the air as we bombard the nearest purveyor of beer and other necessities. I noted 5 people in the van already as I gathered a pillow and squatted too close to the foreshadowingly hot transmission...

Recent acquaintances though we all were, the hot mass of humans toasted cool beers as Granada faded in the dust behind us.

6 hours of driving, rotating between us, Cornelius, Juan and myself. Not without incident. At the first police check point the engine wouldn't start. Battery trouble. By some fluke of preparedness we had acquired a spare, but the leeds were gnarled and it took a moment before we jumped it and cruised through the check point with big grins and sweaty brows.

Darkness falls and the headlights flicker from lose leeds and low voltage, if we stop now, we'll be stuck over night. After San Juan Del Sur we turned left into nowhere and headed down a sandy trial for over an hour before the transmission started to fail. Too much heat, and not enough fluid. She needs to rest but once the engine is off we have no more juice to get her going again. So we sit in dark silence for a moment until someone lights a cigarette. I stretch my legs and notice a shed a little ways from the road. I learn that no one around here has a car, but just then headlights cast a beam though the disturbed dust and we flag down an SUV filled with tourists. We jump the van and roll into Lugs place 2 miles later...

Midnight, and Lugs bar is closing, all empty stools save 2 with Bob and Jim spinning to take in the excited sounds of 6 restless travelers climbing the stairs to the roof deck over looking the private beach with the nearly full moon dancing across the pacific.

Bob recognizes Juan and Cornelius immediately and announces that the bar will remain open to the exasperation of the drunk bartender: Jason, who explains that he times his drinking so as to be pleasantly plastered by exactly the end of the hour he closes the bar... usually. Needless to say a round of rums is poured and merriment ensues.

Long after sunrise wayward souls drift to the beach for a dip, and to occupy hammocks under thatched umbrellas, where the melodic slap of long waves breaking high on the wet sand cheek accompany unremembered dreams.

Back in the van, where is that rave? Its midnight before we find the party, but the moon is full. Another night on the beach transforms into a confusing morning, where is everyone? I see the van coming towards me on the footpath, the poptop is up and snapping low branches: Beware the Jabberwocky.
"Get in, we can't stop the engine but we need gas, no time to wait for the others..."
A women is selling gasoline out of old coke bottles, we spend our last cash and break down a mile later. the sun is high but somehow we have cold beer and cigerattes but no food.
I take stock of our predicament:
6 bewildered comrades sitting in the sun, 2 missing
2 packs of smokes
6 luke-cold beers
1 boom-box with punk rock
1 dead Vanagon

The decision is made, as all good movie characters make, to split up.
Two people are sent to find transmission fluid. Two stay with the van, and I go with another back to the beach to find our missing friends. If you are doing the math you may have notice we picked up two more swashbucklers at the party.

With no money, or things, or places to be, we sat like monkeys in a tree eating mangoes and peeing from high branches. While a toothless "mechanic" fiddled under the van.

We abandoned the van and crashed a palace on the hill, they gave us watermelon and tuna sandwiches and beds. We hitchhiked back to Granada in the morning.

I missed the bus because I drank too much

Hitchhiking on a flatbed transporting porta-potties, I missed a bus to Granada Nicaragua. 14 people died on that bus and I was at a bar with an open toilet (read: collapsed shower stall) in the middle.

Red wine with champagne stirs memories as I linger (word I use so much, but it captures my essence). Chapped lips with burgundy stains, how can I be dry in this humidity, and where is that vermouth.

The sand lot

There is a lull as the ipod behind the bar starts a new song and then Tequilaaaaaa booms out like the word of god striking the automaton bartender into action. He leaps on the bar with two bottles of Tequila and runs down the length pouring the nectar into the open mouths of fuzzy nestlings. The empty bottles smash against the wall and nervous tourists back towards the door.

Gringos, Guates, free tequila on top of the rum and everyone has wide eyes leering at unpopped kernels and stirring ice in empty glasses until someone lights a cigarette inciting little white sticks to 35 lips while shifty eyes make contact and converse with obscure facial muscle twitches indicting the need of fuego

Insights and silent soliloquies...

The representatives of my thoughts tower over me in the vast expansive baroque room of my mind,
Leaning down to lament or favor inspirations,
I quiver at there stature and rapture, feet about my face, i am inside my own head and i am not alone.

Mandolins and King James chairs creep up the trapezoidal walls,
I am a nub in the floor something minded to avoid a fall,
Nimbus rising pop pop pop
Red headed beetles swarm on rocks (waiting to consume me).

Set to a tune the fools roll in on unicycles with trombones, I can only whistle without lips or bones.
A clock on the wall sets the tempo for all, and the light flickers faster freezing a bouncing ball.
A cramp and a rupture, a belly of birds...
Under gaze of the Tories I paid for no worries and save for some stories I express only glories...

deep house dips, bench press beats

Walking north out of my school up one block and left two you start to hear techno at any time of day. Greeted by a lovely mural of abdomens you flash your badge and get buzzed in the gate. Then your in Antigua Gym. Aerobic Salsa, Kids Karate, or pilates, spinners classes and tread mills, you'll find me in the weights corner of the courtyard covered in vines.



koi pond or hot tub...

Aesop's Scandinavian furniture

My ears pop as we descend out of the clouds on a nauseating mountain road, soon the jungle licks my face with its humid earthy tongue and the synthesized buzzing and ringing of a billion insects mutes my inner dialog. The rickety suspension bridge claps its planks while the rushing river below mocks its applause thwack thwack, thwack thwack. Little A-frame huts protrude from a manicured embankment, we loop around to the rear. Checking in, a baby parrot falls off the desk in some kind of ecstatic stupor, Leo leads the way to our hut.
The river is warm, we dive off the bridge, 10 meters, and tube into the jungle. Then hike up to a vista point to gain aerial insight of the local topography. Pool after pool of crystal water cascades in dramatic falls and caves and cliffs. A slippery decent brings us to the first pool and we spend hours swimming down chutes and over falls and diving into pools pouring out of bat filled caves.

Three flights, no problem.

Only one minor interference during the landing in Guatemala city. Just as the captain put on the fasten seat belt sign I felt a coolness in my nose and looked down. As my eyes focused I began to realize my shirt looked like some kind of Pollock. With catlike reflexes I dove over my seat mates and ran for the head, I was only 4 rows back but I saw trouble looming, "Sir! we have been cleared for landing please return...OOH.."
The attendant flung open the door and a little girl inside screamed but by this time I was minding the ceiling components and reduced the drip to nothing. I locked myself in the lavatory and spun around pressing my back against the door and took a moment to catch my breath. Turning my head to the right I could see the damage. My shirt was covered in dots and dashes of cartoon-red blood. A wise person once told me, "I know how to get blood stains out, you just have to force cold water to flow through the blotched areas", I was able to get almost all visible marks out of my shirt and lighten the few dabs on my pants. Now, walking off the plane into passport control, I merely looked like a profusely sweaty American and not a mortally wounded terrorist.

Stamp. No problems getting in. I went out side and surveyed the scene. The typical arrivals setup, low fencing lined with family members and taxi drivers and hotel shuttle services. A quick scan reviled that no one held a sign bearing my name. Next option, scan arrivees... who looks like they´ll split a cab with a hairy white man? Perfect: Three nice girls from some liberal arts school in Florida. Niceties exchanged and lo, they have a van coming to take them to Antigua. Easy. We all talk and I learn that one of them grew up in Antigua but lives in Crystal River, strange.

40 minute ride and we get dropped off at some hotel, I realize I don´t know where the school is or have anyway to contact them. We decide to get lunch as a group but first the girls check in, they offer to let me leave my bag while I find out where my school is and get a place to stay. None of us have eaten all day so we seek out the first decent looking cafe. Damn, it turned out to be some weird tex-mex but tasted good anyway. Now I arrange to meet for drinks later and to retrieve my bag after I find my school. Oh ya it was on 5a something or other two blocks from the park. Only 8 directions to go in so I head south. By the good grace of stray dogs (Having followed a particularly mangy example) I end up right in front of JP´s Rum Bar.. well close enough. But under finer inspection I realize this is also Academia Colonial! Hmm, how efficient of them to use the school court yard as a rum bar in the evenings.

"Jeff Gordon! Come meet your host family"

Cheers.

My bags are unattended

Its 4am again and I'm in logan. The bars in the domestic terminal
aren't open yet, but I don't need to imbibe; A glass of ice water with
lemon and a twist of heart ache is enough to numb away the pre-flight
jitters.

Check-in was smooth, boarding in 20 minutes, inshalla.

Only 3 infants in sight so I still might get some sleep tonight.

See you in Antigua for lunch!

--
Sent from my mobile device

Don't know when I'll be back again

Its 4:00am and I haven't eaten since 8 O'clock yesterday morning. Spirits are high but running on some kind of euphoric apathy for solid organics. The consistent gurgling, while not uncomfortable, is moderately distracting from the matter at hand, which is, of course, that my flight leaves in just over 24 hours. My bag is packed, save a few member items of the morning ritual. The boarding pass will be printed during the hours of inevitable ambient daylight that have been bleeding through a gray sponged sky for the past 8 days with occasional spurts of uric showers that leave the air damp and tangible.

The lingering question is, what has to be done before departing for an undetermined length of time?
1. Suspend all memberships and contracts requiring monthly payments.
2. Stow expensive imminently outdated electronics in humidity controlled environment.
3. Withdraw cash in low bills for easy conversion.

Pillows beckon, rumbling threatens, slumber I no longer sequester.

Packing light or Unprepared for the expected

To be modest, I'm very good at packing. I can fit 6 months of cold weather gear in a mosquitoes handbag; the tricky part is explaining to the TSA agent why you only have a one-way ticket (to a communist country) and 42 Chilean avocados.

Fortunately, Central America is easy to pack for.... I won't need to bring my own fruit.