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Forever, with a palm tree
With Basilito in hand I contemplate life decisions. Fortunately for my life, the decisions were mostly made prior to the consumption of rum cocktails overlooking the Caribbean sunset, or they may have involved the purchase of a small piece of land, some bright paint and some rustic pieces of timber from the gaff rig that is anchored up the beach.
Little Corn Island is a mile wide and includes a coral reef, a baseball diamond, a clinic, multiple hotels, hammocks, and watchdogs that bark at locals. The island map doesn’t explain an expanse at the north-west part of the island, where a teenage visitor was attacked by a pit bill a few days ago. He says it was his fault. I keep thinking he’s better already, but on this tiny island, he also has a doppelgänger, who confuses with his patchless legs.
This is the place I thought I might get stuck, staying forever with blue seas and white beaches and happy residents and Internet connections. I have been awake for every sunrise, and I have seen more than when I was 15 and we used to stay up all night and go to the beach for the morning. Those sunrises viewed through bleary eyes amid the certain knowledge of our world, such as it was, never glowed the orange of these dawns; the sun was never as fiery, never filtered through palm trees that throw their coconuts on cabana roofs through the night. The meager plans I had for my holiday here have all been thrown delightfully awry, without a shred of regret.
Forever is a long time, though. Forever viewed through palms and white sand stretches innumerably on, through rotating visitors and hurricane seasons and rains and storms, and the hammocks here are perhaps not as comfortable as those in other parts of Nicaragua. Perhaps I’m older and more in need of the comforts of cities, as rustic and backwards as those cities can be, or perhaps it’s the promise of easily accessible options of other views, other viewpoints that will see me leave this island with the contentment of an almost-week well spent in the development of the knowledge that, however beautiful, this is not the end game.
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Road to Leon
Two dusty, bumpy hours passed this morning on the road to the sweaty historic town of Leon in the north of Nicaragua.
I was the last person on the expreso bus so took the seat next to the driver for the princely sum of 40 cordobas, or about $2. As soon as I’d dragged out my cordobas we hit the road to depart Managua, which reminds me of a strange combination of Vietnam and Algeria. The driver put on a steady stream of 80s hits. At the first intersection a man opened the window and told a looooong story about…. Well, who knows exactly, but he was formerly a driver either in or to Leon, and his tale was either sad or pitiful enough that all the pasajeros gave him some cordobas. Except for those of us in the front who stared steadily ahead, deaf and blind to all occurring in the back.
We moved fairly swiftly through Managua until the police made us turn off the highway onto dirt roads and through back streets of town where a man shoveled dirt off his truck into the wind. Groups of schoolgirls managed to stay pristine in their white shirts and knee socks, walking home for their lunch break. Just before we returned to the highway, we forded a stream which even our driver seemed a bit concerned about. Luckily he’d put his good deodorant on that morning as that’s all I could smell every time the wind blew from his direction. We passed El Doral, which proclaimed itself as the new city of Managua, but appeared to be a depressing estate of single story houses built to support the fruit processing plant next door.
In the next town the moto taxis appeared, a form of mini tuktuk which seats two people under a fixed cover, except for the one I saw outside Nagarote which managed to fit a family of seven. Or driver was keen to overtake an old Toyota Hilux in front of us, but the horse and cart coming the other way down the highway blocked his path. Later he played chicken at 100kph with a truck, finally braking when it became obvious that neither he nor the the other guy were going to make the pass. In the next town the moto taxis were joined by bicycle taxis, essentially cyclos with better seats and more shade. More schoolgirls walked cleanly along the red-brown roads.
Outside the towns, farms of yellowish grain rippled in the breeze, reminiscent of Australia on a miniature scale. Brahmanesque cattle wallowed in the fields. Our driver honked at every passing minivan. Almost every car and taxi was a religious vehicle, declaring its motto with a sticker across the windscreen. Thank God. God is my love. My friend is Jesus. Jesus is the man. We approached what looked, from a distance, like a fat monk waiting on the roadside for a ride, but was actually just a brown horse. I’ve been in Asia for too long.
Nagarote proclaimed itself as the cleanest town in Nicaragua. I saw no rubbish, but then I saw no town either. We passed the Canadian Institute of Mines and Energy, which was a concrete block in a landscaped field. Next door, a 14 yr old was having a wash at the family well, cranking a handle attached to a bike wheel to get some water out. A string of cows walked in single file along the highway. A father rode his two sons to school on the family bicycle.
An ambulance passed us about 20km away from Leon. It was an old four wheel drive with its blue siren hidden by the roof racks. 10km later the police ushered us off the road again to more dusty streets, so the driver stopped to pick up his wife, who was walking across a field next to the car. We drove a little more around the back of Leon, past immaculate houses with manicured gardens behind decorative bars, before pulling into the sweaty brown parqueo for buses and departing for the charms of Leon centro.
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Idiotville, Oceanside, Netarts, Port Orford, and stupidity.
Our plan was to drive from Seattle through Portland to Oceanside and/or Netarts on the Oregon coast. Actually, Dans plan was to skip Portland altogether, having been there a few years ago and remembering it as a wholly miserable industrial town; my plan was to stop in the Portland I have read many blogs about, a centre of design, creativity and food trucks. As it turned out it was freaking pouring in Portland so we both got our wish. We went to the pearl, a former industrial area of the town which has been reclaimed for design places, and the necessary cafes to support them. Unfortunately, it was pouring, so instead of the leisurely walk I had planned, introducing Dan to the delights of the revived Portland, we had a bolt to the nearest cafe which fortunately had good tea and biscuits. Muy importante.
After tea and me getting us lost through the backwoods of Portland (accidentally….. I swear) we found the road to the Pacific. I was pretty excited to find we were on the road to a town called Idiotville. I was less excited when I discovered we had passed it. Without so much as a sign! What are these people thinking? An influx of tourists just looking for the Idiotville sign is a good thing… Right? Imagine growing up there. What do you tell people who ask where you’re from?
Back on the road, we hit a beautiful sunset just inland, at a town whose name I can’t remember. It was notable only for its pine trees blocking the sunset and its distance from the seaside towns. Netarts, when we arrived there with the petrol light on, was a poor second to Oceanside with its spectacular views and clapboard houses and air of general richness at a time of year when the Pacific Ocean wasn’t intent on destroying everything in its path. Sadly the hotel on the cliff was on holiday so we retreated to a cabin in Netarts for the night.
We managed to identify the westernmost point of the contiguous united states and went to visit. 50mph winds are not really ideal and even less so when you decide to open the car door with them behind you. Ooooooops. Smack goes the door, bye bye to the scarf, and bye bye to two people riding in the front seat. The door wouldn’t close properly again. I checked this by elegantly climbing into the front seat, only getting one leg stuck behind me for about twenty minutes, and then opening the door again, just to make sure. Still didn’t shut. Worse, didn’t seal so every day the car was damp inside. It rains in Oregon, did no one tell you? No one told us.
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Hello, Civilisation.
A grey, rainy, slush ridden town has never looked so good.
Seattle probably wasn’t showing us its best. I am all for a town surrounded by water (hello, Stockholm), but when that is also edged by snow melting into slush with a side of marijuana dealing, it is far less appealing. Luckily our hotel was both awesomely located and a huge step up from our budget place in cle elum.
And! A CITY! It has movie theatres and we went to them and they are good. And it has shops and we went to them and they are also good. And it has excellent cafes and restaurants and we went to them particularly for breakfast and oh my god the donuts at Lola are GOOD. I don’t even remember what we ate for dinners because the breakfasts were so amazing. It also has islands off it and we went to them and they were underwhelming, except for the guy who said he liked my boots. I do too. Thanks. I’m sure Seattle is lovely on the four days a year it doesn’t rain or snow but we were happy to leave for the coast. Surely it can’t still be snowing?
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Catchups, the sequel
So we left Yellowstone with an overdose of bison but no bears or wolves. It was also two Fahrenheit on our last day there. That’s minus freaking seventeen, people! Yeah, it was cold. We spent our last day there snowmobiling to the underwhelming old faithful. Luckily the trail was pretty cool, but I would like to know, Americans, what do you have against safety barriers? We returned on the right side of the road…. On a road which plunged into a cavern. Barrier less. Sans protection. And this is an actual road…. That cars drive on, in season?
Anyway, we clearly made it back alive, hands toasty warm (thanks handwarmers) but everything else not. We had one night more in gardiner and ate at the awesome Cowboy Grill, notable for allowing us to take massive advantage of their wifi connection and southern fried chicken on our previous visit. The next morning we headed out to discover that Anthony Bourdain had been to the area for No Reservations. I hope he came in summer otherwise the fried chicken would have been the highlight for sure. We were en route to Missoula where there was an Ansel Adams exhibition and the photo nerds that we are, Dan and I were looking forward to it. One of us was, anyway.
The collection was a complete private collection from… Tom someone and his wife. It’s an insanely large private collection. But, viewed from today’s standards, underwhelming. The sacrilege! I know. You have to really remind yourself of the standard of equipment he was working with at the time. Btw who knew, he also took some portraits, and they were by far my favourite images of the lot.
God, puerto ayora is a small town. I’ve only been here two days and already have seen so many people I recognize and am on hello terms with.
Missoula is a really nice town. It’s a college town and I loved the atmosphere, it’s a bit creative, a bit cafe, a bit artsy. I could live there if not for the metres of snow. They also have fire jumpers which must be some of the most mental people alive. Who wants to get dropped into the middle of a bush fire to fight it from the inside out? Nut bags, that’s who.
Ansel Adams, coffee, a massive hotel room, a Glee episode, and that was it for Missoula. We planned to drive straight to Seattle that day but neglected to account for the biggest snowstorm of the year which was hitting Seattle and moving rapidly towards us. Both Dan and I had a rapid education in driving on snow and ice… A hands-on lesson, you could say. We made it to Spokane for lunch which gets generally rubbished but is actually another ice town…. That was meant to be nice town, but both are appropriate…it has an Apple store, so must be a good place, right?
After lunch we headed for Seattle. The theory was it was only another four hours, but we had to cross the Snoqualmie pass, and when we arrived the sign said it was traction tires only, so we stopped at ellensburg. Ellensburg is about an hour and a half outside Seattle and the only thing going for it is a surprisingly underrated Thai restaurant which delivers acceptable pad thai in less than 20 minutes.
The next morning i remembered we have the internets and discovered that we actually have traction tires. Yay dollar car rental! Massive pats on the back to us for taking the upgrade. So we hit the road with the plan to nail the remaining hour to Seattle and settle in to urbanity in our supernice hotel.
Of course we neglected to factor in the 7-semi-trailer pileup that happened about 30 miles up the road. We made it about 13 miles before hitting a road closed sign and heading for the delightful Cle Elum, where trucks come to die.
After spending a few hours in the pioneer cafe talking to the waitress there who had spend a year in Australia, four older American women turned up who were in the same boat. We had a discussion about options and whether the road would open before a fellow customer destroyed our best hopes and we decided to settle in for the night. Happily the safeway was across the road from our place so we went over intending to get some microwaveable food for dinner. Unhappily as we arrived, so did the firemen. There was a fire inside, even though it had been snowing for days, so the place was being evacuated. So, ok, we will drive across the road to the hotel. Only we couldn’t get into the hotel. Even in 4wd mode the wheels were spinning too much.
So we decided that the day was pretty much farked, parked in the Safeway, went to McDonald’s, and then put the day to bed and made it to Seattle the next day in oh, about an hour. Stupid cle elum. Stupid truck drivers. Stupid snow. Stupid country.
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Catchups, catchups
Winnemucca: strange. Stayed about four minutes.
Lovelock, town before Winnemucca: stranger. Felt lie, the local zombie king sent someone out (with her Dalmatian) to check us out. We filled up the tank and bolted.
Elko, town after Winnemucca: remarkably unstrange. Great Asian restaurant. In the middle of Nevada. Therefore, also strange.
It’s been a long, windy, snowy road since these towns. We made it to Cinnabar Basin via Pocatello, Idaho and Bozeman, Montana without any lasting trauma. The drive into the cabin was long, white, dark. Every day it was long and white with varying degrees of dark, until it opened up into the white basin. In a poor snow year, it was light underfoot, and the piles of snow at the side of the road were one foot instead of twenty, but plenty enough for us. On the way from bozeman we stopped at a bear sanctuary and were easily terrified by the resident bear keeper. We traded stories of sharks and snakes. But his were more real. He’s seen a bear. More than one. He’s seen a wolf. More than one. He’s been chased - CHASED - by a rattlesnake. He knows people who’ve been tagged (THIS MEANS SCRATCHED WITH THEIR MASSIVE CLAWS TAGGED OMG UNDERSTATEMENT) by a bear.
I’ve seen a snake slither across the path i was walking on.
I’ve swum with many a shark, unknowingly.
I’ve had a funnel web on my front doorstep, but I made my sister trap it, because she’s older so it’s her responsibility.
I’ve been bitten by a shark, but it was a gummy shark.
He scared the bejesus out of us. Because all our animals, they’re scared of you. Or so we’re told. They are trying to get away from you. Well, not bears. Bears are curious. They are wondering why you smell so good. They are wondering what that noise is. They are wondering why you’re running away, so they’ll chase you. Even better, there are two species of them in the same area and you should react differently to each. But first, you need to work out which one it is. OH MY GOD.
But, what really messed us up was the super calm owner of the cabin telling us about the time she was attacked by a grizzly. On the property. And what did she do? Ran towards it. She is lovely. And mental.
We saw no wild bears. And no wild rattlesnakes. And no live wolves. But a lot of other amazing things, primarily Yellowstone itself in winter. Empty, quiet, amazing. Sadly, wonderfully bearless.
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