Reflection of Frustrating Things

I looked at Sam last night as Granada's night life swept by us and wondered how we got here and that coming to Granada, let alone Nicaragua, was not even in our plans two weeks ago. We are in the last throes of this five month travel holiday as we are off to Peru so I can start work.
Our Nicaraguan experience started just over the Costa Rican Border in San Juan del Sur. We stayed in San Juan del Sur with my friend Zach Lunin, who has married an unbelievably awesome Nicaraguan woman and has set up a business in reality- http://www.aurorabeachfront.com/ in San Juan and all over Nicaragua. Traveling around town with Zach was something special, because Zach only had one hand on the steering wheel, the other in a continual waving motion to other people he knew. He knew every property 50 kms to the north and to the south. He was the living almanac of property values and ownership of this town and surrounding area. He knows the back stories behind the ownership (some clean, some dirty shrouded in corruption or mystery.) Through this property knowledge we learned about and became interested in the history of Nicaragua. It makes our traveling much easier since we have an understanding of Nicaraguan politics and how they are applied to what is happening in Honduras now. I am reading La Prensa, the historically liberal newspaper of Nicaragua, and their view on the whole situation is quite belligerent, and to an extent, inflamatory. Charicatures of Zelaya in regards to his association with Chavez and the others in his ALBA union are shown daily. They depict that Zelaya is just another cronie in the whole Chavez plan. What's more is that Daniel Ortega, the main leader of the 1979 Sandanista movement and current president, is trying the same card as Zelaya- he is trying to enact a constitutional reform to keep him - or the Sandanista party - in power forever. For many in the country and according to La Prensa, this is unacceptable. It spits in the theory of the true 1979 revolution. One opinion writer poignantly wrote that the Sandanista Revolution was based in throwing out a despot(Somoza- who FDR famosly described as a SOB but he is our SOB) because his corrupt regime had been in power too long. Now, the Sandanistas are going against their own philosphical tenants and trying to entrench themselves in power, which is what, in part, they rebelled against 30 years ago. Whatever romanticism is left with the revolution is now gone. I could go on about the history of brutality, from the US, Somoza and the Sandanistas, but I believe I heard a couple of heads slam against their key board in boredom.

Welcome back, I would suggest before reading further to wipe away the F key that has become stuck to your face after the face plant. After traveling for so long, there seems to be some recurring (and as this title points out, Frustrating Things that are unavoidable when traveling).
I dare you to leave your hotel/hostel without a map and then pick some arbitary business or semi unknown monument and 1) find out where it is 2) see what time it is open. This process is pretty much impossible. As Sam and I have seen, we always get contradictory answers, sometimes with so much conviction a person will tell us the place is closed or doesn't exist when in truth, it does and has been open for a solid 30 years. Some people just have no idea. However Sam and I have devised a full proof plan. One, when we go out, we wear a trench coat and old 1940's newsman hat, when being a detective one has dress for the part. We have an idea where or what block to go to, so we ask shop attendants in the area. The key is not to ask one, but upwards of three to four different people and from their information piece the clues together. Sometimes you call the witness again to give their testimony twice or three times to fully guarantee succes. Often their memory will change depending on the minute so it is better to get concrete answers. For example, our travel computer is dead. Our Hostel told us their is no computer service here. Without getting down, we investigated. It turns out their is one, but a few blocks away. We went to the computer shop in question and it was closed. Seeing that the adjacent shop- a Camera store - was open we went in to inquire further. There are just far too many tourists here for computer repair serivce not to be readily available. The camera lady full of conviction (or frustration that we were ruining her tv time?) told us that there was only stores like that in Managua. Saying thank you and telling her we could be i touch for another statement, we stepped out of the store, looked across the street, and there was a sign that advertised computer services. Again, most of the time it is in the area where you believe the place to be, just keep asking. Part of the problem is that directions in Nicaragua are based on monuments, certain focal points rather than actual street numbers. Suyen, Zach's wife, explained that their address is 10 houses east of the restaurant El Timon. Sounds fun huh? So to find X cafe, you got to turn left at the bagel shop then walk three blocks to the stationary store, and it should be across from Juan, the local hot dog seller, unless it is Tuesday, Wednesday or really any dau fo the week, becuase Juan works when Juan works.
Adding to the confusion is that locals focus on their immediate surroundings, like most of us do when comfortable in a place, and most of the time tourist inquiries and destinations are way out of that surrounding. Ask me how to get to the USS Constitution in Boston and I am in same boat. We have grown accostumed to this minor delay and always make sure we get at least four testimonials from locals before preceeding.
Finally, traveling in a Spanish speaking country presents quite the ironic situation. Obviously everywhere you turn people are speaking Spanish, this is super for building my converstaional skills, but sometimes I want to read a book in Spanish in my own privacy. This is the quandry. Every place we stay only has books in English - most of the time cheesy romantic novels and novels that you question who was reading this book and the value of tv. The few Spanish books that are available are ones lean towards... the battle between Christ and Satan or is God with you? Inspiring reading for some, but I'll pass. It is quite unbelievable to me since a lot of places offer Spanish teaching and books are a super way to learn. What really shocked me was going into a cafe that was also a book store as well in San Juan. This was the most well stocked store I have seen in a while, two huge book shelves two meters long dominated the cafe. Excited by the prospect of getting a good Spanish book, I perused the books.
To fully understand what transpired, I will give you this pertinent ancedote. When I was in Australia, I had the opportunity to go to Tasmania, which is part of Australia and is the island below the mainland. Mainlanders make fun of people from Tasmania for being backwards and behind the times and Tasmanians, for their part, are fiercely proud that they are from Tasmania. When I was there with my mom and our neighbor Jane, we went to a restaurant to enjoy some good italian food. The wine list was given to me and I saw how the different bottles were broken down

Italian
Australian
Tasmanian

Interesting since inherently Tasmanian wine IS Australian wine. Therefore making the menu utterly redundant and full of spite.
This pecularity presented itself again in the book store. The majority of books were in English, however, in a small section there was a shelf dedicated to foreign languages. Failing to find the Spanish section, I asked about where I could find Spanish books thinking there was its own section. Guess what, Spanish books were in foreign language section. Incredulously, I asked why, by the way I asked this question in Spanish, to which I got shrugs and small timid laughter and an answer, again in Spanish, that it is just like that. In this pervese cafe world, Spanish was a foreign language, even though the menu was in Spanish and all the waitresses spoke Spanish and we are in Nicaragua.
My only solution for this problem is to keep looking, put on my detective garb and see if any street hustler is selling Spanish books, possibly like illegal drugs, for a " a good price."

Mal Pais

I have had a few conversations with people over the last couple of days and some of them (mostly coming from the parental units) have told me that I haven't written a post in awhile. I said I knew, but most of the time I have something to write about; but for the past three weeks, we have just absolutely relaxed. We met up with good friends from Sydney and spent 10 days in Caye Caulker. Basically, that is all that I care to write about the place as all four of us just hated being there. We moved to this beautiful, secluded spot at Mal Pais, Costa Rica. We have been staying here for the past ten days, reading, swimming and relaxing at this house that Sam found on the internet. I highly suggest coming here. The complex is called Casa de Soliel and is run by an ex-pat named Trent whose family is great and being here has been so easy. So there is my perfectly laid out excuse to why I have fallen off the grid. We are moving to Nicaragua tomorrow and staying in San Juan del Sur for the foreseeable future - the idea is to stretch our last pennies as much as possible as well as talk to people in Spanish. Mal Pais is a funny town. The place is a surfer's paradise and people from the states and all over the world come here to lose themselves in the waves and the laid back lifestyle. Here, English is the dominate language and seeing butt cracks from shirtless surfers dudes is the required style and obligatory fashion. If you are into that, welcome home. For us, it is not our scene. Mal Pais and the town next to it, Santa Teresa, are connected by one bumpy dirt road. On it you will find people on quad bikes hauling their surfboards to the next break, and people just randomly going nowhere. The town is less hippie than I expected but still it has all the familiar trappings of a place where reality goes out the window. The town itself is almost fiercely exclusive: tourists are treated as ghosts. The locals, mostly ex pats not Costa Ricans, are wary of others and exude this smugness about the place. It is not an outward explicit attitude, but it is the subtle words, the names they drop or don’t drop that give us an idea that: we are on the outside, dude. The place is gorgeous though and the waves are great. For basically a week, Ben and Andrew have told me that if I wanted to learn to surf, this is the place to do it. Three years I have avoided surfing even though I lived next to the beach. I have never found the idea of surfing in Australia, or in general, to be that enticing. Furthermore, surfing in Australia, to me, represents a bad drunken dare, a heedless, hedonistic affair that the outcome brings you one step closer to death than to personal enjoyment. You have to battle rips, sun, other surfers, monster waves and let's not forget sharks. Even this can happen when you are surfing in Australia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O55ddcZWCI. I think my favorite story about the death dance surfers have with sharks and the complete apathy of Australians is when a reporter went into a Shark copter- Helicopter that patrols beaches looking for sharks - and during their time in the air, they spotted over 30 sharks in swimming areas. One time the patrolman said, look there is a pod of hammerheads near people, no warning. I mean where do I sign up. Here is a different story, nothing to worry about except for a rip, but if you get pulled out, instead of floating over the side of the world like in Australia, here you have a good chance of being picked up by a boat. Sam and I rented a board that had seen better days. One look at it and I asked the renter if they would pay us six dollars to rent it. It had more holes than the bucket, dear liza, dear liza. Being supremely tight with our money, we got a lesson from my friend Ben, who is an experienced surfer, before he left. On towels, outside of our pool, he showed us the steps: lie down, paddle, arch your back then do this crazy back flip, 18o turn around where your left leg is behind your right. Both of us said, got it, and practiced a couple of times. I must say I had confidence in that I would be able to do this. I am athletic and so is Sam. Our towel boards gave us no trouble and this would be a cinch.
As a pulled myself out of the washing machine that is the ocean here, wiping the sand from every hole and nook in my body, placing my arm back into its appropriate socket and draining my head that brimmed full of salt water, I realized that this would not be that easy. We could walk out into the surf and we were catching the whitewash - the aftermath of the waves as it tumbles towards the shore -, but still the prospects of surfing were grim. My first three attempts left me legless, a face full of salt water and nowhere near surfing. I thought of the towel surfboard and cursed Ben. I was determined to do this. I battled back out to the surf. Waited patiently for the next whitewash. It crashed 4 meters before me. I paddled. I caught the power of the wave, the board started to move, I felt the lift. I did the arch of the back and...... It's funny when you know something is going to hurt. I was powerless to stop it. Maybe because I was destined to hit head first into the water with my arms serenely out to the side. Apparently, I had given up on surfing and was trying my hand at flying. I emerged from the water, wrapped in the leash and laughed at by Sam and the birds in the sky. This time I told myself, take it slow, do the steps. I did the exact same thing as before: waited, waited then got my wave. I paddled and while being propelled forward, I got my feet in the right direction. I stood (wobbled?) up for the first time. Overjoyed with my success I forgot Ben's last piece of advice: stay low and balanced. I was stiff upright and vulnerable. It might have been two seconds before the wave, clearly upset it hadn't put me through the second round of spin, jerked with more energy. My collapse was epic. The surfboard just stopped, I kept going. I tried to bail, but as I did the surfboard moved again like it was magnetized to me. I went down, knee first on the back of the board, then my other leg, then my chest to finally oozed, a broken man, into the shallows. I tried one more time after my success (dumb luck?), but this time I pressed down too hard on the front and water rushed into my face forcing me to go butt over ankles into the water. I clearly had done my time for the day. It was enjoyable, I suppose. I guess I am just going to stick to the surfer's fashion here: Shirtless and all butt cracks.