25 October 2010

Stayed in hostel sleeping and in bed all day. Went out for dinner. Met a girl I’d met earlier and had dinner with her. Then to the Iguana for drinks where we met other people. 

24 October 2010

Stayed in my bed mostly all day sleeping and on the internet. Went out and at a show a guy was playing “Piss Up a Rope” by Ween. Went to see live music at another club. I have been here way too long.

23 October 2010

Today I spent most of the day in my room in bed. I went out to buy some water and powerade and came back for a nap. Went out for dinner but probably ate something too heavy and my stomach is not well.

22 October 2010

Left Granada and came to San Juan del Sur. Walked around town a bit after getting a hostel then took a nap. Had dinner at an American sports bar.  I didn’t realize it till I’d ordered a drink. The owners are from Wilmington, N.C.. Met two guys at the hostel. One played my guitar very well. We all went out for drinks and came back late.

In Granda someone wrote "Fuck You" on the roof of my car.

21 October 2010

Last night I met at the hostel a guy from Chicago named Jake and a guy from Australia named Patrick and we hung out for a bit and then went to a bar for an hour where we met a friend of Patrick's who said he lost all his money playing Pokerville. He plays poker online for a living.  

I decided to stay in Grenada for another day to research shipping from Panama to Colombia and buy a few things. I had breakfast at Kathy’s Waffle House and the owner, Sandy, came out to meet me. I was reading my bible while waiting for my food and he asked if I was a Jew. He had a huge star of David ring. After breakfast I explored the cathedral across the street then walked to Lake Grenada. I took a boat tour of the lake which I did not intend to take. There was an American couple and two Nicaraguan sisters. The tour was around the tiny islands and was mostly a tour of summer homes of the rich and famous and powerful of Nicaragua. There was an island with monkeys.

I bought a tape measure and mirror and tape at the market then got on the internet for a while before I had dinner at a guy named Dan’s house. Sophie cooked with Dan and I hung out with Nancy and Jake. Chicken cordon bleu, fish, mashed potatoes, red wine. The corkscrew was broken and the bottle of white shattered and the bottle of red ended up having bits of cork in it but I used a coffee filter to filter the wine into glasses. I talked with Sophie into the morning just past one.

20 October 2010

This morning at 5:46 a.m. I was woken by the crow of a rooster but I was able to fall back asleep for another hour and a half. On the way to the Nicaraguan border I was stopped by the transit police three times. The first two times they searched my car and the third time the cop wanted money for some imaginary fine and infraction. It took me a while to realize this before I told him I had no money to give him. Then he gave me my papers back and let me go.

The border was uneventful. I bought insurance for $12 and gave the tramitador $5 for his help.

Rented a room at the Bearded Monkey Hostel and walked around Granada. Visited the Cocoa Museum and had chocolate tea. Walked thought the market and bought a new band for my watch, a converter for my lap top plug from three prongs to two, and duct tape. The market was crowded with all kinds of food products, hygiene products, and bootleg DVDs being sold. I regret not buying Wall-E 2 which was Short Circuit repackaged. I turned the corner and a guy shouted out laughing “Osama bin Laden!”

  

Grenada is an old crumbling city with narrow streets. There are no stop signs or stop lights. People are everywhere as are horse carriages. It is a lively place. For dinner I ate at a place called Imagine. It is a John Lennon themed restaurant. I met a guy from Chicago who plays guitar here and also lives here.

19 October 2010

When I left Costa del Sol in the morning all my clothes were laid out inside the car because they had not yet dried. The road to Honduras led through the winding mountains around San Vincente past the volcano through the city and up more steep mountains. The road led past incredible vistas of San Vincente and farmlands and valleys. In San Miguel I stopped to get my oil changed. The guy in charge spoke good English because he had lived in Joplin Missouri for three years. He only left because his girlfriend cheated on him with his uncle. El Salvadorans rake out long patches of corn on the side of the road for reasons I do not know.

At the border in El Amatillo I stopped behind a long line of trucks and my car was immediately swarmed by five or six men clamoring to help me cross the border. Flashing their badges and shouting in Spanish. One man spoke English and told me to follow him past the line of semis. He hopped in the back of a pickup and we headed toward the border. The trucks weren’t moving or being waited on at all. I showed my papers to customs and proceeded to the immigration then across the border to Honduras.

I was led to customs where the guy who took me across the border left, vanished and another guy appeared. It was this guy who led me to where I needed to go and helped me photocopy all the documents. The Honduras customs agent needed several copies of everything he handed to me in addition to the photocopies of my documents  I already had. I am glad I made copies of everything in the U.S. but they are still not enough. I did not want to hire a tramitador but I would not have known where to go as each office was in a different building so I happily gave the guy L200 which is $10. Then the guy that disappeared showed up wanting money too. After a long back and forth hassle I begrudgingly gave him L25 or $1. After getting my vehicle sprayed for insects, handing my paperwork to the police, and having the police inspect my vehicle again, I was able to drive into Honduras.

The road is very good and there are not many potholes. Twice I was pulled over by transit police. Each time they wanted money or a gift but they let me go without me giving them either.

In San Lorenzo I spotted two Mormon missionaries and did a sharp u-turn to ask for directions to the nearest ATM. The missionary seemed surprised to see me but gave me directions to the grocery store where the ATM is located.

After withdrawing enough money I headed south to Cedeño which is on a large bay surrounded by mountains. The hotel here is bare minimum. The shower and bathroom are separate from the rooms and instead of a shower I will have to scoop water with a bowl and pour it over myself. Along the beach I found  dead sea-turtle. I asked for directions to the internet cafe but the man was wrong. There is no internet cafe here. But there are two video game cafes. In one of them children were crowded around a Super Mario Bros 3 arcade machine. For dinner I had camarones and huevo tortugas which were served as a spicy drink and not cooked in any way. Very slimy and disgusting but I was able to down two of the three eggs.

There is a man here who lived in Charlotte, Connecticut, Texas, and other places in the U.S. for ten years. Eating dinner and watching the sunset is beautiful and relaxing. Cedeño is on the Golfo de Fonseca. There was a tiny frog in the bathwater. At the border many people called out “Osama Bin Laden!” So I won’t be getting away from any stereotypes or laughs about my beard. I hope this does not turn into a problem.

I played pool next door to the hotel for about two hours. I did not realize how early it was. We played American pool and nine-ball and Honduras pool which is like nine-ball but with all the balls. They set up the balls like this:

(the handwritten journal has a drawing here)

and you shoot them in in order. I paid for every game but it was real cheap so I didn’t mind. One of the ladies who works there used to live in Memphis in the early eighties. I had to wake up the owner of the hotel to get back in and I asked here for another, larger blanket. There was a huge toad in the room where the blankets are kept. Earlier the parking attendant offered me a girl to sleep with but I declined. There is no way to lock the room from the inside so I placed a chair against the door.