Central America Archives - The Pure Life of Dreams

September 5, 2024September 5, 2024

Planting Arugula at the Back of the Tenement Building

Karin had been planting arugula stalks in the swampy water.

I thought many looked they were past gone but she said, “No! Even the dried reedy bark ones are good.”

April 14, 2023April 14, 2023

Floating towards the End of Days in Guatemala

It was our last day in Guatemala and it was clear we could not carry on.

Alexis and I had argued for most of the holiday and we would split up upon our return. It was a fait accompli.

That day I decided to go off by myself on a two-hour walk to the next beach over. We would have one last dinner upon my return.

I headed out through the mall, passing first through Harrods, and I thought it a shame that they had these same stores here now, that the world was becoming so homogeneous.

And at the end of the mall, I came out onto a rocky beach and realized then that I was barefoot and maybe I should have brought my shoes. The rocks were hard on my feet but it was too late to go back and fetch them. I would have to manage.

As I continued on I thought back at how we had agreed on Guatemala. We had spent many evenings at the hotel restaurant but even though she was a good traveler we had always argued about some such unimportant thing or other, and we knew we couldn’t continue.

I stepped up and over huge flat beige boulders buried partially in the sand. Pools of seawater collected in the natural dips of the rock. It was a shame we were splitting up but there was no way we could continue.

By then I had taken off my shirt and was holding it along with a spare pair of shorts in my hand and to make climbing more efficient I bundled both into my back pocket. Even so, by the time I got to the end of the path, it was getting towards dusk and it had taken a bit longer than I expected.

And at the endpoint, I found a small red house, far end of the path, and next to it lay a short boardwalk that followed the line of the water’s edge. The boardwalk lay out to sea a few feet as if stranded by the low tide. And the path was now reduced to a bland dusty road that split a promontory of small rocks and gorse. Alexis would say it didn’t look like much, but that would be just like her, right?

The clock on the house said quarter to five and I would have to hurry in order to be back for dinner. And I could imagine her getting cross, so I set off immediately back.

As I neared the mall, the crowds started to thicken and I knew I would have to push past them.

Inside the mall I found myself stuck behind two people who were especially slow. They were young and at first, I did not recognize that they were together. The girl had a condition, a long spindly arm that required she hold onto the rail of the steps. I was back in Harrods and I had to duck under her arm to get past, and only then did I realize that they were a couple, or a brother and sister.

Still, I pushed on at a frantic pace. I waved my hands, palms together in front of me so that I could slice through each group I crossed. Speeding now, I came to a full flight of stairs in a dark ornate oak hall with curled gold finial posts at the top of the bannister, and I grabbed one of the posts and used it to launch myself in the air.

I floated high over the steps, just as the post buckled under my grip and I thought that it could not have been made of gold after all, but must have been made of some cheap plastic instead.

And I floated over the crowd, over all five steps, and gliding steadily to the floor, it was then that I thought I stood a chance of returning on time.

Photo via PxFuel

March 22, 2023March 20, 2024

Dad is Alive and Well and Living in Costa Rica

It is getting late and my camera is running out of battery. I am in the valley of dark orange clay mountainsides in Costa Rica. And on the road, as dusk hits, I come across a stall by the roadside. It sells various bric-a-brac, luggage, assorted stuff piled up on old white bookshelves. And on the top shelf, I see a row of secondhand cameras.

“Do you sell batteries?” I ask the shopkeeper.

He says he does, and I pull out my old SLR and show him, pulling out the battery from its encasement. It is one of the old-fashioned brick ION batteries. Sure enough, he pulls out a battery from under his counter that matches.

“That’s great! I should get a battery for the other one too.”

Only I cannot remember the type of battery my other camera takes. I will have to get back to the hostel to pick it up. But then he pulls out a mini DV battery.

“Is it this one?”, he asks, but I cannot be sure.

“No, I’ll have to get back and get it. Then I can pay for both.”

“You sure?” He says again.

And so he tells me how to get back to the hostel and it seems quite close by. I need to stay on the base of the valley, he says, but once I set off, somehow I take a turn that rises up into the hills.

I am on a winding deserted road that overlooks the valley and now I am crying, like I should have bought the battery there and then.

The road is a dusty brown path that curves up to a large house with a tall brick wall that fences it off. I see a black sports car through the gate and it belongs to the shopkeeper’s rival so I don’t want to go there.

And next to the house is a post office which is still open.

It has an old man who can perhaps help me. In broken Spanish, I ask him for the phone number of the shopkeeper with the camera and luggage stall, and he writes the number on a piece of paper torn from a yellow legal pad.

“You can go in there to make a call,” and he points to a narrow side room with big windows that front the roadside.

My dad is sitting there shuffling through some papers, like an accountant.

He’s sitting in profile, wearing his big dark green cardigan. He has his familiar look, balding, and his thin grey hair is combed back as usual, but he does not notice me so I quickly dial the number on an old rotary phone.

“Yes, I am up in the hills next to the red house,” I whisper.

“I’ll come and get you,” the shopkeeper replies quickly, to my relief.

Photo by zmachacek via Deposit Photos

November 4, 2022July 24, 2024

Coqui Frog Salad

I am sitting in a formal park in Central America with Original Anne and there is a white stone terrace up above us attached to the main house. It stretches from one end to the other. And I am describing to her that the sound is from a coqui, a little frog that makes a sound like “co-koo” but clipped, like the alarm from an iPhone.

“I know that,” she emphasizes as we walk through the park.

We continue up the steps to the terrace. And the first level is wide and laid with turf instead of concrete so we settle down in one corner by one of the stone pots that decorates the balustrade.

She lays out a picnic salad of greens with a red barbecue dressing and each of us has a cardboard plate. And she points out, in the bowl, almost disguised by the sauce is the frog.

“See,” she says, as I mix the greens around to find the frog.

It is very small but then I see its hind legs and a general frog shape outlined in the sauce. With my spoon I am about to aim some of the sauce at her when she takes her own spoon and slops some on my leg.

“Hey,” I cry out, “You got some on my pants!”

I scrape the sauce off my white shorts on to my thigh, before spooning it onto my plate.

I’m back home in a dark medieval two room flat on the ground floor. It has small lead windows and it is already late at night. On the phone we are talking about getting married when I hear a screech.

I look outside and see a black car, square like one of those gangster cars from the thirties or forties. In the back of the car a lady is sat straight and from her profile and her long dark hair I recognize her as Janet. She has a large shard of glass in her hands, it glints along the broken edge. She is shrieking and threatening to stab herself with it, holding it up in front of her, ready to arc it down to her stomach.

I rush outside but by now the car is jackknifed across the road. The back stretches into the opposite lane and the driver has gotten out of the car.

“Get in the car!” he yells.

The driver side door is wide open. A car coming in the opposite direction will crash into it and spin the car around.

“No!” I reply.

“Then Original Anne should get in,” he shouts.

Not that either.

I have got to get to her before he does.

I run up the narrow lane to her place, the jackknifed car at my back. And I run up the steps to a new white walled flat. I knock on the wall of the front hallway for there is no front door. Then I step into a bare furniture less front room.

It’s a studio flat, though it has a couple of rooms off to the right. But it is also windowless, or dark, I cannot tell which, as I have not been there before. The only light comes from the front entrance.

I continue knocking on the wall before I fully enter the grey light room but the door to one room is closed. Maybe she is there but there is no sound.

She might not even be in the flat.

Photo from PxHere