I'm a freelance journalist based in León, Nicaragua. This
website is part travel log, part photo collection and part compilation
of my work as a daily newspaper reporter and freelancer.
We had just passed an Esso gas station outside
of San Carlos, El Salvador, when he appeared. But seeing no pistol
at his side or shotgun in his hands—as any Salvadoran official
would surely have—we continued on. After a minute or so, a small
Nissan pick-up truck barreled past us. Again, there he was, hunched
over in the bed of the truck, alternately shouting and smiling, waving
his hand wildly, his gelled hair whipping around like a wet mop. The
truck slammed on the brakes and he leapt onto the highway—but
was immediately swallowed by a mob of other hand-waving young men
who seemed to have risen from the pavement. Foolishly, I cracked the
window to investigate. They crowded around, as if our van was some
poor, blood-soaked victim of a severe beating. One of the men tossed
a laminated card bearing the Honduran flag on my lap, then jumped
back; compulsively, as if it were a stick of dynamite, I tossed it
out the window. Meanwhile, another man had hopped on the back of our
van; all were shouting indecipherable things.
In
the chaos of the moment, Freda and I took stock of the situation:
We had seen no signs indicating a border crossing, and according to
our 25-year-old map, we were still two towns away from Honduras. But
there, parked a few hundred feet ahead of us on the shoulder, was
a line of idling semi-trucks. And though these men were clearly not
border officials, the efficiency with which they had swarmed our vehicle,
their insistence that we absolutely had to have what they were selling—no
matter that we had no clue what it was—the aggressiveness with
which they greeted our confusion, lead us to believe we had arrived.
The border had to be nearby. What other geographic location could
reduce men to characters from Lord of the Flies?
In
between their demands and our meek rebuttals, I asked one of the men
and he told us: Indeed, we were a few hundred feet from Honduras.
So we decided to turn around, check into a nearby sex motel—ahem,
“auto motel,” without a doubt the cheapest lodging around—and
call it a night. I bid our friends farewell and jammed the gas pedal.
“Mi
nombre es Antonio!” shouted the man who had tossed the card
into the van, chasing after us. “I will be here waiting in the
morning!”
My
Adventures with Javier
The
large, decaying steps look as if they lead to a ruin: On one side,
palm trees. On the other, another set of even larger—and equally
decayed—steps that stretch a good 20 yards. Above, a sprawling
compound surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Inside, vampiros
glide through the glass-enclosed hallway; through
long-empty bedrooms, a library, a living room; through a courtyard
where where a hot water heater still bares guerilla graffiti from
El Salvador's civil war.
Welcome
to Javier's hacienda.
It's
not his, exactly. It's his family's; these days, he just grows coffee
there.
But when he was a kid, the hacienda—which sits a few kilometers
outside Santa Ana, the country's second largest city—was attacked
and burned by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN.
(A copy of the typed communique, which the FMLN released after the
attack, sits in a cabinet in Javier's home in Santa Ana. It names
his deposed older brother as the head of the "oligarchy.")
Now, the FMLN is one of the country's main political parties. But
back then, it was a coalition of several guerilla groups formed during
the civil war.
Walking through the vacant building, it looks like someone's moving
in—or making a fast exit: several pieces of dusty wood furniture
are strewn across the hallway's checkered floor. Plates and spoons
and forks sit atop a nearby table. A wood staircase burned during
the attack has been replaced by a set of tiled steps.
Javier's many, many siblings lived at the hacienda as well. Now, they're
gone. The only ones left are the coffee workers and their families,
who live in a series of brick shacks on the far side of the compound.
As we stroll around the grounds, he explains how shortly before the
attack, his cousin, a millionare rancher and top member of Frente
Democratico Revolucinario, also a guerilla organization, was assasinated.
As a Truth Commission later found, Enrique Alvarez Cordoba, along
with several other guerilla leaders, were dragged from a San Salvador
Jesuit school on the morning of November 27, 1980 by government security
forces.
Several bodies, including Cordoba's, were found shortly after in Apulo,
a resort town about an hour from San Salvador.
The hacienda, Javier said, came from his father's family. Cordoba,
however, was from the other side.
The Secret Trout
She delivered it on a large, plastic plate wrapped in tinfoil.
After hiking 15 kilometers through high-altitude mountains, I felt
delirious, like Indiana Jones just before Bellock steals his just-discovered
golden idol. Like I should be eating freeze-dried chilli, pears doused
in corn syrup and all the other disgustingly delicious pre-packaged
mush I usually eat on long camping trips—not trout so fresh
I expected the tinfoil to leap from the table.
Only a few minutes before, from an awkward, cylindrical bench, Jonah
and I had watched our waitress corner the fish in one of several large
pools churning with rainbow trout.
Though the farm is operated by our waitress's father—and has
been for several years, since the state of Oaxaca began sponsoring
ecotourism projects throughout the small, Zapotec villages outside
Oaxaca City—she looked like an expert, gracefully alternating
between two different nets before tossing the trout in a large plastic
bucket.
"Buen provecho," she said, rearranging our dishes to make
room for the plate, her voice as squeaky as Bobby Brady's.
We stared a moment, dipped another piece of home-made corn tostada
in chickpea-cheese soup, and waited, overwhelmed with anticipation.
Throughout
our time in Mexico, I've eaten more seafood than any other period
in my life. I've eaten mussles, oysters, scallops, lobster, octopus,
squid, shrimp, tuna, salmon, trout, dorado, shark and countless other
unidentified creatures. I've eaten them raw, cooked in lime juice,
slathered in pecans, deep-fried, baked, stuffed, in soup and on tacos,
tostadas and burritos.
That is to say, I consider myself somewhat experienced in the very
important tradition of Mexican seafood.
And I can say, without the slightest hestitation, that the stuffed
rainbow trout I ate on that cool evening outside Latuve, high up in
the Oaxacan mountains, was the best damned fish I've tasted in Mexico.
We sat, utterly baffled. How could a 16-year-old girl have, in a matter
of minutes, created something so complex, so beautiful, so delicious?
As we poked the trout's floss-thin bones, it oozed onions and squash
blossoms and zuchini and green peppers and butter. But there was something
else. Something beyond our gringo comprehension.
So when our waitress returned, we asked. And we recieved.
And the secret we promised to keep.
The
Border
Imagine the craziest Latin American market you've ever seen—animals,
both alive and dead, everywhere; makeshift stalls built with tarps
and rusty pipes and nylon cord jutting in every direction; old women
with loads that look like anvils atop their heads; young boys and
girls hawking socks, underwear, peaches, cell-phone chargers, bread,
tamales, fake Levis' jeans and Vans shoes, CDs, boom boxes, serapes,
bed sheets...
Now imagine that market at an international border.
We
arrived at the Guatemala-Mexico border in Cuauhtemoc, Chiapas, anticipating
a long, drawn-out process involving a football field of red tape and
endless carbon copies and questions about why two gringos would think
to drive to Nicaragua for a vacation.
Instead,
we got was market day at the border. The highway was rerouted down
a dirt road scarred with potholes as large as craters, and back up
a cobblestone hill as uneven as a steep mountain pass and lined with
everything described above. Veering two inches on either side would
have meant plowing down somebody's business.
But we made it.
Getting through the official border was simple. It took 10 minutes
and a few dollars. We also had the pleasure of watching them disinfect
the Mexican cooties on the underside of our van.
After that, it was all smiles and no propinas from the Guatemalan
border officials.
Another
Teachers Strike in Oaxaca
It's
a cold, drizzly night in Oaxaca City, but the Zocalo is as crowded
as the mescal bar around the corner. Dozens of large blue tarps are
strewn across concrete planters and ornate, decaying benches;across
sidewalks and coffee shop tables, forming a maze of nylon cord and
plastic and sheltering hundreds of the state's 70,000 teachers who
have descended on the city to demand better pay and working conditions.
The
protest is an annual affair, but this time is different. The last
time the teachers came to Oaxaca City, in 2006, things got ugly. The
governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, ordered riot police to forcefully quell
the demonstration. The move backfired, and thousands of teachers and
locals occuped the city center, demanding the governor's resignation
and forming a people's assembly. Ruiz Ortiz promptly went into hiding.
APPO, as the assembly is known, is still around. So is the governor.
Since the teachers came to Oaxaca City three days ago, they've turned
the Zocalo into a kind of anti-government circus and they've occupied
several government buildings.
But so far, there's been little sign of the kind of violent backlash
witnessed in 2006—unless you count the fighter jets circling
the city early this morning.
Pinche
Madre!
It started with the churning and sputtering of a car that
didn't want to move.
The sun had just set, and we were camped on an isolated beach a few
miles south of Mulege in southern Baja. Since arriving a few hours
before, we'd been alone.
But after those unmistakable sounds catapulted over a nearby dune,
Jonah went to investigate.
A father , it turned out, had gotten the family SUV stuck in several
inches of sand. Every time he would throttle the gas for longer than
15 seconds, the car would cut out. Mom, who was pregnant, was jumping
back and forth between the rear and the hood, feebly trying to liberate
the car as dad reved the engine. Their daughter, who looked about
seven or eight, was crawling and writhing and laughing in the sand.
So
we decided to help. Even with Jonah and I and Freda throwing all our
weight behind the car, mom insisted on helping. Dad said nothing to
encourage her to do otherwise. She occasionally barked orders at dad,
who was perhaps intoxicated. For instance, after we'd manage to push
him forward or backward three feet—suffering through clouds
of whriling sand and the stifling fumes of a Mexican motor along the
way—he would immediately drive back into the just conquered
sand trap.
Then,
as if the sand gods were playing some cruel hoax on him, and his predicament
were not the result of his strange ideas about how to exit a deep
pile of sand, he would jump out of the car, kick the tires and shout
"Pinche Madre!"
This
went on for 15 minutes. We were confused about how to proceed, because
if dad was drunk, constructive criticism might be taken as pinche
gringo threats. Jonah suggested rocking the car toward an area where
the sand was more compact, but dad looked baffled. So did mom, who
by then was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily.
Dad,
looking exhausted and frustrated and humilitated, instructed mom to
call a family friend, who apparently had a truck powerful enough to
remove the SUV from its hole. Jonah offered two fold-out chairs so
they could sit while waiting; they seemed embarassed by the gesture,
but took him up anyway.
If
dad was drunk, he did a good job of playing it down. He was kind and
curteous, explaining how he was from Ciudad Constitucion, a city a
few hours south on the Pacific side of Baja; how he and his wife owned
a house next to the car wash in town; how they had driven out here
a couple of weeks before and the sand was plenty firm.
He
wore a baseball cap pulled low over a mop of scraggly hair. Acne scars
followed the contours of his face. Sitting beside him, his wife was
short and stout with the wide, flat features of a Mayan.
In the distance, the purple and yellow and green neon glow of a traveling
carnival illuminated a far-off mountain ridge. A barely audible loudspeaker
filled the cool night air with rapidfire, soccer-announcer-like prounouncements.
The
friend arrived shortly after in a large Chevy Suburban. They wasted
no time extending a winch attached to the grill.
Standing
between the two trucks, the friend directed his son, who was perhaps
eights year old and behind the wheel of the Suburban. He had dominion
over the winch's remote control.
The
machine
let out a sharp, grinding hiss as he switched it on. The SUV chugged
forward a few inches, then stopped. They tried again, this time with
no success.
"Pinche
Madre!"
Dad
jumped out of the car, opened the hood, fiddled with the engine, then
hopped back in. The son switched on the winch. Again, only the grinding
and chugging of the winch, but no movement.
By
then, Jonah and Freda and I had set up our fold-out chairs at safe
viewing distance, and Freda was memorializing the episode on video.
Headlights from the Suburban, which faced the SUV head-on, bathed
the dad's silouhette in a florescent blaze.
They
decided on a new approach. The friend would take over winch responsibilities,
while his son would back the Suburban up until the cable was taut
and hopefully strong enough to pull the SUV.
His
eyes parallel with the top of the steering wheel, the son dropped
the truck into reverse, rolling it slowly into the Sea of Cortez.
The tide lapped against the tires as the cable tightened and dad switched
on the winch. This time, the SUV rumbled forward onto a bed of rocks,
then the engine cut out. Success.
Dad
jumped out of the car, lunging through the sand toward our fold-out
chairs. He thanked us, told us of a bar where he would buy us beers
the following day, and bid us farewell.
With
the family back in the SUV, dad rolled forward along the rocks. The
Suburban was trailing just a few feet behind.
About
30 feet down the beach, however, the rocks turned to sand.
Again,
the churning and sputtering. Again, dad leaping from the car, opening
the hood, fumbling with the motor, slamming it shut and kicking the
tires.
"Pinche
Madre!"
The Long Ferry Ride
There were grunts. There were whispers. There were inaudible commands
followed by the clink and crash of a thousand men chargning one another,
of metal piercing skin, of oozing flesh and blood.
There
was the tinny ring of a Casio synthesizer, the muffled croon of a
squat, bespectacled bald man playing contemporary favorites in the
banda and romantica styles. And there were a dozen drunk men howling
along with him.
It
was only a few minutes into the ferry ride from LaPaz, on Southern
Baja's East Coast, to Topolobampo, on the mainland's Pacific Coast,
and the lounge was hopping. On one side of the couch and window-lined
room were several large flat-screen televisions playing an overdubbed
version of 300 at full volume. Just a few feet away, on the
other side of the room, the man with the keyboard was tapping away.
The
sounds collided with each other like muscle cars in a demolition derby.
The
men mostly drank canned Tecate and Clamato, a Bloody Mary-like drink
that never quite caught on the United States, but which Sinaloese
and southern Baja folk drink like water. They wore cowboy hats and
baseball caps pulled low over their eyes. Many were truckers ferrying
their rigs to the mainland. Others were with their wives and children.
The
teenagers and children and women and men who weren't shouting along
watched the television screens astutely, as if they were kids watching
Saturday morning cartoons, and as if the keyboard player didn't exist.
Every half-hour or so, after a pre-recorded 20-second piece of soft
jazz, the player would take a break. For five minutes you could hear
the overdub perfectly.
When
300 ended, what looked like a pirated version of the new Rambo movie
took the screen. The grunts of warring Spartans and Persians were
replaced with the quips and commands of a steroid-addled Sylvester
Stallone. The synthesizer continued and the men on the other side
of the room got drunker. Now they were dancing and shouting orders
to the keyboard player, who seemed gratified at the attention.
When
Rambo ended, another Sylvester Stallone movie appeared on the screen.
He was a bit younger, wearing excrutiatingly tight jeans, high-top
sneakers and a hawaiian shirt. He charged a small twin-engine plane
with an 18-wheeler to save his mom, ramming its landing gear with
the front end of his truck. He succeded.
After
five hours of unrelenting noise, we walked upstairs to our cabin,
hoping to catch a nap before arriving. On an even larger flat-screen
television at the front of the room, two Mexican futbol teams were
facing off.
