The Agrinautica

Friday, June 30th, Day 57, 16:00 - My flight wouldn't be until 23:40. I had paid for late check out so I had the room until 16:00, after that I was on my laptop in the hotel lobby trying to get a Medium post written before the weekly round up of the Globetrotters publication get posted sometime on the weekend. At 18:24 Nadia showed up to see me -- She wanted to see me today but Stevens who had just been over to interview is her ex so she had been trying to avoid being over at the same time. So we relocated to sitting by the pool, where she mostly watched tiktok videos while I tried to make conversation. She's a bit addicted I think.



   20:30 Nadia went out to catch a yellow-yellow home and I got a free ride from the hotel airport shuttle to the airport. Got to the gate without incident. Worked on the medium story while I waited for the flight. There were only less than a dozen flight plus about 20 young men in the uniform of the Real Sociedad soccer team. I'm a bit mystified because they all looked West African but wikipedia says most of the players of said team are Basque?
   Despite the small number of us boarding, the flight was already fairly full of people from its origin in Sao Tome. Makes sense as it's a Portugal-bound Air Portugal (TAP) flight and the island of Sao Tome is one of the former Portuguese African colonies. Well its not an "African colony" in the normal sense of local people coming under the control of the colonial power, Sao Tome was actually uninhabited when the Portuguese founded their colony there. But nevertheless it ended up with a substantial African population due to its use as a slave transshipment hub ("From 1519 to 1540, the island was the center of the slave trade between Elmina and the Niger Delta" ... "Prior to 1580, the island accounted for 75 percent of Brazil's imports, mainly slaves. The slave trade remained a cornerstone of São Tomé's economy until after 1600." -wikipedia). I didn't know all this at the time but I was a bit surprised that the Portugal-bound Sao Tomeans looked more Portuguese than West African.
   The direct line flight From Accra to Lisbon would be north by northwest but we actually flew northeast at first to make a big detour around the east side of Mali. I'm curious what will happen to the Wagner Empire's puppet regimes in Mali, CAR and Sudan now that Wagner is being deflated by Russia.
   Mostly slept on this flight. I think I was given an option for chicken or ravioli for dinner and had the ravioli.
   I had a ten hour layover in Lisbon, during which my checked luggage was checked right through and I could have just proceeded directly to the gate and cooled my heels there, but it was my intention to go out and see Lisbon! I tried to use my German passport (for the first time!) to enter Portugal but it wouldn't scan on the electronic scanner for some reason, so I entered on my US passport.
   Metro (subway) was directly connected to the airport, just a flight of stairs down from the arrivals area. Easy-to-use straightforward ticket vending machine gave me an all-day pass for €6.50 (from my recollection, may be off by an insignificant amount). Road the subway half an hour to the city center. The subway and city streets I emerged on to felt strangely deserted, apparently Lisbonians don't really emerge on Saturdays before 10am. I ordered a croissant and "a coffee" at a cafe by where I'd emerged from the subway. Croissant wasn't as good as French ones, but the coffee I found to be a small shot of strong espresso served in a little shot-glass sized cup. I recognized this as an artifact of Brazilian culture in my memory, it looked like a cafezinho!
   I found I was just beside the "Gulbenkian Park," which I explored and it turned out to be a very beautiful sort of cubist Japanese Garden covering 19 acres around a pond and anchored on the Gulbenkian Museum. Walking the paths (of square concrete pads) surrounded by stands of bamboo, crossing a little bridge over a babbling brook, was very peaceful after the flight. I tried to enter the museum at around 09:30 but the security guard by the door in a suit politely stopped me and said, in English, with a wink, that it opened at 10:00. There were some other things I wanted to do such as tour the Castelo Sao Jorge but figured be time for that after, so I toodled around the park till 10:00. At 10:00 all the inhabitants of Lisbon seemed to emerge.
   Museum admission around €10. I had been under the misapprehension that it would be a museum of modern art but apparently its a museum of the historical collection of Mr Calouste Gulbenkian, which is "one of the largest collections in Europe." The first gallery being ancient Egyptian artifacts I was rather asking myself why I was spending my time in Lisbon looking at someone's collection of Egyptian stuff but then we got to the European art and I felt like I was back on track for appropriate cultural edification. Saw many original Rembrants, Monets, Renoir's etc etc other beautiful paintings and art.



   From there I took the subway down to the waterfront where I found what must be tourist ground zero, the cobbled streets swarming with tourists and hawkers. A grand arch, an immense statue on a pedestal stuff like that. My phone fortunately was working, on a $10-a-day plan for foreing roaming with my Australian telecom, which is a good deal for a day or two. And I had a friend I wanted to catch up with in Lisbon so having a working phone was critical to making that possible. My friend Sharon is a Namibian i had actually met on Tinder 6 or 7 years ago, before I met Cristina obviously. We had remained friends but never met up. Now she's in Lisbon with her fiance. We met at an indoor farmers market a few blocks from the tourist center ("Time Out Market"), and then found a little Portuguese restaurant, where I had "black grilled pork" or some such (not very black), which was delicious. And sangria!
   While we were sitting there talking her lovely fiance (Italian phone app developer -- she's in textiles and he's in text-iles) asked me when I had to go back to the airport and I airily said "well my flight is at 5:10 so maybe 2:00," and I was still thinking about seeing the castle but he pointed out it was already 14:20! Yikes! Time flies when you're having fun! So we settled the bill and began hurrying to the nearest subway. But along the way we briefly ducked into a little place that specialized in Lisbon's famous little pastry the pastel de nata, and the accompanying ginjinha liqueur, which I was told is best taken from a chocolate cup one then eats but I had a shot of it from a normal glass with my pastel. Lisboa goals knocked out!






   Got to airport around 15:40, hour and a half till flight. Long line for "non-EU passports" at passport control but wait I've got this! Used my German passport to cruise right on through the "EU Passports" line. Was still feeling stressed despite having an hour till the flight, since the flight was listed as "final call" on the departures board. Rushed to the gate which was seemingly the furthest one in the airport. Joked with my parents (on FB messenger) that "this is just a warm up for JFK" if I had had any idea! (I had two hours between my arrival (20:00) in JFK and outgoing flight (22:00), which I was already stressed about). Flight was delayed over 40 minutes departing, which further stressed me out about my JFK connection.



   Flight from Lisbon to JFK, also via Air Portugal, six hours, unremarkable. Being daytime I didn't sleep much. Watched Bladerunner 2049 (not bad but I wouldn't quite say it changed my life, maybe B+) and The Great Gatsby (B+ as well. I had read the book in high school but forgotten all but the most general outline of the plot. Him not seeing his love for five years made me think of Cristina and miss her, though if she married someone else I like to think I wouldn't proceed to stalk her over it). Chicken cassarole sort of thing for dinner, typical airplane food.
   We touched down right "on time" at 20:00 which was our scheduled arrival time, but of course we were actually supposed to be at the gate at that time, and we actually got to the gate 48 minutes later. Ran to passport control to try to get ahead of as many of my co-passengers as possible. Was still in passport control as 21:00 rolled past. Since my continuing flight on JetBlue was a separate ticket I'd have to check in for it which presumably would have to be an hour before the flight. Finally got through passport control (offiical only briefly looked at me and the passport before waiving me through, all while carrying on a conversation with his coworker in Spanish). By the time no more bags were coming down our baggage carousel. Walked around it several times in the opposite direction from what the bags were traveling but didn't see my bag. at 21:20 I rushed off to submit a lost luggage report, came back to see if it had maybe arrived while I was filing the report but it hadn't, exited baggage claim. In the past There's been another 10-30 minute delay to talk to biosecurity while leaving baggage claim but this time there was no sign of them, not even a declaration form to be signed about it.
   Found I was in Terminal 1 and had to get to Terminial 5. The inter-terminal airtrain is currently not servicing Terminal 1 so had to wait for an interterminal bus. 21:36 After waiting 5-10 minutes an employee told me if I was really in that much of a hurry I should take a taxi. When I walked over to where the taxis were the bus came and went, these taxis were all already taking passengers. Came back to the bus stop just as the bus to terminal 5 was leaving ::AUGH!:: A bus to Terminal 4 then came and I was suggested to get on it and get the airtrain from there to terminal five. Arriving at the Terminal 4 airtrain station a train was just boarding but they go two directions and while I spent 30 seconds trying to determine if it was going the right way the doors closed and it left. No matter there'd be another one in a moment right? No it took fully ten minutes for another train to come, while I was dying inside. Meanwhile in communication with my parents we were already lookign at other options and there was no other flight this evening, it was looking like the next best option if I didn't catch this flight was a flight tomorrow afternoon. I had only scheduled two days in Rochester New York with my dad's side of the family and didn't fancy wasting half of it in a New York City hotel. On the plus side I'd been notified that the flight had been delayed 15 minutes, and also now that I didn't have checked luggage, I had done the online check in and so, so long as I got to the gate 15 minutes or so before the flight I could probably still get on it!
   Got to the Terminal 5 security lines just after 22:00, wasn't sure they'd let me through showing a boarding past for a flight that should have already departed but they did. Only a handful of people ahead of me in line. Ran to the gate ... got there at 22:17, there was no plane there and it was listed as having departed at 22:16. Obviously if I'd been there at 22:15 I still would have missed it. But if I had caught that first airtrain I might have, and/or caught the original bus direct to Terminal 5, or otherwise picked up a few minutes here or there somehow. And certainly if my flight hadn't been 48 minutes late!!



   I'd been corresponding with my parents on facebook messenger, giving them updates (from which I was able to get the exact times mentioned above). They suggested I talk to the jetblue staff about my options, which I almost didn't do at all because I didn't anticipate they'd do anything for me, but I was walking right past their check in kiosks when dad suggested I did so, so I went up to them. Much to my surprise without hesitation they said it was their policy to put me on the next available flight at no cost to me (!!!). Last time I missed a flight, in Europe, I had to buy a whole new flight for $600! Unfortunately the next available flight was not until the same flight 24 hours later! BUT dad had noticed there was a flight with open seats to Buffalo the next morning at 06:30, which is only an hour from Rochester. I inquired about this, they said yes they could do that for a $75 airport change fee. So we did so. She asked if I had any checked luggage and I said no as I didn't expect my luggage to have returned to me so soon.
   Then (23:08) as I was back on the airtrain headed to where the hotel shuttles go (dad had booked me a hotel, it really took a load of stress off my shoulders his assistance during this) I got a call, my luggage had been found! Could I return to Terminal 1 to get it? Sigh yes I suppose. Terminal 1 recall is the only tediously connected to the others. Got there and got my luggage by 23:37. I'd been blaming Air Portugal and assuming it was still in Portugal but it turns out a luggage conveyor jammed and my luggage as well as at least a dozen other people's from my flight had all been on the jammed conveyor up out of our sight. I thought abut going back to JetBlue to put my checked luggage back on the ticket but of course it takes half an hour to get there so resolved to do it in the morning.
   By now the hotel shuttles weren't running any more so I got a taxi. Guy said it would be $60, then when we got to the hotel about 10 minutes away told me the bill was $93. I aske about this difference he said it was taxes and gratuity ... though then when I handed him my last $100 he grumbled saying "the gratuity should be 20% but I guess I'll take $7" and took the whole 100. Meanwhile compare this to several times in West Africa I hired a car and driver all day for less than that!
   As midnight ticked over I was waiting in line to check in -- there was a line of half a dozen people in front of me and as many still in line by the time I got to the front. The one receptionist seemed frazzled and overwhelmed but was admirably powering through it. As I'd later learn the transportation infrastructure in the whole region was really stretched the limit this evening, all kinds of flights, trains, car rentals, accommodations all booked out. Finally got to the room and got to bed at 24:13.



July 1st - 03:00 As always when I'm getting very little sleep the problem is exacerbated by waking up in the night being convinced my alarm has just gone off and its time to get up before looking at hte time and realizing no that was just a well nigh hallucinatory dream.
   04:00 alarm goes off for real. Downstairs by 04:30 for the earliest hotel shuttle at 05:00. Had to wait in a short line to talk to the check in people to have the checked luggage I'd already paid for added to my ticket. Because everyone without a problem checks in at the automated kiosks, everyone in this line had some complicated problem so it was short but barely moving. As once AGAIN an hour till my flight came on I was stressed all over again. Checked the luggage, but only when I got to security did I remember I had also originally paid for expedited security and that hadn't transferred to my new ticket, as I longingly watched people go through the very short priority security line from my position in the this-time-very-long normal security line. But got the gate around 06:00 and they hadn't begun boarding yet.



   Unremarkable hour long flight to Buffalo. Don't think I've ever flown in there before. Got my luggage without incident and went outside to meet my dad and his brother my uncle Kim, but our subsequent adventures in Rochester will be subject for another entry (:

   Let us pick up directly from where we left off, at the airport gate to leave Melbourne, and stressed about whether or not I'd be able to get in to Guinea due to accidentally failing to have my yellow fever certificate with me.

   Sitting nearby in the waiting area was what appeared to be a couple of African descent with their 4 year old daughter, and the precocious little girl was telling another woman "I'm going to Africa!" So I thought I'd be so bold as to ask the man where in Africa they were going.
   "Conakry Guinea"
   "Me toooo!"
   We immediately began comparing notes on the trip to Guinea (there's direct flights from Dubai now!), how things are there, etc. They turned out to be extremely friendly. Not a couple as it happens. The man (Sam) was traveling with his wife's best friend and the latter's daughter.

   Had an aisle seat beside an older caucasian couple. It would be my assumption they're just doing something boring like being on a vacation to Rome but last year when I finally talked to my older caucasian seatmate three quarters of the way through the flight it turned out she was on her way to Lagos Nigeria for a development project. So with that in mind this time I greeted my seatmates as soon as we were seated. They were on their way to Rome for vacation.

In Flight Movie Reviews
Woman King - This movie is about the legendary female warriors of the Dahomey kingdrom in West Africa in or around 1823. The plot is kind of a bit full of ahistorical fluff -- in the movie the Dahomey are adamandtly opposed to the slave trade and fighting to end it when in reality the Dahomey under that specific king tremendously _increased_ their participation in the slave trade and it was only under pressure from England that they eventually moved away from it. But other than that it's a fun movie and it's good to see a hollywood movie set West Africa actually striving to do serious justice to the culture rather than have it be some anarchic backwater of simple "natives." One review describes it as "Braveheart with black women" and that seems accurate.
   Also noteworthy that John Boyega, who played the Dahomey king, is ethnically Yoruba, ie, of the people who are portrayed as his enemies here. And it was interesting to me because the Yoruba history I'd read as background for the historical bits of my book as generally from the Oyo / Yoruba perspective, so funny for me as well for them to be cast as the villians. Also, as portrayed here, they come across more like their own enemies the Sokoto Caliphate horsemen than as themselves.
   I give it an A-, it was enjoyable and my only quibbles are with their historical liberties.

The Legion - This movie about a Roman scout escaping an encircled Roman camp and fleeing across the Armenian wilderness pursued by two enemies in order to go ask for help from another Roman general was extremely unimpressive. It felt like I was watching a student film project made by about half a dozen film students (I'm surprised to read now there's as many as sixteen actors in it). I didn't even try not to fall asleep during it and I don't think I missed anything. Looks like the professional reviewers pretty well skewered it too. F

Unknown Richard the Lionhearted Movie Kingslayer - then I tried to watch some Richard the Lionhearted movie that also didn't seem like it was proceeding very promisingly and I was at my limit for bad movies so just went to sleep. Googling it now I find it has 4/10 stars on IMDB, and the first result besides that is a google auto generated "People Often Ask: Is Kingslayer a good movie?" with the answer "Kingslayer is a poorly written, poorly acted, poorly directed film where the plot makes as little sense as why John Rhys-Davies agreed to associate himself with it." sooo I think my initial impression was probably correct and I'm going to go ahead and label it with the F
End Movie Interlude

   Arrived at 5:20am local time in Dubai, which would have been 10:20am in Melbourne, I guess making it only a 13 hour flight.
   Met up with my Guinean friends, who of course were making the same connection as I. Because I'm almost always traveling alone it's kind of novel and fun for me to feel like I'm traveling "with" people and they made me feel like I was part of their little group. In fact I had a very unusually social time in the airport because then a Muslim man approached us, he couldn't speak English but it was clear he couldn't figure out where his flight's gate was so I went off with him in search of his proper gate until he found some Arabic speaking people to help him. Anyway took off about two hours later.



   Flight would be bound for Dakar after Conakry and wasn't full. I was kind of anticipating most of the passenger would be onward bound to Dakar but (spoiler alert) it seemed like roughtly half got off in Conakry in the end. I would have had a seatmate but the cheeky woman moved to an unoccupied seat in the front row of the section, which I'd just heard the flight attendant tell someone else they'd have to pay $100 if they wanted to upgrade to it ahaha. So I had the aisle seat, empty seat beside me and a young man by the window spoke no known language (which is to say not English or French), and didn't deplane in Conakry.
   As the flight was all day time, and had the same set of movies of which I'd already seen all the ones I wanted to watch, I just read my book(s).

In Flight Book Reviews
In Trouble Again by Redmond O'Hanlon -- I had greatly enjoyed reading his later book set in the Congo, and in this one he is traveling by boat through the Venezuelan Amazon. Again I loved his mix of well portrayed characters, beautiful descriptions, and interesting all around setting, observations of natural history, etc. I think I slightly preferred Congo Journey for its tighter Heart of Darkness style plot arc of descent into near insanity, but no complaints about this book, I quite liked it. Finished the book ... great I haven't even arrive yet and finished one of the two books I brought with me. And I like this book too much to discard it, want to keep it on my shelf / loan it to other people, so guess I'll be carting it around now.

Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmon O'Hanlon -- Started this earlier book by the same author. In this one he is in 1983 making his first of what as we know would later be several ambitious expeditions. I'm only a few chapters in and I can tell his writing at this early stage is much less evolved than it would later be. He seems to be hurrying along in his prose, and makes some jokes I felt rather fell flat, but that's not to say it's a bad book at all. In fact it's kind of fun to have witnessed his development as an author through the course of his books. Anyway, I'm not very far in so that's all I have to say about this one so far.

   But in general I think O'Hanlon might be unseating Paul Theoroux in my opinion as the best travel writer, though I just wish he had written more books! It's only these three and one more on a trawler in the North Atlantic.
End Book Review Interlude



   I expected we would just fly more or less straight west across north Africa but we instead took quite the detour north over the Mediterranean. I kind of expected maybe we'd avoid flying over Sudan but looking at the specific route we took I can only guess we were also trying to avoid flying over Libya and Mali as well. And you'd think this would have been planned in advance but then we arrived over an hour late so who knows. As it happens, sometimes like on the Mel-DXB leg, I don't look at the in flight maps but as I was just reading I had he map open the whole time so I'd look up at it every so often and be like "okay we're crossing over Alexandria now huh." "well look there's Malta now. Are we headed to Europe??"
   And also, don't forget, this whole time in the back of my mind I'm a little stressed about what will happen when we get to Guinea in terms of being able to get in without the yellow fever certificate.

   So by and by finally we landed. 3pm local (2am Saturday Melbourne, having left my house at 2pm Thursday). Last year they were checking temperatures and covid vaccination certificates just at the end of the boarding bridge but not so this time (also masks are being worn now by a handful of people but no longer either required or worn by a siginificant number of people). Rather than wait for my friends, I hurried along thinking it might take me awhile to deal with passport control. Proceeded directly to the woman in the "arrival visas" kiosk, who last year had been sullen and difficult and had extracted a bribe from me (by cleverly telling me I needed to pay, rather than actually asking for a bribe, I only realized later I'd already paid for the visa). But this time she waved me away saying "no marshe pas!" which to my very basic understanding of French seemed to be "don't walk" and made no sense -- though now I look it up and apparently it means "do not work" (though I wasn't wrong, marche does walk on its own). So I just went to the passport stamping kiosk and handed the woman there my passport and the paper showing my visa approval. Rather to my surprise she simply stamped the paper and the passport and waved me through.
   Last year not only had the first lady asked me a bunch of questions and made a big deal about issuing a visa, but then the person at hte passport stamping kiosk had ALSO grilled me on things like the address and phone number of where I was staying and my hosts and generally also made himself difficult. But this time and after all that stress I blew through passport control in probably a matter of seconds. Needless to say she didn't ask about a yellow fever certificate.
   And then I ended up waiting around for my friends, they were among the last off the airplane. As we exited the terminal they were met by their joyous families. My ride was a spot late due to traffic but by and by they came and collected me, took me to the hotel. Another difference I noted from last year was a very heavy policy presence last year. There were armed soldiers loitering menacingly in the airport last year, one had to squeeze past them on the narrow walkway out which was kind of intimidating, and then in the drive across town one would see them very visibily present in many places -- as I noted last year I even saw things like a heavily armed policeman (/ military? well I think they're "gendarmes" which are literally both police and military) savagely thwack a motorcyclist for not coming to a stop fast enough. The police presence was overwhelming and imminently menacing. I don't know if the political situation has in general improved here -- they still have the unelected military leader who took over in a coup -- but just from the first day's observations the military/police presence doesn't seem as overwhelming and menacing.



   Otherwise, at the same hotel again. Just chillin here (well it's 36c/98f out so maybe not exactly "chillin") Saturday (today) and then tomorrow I depart for up-country.

Saturday, July 2nd -- After I finished writing yesterday's livejournal entry [yesterday's yesterday as of when I'm posting this, I had no internet yesterday], sitting at a table next to the hotel pool, I went to the hotel front desk to exchange US$50 to the Ghanaian currency ("cedes" apparently). Despite that the official exchange rate is pretty close to 8 cedes to the dollar, I was informed they would exchange them at 7.2 to the dollar. Which wasn't very appealing but I didn't feel like hunting around town to exchange money at a better rate. Then the front desk fellow, whose name was something a bit silly like Lordly, said that he didn't have a ten so he'd give me 350 and owe me the ten ... which I sighed and accepted, after all it's just a dollar thirty nine. And needless to say I never saw him again.

   I returned to my room and succumbed to the urge to take a nap. Conventional wisdom is that the best way to get over jetlag is to power through your sleepy daytime and only go to sleep when it's an appropriate local time -- however, having been in transit for over 24 hours (counting the four hours I spent in the Melbourne airport before departure, because surely I wasn't at my leisure at that time), I was fairly exhausted. Though I tried to tell myself I spent much of that time essentially somewhere near asleepness on the plane so it would be lazy to just sleep more after have been semi-asleep for nearly 24 hours ... but semi-asleep, as it turns out, is no substitute at all for actually asleep, and long story short, I slept away the entire afternoon.

   Just around 10pm when I was thinking of changing into my pajamas and going to bed for real, my colleague from Germany called to say he'd just arrived and would I like to join him for a beer? So I did and we sat by the pool drinking beer (the Ghanaian "Club" beer) and talking till around 1:45am. Then he tried to exchange some money at the front desk but they informed him they didn't have any cede to give him. And then we tried to go up to our rooms but found neither of our keys was working now for some reason and had to return to the front desk and have them come up with us and let us into our rooms.

Sunday, July 3rd -- I paid for my room (700 cedes) on my debit card, thinking it would go through for the exact amount minus a negligible bank-instigated currency exchange fee -- but when I looked at the receipt I saw they had rung it up as "100 USD" ... once again using their own 7:1 exchange rate, such sauce! And then I paid for my dinner and beers I had charged to my room with a 100 cede note for the 85 cede bill and they gave me 10 cede change because they "didn't have another five." Such sauce.
   Though despite their skill at nickle-and-diming me to death on exchanges the hotel was pretty nice, considering.

   Arne and I proceeded to the airport to catch our flight to the northern town of Tamale. Looking out the terminal windows at the tarmac I noted what looked like a small passenger plane with "Nigerian Air Force" written on the side.. as well as two UN aircraft.
   Flight was an hour and a half in a small turboprop. Talked a bit with the young woman in the seat beside me, and then, apparently overhearing this, as we disembarked the man in a business suit from the seat in front of me said to me "what's an Aussie doing here in Tamale, Ghana??"
   He was a friendly fellow, and the young woman (Margot) also continued to talk with Arne and I in the baggage claim and walked with us out of the (very small) airport terminal and helped us find a (very small) restaurant by the parking lot where we would wait our in-country colleague. Altogether people are very friendly here.
   By very small restaurant I mean basically a kiosk but there was a table and chairs. The sign declared it the "Airport View Hotel" which was very literally true since it was level with and directly adjacent to the tarmac, which isn't really the most majestic view and very loud when an aircraft was there but there was only an aircraft about once every two hours.

   That was around maybe 2:00 when we arrived there. Around 4:00 two crew-cab pick-ups arrived and six young men disembarked, it was our local contact Courage and his staff. They took us aboard and we proceeded about an hour north along a mostly very straight two lane highway. The land around looked very flat, and was mostly cultivated in small plots of yam, sorghum, maize, rice (but apparently a rice that grows on dry land?), also lots of neem and shea trees. Noted more tractors working fields than I recall seeing in Nigeria or Guinea. We also passed through lots of villages with goats, chickens and the occasional cow wandering across the street.
   Arrived at this "guest house" in (Wale-wale?), it's really quite nice. I was expecting something much smaller and rudimentary, but it seems to be a whole complex of very nicely appointed rooms. The guest-house staff prepared a dinner of rice and this sort of stew one pours over the rice which apparently involved fish but didn't taste fishy at all -- thank god because I loathe fish. I'm a bit concerned, I'm getting the impression they eat a lot of fish in this country. Also there was "fried?" chicken. The chickens appeared to have been rather big, Courage was asking "are you sure this wasn't a turkey??" We all (Arne and I and Courage and his staff) all ate together and conversed about the different parts of Ghana each of the staff had come from. We quized Courage a bit as well about his various plans, he seems to have really big plans for improving Ghanaian agribusiness and is consulting to other African countries as well. He's working on helping them all meet food standards for export. He's really nice, charismatic, and clearly extremely smart and competent -- later Arne and I agreed "I think we just had dinner with a future president of Ghana"

   And now it's only 9:20 but I am le tired so I think I shall go to bed.

   So I just got back from my first flight since 2019. The flight out to Sydney was fine, the flight back home... I think I was THIS close to literally banging my head against the wall in absolute paroxysms of frustration. When I thought it had pushed me to the limit that turned out to be only a fraction of what was to come.

I
   My coworker Steph and I fortunately arrived in ample time before our flight that was scheduled for 9:10pm last night -- we were over three hours before the flight and had to wait about 45 minutes to check in at 6:10 -- we wanted to get through the gate as soon as we could so we could just relax by the gate. This stage was all normal and uneventful, twenty minutes winding through a check in line, I checked one big (18kg) luggage bag, had just the conference satchel for carry on and was wearing all my jackets and scarf.
   Then as we get through security we find there's a problem -- I had forgotten among the swag in the conference bag was a "hive tool" -- a five inch stainless steel tool with kind of a chisel edge on one side. Not really a practical weapon but of course they wouldn't allow it. I mentally weighed my certain knowledge that such a tool is only worth $10 with the fact that its nicely engraved with the name and date of the conference, decided I would really prefer not to just discard it.
   Security said I could probably check it, even though my main bag was already checked, I could check it separately. And they assured me I wouldn't have to wait in the long check in line again I could go to the service desk by the check in desks.
   Leaving most of my stuff on the far side of security I took the hive tool to the appointed desk. They said they could and confirmed I wouldn't even be charged the $45 additional luggage fee "this time," but that they can't just check this small object. We agreed I'd check it in my carry on bag so I went bag to security and got it, brought it back, took my kindle reader and external phone battery out, put the hive tool in and checked it, got checked luggage tag.
   Went back through security, caught up with Steph, we proceeded to our gate. Found it easily and there was even an airport bar right next to it, so we went there. I had just picked up the drinks list, declaring "I need a drink after that" when Steph's phone rang. It was baggage services, a bottle had broken in my luggage and I needed to go out to the baggage claim to deal with it.

II
   So I had to of course leave the secure section of the airport and go to the baggage services window in the baggage claim. There a gruff baggage services supervisor brought be my bag. He informed me preemptorily that of course they had no liability for this and my bag had damaged others, handed me a plastic bag which he informed me to wrap my bag in and re-check it.
   I had bought two bottles of mead and six bottles of imperial stout made with manuka honey from a famous mead maker at the convention. In fact he (Bourke) has won (multiple times?) the mead competition at the world beekeeping congress. His mead is good, though the beer hadn't been so great and I'd immediately regretted buying it (I hadn't had a chance to taste it until after I had bought it, but normally I love imperial stouts. He should stick to mead though). Upon opening my luggage I determined that one of these beers had shattered. I threw out the remains of that bottle, thought about just throwing out all the other bottles, or at least the beer, but ultimately decided to risk it and just repack it all carefully. I was very nervous though because my laptop was in the bag (I used to never put my laptop in checked luggage but I guess I'm getting complacent) as well as my only suit. In retrospect I suppose I really should have discarded the beer seeing as I didn't even like it, but as I've mentioned before, when things are going sideways and I'm having to make snap decisions under stress in general I usually default to choosing to preserve all original goals if concievably possible (and this was also probably part of the reason why I chose not to discard the hive tool
   Went back to the same service desk. They didn't confirmably recognize me, they probably see so many customers they just thought they were having deja vu. Was able to put the luggage in the plastic bag and check it. Then went back through the same security for a third time. Finally got back to the bar where Stephy was where I had left her, picked up the same drink menu I had been holding and declared
   "Okay now I REALLY need a drink!"
   ...Turns out the bar was closed. Not only were they not selling alcohol but we had to leave.

   So we found another bar that was closing in ten min (at 8pm? Why do the Sydney airport bars all close at 8pm on a Saturday night??), but I was able to get a guinness. Most of the subsequent waiting around was more or less uneventful, though Jetstar flights were getting delayed or cancelled left and right. We were a bit worried our flight would be cancelled and we'd have to find a hostel on no notice or something. Steph was deliriously tired due to events the night before I might cover in another entry, though I was well rested because I'm an old man who no longer has late night adventures. On the plus side the sportsing team Steph likes best "Melbourne Storm" was actually on our flight, like one of their players was sitting beside me. Steph happened to be wearing her Melbourne Storm hat. She was, as she says in Gen Z slang "frothing it" about being on the flight with the team.

III
   Arrived at the relatively small Avalon airport outside of Geelong I was very anxious to see my bag and find out if anything else broke. It came unmistakenyl wrapped in its plastic pretty early on on the carousel, Ii gave it a pat down and the bottles didn't feel broken, it didn't seem sopping with mead or reeking. So I hauled it off, Steph already had her luggage so we went out. Her friend Georgia was there to pick us up. Got in her car and started to leave when I suddenly remembered I had the second piece of luggage! I had been so distracted thinking about my main luggage I hadn't thought of it, and also because I hadn't intended to check it it was kind of out of mind.
   Unfortunately we had to do kind of a big loop to get back to the airport, but the time we got in there the baggage claim was deserted, the carousel was empty and unmoving. I ran around and found an airport employee and she actually got on her phone and started running around before determining that all the Jetstar staff had already left. It was now around midnight (original plan was for Trent to pick me up at Steph's at 11).
   Ah well, there's nothing really valuable in there I said to myself. Still determined to get it back but it could wait till tomorrow.

IV
   Trent picked me up and we proceeded across town to where I'd left my car at work. It wasn't until we were parked next to my waiting car and I stepped out of the Trentmobile into the dark night that I suddenly realized: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo --- MY CAR KEYS WERE IN THE MISSING LUGGAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

   I live an hour out of town, no public transit goes there at night. My car was unlocked and always has a tent and sleeping bag in it (always be prepared!). The boss has a guestroom I regularly sleep in if we're about to go somewhere early in the morning or arrive late at night, but without forewarning him I didn't really want to creep into his house at 12:45am. Trent brainstormed friends of ours I could probably crash with, but at this point I just wanted to go home. I think it was a combination of, obviously it's nice and comforting to be home, but also, I think mainly, going back to being determined to accomplish my goals, I had set out to go home -- even if someone else had a very comfortable guest room I could stay in I'd feel even more frustrated that I hadn't even succeeded in getting home. Fortunately Trent was a rockstar and was willing to drive me home.

   At 1:46am I finally arrived home. Ten minutes later as I was unpacking things and evaluating the damage (not too bad but the dress shirt I had packed may be stained), Trent called to tell me I'd left my hat in his car. This was like the straw that broke the camels back, an extremely minor thing considering I can definitely get it back from him, but I was just speechless for a minute or two, I just... was so far beyond frustrated. If that hat, my favorite hat btw, had been actually lost left on an airplane or something I think in that moment I might have violently banged my head against the wall hard enough to injure myself I was that frustrated.

Epilogue
   Spent half an hour on hold with the airline today before finally getting ahold of person who took down the details to make a "case." They don't have a computer which logs any unclaimed luggage? I mean it clearly has a bar code and tracking number on it. Or pick up the phone and call Avalon to see if anything is there??
   In about half an hour I'm going to take the train into Geelong town, bus down to work where I will start my car with my spare key and then head to the airport to make inquiries there.
   Other than it being a hassle to replace the keys that were on the key chain, there's nothing terribly valuable with that luggage, but I'm determined to get it back, because ... that's how I am.

   Cristina and I had planned a dream vacation to Cancun. But our dreams of Mayan pyramids turned out to be pyramids of sand, obliterated as soon as I arrived, leaving me chasing after her across the Caribbean. Here's the story:

   Weeks earlier, we had spent hours choosing the perfect hotels and plans. Me at my computer with a view out my window to the crisp winter Saturday morning of the southern edge of Australia, her simultaneously in the humid summer warmth of a tenth floor apartment in the capital of Venezuela on a Friday night. We talked eagerly of scuba diving with whalesharks and turtles, of Mexican food and tequila, of the ancient pyramids at Chichen Itza and Tulum -- we even found a beautiful hotel on the beach within the national park containing the Tulum pyramids. There was one detail she didn't know though. One that caused me a great deal of anxiety I couldn't share with her. I would have a very shiny diamond ring worth several times more than I'd ever carried on my person before. What if I fell asleep in Guadalajara airport and someone rifled my bag? What if someone in airport security saw it in the x-ray and had their way with my bag while I was still stuck on the far side of security? Should I risk having it on me, and being pickpocketed, or have it in my bag and risk the bag being snatched? I was very very anxious about these possibilities.

   A week earlier, on her birthday, I had posted to facebook: "Happy birthday to my darling, my princess, my moon and stars, my pineapple, Cristina Santiago Febres. No distance is too great, no government so strong, that it can compete with our love and keep us apart <3 <3 <3"
   Little did I know I was apparently tempting fate to put that to the test.

   And to quote myself the afternoon before the flight began: This afternoon I fly to Guadalajara, Mexico, where I arrive at 11:46pm, only to depart there at 6am for Cancun. Which might sound like a miserable layover, but any other combination of flights would have had me arrive in Cancun after Cristina and I'd rather spend six hours in airport hell than lose a minute with her

August 30th, 18:31 - The trip began well enough. I was flying Volaris, some kind of Mexican budget airline with a logo like a heavily pixilated diamond, which immediately conveys this sense that somehow they didn't have the budget it make their logo any less pixilated. But it didn't feel punitively budget like Spirit, dangerously underfunded like Air Asia X, or Ebenezer Scroogingly parsimonious like every US mainstream carrier, just kind of a cheery "we're doing the best with what we've got!" kind of vibe. I didn't feel uncomfortable and all the passengers seemed unusually cheerful, I've never seen so many passengers happily chatting with eachother.
   The check-in guys at LAX were casual and chummy, giving me the number of a taxi driver one of them had liked in Cancun during his own visit there a week earlier. I was informed that upon arriving in Guadalajara, I'd have to collect my luggage and exit the controlled area before checking in for the next leg, which prospect left me concerned they wouldn't let me in, and I'd be stuck outside the terminal overnight, clutching my bag terrified to fall asleep for a moment.

   As I walked up to the Volaris check-in desks they appeared deserted with no one near them, but then a staffmember who had been headed toward the exit saw me, came over, and checked my bag for me. How nice! I asked if I could check in yet and she sadly shook her head saying in broken English,
   "No, they probably won't allow it until 3"
   "Hmmm, well I'll try anyway" I said
   And she smiled, shrugged and said "maybe."
   I walked over to where the doors to the gates were, they were all closed, with half a dozen uniformed security standing about in front, it really didn't look promising. I approached the nearest one with my boarding pass out, a hopeful smile, and some gestures conveying I hoped to go through. The guards quickly opened the door and waved me through. The guards at the x-ray machine were similarly obliging as I went through it by myself and I emerged into the vast almost entirely empty terminal feeling amazed by how friendly everyone in Mexico seemed to be.
   Unfortunately they had the air conditioning blasting so I spent the night being very uncomfortably cold, far too cold to even contemplate getting some sleep. Around 4am I thought I should get some food and went looking around: Chili's, Carl's Jr, Denny's, Johnny Rockets, Burger King, Starbucks, California Pizza Kitchen, Subway, another Chili's... I finally settled on a pizza place and only after I ordered did I see an actual Mexican cuisine place, and it even had my favorite, chilaquiles, on the menu! Oh well, I'd have plenty of time for more Mexican food... or so I thought.

August 31st, 08:34 - Arrived in Cancun. Cristina's flight was due in at 12:44, so I lingered in the baggage claim until noon so I would still be in a secured area, not out there where someone could snaffle my priceless cargo. While I was waiting I was informed payment had come for my latest article and it was actually a surprisingly decent amount. I was about to see my wonderful girlfriend, AND I was getting decent pay for writing, life was going suspiciously well. After I stepped out I was having trouble finding international arrivals so I had to ask a guy hawking taxis, who amiably proceeded to guide me the 100 or so yards to the correct place. I was bracing myself for him to want a tip for this (as happens in places like Egypt in such circumstances) but once he had determined I was in the right place he bid me goodbye and went back to where he had been, leaving me once again feeling like everyone here was so nice.


Cristina inbound to Cancun

13:31 - she texts me she has arrived.

13:41 - I text her laughingly about these taxi hawkers out here who tried to tell me the bus I know to be $10 is $40 in order to sell me on their $45 shuttle. They had also tried to sell me on a $189 taxi.

14:05 - the nearby taxi hawkers are asking me where my girlfriend is, since I've been waiting two hours now. One of them, a guy in a red shirt, mentions calling immigration but I say it's okay. Maybe she's just getting cleaned up in the restroom before seeing me or something. You know, girls.

14:07 - she texts she is still in immigration, they have taken her passport, they don't believe we're in a relationship. I'm extremely alarmed but still optimistic that it's just a momentary hold-up that will be cleared up. I had been trying not to talk too much to these hawkers since they had tried to misrepresent the bus cost, but now, since the one had mentioned calling immigration, I start trying to explain to them that she's stuck in immigration. One of the hawkers, an androgenous fellow in a tan shirt, shows me the courtesy phone on the wall where we are (just outside where international arrivals leave the secured area.). and calls immigration for me. He tells me they said to wait half an hour and call back, "and they will do interview."

14:30 - We call back but there's no answer, we proceed to call back every five minutes for the next three hours, alternating me and that same guy, but immigration never again answers.
   The taxi hawkers also start calling out "Cristina! Cristina!" every time they see a young lady approaching the exit that could plausibly be her, which is cute.

16:06 - I get the next text from Cristina, after not hearing from her for two hours: "Buscame en migracion" - "come to me in immigration," but of course I can't get in. A simple little plea I heartbreakingly can't fulfill.

16:30 - No me dejaron entrar.
Vuelve a los Estados Unidos no te quedes en Cancun.
Me hacen regresar a Caracas
😡😡😡😡😡

(They did not let me in
(Come back to the United States, do not stay in Cancun)
They make me return to Caracas)

   This is devastating news, the whole vacation has just been annihilated. $1000 in hotel bookings, $1500 in flights, and more importantly the only chance this year Cristina and I have to see eachother. It's been 12 hours since I've eaten, 33 hours since I've gotten any decent sleep, and 381 days since I've seen Cristina.

   I'd find out later the immigration officer told her he didn't believe we were in a relationship, and told Cristina that I "might kill her," so they were deporting her for her own safety. Additionally he told her, in a very haughty and conceited manner, that it isn't Mexican culture to meet people online the way we had.
   Meanwhile, if I could just get them to allow me to come in for an interview or to exchange documents with Cristina (she was bringing certified copies of identity documents so we could lodge a “registered domestic relationship” in Australia), my plan was to whip out the ring and go on a knee right there in the immigration office. Let them dispute the relationship then!

   As soon as I show the text to the taxi hawkers they spring into action. The original guy in the red shirt reappears like a genie saying he knows someone in immigration, and calls him, hands his cell phone to me. I talk to Ernesto, an immigration supervisor who is not on duty but will be tomorrow morning at 9:00. He says at that time they can do the interviews again and I can come in to be interviewed as well and meet with her "and we can get it sorted out." After I get off the phone, red shirt guy asks "how much did he want?" while rubbing his thumb across his forefingers in the international sign for illicit money.
   "he didn't mention" I say
   "oh," he says looking like he realizes he said too much. Not a second later he and the other guy are asking me what I'm going to do, where I'm going to go.
   "My original hotel I guess" I say. Immediately they pressure me to take the $189 taxi. I absolutely refuse this but am amenable to their $45 shuttle because it seems less stressful and quicker than waiting for a bus and at this point I don't want any more stress in my life at all. Literally without giving me a second to think between one thing and another red shirt guy starts badgering me to get some pesos "because it will be a better deal." I let him lead me to the ATM inside and ask him how much he thinks I'll need, thinking he might know the scale of the necessary bribe. He's pressuring me to get a lot out "because you'll have to buy your girlfriend her flight back to Caracas" which sounds alarmingly unfair to me, and in the end I only get just a little more than should cover a shuttle to the hotel and back, 2000 pesos ($102)
   Emerging, they try to bundle me into the shuttle bus as quick as they can (“hurry! Hurry! We have other passengers we need to pick up!”)
   “how much will it be?” I keep asking, but
   “We'll figure it out in the bus we have to go!” they say. Finally I stop at the door and insist they tell me before I get in. In Egypt I learned how getting into a cab is tantamount to consenting to whatever preposterous rate they will later announce, and even if it's moments later you are now moving and will be at a severe disadvantage to disentangle yourself from the “agreement.”
   “In pesos it will be...” the tan shirt clad hawker twiddles a calculator seriously and says to me in a straight face “4000 pesos.”
   Misconversion of currency is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and I had strongly suspected their motivation for pushing me to pay in pesos was to accomplish exactly this. Being so exhausted, if I had been a dorky tourist on my first time abroad maybe I'd have fallen for this, but I'll never be so fatigued to take a shady taxi hawker's word for a conversion, and I had already calculated $45 to pesos, and the answer was 900. So I exclaimed “WHAT! ABSOLUTELY NOT! It's 900! I'm going with someone else!” and made to turn away. Tan shirt looked alarmed and quickly chattered into his walkie talkie before explaining
   “oh I miscalculated! yes it's 900!” I handed over the pesos and received from him a receipt before getting in. Really I should have turned my back on these shady poltroons but did I mention I was very fatigued, and kept thinking “this is surely the last trick they'll play.”
   They bustle me into their taxi shuttle all in a hurry, a few minutes go by, and then Red shirt comes back, saying “we don't have any other passengers, so for only 500 more pesos we'll take you right to your hotel. I quickly calculated that to $25. I already knew it was a $10 taxi drive from the Tulum city center to my hotel. To have one complete trip sounded very nice at this point though, since I just wanted to get to the hotel and be done with it, so I agreed and paid this.
   Finally we pulled away, away from the rapacious scamming jackals, next stop my hotel!
   A few miles down the road we pulled into a gas station. “We will switch to smaller car” the driver explained. Okay. Fine, that seems reasonable. After a few minutes a sedan parked next to us and we moved my luggage to this car, bid goodbye to the first taxi driver and departed in the sedan being driven by a smallish man in what looked like a white chef's jacket.
   A few minutes later, “where are we going?” he asks me in broken English. So I pull up the hotel address on my phone and show it to him.
   "That's in Tulum!!” he exclaims, seemingly surprised despite that we're headed that direction already, “it's far!”
   “Si.” I say firmly, wary of this turning into more shenanigans.
   “It will cost much. 900 pesos” he explains.
    “I already paid!” I exclaim in exasperation. “Look, here's my receipt!”
   He pulls over to the side of the road. It is dark now and the highway is bounded on either side by walls of jungle.
   ”This receipt has no details on it” he points out. “this is worthless.” Sure enough, while it looks official and has the details for the airport itself it does not designate a specific person or company responsible.
   ”Call them” I say. But he claims he doesn't have their numbers. Ultimately after some more wrangling I had no choice but to pay 900 more pesos. Or else, be abandoned on a dark highway in Mexico surrounded by jungle with the most valuable object I've ever possessed in my backpack. So altogether I ended up paying $45+$25+$45, ie $115. I console myself that this is actually not far off from what I'm told the fair taxi rate for that trip is ($100) so despite shamelessly abasing themselves, their filthy souls didn't retail for much. Really it isn't even so much about the money so much as being already so fatigued physically and emotionally, to have to continually remain highly on my guard against these reprobate tactics was really really unpleasant, felt like being kicked while I was down.

   Even once we had sorted out payments the driver couldn't seem to figure out the extremely simple directions for the hotel. It came up fine by me by typing it into google maps but he couldn't find it on his own phone. So I showed him the map on my phone, it was incredibly simple, turn left on the first left in Tulum, follow it to the end, turn left, continue to the hotel, but he looked at it uncomprehendingly. HOW HARD CAN THIS BE? Finally I changed my map from “north always up” to that cartoonish front-forward view and he was able to comprehend it. We turned off the main highway in Tulum, proceeded down a smaller road for about ten minutes, turned left onto a road like tunnel in the jungle, and slowly looking at hotel signs until we got to our hotel. Even though the driver had been nice other than insisting I needed to pay him, I wasn't about to take his number down for further use.

   I flopped down in a chair at the Hotel Diamente K reception desk (an open air office sheltered under a palm leaf cabana roof but with no walls.), and the receptionist, a friendly looking guy around my age, smilingly said “so, tell me what happened.” It was nice to finally unburden myself to someone not trying to scam me.

   The receptionist gave me a brief tour of the labyrinthine hotel grounds, snaking between the irregularly shaped cottages, huts, and casitas of the grounds, on paths of sand, to show me the lovely little room we had booked. It all looked so lovely.
   I locked the ring in the safe, and then went to find my way to the restaurant, as I hadn't eaten in 18 hours. I became lost, every direction I tried to go on the hotel grounds seemingly coming to the little beach, waves crashing in from the dark open sea. Finally I came to the restaurant and ordered some shrimp tacos (only Mexican food I succeeded in having in Mexico). The restaurant was very cute, spacious and rustic, with beams of bare wood, the underthatch of the palm roof visible as a ceiling, the sides open to the sound of the crashing waves. It was so, muy romantico .. my eyes began to well up thinking of Cristina in some cell in the airport.

Just then I received a series of texts with the distinctive jingle I had assigned to Cristina:
20:15 - Ahora estoy en el avion vuelvo a panama
Ven a panama [come to Panama]
Ya estoy en panama
Mi amor I am in panana
I am in panama.

   Presumably until this moment she also hadn't heard anything from me since she had told me she was being deported, and as far as she'd known up till now I may have returned to the states. We were able to talk only until she lost the half hour of free wifi there. I was able to ascertain that she was in Panama but couldn't leave the airport.

   I immediately booked the next available flight to Panama City (departing 7:50am), despite not knowing if she'd still be there, or if I'd be able to see her (arriving with Panama as a final destination I might not be able to get into the airside of the terminal where she was, or she might be in some sort of custody even if I did). It would be a leap in the dark. I found the friendly receptionist again (after more wandering through hotel grounds that seemed to defy cartographical physics), and he arranged for a cousin of his who is a taxi driver to drive me to the airport at 4am for $120 ($100 +$20 for being the middle of the night) (the cousin of the hotel receptionist is a usual source for dependable taxi drivers anywhere). I then went to sleep, sadly alone in the muy romantico little room.

September 1st, 03:30 - The stress of the situation allowed me to jump to wakefulness as soon as my alarm went off. Promptly got the ring out of the safe where I'd had a deep paranoia of somehow forgetting it. With all the lights out, the hotel was even more of a labyrinth, fortunately after my course had as usual led to to the crashing waves, a night watchman with a flashlight guided me to reception where my taxi was waiting. I left the hotel without ever having seen it by the light of day. This driver was nice and honest and I hope I haven't misplaced his card in case god forbid I'm ever back in this godforsaken place.

04:06 - Cristina texts me that she has just landed in Caracas, Venezuela. Immigration there assures her that "this is normal,” regarding getting sent back. She had until now thought I'd maybe stay in Cancun or return to the states, and was overjoyed, she tells me, when I now told her to find the next available flight to anywhere she thought she could get into.

05:15 -While I was in line to check in to my flight in Cancun she told me she had found round trip tickets to the Dominican Republic for $460, leaving at 11 this same morning. I told her to book it! Now we just had to figure out how to pay for it from my card.
   Half an hour later I got to the front of the line to check in to my Panama bound flight, and then asked the check in guy if I could book the next available onward flight from Panama City to Dominican Republic. He seemed to find this slightly odd but nevertheless clicked away on his computer and reported it would be 16,735 pesos... which sounded like a very large amount. Quick math said it was $862, which makes it almost as much as my Melbourne-LAX round trip for a one way. Also we had not as yet managed to pay for Cristina's ticket to DR, which if we couldn't manage, this ticket would be useless. Nevertheless, I said yes, book it. Another leap in the dark. For the next 2.5 hours this could have left me with an expensive flight to nowhere but at 7:25 we succeeded in getting her flight paid for as well, we were both booked for the DR!

10:15 I arrive in Panama City as she is checking into her flight out of Caracas. She took off around 10:50. I am left hoping she will make it into the DR. I didn't book a return flight precisely because I wouldn't know if I'd be immediately bouncing out of there in pursuit of her or staying. Dramatically, she lands in DR just moments (12:51) before I take off (12:53), before she gets through immigration, so I know she landed but don't find out if she made it through immigration before I take off.

12:53 I depart for DR to arrive 16:17. I land there after an uneventful flight and anxiously turn on my phone … to find out she successfully got through and is waiting for me outside arrivals!



   In stark contrast to our hours-in-the-planning original vacation, we were now in the Dominican Republic's Airport of the Americas with our arms around eachother and no further plans at all beyond that. What now?
   I knew someone (Rafael) from the Partners for the Americas aid organization in Dominican Republic, I asked him if he had a hotel recommendation and he provided one. We called, they had vacancies. A guy by the airport door said “taxi?” and we asked him how much. $35, which sounded good from what I remembered from last time we were here (googling just now, “taxis from the airport to any hotel in Santo Domingo should be between $40-$45”), so we went with him, and verily there were no shenanigans. God bless places that aren't Cancun!



September 2nd - The next day I was googling hotels in Punta Cana, the other major tourist destination in Dominican Republic. Google inevitably brings up the tripadvisor and booking.com hotel lists and going down the first two pages of both those lists I was finding nothing but blandly similar looking luxury resorts. I messaged Rafael if he had any recommendations elsewhere on the island and he recommended Las Terrenas (“Cristina, he recommends the tyrannosaurus”). I googled this, and at the top of the page a beautiful resort appeared, Casa Coson, with pictures of a colonial style building and some hut shaped smaller buildings, palm trees, pools. It looked wonderful. I showed it to Cristina (“siii”), and we booked it!

   We arrived at Casa Coson after dark, around 8pm, they do not have 24 hour reception, but the security guard ("Marte") was very friendly and showed us to our “villa,” which it turns out was shaped like a beautiful giant two story hut (I have an inordinate love for huts), with the bedroom as kind of a second floor loft, and nice living-room area in the front, and also a kitchen and very nice bathroom. I literally broke into a sweat and started pulling up the reservation on my phone afraid I'd accidentally booked some $300 a night place, but no, this was indeed what we had booked for $85 a night!
   The receptionist, Gail ("Ga-eel"), appeared and greeted us, and the security guard volunteered to drive to the nearby town to bring us food (fried chicken and beer). He returned, counting back our change seemingly very anxious for us to know it was all accounted for, and the chicken he brought was actually really good.

   That evening, on the soft sand of the beach in front of the hotel, under the countless stars of a sky without light pollution, beside the infinite ocean, as the waves crashed a melodious rhythm, I went on one knee and asked Cristina if she would marry me (“Siiiiii!”).

https://instagram.com/p/B2Hy2y1HHnL

September 3rd -By the morning's light we marveled at the beautiful grounds of the hotel. We couldn't believe how nice it was! We sat in the breakfast patio and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of fresh fruit and made-to-order omelette, then we had a powwow with Gail the receptionist about activities. We could ride horses to a waterfall and go on a snorkeling excursion to some nearby islands (in the end we were unable to coordinate with either of two local diving companies in the short time we had). For both we should start earlier in the morning so for this day we would just be bumming around the hotel grounds … which was in no way suffering!
   We swam in the ocean, walked on the beach, swam in the pool, lounged by the pool, and had a delicious lunch (churrasco – grilled beef) and margaritas – the owners (a matriarch-like old woman and her husband) appeared to be celebrating a birthday in the restaurant at the time and poured champagne for all present, how festive! As there were only one or two other couples in the hotel it really felt like we had the place to ourselves and were being personally waited on by some eight staff.
   The next day we enjoyed the lovely horseback trek to a beautiful waterfall. Swam around in the pool below it for an hour. Had pina coladas in actual pineapples from a remote little cafe overlooking it. Swam in the ocean in the later afternoon, and had an amazing shrimp dinner at the hotel that night. The quality of all these meals to say nothing of the general quality of the hotel has left me feeling like it should probably classified as five star!



September 5th - Sadly all too quickly we had to head back to the capital, since the shenanigans with Mexico had eaten up a day and a half from the front end of our already-short vacation (originally 7 days), and because Cristina hadn't been able to find a flight back on the 7th as originally planned for, we lost a day on the back end as well, ending on the 6th.
   We needed another hotel in the capital, Santo Domingo, for this last night, and the one we'd stayed in on arrival, while acceptable for business purposes, was a bit dull to be entirely pleasing to us for our purposes. I hate looking up hotels on my phone though -- if I'm planning a serious vacation I like to do it on my computer with 40 tabs open. However I remembered after last year I had written a travel piece for the LA Times (promptly rejected by them), and the format had called for hotel recommendations! I asked my mom to send it back to me since I'd sent it to her for her usual merciless red-pen treatment. Sure enough I had recommended two hotels in the Zona Colonia. Not knowing anything else about them, knowing that I had recommended them was enough for me! One didn't have any vacancies but the other did, so I booked for us at the Hotel Luca.
   This hotel had an extremely chic and trendy looking lobby and atrium, a rather disappointing breakfast (omelets cost extra?!), unimpressive room (possibly just overshadowed completely by the super nice atrium building your hopes up before you arrive in a very mundane little room), but it totally redeemed itself with a rooftop jacuzzi! The receptionist emphasized so strongly that we could book it for privacy ("you and your wife will want privacy of course ::creepy knowing smile::") that, though we did book it, we were possessed of a fear that other people had been making the sexo in it. But we were also allowed to order drinks and food up to it so we ended our vacation in a rooftop jacuzzi with a view to the illuminated oldest cathedral in the Americas not far off, eating pizza and drinking mojitos!
   Later when Cristina was sending some pictures to her friends I heard her mumble to herself “best vacation ever!” and I smiled remembering what a disaster it had begun as.



Expect another entry focusing more on the details of our time in the Dominican Republic, as this is kind of a fast forward version just to counterbalance how bad the vacation began. Tune in to next entry to find out how we got lost in the middle of the island, more details about the proposal, and more!

October 5th, Istanbul - My flight out of Istanbul was at 13:50 out of Gurken airport east of Istanbul. I was informed the outside limit of how long it would take to get there was an hour so I planned to catch the bus at 11. Felt like I had plenty of time for a nice easy morning since the airport bus allegedly left from just beside the hotel, but of course inevitable ended up in a panicked hurry at the end. And mystifyingly the guy at the front desk told me directions which in no way conformed to the reality of where to find the bus. It sent me two blocks in the opposite direction, where the bus actually stopped just around the other corner from the hotel. So I end up rushing around the cobbled streets dragging around my gimpy luggage (one of the two wheels is completely destroyed) at the last minute. Fortunately I happened to stumble upon a Turkish girl who was also looking for the bus and together we (she) were able to ask around until we got there. I note you can work up quite a sweat on a nominally cool morning when you are in a panic and stressed and lugging around 23 kilos of luggage.
   And then while standing in line at the bus I was informed we wouldn't get to the airport until 12:45 -- the journey would take nearly twice as long as expected and get me there with only FIVE minutes to spare before boarding commenced and check in may be closed (an hour before the flight). That sounded thoroughly dire!!!! I considered grabbing a cab but figured that would cost exponentially more and yet be stuck in the same traffic.

   The drive across the Bosporus bridge and out through the city ouskirts as it happens proceeded fairly smoothly though I was very anxious ... and got me to the airport right on time after all around 12!!! Much to my very immense relief.
   Now I hate to sound petty, but I found it remarkable that just behind me in the check in line was the most classic "Russian trophy wife" I have ever seen. Her skin was a vaguely orange color, botox-inhanced lips gave her perpetual duck face, she had the very definition of "bolt-on breasts," massive battering rams of things jutting unnaturally from her chest. I think her bum may have been enhanced as well, I vaguely recall it was a bit oddly rounded. Her husband wasn't actually Russian but by all appearances a Turk, but I'm still calling her a "Russian trophy wife," because her look was infinitely more in keeping with the fashion mores I've seen in the Moscow airport than you see among women in Turkey.

   Flight back to Paris, once again on the super budget airline Pegasus. A several hour international flight with no seat back entertainment! But I think once again I was glad to have the lights on and finished reading my book. Had a bulkhead seat with the middle seat beside me empty, so that was pretty ideal. An asian woman in the aisle seat was working on her laptop and became annoyed when the person in front of her leaned his seat back, and began banging on it. When that illicited no response she called the flight attendant, who at first was reluctant to do anything, no doubt noting that he had a right to put his seat back, but laptop lady finally prevailed upon the flight attendant to politely ask the guy in the forward seat to move his seat back up, which he did. Personally, as someone who often finds oneself lacking knee room, I am often less than enthused when the person in front of me puts their seat back, but I think one has a right to put their seat back and I would never think of demanding they don't do so. Besides having to sit bolt upright for hours I think is even worse than not having knee room (and again, this coming from someone who is 6'2")

   Arriving at Paris Orly in the evening, I had to get to the Charles De Gaulle airport across town, my plan was to get a hotel near the airport there since I had an early morning flight out of CDG. The person at the information kiosk made it sound quite simple to get to CDG. A light rail line runs right from this airport to a station where you get on the RER B and it takes you all the way across town to CDG. So I bought the ticket for [memory fading] and off I went!
   What had not been mentioned by anyone is that, defying all logic, the RER B line splits just before the airport and apparently I was on a train that took the wrong fork! I fortunately became suspicious just shortly after this forking and realizing the error darted (darted with my differently-abled luggage bumping after me that is) off the train at the next station. Now it was either a 45 minute workaround on the train or a five minute €3 uber drive. I could see on the map that we weren't that far from CDG but there was no direct root by mass transit. Okay well uber sounded good. So I called an uber.
   But he took me to a nearby location which clearly wasn't the hotel! But we confirmed it was where I had booked the uber to. It was the same address ("4 rue de Paris" or something ubiquitous like that) as I needed but in the neighboring suburb. I don't know how that got mixed up because I had had the correct location up in google maps and it had prompted me with uber and I had clicked the uber button from that screen with the correct address. Anyway at this point there was no logical course but to rebook this same uber for the correct location. I haven't examined the receipt but I vaguely imagine it ended up being more like €15. It was about a ten minute drive. The sun was setting at this point and it actually looked very pretty over the city of Paris to the west, with a beautiful orange sky above the cityscape, and semi rural scenes nearer at hand.

   Also, I had just booked the hotel after arriving in Paris. I should have learned this lesson by now, but it turns out hotels generally cost about $100 more when booking the day of. I'd just been too busy with other things to have gotten around to it earlier but if I had realized the price difference I certainly would have! The hotel I ended up going with (Comfort Hotel CDG) was advertised for $48 every other day but $148 on this the same day. This made me feel a bit grumpy.

   At this point I hadn't eaten all day and was starving. So I asked reception, was informed there was "a sushi place, an italian place, and a french place" all within a five minute walk, and off I went. I of course headed to the French place because, when in France... it was by now dark and a bit chilly out, and the streets seemed to be deserted but it looked kind of like a small town. there were several other airport hotels in the immediate surrounds. The French place looked kind of cute, had the look from the outside of a kind of a traditional fachwerk country house. Inside I found a small dining area, such that one couldn't help but fully hear the conversations of the other tables -- there was a group of americans from Texas who it appeared were on the last day of a two week vacation in France, yet still seemed to barely be able to handle even the most basic French, saying "Well, bonn swarrr. That means goodnight right? Bon swarrr!" in brassy American accent that completely flattened the phrase.
   When I ordered (recall, I can speak French just well enough that people can understand my meaning and that they should respond in English, which is ideal really because I'm clearly making an effort and not annoying them by expecting them to speak English), and the other guy at a neighboring table, who was by himself, jumped in to help explain the menu to me. They had a "normal" menu and a sort of set menu, but you could choose one of three appetizers, mains, etc. The small room began to fill up with other people and he asked if he could join me, and I said certainly. His name was Thomas, he was a retired (accountant?) from Germany, kind of shortish, wearing a knit cap, visiting France on a vacation. He seemed to have a great enthusiasm for some cathedrals he had visited in some small towns I sadly don't quite recall (possibly Rennes and another small town near it?). I kept waiting for him to drift into con trails as particularly friendly strangers who join your table usually inevitably do but throughout the conversation he remained thoroughly sane and reasonable. We both ended up having sausages and saurkraut, I don't recall the other options (every time I travel I when I get to blogging about it and hit all these omissions I tell myself I'll take better notes next time!). Once again they didn't sell wine by the glass but by the small carafe.
   After Thomas and I both paid and left Thomas started ranting a bit about Paris rudeness. Admittedly the waitstaff had sometimes been hard to get the attention of, and when we paid our bill the guy was busy talking to two other people and barely gave us any attention. I suppose it wasn't quite the politest but I don't think I'd have registered it as rude if it wasn't pointed out to me. Maybe I just haven't been noticing "Paris rudeness" occurring around me??



October 6th, Paris - Easy hotel shuttle to the airport. One more thing I want to remark about about Paris airports. Airports throughout the world these days have some level of security, ranging from the barely visible really in Australia to soldiers in balaclavas in Kyrgyzstan, and in many African countries its soldiers in fatigues with AK-47s, kinda hanging around. In the US there were uniformed soldiers with m-16s after 9/11 but that has faded away. They would stand in the middle of the hallway like a rock that the river flow of passengers would swirl past. But nowhere have I seen them as seemingly alert as in the Paris airports. The soldiers, in green camo with berets slouched across their heads, patrol in groups of four exactly the way you see in Vietnam movies, spaced apart, fingers on the trigger, constantly scanning the crowd, each step like a prowling cat. They appear to be behaving as if they are in actual fact in the middle of a combat zone.

   Flight to Abu Dhabi. Only memorable thing about this flight was that I had the front row of my cabin area, so our television screens were on the bulkhead in front of us. One usually can't help seeing one's neighbor's screen and I've seen many movies I wouldn't choose to watch myself that way (ie Bay Watch and Fastest and Furiousest or whatever that latest is called), but in this case it was really too easy not to. My neighbor was watching this new Spider Man movie, again a movie that I wouldn't choose to watch because I don't like comic book movies, but there were a number of scenes that caught my attention for extended periods of time. At first the guy would look over at me kind of accusingly and I would look away and go back to my book. But then I thought, what the fuck what is wrong with watching your screen which is also right in front of me, so the next time I found myself watching and he gave me a sideways look I didn't look away. He looked at me very pointedly immediately followed by slowly reaching forward and pushing the pause button on his controller, and then made like he was trying to sleep. I had to laugh to myself about this pettiness! Oooh I'm stealing your movie enjoyment am I? Ahaha the memory still warms my black little heart.

   In Abu Dhabi switched to Sr Lankan airlines for the flight to Colombo. Meals on Sr Lankan were good (for airplane food!) and spicy. I love spicy. Flight attendants wore sort of saris. I was relieved to see a new selection of movies since I've seen everything on Etihad I'm interested in. I think I watched a movie but I can't for the life of me recall anything about doing so. Also wrote one of the previous entries on my phone.


October 7th, Colombo, Sri Lanka - I was a bit surprised, speaking of airport security, that in Colombo, where, by the way, suicide bombing was first invented, there seemed to be nearly no airport security. As far as I could tell you would walk in right off the street up to the gates. Many people in beautiful saris. There was a "buddhist information center" kiosk with nothing at all on it and I was tempted to take a picture and post it with some zen sounding caption like "but is it really empty?" or "the information is within YOU" or something. But didn't want to annoy anyone by seeming disrespectful by taking a picture of said obviously empty kiosk. (In fact I'm quite interested in zen buddhism and I think the empty kiosk really does fit in to some kind of koan). Arriving in this airport around 5am and flew out about two hours later.

Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia< - Glad I had an eight hour layover here because it took at least three to get from the one terminal to the other!!! This last leg was on super budget airline "Air asia X" (and here I thought Pegasus was budget!). The baggage allowance was a mere 17 kilos for which privelege I paid an absolutely ridiculous like €150. Since my luggage was 23kg I had to somehow get 6 kg into my backpack, which was already not-empty. By some miracle I did, though in the hurried changeover a bottle of honey ended up in my backpack and was therefore confiscated as a "liquid or gel" at security.

   Inside the secure area I went to a noodle shop I remembered being delicious last year, and, well, it was fairly alright, but not nearly as delicious as I remembered.



   The Air Asia X flight left more than two hours after its scheduled departure. It was supposed to leave at 10pm and left closer to 12:30. No one seemed surprised, everyone in the passenger area seemed to know what they were getting into and cracked a lot of jokes about it. As I noted before, nothing brings people together like things going wrong. When we finally boarded I found there were once again no television screens and I'm not sure the seats went back either, this was as budget as it comes. And despite being a I don't know ten or twelve hour flight there were no meals unless you wanted to pay way too much for an airplane meal. During this miserable flight, after having already been in air transit for two days, I really began to reflect that I must have been out of my mind when I booked this. In past self's defense, I had booked it while on the road, in the sweltering hotel in Somoto in Nicaragua. And google.travel had pulled a prank on me, after I found the best deal it said "but you have to book each leg seperately" and then AFTER I had booked the first leg and went to book the second one, on the actual airline page (and any other booking service) that leg turned out to not be available, so now I had a leg that didn't connect to anythingg that I had to connect and... so yeah, I had glued a bunch of things together which in the end was an arduous odyssey on budget carriers ):


Sunday, October 8th, Melbourne - And then my friend Ben picked me up as usual in Melbourne where the weather was lovely and sunny and warm and on my way home the flowers were out everywhere and the air smelled like spring! The "traveling season" is thus over until next March and instead I'll be enjoying the warmer weather here in Australia and working on this season's crop of honey and expanding the operation! (:

Wednesday, August 23rd, Melbourne, Australia - "Where are you from?" I ask the taxi driver in Melbourne, since he's mentioned his wife immigrating
   "Africa" he says as if that should be a satisfactory answer
   "Where in Africa?" I ask
   "East Africa" he says as if he doesn't know why I'm bothering to inquire further
   "Where in East Africa?"
   "Ethiopia" he says like it's an "I told you so" that it wouldn't mean anything to me
   "Where in Ethiopia?"
   "Addis Ababa" he says as if this is starting to get a little weird.
   "How do you like the new light rail in Addis?"
   "Oh. oh. .. Uh ... They should have repaired the roads first" I relish the look of shock in his eyes that I'm current on Addis happenings. Anyway it turns out he thinks the rail system is poorly planned. He thinks they should have improved the roads first. I think getting people off the roads and onto mass transit should be a priority in every big city.

   During my 14 hour overnight layover in Melbourne I crashed at the place of an American couple I know from the Americans in Melbourne facebook group.

Thursday, August 24th - Departed Melbourne for a (two?) hour flight to Sydney at 8am. Short layover there and then 15 hour flight to LAX. Flight very empty, had a whole row to myself (cue angels singing). Even though it was an entirely daytime flight they had everyone close all the windows and tured the lights way down to simulated night mode. I understand flights are more bearable if you're asleep and we bother flight attendants less when we're asleep but I hate it when they do that.
   Watched several not-very-memorable movies and The Accountant which I rather liked, it's like Rainman if Rainman happened to pick up being a badass cold blooded killer as a random hobby. Watched Episode 5 of the current season of Game of Thrones on my laptop and would have watched Episode 6 but apparently the version I downloaded turned out to be unreadable.

   Flight arrived late into LAX so I had only an hour to catch the continuing flight, and of course had to go through passport control, collect my luggage, go through customs, drop it at the transit luggage window, find ourselves popping out on the curb outside the terminal, go back through security again, and get to the gate. Those of us with flights in the next hour were given priority passes through passport control and customs but no help getting through security. My backpack got flagged for additional screening and as it sat getting ignored on the side table with fifteen minutes till my flight was supposed to LEAVE I implored a TSA agent if they could at all prioritize clearing my bag and they semed to relish giving me a very abrupt and cavalier "NOPE!!" I swear the US TSA is the worst and rudest in the world.
   Literally ran from there to my gate and found the aircraft had had a delayed arrival coming in from Sydney so it was still boarding .... it was my same plane!!!
   Also I was a bit confused to find the gate alternating listed destinations between "Managua" and "Atlanta." My ticket and itinerary hadn't listed Atlanta as a stop so this was the first I was aware I'd be going there.
   Also it was during this flight that I discovered the fatigue of this arduous journey had rendered me no longer able to read even with my reading glasses for more than five minutes at a time before my eyes hurt too much. Hopefully it was just the extraordinary fatigue but I also fear my eyesight it going fast. ):

   I don't know, some number of hours flight to Atlanta, also had empty seat beside me. It was only like a three hour flight but the guy with the window seat (I was the aisle) got up to use the bathroom like four times. Jesus people don't drink so much coffee, or whatever you're doing.
   Did have to change planes in Atlanta. Just enough time in Atlanta to get to the gate. I think there were only two of us from the LAX-ATL leg continuing on to ATL-Managua, if its not the same plane, not really the same passengers, I'm not sure why it even is "the same flight."
   This time didn't have an empty seat next to me, and having been traveling for over 65 hours, no longer able to read, no movie screens in this plane ... it was several hours of relative hell..


Managua, Nicaragua - first impression on stepping out of the aircraft door and being hit with the warm humid nighttime air (it was around 8pm) was that it smelled like a hedge. And then inside the terminal it somehow smelled like a winery. And out in front of the terminal it smelled like steaming spinach. Shuttle from the hotel picked me up for a humerously short trip to the hotel literally across the street.
   This area of town doesn't seem to have anything else in walking distance so anything I can't get at the hotel I trot across the street to the shops in the airport terminal.


Friday, August 25th - I had been recruited a few years ago for a project in Nicaragua I didn't end up doing, but I emailed the guy that runs that little organization before arriving and especially when I learned I'd have Friday free made plans to meet up with him. He happened to be going to the National Agricultural College just outside town for a beekeeping presentation being put on by a Dr Van Veen out of Costa Rica, so he picked me up in a pick up truck driven by a friend of his. He and I sat in the back -- Which I'd never actually done before since that's generally illegal in Western countries but it was really nice! Who needs a convertible when you can ride in the back of a pickup!
   The city doesn't seem to have any highrises that I've seen but kind of seems a vast sort of not quite suburban but, light-urbam? small urban? is there a word for this? Small cinderblock houses that barely have enough open space around them to call it a yard, but with trees and bougainvilleaa climbing the surrounding walls. We went down a bunch of residential roads rather than the bigger seemingly arterial road, I don't know if htat was to avoid traffic or what. There were a lot of little sort of bicycle-powered taxi vehicles where the driver sat behind a seat with room for two. The kind of thing you sometimes see on tourist boardwalks but this seemed to be a major source of local transport.

   Agricultural campus out outside of town to the north. Some thirty or so students in attendance in a building with lots of ceiling fans, while outside other students herded cattle past. It was pretty hot except directly under the fans. Presentation was in spanish so I could only barely get the gist of it by typing the words on the powerpoint slides into google translate. Seemed interesting, especially since he had a whole segment on the native stingless bees which I'd have loved to be able to understand.

   On our way back into town on the main highway traffic came to a complete and utter standstill. We were given Dr Van Veen and a colleague of his a ride to the airport so we were about anxious about this traffic. I'm told there was another highway they knew was also at a standstill and the only other way around would be an 80 mile detour. I don't know what's normal around here but I noticed a dark black plume of smoke had emerged from a nearby volcano, and it seemed ominous and possibly related but no one mentioned it so maybe not. After about an hour people had all gotten out of their cars and were talking to eachother and our driver got the down low of a secret route through back streets and we drove on the wrong side of the highway a few hundred yards (not a problem, no cars were coming from that way and plenty of others were doing the same as us) and drove into a narrow alley where we just barely barely fit after folding our mirrors in. Other cars had gone ahead of us and it seemed even more were coming behind, apparently word had just gotten out. There followed another interesting hour of proceeding down labyrinthine narrow back streets, sometimes having to back out of an impassible route. It was certainly interesting. Finally we got out on wide open back roads back out in countryside, where there were eerily few cars on the road, and always that thick black ominous plume of smoke ahead.

   But finally we came back into the city and actually got to the airport in time for the flight!!



   That evening I finally downloaded the most recent (Episode 6) episode of Game of Thrones and, not to spoilerize it, but I felt like it was markedly more badly written than previous episodes/seasons, in my opinion. Like nothing surprising happened, and that cliche thing where you think a main character has definitely died but it turns out they didn't happened several times (also happened in Episode 5 a lot). Later I came across an Onion article saying they basically no longer are following any script at all so I guess I wasn't the only one.
   After this my laptop battery was pretty much used up and I once again am unable to charge it since I still don't have a universal plug converter for the Aus plug on my laptop and now it needs to plug into US shaped sockets here!

Saturday, August 27th - The plan was that I'd meet with the country director on this morning and find out what the plan was. When he arrived I was surprised to find him to be a young fellow looking to be in his mid 20s -- usually the country directors are older and I imagine the job description calls for a masters degree and ten years of management or something like that, so I assumed he must be a real whiz-kid. As it turns out, I have no reason to doubt his competence but I guess it's just that they don't actually have an actual country director at the moment at he's the senior staffmember (of two, where there should be four) and therefore acting country director. Found out I'm not going to the Field till Monday. On past projects I might be upset to be cooling my heels for three full days before going out but I felt and feel like I needed the time to recover from that ordeal of a trip here.
   Apparently I'll be going north and it sounds like a nice area. I'm looking forward to it!

   I was also introduced to two volunteers who he had jut brought back from the field. An older woman (fifties ish?) and a younger woman who had actually just a few months previously finished her Peace Corps posting here in Nicaragua. They were working together on some marketing related coconut oil project.
   Spent most of the rest of the day with the women, in particular the former Peace Corps Volunteer (Eliana) was a wealth of knowledge about Nicaragua.

   Also of note, in the afternoon while I was swimming at the hotel swimming pool I made my 101st rescue. Having been a lifeguard through high school, I am forever imbued with an urge to yell at kids for running on the deck by the pool or diving in in the shallow end, and catching the merest hint of the distinctive jerky wallowed flail of a distressed swimmer out of the corner of my eye grabs my full attention and sets me to red alert. A "distressed swimmer" (ie someone who is attempting to drown), isn't like they are in TV with big splashes and calls for help, and as is too often the case even though she was in many people's field of view no one else seemed to take notice. I was swimming laps at the time and got to her just as her head disappeared below water, pulled her up, put her arms on the pool edge which was actually just right there, she slipped off again, put her back and held her there ... and several minutes later her family actually noticed and hurried over, got her out. Another misconception perpetuated from Baywatch: people NEVER shower you with gratitude for rescuing them. I think something that sounded vaguely grateful, in Spanish of course, but it might have just been "I just need a minute" or something.

   Last night at 11pm, an hour after I'd gone to bed, there was a pounding on my door like a god damn stormtrooper was there. As I pulled on some pants and opened the door I found someone from the hotel bar trying to explain to me I had to pay for the margarita I had had that afternoon that I thought I'd put on the room tab. I don't know why they couldn't have made it more clear at the time that I needed to pay it off that afternoon, or couldn't sort it out when I checked out like normal hotels, nor do I understand why this hotel seems to have nearly no english speaking staff despite being the premier tourist hotel in the capital. I found this nocturnal payment demand quite irksome. I'd complain to the front desk but... even the front desk guy doesn't speak English quite fluently enough that I'm confident I could make my complaint clear to him.


Sunday, August 28th - The two other volunteers left this morning and it turns out the older one was borrowing a laptop from the Organization, so now I'm borrowing the powercord from that laptop. Just taking it easy today, but starting to get my fill of "taking it easy" and really looking forward to shipping out for the field tomorrow!!


PS: I almost forgot, but for posterity, I find it's often interesting to recall what world events are going on at the time, because at the time it feels contemporaneous events are indelibly linked but of course they are not. So for the record, lots more people fled Trump's White House in the last week due to his bizarre support for white supremists, and just the other day he apparently pardoned the controvercial Arizona ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio and even a lot of Republicans seem pretty upset that he skipped the usual review process, that this seems to condone racial discrimination, and that Arpaio being a friend of his this seems pretty shameless abuse of power. Every week there seems to be more opinion articles claiming "this is finally impeachmentworthy."