Sunday, January 30, 2011

The trip back to Oaxaca

Our last lancha captain, Rollo, who poled us through the shallow water and wanted to learn to say, "How are you?" in english.






The colectivo to Tecun Uman filled pretty quickly, and I was soon sitting on a box, facing backwards with my knees under my chin, as we passed more banana plantation. In Tecun Uman, a man advised us to use a tuk tuk to get the few blocks to the border, because we're gringo tourists and the drug scene is unpredicatable here, even for a Sunday morning. The old man has a hard time pedaling us, with our bags, but gets us to the border. A stamp in our passports (not necessary but she has to earn a tip), a propina of 20Q to leave the country, change our quetzales to pesos with a dude on the street,  another tuk tuk to cross the river into Mexico, another stamp and a big fee we can't pay (we'll pay the land-entrance fee at a bank when we get back to Oaxaca).  There is some confusion because we just converted our quetzales to pesos, but the tuk tuk driver wants to be paid in quetzales....no one has change for a 50 peso note (worth less than $5), so we give him the 50 pesos. The tuk tuk driver, this time really a pedicab, has just crossed into Mexico with not passport of fee.  But then, he's a local.   The river, who's name I don't know, is crowded with people washing clothes.  There is no fence here, just a fence along the bridge.  Who makes this stuff up?!?  ANOTHER tuk tuk driver, a pedicab, takes us to the bus station in Ciudad Hidalgo, we're back in Mexico. Stuart is very tense, he's not good on travel days, particularly when he can't speak the language. But, I'm doing OK, and we get where we want to be.

The colectivo drivers in both countries play a game: how many adults can they fit in a mini-van? At one time, between Ciudad Hidalgo and Tapachula, I counted 24 adults! Can you say, "too many people"? I watch the conductor, who is hanging out the side door, giving signs to the driver to tell him how many more he can squeeze in. Thankfully, the trip is short, about an hour.





We pass more of the screaming yellow trees, that the women on the bus several days ago tell me are called palo
blanco. When I said, "they're not white, they're yellow", the woman shrugged and said "that's the name".

There is a bus from Tapachula to Juchitan seven hours from now. There is no luggage lockerer at the bus station in Tapachula, so we sit, taking turns walking around the block to stretch our legs. The bus leaves on time at 7pm, and we arrive in Juchitan at 2am. We buy a ticket to Oaxaca on a bus leaving in about 9 hours, so we find a hotel room and sleep for a little while. All the bus stations we've stopped in on the way are busy, brightly lighted, with food vendors on the streets around them all.  We notice that the taco vendors in Juchitan are closing up shop as we walk past at 2:30am.  

The hotel is over-priced, but there aren't many options within walking distance.  We wake early, too early, and find time to walk off the road jitters before heading back to the bus station. There isn't much to entertain us in Juchitan, as we learned at the beginning of this trip.

We find this beautiful mural on a side street in Juchitan, seems perfect for the end of our trip. We buy a sandwich, fill our water bottles and get on the last bus. The trip to Oaxaca is about 6 hours, and we when we cross the last mountain ridge and head down the valley into Tlacolula, we giggle and feel like we're home! We've made it home from Tilapita in less than 48 hours but we're road weary. We must have a local's attitude, because when we get off the the bus in Oaxaca, no one tries to sell us anything. We catch a 4.5 peso city bus to our street, familiar with all the streets and shops, and walk into our calm, peaceful courtyard, to receive hugs from Manuel, Josephina and our neighbors. It's nice to be home.

Leaving in the broad daylight

We headed east in our little lancha, it's early but the sun is already hot. We motored past the dock where we left Tilapa a few days ago, and pretty quickly we saw another small island, with a hand-made bridge crossing the lagoon. In the middle was an narrow arch, to the lanchas to pass. A small crowd of people was crossing the arch, with musical instruments on their heads. It's Sunday, Evangelical churches are the best place for music here, and I suspect there is some good music in their near future. We motor on, and the water gets very shallow.....










A few huts on the other island, and I can see a power pole, so there will be speakers for the music that's about to begin.

















The water is very shallow, and our captain stops the motor and begins to pole through the shallows. Another boat is heading in the opposite direction, and that captain points out a path that is a little deeper. I hear some shouts,and see four wagons pulled by mules begin to cross the lagoon. The boys are racing each other through the shallow water!  This picture, with the cell phone towers in the background, seems to be an image that is confused....












I should crop these pics, for a closer image... by now, Stuart is helping pole, and I'm suggesting that I get out and help pull the boat by the rope. I tell our young captain about the times my daddy would run us on the sandbar at the beach at home, and I'd tow us through the shallow water, rope over my shoulder. He laughed, and suddenly we were in water just deep enough to start the motor again.

He begins to ask about a few english phrases, and I help him with, "How are you?" and, "I'm fine, thank you!". He knows "please" and "thank you" already. He asks me how much $20US is worth in quetzales, and is surprised at the answer. When we reach the town of Ocos, he grabs Stuart's bag (of course!), and walks us up the deserted, paved street to a corner. Here's where the colectivo will stop for us, and in about 5 minutes, the bus arrives. I give him a piece of paper with his new english written on it, give and get a hug, and we're off to Tecun Uman, the border town. Our Guatemala adventure is almost over.
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Last day at the beach


Our room is pretty basic. It has two beds and a floor fan that makes a lot of noise, but is necessary. There is one light bulb, by the door. No chair or table. One of the mattresses is store-bought, the other is hand-made and stuffed with grass or leaves. I'm not sure which, but can tell you it's hard! Oh, there was an electrical outlet, thankfully, where I could recharge my camera batteries. There was no hot water, but the water tank was on the roof, so the water was warmed by the sun. The toilet, surprisingly, had a seat. Many toilets here, don't. Alex also provided two thin pillows, two very thin sheets, and two well-used towels. We were set! I ask: how much time are you going to spend in a hotel room in such a beautiful place?







One day, I locked our only key in the room. I asked Alex to open the door, and he said his son would unlock it when he returned later. The son returned, went to the back of the hotel and brought into the breezeway a hand-made ladder. He propped it against the wall, walked away and returned with a long piece of pvc pipe. He climbed the ladder, reached over the front wall of our room (it didn't meet the ceiling, providing for a little air circulation) with the pipe, and pushed against the door latch to open the door. They don't have another key to the room! I noticed that some of the other rooms had padlocks, which means that the door keys have all been lost, and Alex just added a hinge and bought a padlock. I love a simple answer.








Our European friends spent last night on the beach. It's a birthday celebration for of one of them, and the Birthday Girl wanted to wake up on the beach, at sunrise. We found them the next morning, groggy from the night, but very content.













This is the little sunrise celebration the Birthday Girl built in the sand. The tall sticks are sparklers, which they burned at sunrise.



It's time for us to begin the return trip to Oaxaca. We don't know how long it will take, but at least 2 days, probably three. It all depends on the bus schedules. We spend our last day enjoying the beach, the children, the hammocks and the good food.

Alex will get a lancha to take us to Ocos tomorrow morning. We arrived from the east side of the river, at Tilapa, but will depart from the west side of the river, because it's a more direct route for the bus to get us to Tecun Uman, close to la frontera, the border.

The dutch woman and Stuart chatted, and she knows a child's song that Stuart's mother sang to him when he was a child, a song in dutch. She wrote the words for Stuart, and the three of them sang for him. It was very sweet, and we all had tears in our eyes when they finished. Our lancha captain arrives, Victor takes Stuart's case, and we walk down the sand street to the path to the lagoon.
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River tour

Three young women, two from Belguim and one from Holland, appear at the hotel one afternoon. They are all three doing humaitarian work (as are many other young Europeans) in Guatemala for a year, the two Belgians at an orphanage in Tecun Uman.  The Dutch woman is in Xela. They all speak beautiful english, in addition to beautiful spanish. We five ask Alex about a tour of the river, and he lines up a captain and a boat for the next day.

Two small boys ride on the bow of the lancha, warning the captain of unseen snags. We motor up the river for about 30 minutes, and into a small creek. The river smells and looks like our Northeast Cape Fear River in North Carolina, except for the mangrove roots growing from high above the high tide line. We feel right at home! It's quiet, except for the birds, and there are lots of birds.









I can easily see the tide line on these roots. We see many ibis, herons, kingfishers, some small, dancing shore birds, flying fish with four eyes and lots of scavengers I can't identify. We hear a loud bird in the trees, sounds vaguely like a woodpecker, but my spanish is definately not good enough to ask about the birds! The young women have no clue about birds.





















We passed a couple of other boats, fishermen, some with small nets, some with hand-tossed lines. Some boats had motors, but most were hand paddled, like this one. The current appears to be not too strong.


There is no other traffic, or sounds to remind us of humans, and we soon turn into a creek that feels like another century!

 Does the captain look vaguely familiar?  Alex confirms, with a laugh when we return, that the captain is his padre! El capitano's hat got caught on a low-hanging limb, and even though we saved it, it was wet.  When we headed directly into the late afternoon sun, I gave him my hat to shield his eyes.
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Quality beach time

Each morning, we walk on the beach, before the sun gets too hot. We see pelicans fishing every day, but no other people until Saturday morning. Apparently, this is a weekend beach destination for folks living in Xela. The young men gathered on the beach early, for coffee and a visit.

















The palm trees created the prettiest reflection in the pool. One morning, I watched Alex scatter, by hand, some kind of white powder in the pool. Chlorine, I guess, but I surely could neither smell nor taste it. People action powered the circulation!













Alex, our host. He kept a tab of our daily charges, which included our meals and beers. We helped ourselves to beers, and told him how many at the end of the day. We paid him each evening, he charged us 100Q per day for our room. He told me that the dining palapa, the one with the concrete floor, was just finished in the past few months. The busy season is semana santa, Easter week. So far, we're the only people in the hotel, but he says that week he'll put as many as 10 people in each room, charging 100Q per person, about $12US a night!  I guess they sleep in shift, there are only two beds in the room.  From that week, he makes enough to survive the sparse guests the rest of the year, and he saved enough to build this nice place. The roof, made of banana leaves, costs about 1 Q per leaf, and will last about 15 years. He has a second pool under construction now...he says that during semana santa the pool is so filled with people that it sloshes out much of the water!

Alex's oldest son, who appears to be in his early 20's, told me that the water in the tap is clean...we can drink it.  This would be the first place in Mexico or Guatemala that the water is drinkable, but it makes sense, since they have their own well here.  I'm still drinking bottled water...


One night, Celia brought me this baked fish, mojarra.  We call it snook. She put some herba santa and salt in the foil with the fish, and cooked it over the open fire, her only heat source.  It came with the usual sliced tomatoes, onions and cucumber, and some roasted potatoes.  Celia is a good cook!  Life at the beach is pretty good.

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Art Day

Stuart, in the hammock.....


There is no pavement or grass anywhere, just sand. The children, chickens, pigs and trash all share the sand around us. The children giggled at Stuart in the hammock, fast asleep!













This pig wandered back and forth, between the water dripping at a palapa next door, and the trash pile burning behind the hotel.


After lunch, I tore out the last few unused pages of my paper journal, my mapa de libre, and Fatima (the five year old) called her friends over. She found a few stray crayons, I spread my pencils and water color crayons on a table, and we spent the afternoon drawing and laughing. A few more kids showed up, and Celia found some shelf paper in her kitchen, it had one waxy side and one lined, paper side, and everyone had paper. We drew maps and flowers and people, and everyone encouraged everyone else. It was a perfectly perfect afternoon, and the kids laughed and lined up for multiple hugs when all the coloring was done. Victor, the 12-year old insisted that they all give me their drawings...I wanted them to give them to their mothers, but he insisted.  He's the luggage-carrying kid from our arrival, and, we learned he's Alex and Celia's youngest son.

Afterwards, they begged for a walk on the playa. I think they don't get spend much time swimming in the ocean, maybe it's too familiar.




The boys clowned for this photo, and the girls rolled their eyes at their silliness. Bremner is standing, the two small boys lying in the sand are his brothers.
















One more, more sedate, photo on the beach.
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At the beach

Alex spent much of his morning in one hammock reading the paper, and I took the other. There is another palapa on the other side of the rooms, with more hammocks, too.















We took a walk on the beach before breakfast. Our new friend, Manchi the Dog, walked with us. We headed to the inlet, which appears to be deep and fast moving, then back around the lagoon side. The rains last summer, the same rains that washed away all the roads in the mountains, washed away much sand on the northwest end of the island. We climb over a couple of fences, and walk back along a shady street. The sun has warmed the sand to Burn temperature already!

When we get back to the hotel, Celia brings us a cup of hot water and a jar of Nescafe. We're pretty surprised, but realize there is no use asking for real coffee. She also brings us enough eggs and beans and tortillas for a basketball team!






One of the shady streets on the island.

We saw two people on our walk, and passed a little tienda, in name only. Under the palapa beside the tienda was a pool table! We met William, a local man with a USMC tattoo on his arm. He told us that he served 14 years in the marines, and only got out because his father wanted him to come home. He has three children in the US, all of whom have graduated from prestigious colleges. One son is a professor at Harvard!

We spend the rest of the morning in the pool, on the beach, or in the hammock. At some point, Alex asked us what time we wanted lunch, and told us we were having ceviche....








This was to become our daily lunch, and it was delicious! We spent our afternoons in the hammock, with a swim in the ocean late in the day. A pretty good routine, if you can get it.
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Our host at Tilapita

Hola, Linda and Cristy! You'd recognize this river: it smells and looks like 'our' river....


The Hotel Pacific Mar is owned by Alex and Celia. He's the Front Man. Alex shows us our room, we're the only guests. The dining palapa has a cement floor, and three bare light bulbs hanging overhead. Alex shows us the cooler, and we make ourselves at home. The question about meals is quickly answered. He asks what time we want to eat, and tells us what Celia is cooking! Fresh fish, it will be ready in an hour. Later, I peek in the kitchen, and see Celia and their oldest daughter cooking over two wood fires. The floor is dirt, and the table is covered with a clean plastic cloth. I give Celia the remains of a loaf of banana bread I bought yesterday, and get a smile and hug in return. She's not a bit offended that it's not a whole loaf. Stuart has a small, curious crowd of small, barefoot children staring at him when I join him at a table. I have my paper journal, and the children are very curious about it. I show them the map I drew of Lake Atitlan, and they have no trouble identifying the volcanos I drew. My libre de mapa , map book, they call it. We talk a little, some are Alex and Celia's children, other's are neighbors. When Alex brings our fish dinner, they disappear like the wind. Apparently they've been told to leave guests alone while they're eating.

Late in the evening, I see Alex unplug the cooler with soft drinks and beer, just before he turned out the three lights in the palapa. There is another palapa with a sand floor, beside the pool, with a hammock with my name on it! The pool has no pump or filter, but it's clean and clear as drinking water. I can't wait to try it, tomorrow.

My pack got wet early today, in the boat crossing from San Pedro to Santiago. When I asked Celia about a clothesline, she pointed to the barbed wire fence around the pool. Works fine!













The Christmas decorations are still hanging. Pretty, hand-made decorations. Celia and the children painted styrofoam cups, cut them in a spiral, and attached a piece of ribbon inside. You can bet I'm copying this idea!
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Tilapita

Stuart and our Captain, on the Ocos lagoon. The captain beached the boat on the backside of the island, and he carried Stuart's bag up the sand path. He called to two boys playing close by, and they giggled and fought over who would carry it a little further along the sand path to the hotel. Boys start that macho stuff early. I walked behind, happy to have my toes in the sand, and smell the salt air.












We dumped our bags at the hotel, grabbed a beer from the cooler, and walked out on the beach. This is the first time I've seen black sand, volcanic sand. The sand is as coarse here as our white sand beaches in NC. We've arrived just inn time for sunset on the Pacific...











Backing up a little....this is the backside of the island. The only transportation here is a little boat, some owners are lucky enough to have a motor. Others use short, home-made paddles.












Our first sunset at Tilapita...
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Saturday, January 29, 2011

A highway song....

 This is the intersection where we find our final bus of the day.  This is not our bus.  But, I'm getting ahead of the story....

I could hear the Allman Brothers tune in my head all day. We easily found another bus in Cocales, a crossroads town. I talked to the conductor, with map in hand, and told him where we wanted to go. He worked out a way to get us there, and tossed our bags to the roof of the next chicken bus. This time, we weren't so lucky, and were standing, butts and belts in someone's face. Eventually, I got a one-cheek seat, beside a man, woman and child. I eventually figured out they weren't together. Edwardo (probably spelled Eduardo) began asking questions, and I learned he had lived in Lousiana, not far from Lafayette. He worked in the sugar cane fields a little, but mostly worked as a landscaper for a cardiologist. He was very proud, and showed me his friend/employers card. The doc had just been to Guatemala for visit. When I asked Eduardo if he'd go back, he said probably not. He liked the money, but missed his family. In front of us, another man heard us talking, and as the bus began to empty, he wanted to talk, too, but in English. We laughed as he practiced, and wanted me to stay in this town and be his teacher. I got a hug when he got off the bus.

The bus pulled into a parking lot in Mazatenango, and parked. I'm puzzled, I thought we'd go further on this bus. The conductor searched for us in the crowd as we collected our bags from the roof, and gave me 40 Q. The bus was having mechanical troubles (we couldn't tell!), and he owed us a partial refund. He said, 'wait here', and disappeared in the crowd, leaving us with Eduardo. Stuart bought a sandwich from a street vendor, and the three of us shared it while we waited. I think Eduardo was surprised when he saw us eating street food, and he and I talked about food and cooking while we waited. The conductor returned and, he and Eduardo led us by the hand through the crowd and confusion to another bus, where they both argued with the conductor of that bus about the price. Eventually, all was agreed on, as Stuart and I just stood there trying to understand, and our bags were stowed. We gave and recieved hugs and kisses, and boarded the bus. Eduardo watched, and I waved, until the bus pulled out of the lot.

This bus is not a chicken bus, but a Pullman. That simply means that the seats are 'fitted', and if you're lucky enough to get a seat, you don't share it. There was a stack of plastic stools in the back of the bus, and they were passed forward for people to sit in the aisles. It's not better: Pullman seats are always broken down, and miserably uncomfortable. My seat mate was a local woman who spoke beautiful English, but didn't want to chat, which was fine with me.  I wanted to look out the window and take a few notes. The man behind me, however, did. He and three friends were traveling from Honduras to Mexico, to find work. We're down off the mountains now, and it's hot. The windows don't open much, and we're traveling behind a truck hauling something dead. Or rotten. Or both. Finally, the bus gets a chance to pass and we all laugh with fresh air. Soon, however the bus pulls over to the side of the road, mechanical trouble of some kind. A few of the men get off, in true Mexican/Guatemalan style, and look under the hood. After about 30 minutes, they climb back on, and we drive on. My friends from Honduras are fascinated with the small map I have, and we talk about their route and where they live and where they are going. A couple of them have big machete-type knives, like many men who work in the fields.

We pick up and drop off more people, pass again through Retalhueleu, and then Coatepeque. Somewhere, we change buses again, but by now I've lost track of the route. Our conductor asks where we're going, and tells me he'll let me know when to get off. After a while, he comes to the back of the bus, where I'm sitting, and begins to talk. He's lived in Houston (or was it Dallas?), and has a friend there. He, too, made good money, which he sent home, and is happy to be back in Guatemala. He asks me to send a text to a friend in TX, in English, saying he's working on a bus, making money, and all is well. I almost finish when he calls for us to get off...I get yet another hug and kiss, as I give him instructions to finish the text!

By late in the day, we find ourselves on the side of the road, at an intersection marked with a couple of food vendors set up under a huge avocado tree and a mango tree. See the first pic in this post....Literally an intersection in the middle of nowhere. Again, we're 'adopted', and are told to wait, this young man selling cold drinks will let us know which bus to get on. Because we're gringos, we're pretty curious, and as always, people stare and smile when they're caught. Not many gringos travel by bus, we're learning. And, we're wwwwaayyy far off the tourist track here. After about 20 mintues, a smaller bus, a colectivo stops, and we're shoved on board. My notes from that afternoon say, "I don't know where Stuart is, but trust he got on the bus. I threw my pack to the dude on the roof, pushed my way on board and shoved my personal pack under a seat. Two women made room for me between them on the back seat." Later, I see that the driver has made room beside him for Stuart. A front row seat, of sorts. He's sitting on the transmission hub, but he's sitting!

We're paralleling the coast now, and we pass miles and miles of banana plantations and a few tiny villages. At one stop, I heard the conductor on the roof, and a loud noise. He passed down a 4 x 8 sheet of corrugated metal to a man, who put it on his head and walked down a dirt path. Guess he's getting a new roof patch tomorrow. A little while later, we stop in front of a house surrounded by bananas. A woman hurries out of the house with a huge stem of plantains, hands them to the driver who hands her some money.





This is a pic from the back of the bus. You can see Stuart, who has now moved to a real seat, and the bunch of banans by the driver.

The two women I'm sitting between want to chat, and tell me about their children. They tell me about working in the plantations, and ask where we're going and what we're doing. One tells me her sister lives at the beach we're headed to, and that we can stay with her. Just get to the island and ask for Lily, she says.  Must be even smaller than I thought.

We're the last on the bus, since we're getting off at the end of the line. Tilapia. A tiny, quiet, clean village, with paved streets, on the Ocos River. We load our packs, and after asking for directions, we walk down a very quiet street past chickens and pigs and babies in hammocks and little houses with outside kitchens, towards the dock. A litter of puppies 'attacks' Stuart's rolling case.

It looks like low tide, but what do I know? It's close to sunset now, but we find a man waiting to take us across the lagoon to Tilapita, the beach across the river/lagoon. A man sees us coming, and as always, grabs Stuart's rolling bag, never asking if he can take my back pack. Neither does Stuart ask! We board the little lancha, the man knows where we're going. There is only one hotel on the island.  It's a beautiful, 10 minute boat ride, in a little boat that reminds me of my daddy's hand-made wooden boat.  A 15-horse Johnson powers it.

Leaving the Lake

The wind has been blowing for two days and the lake is white capping. The locals tell me this happens occasionally, but not usually this time of year. We sadly pack our bags, and leave Aaculaax before breakfast, trying to get across the lake as early as possible. We don't really know how we're going to get to the coast, but will figure it out poco a poco (little by little, or step by step) and hope to put our toes in the salt water this evening.

We stop, briefly in San Pedro for breakfast, and catch a tuk tuk to the other pier, where we'll catch another boat to Santiago, on the southeastern side of the lake. The southern road from the lake twists between three volcanos, an easier route than trying to leave from the north shore, because we're heading a little south and west.

This is the Santiago dock. Just in the left corner of the photo you see a brick wall. That's the city park. It's under water, along with all the stalls for the vendors who normally sell here. The dock is also not the normal dock; the normal one was swamped probably pretty quickly after the late summer rains. There are a few buildings along the shore here, too, that have water washing against their front walls.

The lake is so churned up by the wind, we almost decide to not board. I threw our bags to a man on board, and another man held tightly onto each of us as we boarded the lancha. There was a big step down from the shaking pier. The trip to Santiago was very rough, and one woman was sick. Thank goodness the 'windows' were screened with plastic, otherwise we would have been more soaked than we were. The four men sitting on the front bench held a blue tarp over the front of the boat for the one hour, rough ride. Their arms must have been tired, but they all declined to let me take their place. Machismo is alive and well in most Central American countries! All the bags, in the floor at our feet, got wet. We were all splashed, but there we no complaints. It is a beautiful day. The captain did a good job of steering into the waves, but our destination was almost sideways to the wind and the waves, and eventually we had to turn. It was a slow trip.


  Santiago. It's the most developed of the villages on the lake, pop. 32,000.
















I couldn't resist taking this photo...a sign on the street, across from the bank in Santiago, just a little way from the town market. We waited on the curb there for about 20 minutes for the bus to leave...

"It's prohibited to urinate, defacate, throw trash anywhere in this place. By order of the government of Atitlan". So, there!








I don't know what this man was hauling, but it was heavy. The big baskets covered wtih nets of some kind are used a lot around the lake. I saw many people carrying goods like this. If the women were carrying the baskets, they were usually on their heads.

The bus originates in Santiago, and even though there is no bus station, everyone knows what time the bus leaves for Cocales. It's parked beside the bank. I watched the driver's wife leave a bag of lunch on his seat, while he was busy in conversation with someone else. Luckily, we were the first ones on the bus, and had the front seat with a good view. No crowd. Yet. We drive around the southern edge of the lake, climbing and giving picture postcard vistas, past miles of coffee plantations and a few very small villages, eventually turning more south and west. As always, there is very little vehicular traffic. At one little village, a tuk tuk driver had left his tuk tuk parked on the narrow street, blocking traffic. Not usually a problem, since there is so little traffic. But, the bus couldn't pass. The driver leaned on the horn for a long time, no one appeared. The conductor and the driver, with great disgust but much patience, got out of the bus, and lifted the tuk tuk to the sidewalk. We drove on...