TrekFeet

Heads and Tails. January 7, 2008

There are two ways to tell any story. At least.

I could present you with half the cards in my hand and you would see only a tale of Central American adventures.

I’d tell you of New Years Day morning, when I wandered out of a drowsy mountain town to ruins from another lifetime, framed by fog and jungled canopy. And they were amazing - smaller and yet somehow almost prouder than Machu Picchu. They were ornate and deliberate and purposeful - as if these Mayans had time or inclination for pride and ornamentation, not just sense and survival. I’d assure you it was a joy to snake through them, taking photographs in the still cool air and hike up the falling down pyramids tucked away in the far back, like a clearance room.

I’d reach back further and tell you I spent New Year’s Eve with David and Bill - 70 something ex-pats who adopted me from the town bank and brought me back to Bill’s house to meet his Honduran wife. Well, Marta, Bill, David, and I - we drank Margaritas at their favorite bar in town and ate cheese, looked at old family photos and played with their monkey and children back in their living room. David lost a hand in Vietnam and had a fabulous hook performing in its absence and rosy cheeks roused by holiday cheer of one form or another. Bill’s portion of our rambling stew of a conversation alluded to a previous nuclear family in the states, an American government he no longer knew and dozens of Honduran venture capital adventures into which his two good hands were deeply plunged.

I’d share the afternoon spent riding a broken painted horse up the mountainside and then hiking to a tiny village where the kids were delighted to see pictures of themselves magically appear on the screen of my digital camera. I’d introduce you to the wonderful American and British women who were volunteer journalists at a Honduran paper, who made me laugh for hours with their stories and bickering over dinner and Salva Vida beers and international card games.

I’d smile and remember the sound of endless showers on the rain forest outside my island room and bbq crab dinners eaten under thatched roofs by a candle light that ebbed and flowed with the wind.

And it has been that kind of trip.

It has showcased gorgeous, tough scenery and numerous flamboyant characters and - due to Kraabel’s inability to break away from murderous work hours - a lot of solo time to read and journal and just get centered again. (That new agey summary is for you, dad.)

But I could also show you a different family of stories that string together a necklace of delays, downpours and cancellations.

I could tell you about hobbling up steep, slick cobble stone streets alone in the rain, dragging my bags across a pitch black town at 4 am to catch a bus. Flashlight in one hand and a small, never used pocket knife in the other. And I did catch that bus - which rumbled and swayed over mountain switch backs and then deposited us wordlessly half way through the journey for an unexplained and unexpected half day layover.

I’d tell you about days of canceled ferries and outraged masses of Hondurans trying their damnedest to get home to the islands after Christmas visits to mainland family. Killed flights. Tropical storms. Days waiting and then finally arriving on an island just in time for the gods to really release the heavens. When you hear “days dwindled away on a Carribean island,” you will be jealous. Until you see the rest of the hand: Raw, insect bit legs on the unseasonably cold dark island deluged with downpours and conquering winds, meekly awaiting the return of electricity.

It’s never just one or the other, is it?

I’m usually guilty of over optimism, an abundance of enthusiasm. It is such sweet joy to hit the road, any road, that sometimes I bring back only the cards that will inspire you.

To be honest, this trip was not about inspiration.

It has been a lesson in patience, in surrendering to the tide, in letting go and finding enough in just reading in a hammock, sheltered from the storm. Looking at pictures of Kraabel and thinking about the jokes he would make if he were here to enjoy the latest debacle, the newest roadblock in the journey. Watching the rain fall on all these foreign forests, just waiting to be nourished. Being quiet. Not demanding anything in exchange for nothing being demanded of me.

It has been a mellow time. The challenges and the rewards reaching some peaceful equilibrium that leaves me both happy I came and met this latest slice of world and vividly remembering how much I have waiting for me at home.

So that’s the whole tapestry this time - the magical, the frustrating, the exquisite, the solitude. The heads and the tails.

All in all, it was still a pretty good hand to be dealt.