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Time for bed in Somoto Canyon

31st August 2011 by Paul

Camp in Somoto Canyon

There is no sensation of air at all. It is utterly still and the temperature is the same as my body. It’s as if all the air has disappeared, the only clue that this is not the case is that I am still breathing.

I’m standing next to our truck, but its faint outline is only just distinguishable against the night sky. Overhead, the sky is ink black, and dotted with a billion stars winking against the thin smudge of the Milky Way.

As my eyes grow more accustomed to the dark, I can just make out the tops of the trees and the crests of the hills that surround us. Beneath the ragged horizon there is the occasional blink of light as fireflies signal their presence to would-be mates.

But whilst the night is thin on visuals, it’s as if the volume has been turned up on our world. All around me there is the rhythmic rasp of cicadas. Occasionally a frog croaks somewhere off near the river, like a creaky door needing oil. Moths and other unseen insects buzz around my head, attracted by my breath, their tinny sounds approaching and receding like tiny motorcycles buzzing by at high speed.

Camp in Somoto Canyon

We are camped at a fork in the river, and so from my left I can hear the gentle rippling sounds of slow moving water against the gentle banks, whilst from my right, there is a more hurried and unsettled rush of water foaming and boiling over small rapids. Somewhere a fish breaks surface with a splash.

In the near distance a small herd of unseen cows are grazing, and I can just hear the feint rhythm of their chewing and the repetitive tearing of grass from its roots. And closer, but still unseen, the hooves of a horse, or maybe two, slowly crunch their way to new grazing. Far off, a pair of dogs bark – a short lived exchange of aggression, which soon stills.

Suddenly a mule signals its presence in the canyon – its braying sounds like a bellows being worked hard with a rude leak.

I smile.

It’s time for bed in God’s country.

Tags: camp, camping, campsites, canyon, Nicaragua, Night time, Somoto, wild camping
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Shame

21st August 2011 by Paul

A 20´ fishing dugout boat - from one piece of wood!

A 20´ dugout fishing boat - from one piece of wood!

When I started writing this blog I thought it would be about shame – but there is so much more in here than that.

If you are a regular follower of Helen’s blogs, or a Facebook friend, you’ll be aware that things have been a bit fraught lately on a financial basis. Ever since an ATM gobbled up our only remaining debit card almost three weeks ago, we have been surviving in Honduras on a relatively small amount of cash, and with no end in sight to the card problem we have been getting more and more anxious as funds have rapidly diminished.

Long distance overland travellers of all persuasions will no doubt be familiar with the (almost inevitable) catastrophe that is the loss of access to cash. We have a credit card, but in Central America, in rural areas they are almost useless, as no-one accepts them.

The bank, Santander, is probably typical of any large modern banking institution. It’s processes are not well dovetailed between departments, its staff are disempowered by the rigidity of their application – so even if they wanted to help they can’t, and there is little concept of security other than in a financial sense. The upshot is that despite having used our debit card (issued in the name of Crittenden) for over a year, in about 17 different countries, informing their ‘holidays’ department of our whereabouts every three months, regularly topping up our Skype account using the card – in the last three weeks Santander have insisted on issuing a replacement card in Helen’s maiden name (even after we explained the history, and pointed out that all verifying documents are in her married name), insisted on sending the card and PIN to a UK address that we no longer live at and which is now rented to tenants, and blocking our account due to ‘unusual activity’ – us topping up our Skype account in Honduras (a notified country) in order to speak to the bank about the card problem!! All this in the name of security, protecting the money we can’t get at! We’d laugh – but its a miserable example of corporate incompetence, lack of sensitivity or flexibility to respond to customer needs, and inability to see things from any standpoint but their own.

I would argue that Santander have acted shamefully in this episode, and have created unnecessary risk to their customers abroad.

On the Caribbean coast in Moskitia

But all things are relative – including shameful behaviour.

As a result of our lack of cash, we adjusted our plans and headed further into the Moskitia region of northern Honduras, hoping to take the shoreline dirt track that weaves on and off the beach as far as the saltwater lagoons – a journey that requires several estuary crossings by wooden raft. The plan was to mix adventure with some free beach camping while surviving on the tins and packets in our food boxes. A ‘Plan B’ solution to our card dilemma.

The forests of Moskitia meet the Caribbean on the region’s northern edge, and the border with Nicaragua all along its eastern side. It’s the largest area of rainforest outside the Amazon basin, and is a relatively lawless, but beautiful swathe of primary rainforest with Garifuna, Moskito and a handful of other indiginous communities thinly spread across the entire region.

Setting a sand anchor in preparation for tropical storms

Life is tough here, and hunting and fishing are the routine activities that sustain life, combined with daily trips by ‘collectivo’ (pick up trucks that carry people and goods for a few Lempiras) along the rough tracks to the more populated western towns of Limon and Sambo Creek.

Rough mud roads, a sandy track through edge of the forest, raft crossings, and some beach driving got us to a camp spot overlooking the Caribbean. Not as deep into Moskitia as we’d hoped, but far enough to get a real feel for life here.

On the first day in camp we had a few visitors, and passing collectivos with people piled on top of flapping mattresses and plastic garden chairs, waved noisey welcomes. It seemed a friendly enough place to us, and we settled in really well after a first-night tropical storm that persuaded us into another night in the cab, such was its ferrocity.

Our three young visitors - Leonardo on left

On the second day three young Garifuna boys between about ten and twelve years of age came to our camp. They had no english, but it was clear that, despite their smiling faces and upbeat interest in the truck, their priority was to sate their hunger. They rubbed their stomachs, and shoved clenched fingers towards their open mouths in an effective mime of eating. We had little to share, but being kids, we thought they would appreciate some popcorn. I set up the stove, oiled the pot, and poured in about two thirds of our stock of corn. After the suspense of the initial few moments, the rewarding cacophany of popping corn brought smiles to their faces, and before long they were all munching on a bag of hot sweet popcorn – a real treat.

Later that night, we settled down for our evening meal. Not much of a selection to choose from, and we ended up with mashed potato with onions and cabbage mixed in, and frijoles (bean paste) on the side. A bit dry as you can imagine, and I wasn’t particluarly relishing every mouthful! Helen raised my spirits by announcing that we still had some pre-toasted sliced bread left over from a previous camp about three weeks ago. We felt sure it would still be OK, as it was cellophane wrapped and seemed pretty brittle. We had strawberry jam too – so a desert seemed like a great finale to our somewhat dreary meal. I unwrapped a slice, spread it with jam and took a bite. Yuck!! It was sort of soft and stale and balled up in my mouth like strawberry flavoured glue. I spat it out and announced that desert was off the menu. Helen agreed and promptly threw the remaining few slices on the ground further up the beach for the birds.

On the third day our young friends returned. This time they wasted no time before asking for food – they had even come prepared with a small plastic bowl. We were making porridge for breakfast, so we made some extra, and they tucked in after asking for extra sugar – it was clear from their expressions that porridge is not part of their usual breakfast diet!

Local fishermen hard at work

Then, one of the boys spotted the broken slices of bread laying further up the beach, softened by the overnight rain, and the mood changed suddenly. The boys spoke quickly and angrily amongst themselves, shooting glances at us, and jerking fingers back and forth between us and the bread. Our friends had suddenly become hostile, and within seconds the boldest was jabbering away at us in rapid Spanish and gesticulating wildly.

And then for the first time I remember, a wave of sickening shame flooded through me. The night before, our spoiled western expectations had convinced us we were in dire straights – our food stocks were low, and we had only about $150 to last us three weeks or more. Yet here were three young boys who would have given anything to have a share of the stale bread we had thrown to the birds because it didn’t taste nice.

As we looked again into their angry eyes, and listened afresh to their exclamations – we saw and heard not anger, but disbelief. “How could we have been so wasteful – don’t we understand their hunger?”

My guess is that we don’t, and I suspect we never will. But all at once, our world was reshaped by three young boys yet to reach puberty, but who’s daily lives are dominated by priorities we have long assumed will be met. We take it for granted we´ll be OK – they can´t.

Later that day, they stole our cooking oil. But after a few minutes of confused and heated exchange, our bottle was returned, minus the oil. “I’m sorry,” Leonardo conveyed, “I didn’t take it for me, I took it for my mama. Can we still be friends?”

We both considered it for a moment, and concluded that a pint of cooking oil is a small price to pay for an education of that magnitude. We can´t condone a theft, however small and insignificant, but we can at least understand it.

And, after all, isn’t forgiveness a part of what makes a friend a friend?

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A year in the life …

22nd July 2011 by Paul

A year in the life of…

“ We travel that we may see new things, but also, that we might see things differently”

In the last year – the first of our travels, we have suffered the agony of someone close contracting a terminal illness; closed our business in the face of financial ruin, and dealt with the ensuing financial struggles; felt the anxiety of both my son, and son-in-law being placed on redundancy notice, whilst my daughter lost her job when our business closed. We’ve survived the usual smattering of minor illnesses and injuries; and, on the up side, felt the joy of two estranged brothers who have begun to heal their differences and repair their relationship.

In the same year, we have suffered the heartbreak of killing a horse in a road accident in Siberia, and the relief of completing repairs successfully without access to parts or repair shops.

We’ve successfully bodged our broken waterpump so it would take us 700 miles to safety from the desolate isolation deep in the Gobi desert.

We’ve witnessed glorious sunsets and sunrises from the Qumdar desert in Kazakhstan, and the Gobi in Mongolia, from the Mongolian steppe, the ancient forests of Siberia, the brittle cold plains of Montana, and the breathtakingly silent and still canyons of Utah.

We’ve spent many an hour staring in wonder at the vast black ocean of night sky above our heads peppered with a billion distant suns, and crisscrossed by satellites and shooting stars.

We’ve visited the Arctic Circle, and experienced what it is like to camp under canvas at minus 25 centigrade, and in the wet heat of Belize, imagined we’d melt in our sleep.

We’ve travelled through the silent and isolated red rock wilderness Between Moab and Needles in Utah, and ventured into places untrodden for hundreds of years.

In the Central Americas, we moved from the top to the bottom of the food chain, and were feasted upon by hoards of ants, flies, bugs and mosquitoes.

We’ve spied Bison, Reindeer, Jackrabbits, Gila Monsters, Texas Horned Lizards, Spider Monkeys, Giant Iguana and a thousand other species in their natural surroundings, found ourselves in the midst of a herd of curious camels, and felt them nibbling our ears and huffing their vile breath in our faces.

We’ve enjoyed observing the entire two hour process of a dung beetle stashing its hoard on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, and experienced the relentless nocturnal foraging of thousands of leafcutter ants in Belize, so monumental being their number that they wore a muddy path through the dense undergrowth.

We’ve made dozens of new friends and experienced the kindness of strangers time after time. I’ve learned to be patient and understanding as my lovely wife cuts my hair, and survived a few bouts of travellers’ diarrhoea.

We’ve spent a week in the chill zone with a beach-dwelling family on the remote and primitive western coast of Mexico, with no more expectation on either side of the language barrier than we should share a little of our lives with each other.

We’ve seen the bizarre effect of inept Russian policymaking at the Aral sea, where seagoing vessels are marooned seventy kilometres from the nearest water, and where ships of the desert now use ships of the sea for shelter.

We’ve been dug out of a Mongolian bog by new-found friends, and rescued a minibus full of travellers from the middle of a fast flowing river. We’ve dragged a drunken Mexican taxi driver and his cab from a beach, and towed a tractor and its heavily laden trailer out of a sand dune in the desert.

We’ve learned how to build effective campfires and have eaten foods we couldn’t have imagined before.

We’ve experienced kamikaze driving in Ukraine, violent, unmarked and bizarrely placed road humps in the Zonas de Topes of Mexico, and the weirdest of road systems, including paying road tax in a country with no roads, and dual carriageways where drivers randomly switch sides according to road surface quality rather than traffic flow.

We’ve explored abandoned gold mines in Death Valley, wondered at the engineering and human miracle that is the Hoover Dam, and been distressed by the human indignity and light pollution generated by Las Vegas.

We’ve swum in the Pacific and paddled in the Caribbean, and spent time discussing life and values with a Christian missionary on the run from the US police in the Hard Rock Cafe in Acapulco.

And we’ve learned that hedgehogs still get flattened by cars even in the depths of the Gobi desert.

We have learned or affirmed many things this year for ourselves too:

That not all change is progress, and that material and financial growth cannot be sustained forever.
That safety, security and certainty are things you find inside yourself, not outside yourself.
That the most generous people are generally those who have the least to give.
That there are infinitely more good people in the world than bad.
That the most important thing to fear is fear itself, because being fearful limits your experiences. And accepting someone else’s fear is the most limiting fear of all.
That its hard to understand the world from any perspective than your own until you stand in someone else’s shoes for a while.
That the world is largely populated by poor people, with a few wealthy ones – its not the other way around.
That the currency in most places around the world is kindness, not the dollar – people exchange it in order to live on what money they have.
That life most often turns out the way we expect it to, not necessarily the way we want it to.
That there is a big difference between what you want and what you need, and knowing what you really need moves you closer to happiness.
That things seem to happen for a reason, and being curious about the reason opens life up to you.
That if we keep an open heart, good experiences often flow from bad experiences.
That life really is what you make of it, every single moment.

In many ways, we have affirmed the phrase “life is a journey, not a destination”.

But perhaps the two most significant affirmations are these:

That people, in the majority, no matter their fortunes, location or origin, look towards the future with hope, strive to meet their needs for today, and dream of better things for their children tomorrow, just like you and I.

And that Life, with all its delights, surprises, joys, challenges, troubles and disasters, happens wherever you are, whoever you are, and whatever you have, and whilst pain and pleasure are essential experiences of life, greed and suffering are not.

Perhaps in remembering this, we can participate more thoughtfully in shaping a future for mankind that transcends the pointless, degrading, and ultimately damaging, quest for having more and having most, and instead, resolve to be more aware and more alive each day, and take active responsibility for sustaining ourselves, each other, and our environment, so that our children’s children will consider us wise and worthy benefactors.

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