Nicaragua Day 10: meandering in Managua (more added)

Today I wandered around Managua... which is not a very interesting city to wander in... I'm drinking a cold beer and waiting for my room to cool off so I can start packing! Last night I hogged the computer for three hours so I'm gonna make this quick today... I may write some more later if I finish packing, dinner etc.

Yay, Loopy, yay, I'm gonna see you tomorrow! Yay yay yay!

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I'll come back to "what I did today" later... first.... tonight nobody made dinner at the hotel because none of the groups were eating here, and I didn't think to ask about dinner until dinnertime.

So, the woman who's here in the evenings dished up some beans 'n' rice (always available) and called in a delivery order of roasted chicken. That was slightly surreal, given the living/eating conditions we've been in all week; I took a photo of the bag and containers for what appears to be Nicaragua's equivalent of KFC.



As I sat down to eat I noticed that I seemed to be the only one in the whole hotel, besides the woman who called in my chicken order; she turned on the lights in the eating area (it's outside, so it's not a dining "room") just for me, and I sat down by myself to eat. It was a big change from eating with the group, and I started to think, "you know, I just don't like traveling alone." (I'll come back to that in a minute).

But after a minute or two, things got more interesting. I heard a thrumming sound, like running your fingers over corrugated cardboard. Thrrrrrrum! Thrrrrrrrrrum! I looked up almost inadvertently and discovered that this noise was being made by geckos!

"But I thought geckos walked almost silently in their funny wiggly way?" you may say.

Indeed, they walk almost silently. But when they run at each other to indicate "stay away from my hunting area!", and when they're running on flimsy acoustic tile with nothing behind it, they make a thrumming sound.

Anyway, there were five or six of them, and they were better than TV. I watched them the whole time I was eating and was no longer edgy, lonely, or in any way uncomfortable. I watched them watch bugs, sneak up on bugs, and eat bugs (muncha muncha muncha). There was one little bitty baby gecko that seemed to be a better hunter than the big geckos; when he came too near they would rush at him (thrrrrrrum!) and he would rush away.

So, while I still don't like traveling alone, I did have a delightful dinner.

Regarding the thought that I don't like traveling alone, I had the minor revelation that there didn't have to be any judgment attached to this thought.

What a concept. I can not like traveling alone. That's totally fine. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person or a bad traveler.

I had had a feeling that these two extra days could be therapeutic. As most of you know, fourteen years ago I graduated from college and set off on what was to be a year-long odyssey around Asia. Even though I came home "early" (I was back in Europe by Christmas), it was quite a trip, often amazing and wonderful but also often lonely, depressing, and unpleasant. I felt terrible (guilty, inadequate, lost, failed) at the time for not being able to live up to my own expectations--that I would have a great time and stay away a year.

Recently I had been experiencing a resurgence of the feelings associated with that trip--fear, loneliness, etc.--first, before coming here ten days ago, and again more strongly when the rest of the group left. Since there was nothing to be done about that I hoped I would gain some clarity from it. I think that has happened... to explain a bit more I'll write briefly about my day, how it reminded me of the Asia trip and how it helped me sort out what, precisely, was unpleasant about that trip, and give myself the validation ("yes, it's reasonable to think that this is unpleasant") that I never gave myself 14 years ago ("what is wrong with you that you're not having a good time???").

So.... my day. First I went to a gallery that the guidebook recommended. I guess I had my hopes up a bit much, because it was just one room of paintings (though many were quite interesting) and then two big rooms of tourist knickknacks... well, better than "knickknacks," but they were basically just nicer versions of what I saw in the market two days ago.

The "cafe," which I had especially been anticipating (I thought I'd sit a few hours, savor a pleasant drink and a snack, write all my postcards & watch the world go by) was a couple of wrought-iron chairs in a courtyard, with only one table off to the side. I pulled up to the table but the only thing to drink was bottles of soda, and there was no food, and no one else around, so after a few postcards I gave up.

Flashback situation #1: disappointment, in general.

Following the plan I'd made in the morning I took a taxi to the major market of the city. (Loopy, remember that big market we went to with Chris & Rachel in London? It was in like a giant warehouse thing? Sorta like that, only not). This was where the Asia-trip recollections were really strong.

It's definitely not a tourist destination. The market is in a huge space, a metal building with very high ceilings and a few skylights; as my luck would have it, the electricity had just gone out when I arrived. So, the interior of the market was dim, quite dark in places (although never so dark that I couldn't make out where I was going or what was being offered by the shops I passed).

Flashback situation #2: something is clearly inadequate, and I have to decide whether to react as I normally would (I don't want to go in that big dark metal building) or pretend that all is well in a situation that even the locals are complaining about.

I did the latter, of course; I walked right in and started weaving my way down narrow crowded aisles, the only touristy person around, looking at all the things for sale.

There was one type of item to each stall--almost like each stall represented one aisle at Walgreens or the grocery store. So, a stall might have plastic buckets and tubs, or piles of fruit, or hardware-related items, or 50-pound bags of rice and beans (purchased by weight in smaller bags), or children's clothes, or CDs & DVDs, or beauty products, or household cleansers...you get the picture.

This was actually quite interesting, but I was not well-received, or at least, I felt that I was not well-received. Of course, people watched me as I walked by, many with disinterest, some laughing, some hostile.

Flashback situation #3: I feel like I shouldn't be here, and people around me seem to agree. It would feel brave to keep walking around, and it would feel great to just get the hell out of here. I keep walking around.

I had hoped to maybe find a last few presents for Loopy and/or other people, but nothing was really suitable. So, not knowing what else to do and feeling that I should do something, I decided to take some photos.

I took a couple of photos without asking permission. This didn't seem right so then I started asking. The second woman I asked said "no, señora, no. no, no, no," in a tone that seemed to me to say, "I have had it with you people!"

Flashback situation #4: I am essentially consuming views of poverty and squalor as a tourism commodity. Unlike in some parts of the world, our neighbors here know very clearly what things are like in the U.S. Everyone knows that when I take photos, I'm taking photos of how quaint and interesting it is to sell food in big unrefrigerated unpackaged piles with flies on them, or to walk around in filth and darkness while shopping (the floor was quite literally filthy).

I talked briefly with one vendor about a possible present for Loopy, but there was a slight problem with the item so I set off to look for other options. In the course of wandering around I accidentally wandered back into the same stall I'd been at before. The owner assumed I had come back on purpose and got ready to package the item, and I had to explain that no, I still didn't want it.

Flashback situation #5: I'm lost, I'm confused, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm in an awkward social situation...

Finally I gave myself permission to just leave. I found a taxi and while I'd planned to go back to the hotel, the whole day felt so unsatisfying that I decided on the spur of the moment to try one more thing, and asked the driver to take me to another Gallery way across town.

We drove around for about ten minutes looking for it (remember how there are no addresses in Nicaragua?) and then it was closed. Lucky for me there was a hotel nearby where I had lunch; it had a swimming pool and seemed a few steps up from my current place, though not especially luxurious, so I made a mental note that this is where we should stay if Loopy ever comes with me.

After this I tried to take a taxi back to the hotel, but we couldn't find the hotel. We drove around and around and around near the hotel, with me trying to remember landmarks and sending the driver left or right when something looked familiar, only to have everything seem unfamiliar again. Finally I remembered that I had the precise instructions ("a block south and three blocks west of Hercules Gym") and the driver said, "ah, this is what I need, this is easy now."

In the 1.5 minutes it took us to get to the hotel (now that he had the right instructions) the driver told me that he spent 1985 to 1990 in Russia and speaks fluent Russian. Great, my taxi driver is a KGB agent (that's not a joke actually, in case that's unclear) who thinks I'm an idiot.

In case it's unclear that wasn't fun either.

I really started thinking about my Asia trip when I caught myself worrying about whether the hotel people would think I was a loser for coming back relatively early and eating dinner in the hotel. In Asia, I did that a lot (there were also days when I never left the hotel). I remember initially being able to tell myself that that was silly, but I think those paranoid fears/fantasies grew stronger the longer I spent in solitude (i.e. the fear that not only was I a bad person for not having a good time, but the hotel people could tell that I wasn't having fun and they thought I was bad, too).

Anyway, having some of these experiences again and seeing the thoughts come floating up to the surface helps me sort out a lot: why I didn't have a whole lot of fun in Asia, and how much worse I made it by beating up on myself about not having fun.

So, okay, therapy's over, can I go home now??? (in exactly twelve hours, in fact!)

See you all there......