Tele-pizza

There is only one best pizza in the world, and it is in Granada.

No, really. In one of the old buildings just off the town square by a block northish, and two easterly, you can sit down in the Tele-pizza restaurante and eat the absolute utter best pizza you will ever eat anywhere. Or at least the best pizza I have ever eaten anywhere, and in spite of my extremely limited experience around the world eating pizza, or doing much else for that matter, I challenge you to try it and compare to your personal favourite. And Tonas are 20 cordobas (about a dollar US), making it a sin not have at least two. A large pizza with five toppings, six drinks, five desserts - flan, chocolate cake, tres leche - about $US 15.00.

Three tres leche and the two others make five desserts, see?

Still not convinced? I tried to eat, on the day we left, a calzone from Tele-pizza, which is to pizza pockets what Arnold Schwartzeneger is to PeeWee Herman... if Arnie was made of delectable crust and crammed with freshly cooked ham and most of a block of superlative melted cheese and a little bag of wonderous tomato sauce to drizzle on to taste, and Paul Reuben was disinterestedly thrown together by Mccain out of sawdust and recycled cardboard. Or something. This metaphor isn't working; but I stalled with about a fifth left, unable to eat any more no matter how much I wanted to, which was quite a lot.

Update: I see by my notes that we spent $US 19.00, not $15.00 as originally posted on that supper, which obviously is far too much, and we never should have gone.

Wandering the streets - Wednesday.

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As Rob implied, some of the most interesting and fantastic things about Grenada can be seen by just wandering the streets. I have to leave it to Rob to write about the events, since it is beyond me to keep the snapshots that impress me straight in time and sequence.

Instead, I shall report with pictures on the scenes that burned into my memory as examples of the beauty and spirit of this unbelievable city.

Colonial buildings, remaining exactly as they have for hundreds of years, but now hosting cel repeaters and satellite dishes;
On the other side of the square we can hear music. As the sun was going down the kids you hear singing in the background were celebrating their first communion.

Here we have a 10 foot tall figure heading to the Square. "She" was accompanied by a boy of about six who was wearing a large can around his neck, and laying it like a snare drum. It also happened to have a hole cut in it so that you could toss a few Cordobas in it if you liked the show.

Granada

I guess I don't get out much; nothing I had seen before prepared me for Granada. The oldest city I have ever been in - 584 years old this Dec. - the streets are more than wide enough for horse-drawn traffic and the buildings come right to the edge of the narrow sidewalks. My first impression from the taxi was as if the buildings had suddenly clustered up and walled out the openness of the countryside which I had grown used to, and within seconds I was lost. There are no street signs, and no business signs not painted on the face of the building where each exists. There are no modern buildings. Many of the existing ones have not been painted in a long, long time, and the roofs are of ancient tiles over bamboo and wooden beams. The gutters are deep, to handle rainy season, and the sidewalks sometimes quite high for the same reason. The outer walls of the houses present few windows, but many high doors, most closed and guarded by gratings or panels that were new a century or two since.

Only rarely do I get to experience the sensation of being cut loose from everything I know. Sometimes when I am reading for the first time a very well written book, (just about anything by Dave Duncan, for example) and the author has a tightly constructed fictional universe, a mild version of what I felt on first encountering Granada will persist until I figure it out. In fact, that is often the mark of my favourite books. Suddenly I now had no valid points of reference, and it was like living in all the best books I have ever read. Small wonder that I enjoyed this city so much.

The taxi driver had to ask for directions to the Hotel Colcibolca from people on the street, as he thought we wanted the Hostel Colcibolca. (Later on another taxi driver thought we wanted the Hospital Colcibolca.) He pulled up in front of a typical Granadian building, and then I discovered the next truth: those same structures that present a worn face to the world can open up inside to clean ceramics and antiques and polished wood, to high ceilings and fresh paint and plant-filled courtyards and fountains and gracious service. After we checked in - and staff agreed that the web-site listed prices were in fact still in effect - we got cleaned up and went out for something to eat at the Zoom Bar, a favourite place of Geoff. The food - Nicaraguan variations on North American staples - was excellent, and I had my first Tona, a beer that is miles above every other one which in my limited experience, I have ever tried. (I cannot get the computer to put the little accent thing above the n; it is roughly pronounced Ton-ya.) Here we got to see our first Dog of Uncertain Parentage. But not our last.
Then we walked around the streets, before returning to the hotel, and I don't think I ever lost my bemused expression.

Back from Granada

Wow. Double wow, in spades. Nicaragua was not what we expected, if only because our bar had been lowered by years of news reports slanted for the effect of selling more newspapers/ holding the attentions of more viewers. In short, if it bleeds, it leads.

Not that life in that country is all sweetness and light for everyone who lives there. I saw cattle sheds in the middle of cow pastures that were houses, for crying out loud. I was pestered by people who have to beg for a living because they can't find work ( and by people who probably make a relatively decent living from begging too). But this revolting poverty does not sum up the country either. It will probably take weeks to sort in my head everything we saw and did into some greater narrative, so I will just dump here things as I remember them. I will attempt to withold from the following my contempt for Che Whatshisface and commies in general, because I saw that both were still respected in Nicaragua, and my disdain for that bearded murderer will not give you or me insight into why.

Getting there:

We left Jaco early in the morning, but still an hour later than planned. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant at which I last ate in June (food as good as ever), then went on to Playa del Coco, with everything looking utterly familiar. Sometime around noon, we picked up Lay May in Coco, and drove for two hours to the border, where we parked the car in a 'secure' parking lot in the no-man's land described below - and no one touched it while we were gone. I'm including this apart from the next bit because until we got out of the car, we really were still in Kansas, so to speak.

Take a strip of land maybe a kilometer long, maybe a fifth of that wide. Wall it off (in places with old concrete and wire (and other places nary a barrier in sight), pave it with whatever is is at hand and let it go to dirt and puddles and ruts otherwise, fill it with stationary semi-trailers, their drivers and assistants, police with automatic weapons, boarder officials, buses, bus drivers, travelers, backpackers, beggars, pick-pockets, transient workers, taxi drivers, vendors, money-changers, etc. and so on... all of them doing whatever all at once. Do not include any signs explaining where to go or what to do when you get there, Fill it with 'entrepreneurs' who will 'help' you fill out paperwork for money - yours - and are probably scouting you out for their partners to rob while they do it. Load us up with all our bags and start walking. I had my cheap shoulderbag (positioned behind me because I was carrying more stuff on my other arm) slit open while we stood in line to get the passport stamped. Turned out they got nothing; the bag held only laundry and I turned around a second or three later and discovered the slit. Miraculously the crowds behind me soon vanished once it was obvious that I had noticed the rip. There was no point in making a fuss about it; I should have been paying closer attention, and could not have identified anyone if asked. There had been three or four 'guides' all trying to get my attention as they 'helped' me. But it would not be until we made it to Granada that I could confirm that nothing was taken.

Getting to Granada... we had two choices at the boarder, a taxi or the chicken bus. This last is exactly what it sounds like, an old school bus probably made in Brantford with a massive roof-rack added since, with Nica passengers and occasional livestock, that stops about a billion hand, does not stop, and we wanted to get there before dark. However, there were five of us, and the cab seats four. "Two cabs, $US 50.00 each," we were told. When we said we would rather take the chicken bus, we were told "One cab, $US 50.00" When we declined again, the price became $US 4o.00, and we accepted. When I say we, I mean Jane and Lay May and Geoff, who speak Spanish. I took no part in the discussions. We were led through another passport checkpoint to a... well, see the picture David took of the cab in Granada, after the ride. Now the beggars swarmed us in earnest, for we were outside the crossing, and in Nicaragua proper and the thick of the poverty. There was nothing to do but squash in and wonder why the driver had taken the cab sign off the roof before we left. We found out. Five seats - six occupants - transit police who can count. Plus no authorization to take passengers into Granada. On the other hand, $US 40.00=800 cordobas, a great return on two hours of the driver's time, from his point of view.

I did not take pictures of the things I saw on the way in. It seemed somehow wrong to record for posterity the rickety hovels I saw in the beautiful landscape, the spavined glue-factory rejects we passed pulling carts made of old truck tires and axles and rough, weather-beaten lumber - so help me, I saw carts with wheels made of solid wood - because none of it seemed the fault of those people we saw forced by circumstances beyond their control to live there. I might as well be calling it all 'quaint'. People do not make houses out of salvaged hurricane-bent corrugated tin and black plastic because they just don't feel like driving the new truck down to the lumberyard right now.

But there was no universal level of poverty, no lack of effort on the part of anyone to get ahead as best they could. There was no sense whatsoever that the population had given up and was waiting in stunned misery to be saved. For every shack patched with cast-off rubbish, there were twenty houses that were merely a hundred years or so old, and many more newer ones that hadn't been maintained or updated in the last few decades. The cars and trucks were well-worn, and not present in numbers sufficient to create congestion. There were motorcycles, scooters and bicycles everywhere. The scenery was lush and green and the fields of the ranches and farms we passed show not only great potential for wealth, but active use: that money is going into the economy somewhere. The flurry of begging at the boarder, of hanging around waiting for the gringo to explode in showers of money, vanished as soon as we left the area; there are no other opportunities available right there. We would encounter few more outright requests for money, but these would be heavily outnumbered by street vendors who wanted to sell us something, and they would be polite and simply move on when we declined to buy.

I do not know enough of the history of this beautiful country to justly apportion the blame for its current economic state among the various governments local and foreign that have mucked about with the people for decade after decade, but the one running things now ought to be as ashamed of things as any. At that, I have been told that the real power here resides in several ultra-wealthy families, and that it always has.

The roads were remarkably free from potholes, compared to Costa Rica, perhaps because there is much less heavy road traffic to batter the pavement to pieces. Very often we would pass a cow or two, all horns and ribs and hipbones, cropping free grass at the side of the road. For a while, we were right beside Lake Nicaragua, and the water was brown, with choppy waves. I have seen the lake from the air; at umpty-thousand feet, it appears calm and flat and green. We passed an island of two volcanoes, and our driver told us that the lake is home to the only fresh-water sharks in the world.

Two or three times, it was necessary for Lay May to duck down as we passed transit police, and once there was a complicated little drive around Rivas until the coast was clear. At one stage there was rain blowing in the windows, mostly on me, but it passed. We found that in Nicaragua, all the drivers beep at all intersections, and as a polite way to let everyone else know they are coming, in circumstances where it looks like someone is going to step out in front of them. In Costa Rica, everyone assumes that you know what they are going to do - and that you will get out of their way. There was nothing about our cab that was not battered, bent or broken but our driver was a good sort - and we ended up hiring him to drive us back. He took us directly to our hotel in Granada; one moment you are still in the countryside, the next you are on narrow streets laid out centuries ago. As that city deserves multiple entries, I will end this one here. If there are not yet pictures included, there should be by tomorrow when I am awake enough for Jane to add them.

Surf's Up

Since the rest of us really needed to work on Monday and Tuesday, and get ready for our trip to Nicaragua, we booked David's surfing lessons for Monday at noon.

Gustavo Castillo, a surfing champion from the Costa Rican team set up and supervised the lessons, giving David a unique opportunity for one on one with one of the best surfers in the world. This shot is of David's fourth or fifth attempt to ride a wave, and you can see the professional instruction paying off already.

The lessons start off with 20-30 minutes of beachside talk. Safety procedures, (don't go near anyone else, stay in white water...) are taught, and careful demonstrations of how to get up on the board from a lying down position.

Once they are sure that you understand and can duplicate all the steps on land, they take you out in the water, and coach you through it all over again, because by that time you are so overwhelmed that you have forgotten much of what they told you.

From that point, it is just practice. Gustavo loaned David a board, and he was surfing Monday afternoon, and Tuesday morning. When we went back Tuesday afternoon, David had graduated to a smaller board.

I have been very pleased with the way they have monitored the process. Always while David is surfing now, Gustavo or one of his instructors are watching. When he comes in, they give him some pointers for next time, and the same as he is heading out to the water.

We have a lot of work to do from now until we head back to Canada. At least we won't have to worry about David enjoying his trip!

Seafood...eventually

On Sunday we went to the beach at Punta Leone. There is a good road in to it, at the end of which is a private resort/secure community and some security guys who charge you $US 20.00 per person to go down to the beach.

But there are no private beaches in Costa Rica, you say? You are right; the private owners cannot block access to the beach. But nothing says they have to make it easy.

There is another road to the beach, this one long and carefully paved in ruts and potholes, and whimsically decorated with the occasional roadside washout, frame-wrenching creases, deep puddles and streaks of clay gruel. At the resort end, a security guy radios ahead so the next security guy knows we're coming and haven't stopped to park in any driveway to one of the expensive houses that we pass before we get to him. These guys are just trying to do their job and scowl fiercely at us for being dastardly interlopers - and then wave back when wave and smile at them.

There is one last security guy at the skinny lane at which the road terminates; his job is to make sure that no one parks anywhere but in this twisty cul de sac barely two vehicles wide and capable of holding less than twenty cars. If it is full, shame about your luck, but you will have drive the car back to the other side of the resort and leave it at the side of the Back Road in. And walk back.

But we didn't have to cough up $US 80.00. We got one of the last two spots in the twisty lane, and tottered down a rough slope, over a deep gully bridged by long cement planks, clambered oversome massive exposed tree roots... and were there.

The beach itself is spectacular, and when the tide is in the right spot, you can leave it for another beach even better (see Jane's old entries about the battering effects of tides that sneak in when your back is turned). Perhaps I will get to see this beach yet, as just about the time the tide was out enough to let us cross to it- some two hours or so after we got there - someone switched on the rain, and we decided to leave. Rain here fails straight down, and the word 'heavy' doesn't even come close to descibing how much water there is splashing around.

While the tide was still going out, and I was puddling around in the surf picking up bits of coral and shells, I realized that the rock on which I was standing was laced with with big fossilized shell thingys, whose age, name and classification are not known, at least by me. I also don't know how far the fossil bed extends down under the water and back up under the sand, but maybe forty or fifty feet would be a good guess. In the picture, you can see that the waves have worn away some of the fossils to expose the chambers, but one of the most intact is front and center.

On the way out , David and I had to get out of the car and walk so that it would not get stuck as it scraped bottom in a particular steep and concave, mud-slick bit of uneveness - and the car didn't even slow at all, in spite of the graunching noise it made. Not bad for a little Hyundai Nothingmobile. Thereafter we drove to the Fiesta del Mariscos.

The boats in the pictures - shot from the table at which we ate - were used to go out and catch that day the same food on which we stuffed ourselves... and when the gods themselves die, they hope they're going to Better Place, where food like this is served. I had the filet especiale, which is an understatement.

Ollie's Folly

As you near Manuel Antonio National Park, you pass a curious structure as the road winds up over the hills: there is a large airplane – a Fairchild C 123 cargo plane - resting in a parking lot under a metal roof that covers its wings and fuselage. It’s faded, dented, and has been made into a combined bar, restaurant and coffee shop, a use about a hundred light years from its clandestine past.
About a century ago, in 1984, when the USSR was still in one monolithic piece, the Democratic-led US Congress passed a piece of legislation designed to stop any more American government money being spent to overthrow the communists in Nicaragua. Administration officials decided that this didn’t mean ALL money from every source, and started a strange three-cornered deal where they sold overpriced weapons to a country (Iran) they had sworn not to deal with, and re-invested the profits in aircraft to carry weapons to the anti-Sandinistas, and flew them in to a secret airfield on a privately owned ranch in Costa Rica… and flew out drugs, ‘cause that’s what their pilots did for their day jobs.
No one is saying exactly where the profits from the dope went.
There were two Fairchild ‘El Avion’ cargo planes doing this shuffle. In 1986, one of them was shot down by the Nicaraguans, and a CIA agent on-board captured. With the proverbial waste hitting the air circulation device, the other future restaurant was flown to the San Jose Airport and immediately abandoned thereafter, as everyone onboard went back to being whatever name was on their most current sincere passport, and left the country.
Lt.Col. Oliver North took one for the Gipper, and became the public face of this scandal. This was easy enough as he had been involved in it up to his eyebrows, and he refused to pass the buck up the line to those in the Regan Administration who had okayed this operation. The fuss received world-wide attention. (Google Fawn Hall and her shredding of documents, appearance in Playboy, etc.). North eventually did three years… except he didn’t, as his sentence was suspended. There were fines, probation and community service, also set aside in the 90’s.
In 2000, the remnants of Air Ollie were purchased, taken apart and hauled to their current location, reassembled and restauranted, if that is a word, and the computer doesn’t think so. You can sit down in a piece of recent history, and raise one in commiseration to Ollie. Unlike you, he is persona non grata for life in Costa Rica, which is the last country from which I’d ever want to be banned.