Blogaragua! (Day Tres)

Kik-a-rik-a-ree! That's the sound a rooster makes in Spanish. And that's how I was awakened on a cloudless morning. "Sweet," I thought. "A real country wake-up-call." I was, however, under the misapprehension that the rooster crowed once and then went on about his day. San Juan del Sur had an army of alarm cocks, and they blew reveille over and over again. I pondered the location of the snooze button on a bird. The eye-masked Tina and Lauren were out cold in the other bed.

As I got dressed I made as much noise as possible, hoping to end their slumber, but it was to no avail. I would spend the early morning solo, sipping fresh-squeezed OJ and failing miserably at the Sunday Times crossword while listening to the Clash's Sandinista! on my iPod.

American-Psycho-ish music digression: The Clash is one of my favorite bands. When I learned I was headed to Nicaragua I immediately thought to load this album on my Nano for the trip. It's their fourth record, actually a triple album, with 36 songs. Though some claim it was overindulgent I think it's got some of their best stuff. And the combination of punk, reggae and militance is the perfect soundtrack for Central America -- even though things have calmed there it always feels like paradise has a machine gun pointed at its head. After first coming to New York, the group was heavily influenced by the nascent hip-hop movement. Sandinista! features the first attempt at white rap (Magnificent Seven) and, unlike Blondie's Rapture which would follow six months later, it's not painful to listen to now (eating cars, anyone?). Best song: Charlie Don't Surf.

I caught up with the ladies for our first real Nicaraguan breakfast. Gallo pinto is the famous dish. It sounded cool but it was just eggs with beans and rice. The honey is amazing -- their bees haven't been nearly as cell-phoned as ours.

The hotel offers trips aboard its huge sailboat, with food and drinks and stops at area beaches. But we didn't book reservations in time. This turned out to be a blessing. While I'm sure wind-powered transport is lovely, it would have also come with a gaggle of Mimis and Jujus. Instead, we hired a water taxi. It would be just the three of us and our water taxi driver ("Estas hablando conmigo?") and some of the most amazing beaches in the world.

But first we'd have to push our boat in the water.


We motored up the coast.




Pelicans swooped down, grabbing fish from the surface. Dolphins leaped around our boat.


It felt like we'd left civilization -- the huge swarms of birds looked almost prehistoric. The kind of stuff that makes some definite non-Huckabees start to ask questions about where it all came from.

Our first stop, Bahia Majagual, housed a broken-down resort which once served as the Sandinistas' Hamptons. Now closed, the hotel's saffron-tinged line of palms remains.

A few other tourists lay in the sun. We swam, chilled, and then hopped back in the boat, going off-guide-book and instead taking the advice of our driver to head a bit further north.

We were rewarded with a completely private beach known as Arena Blanca.

It housed the vacation home of a former Sandinista Generalisimo. But he wasn't in his hot tub today. Just us.

Lauren and Deena bummed around in the surf. I channeled my inner-McConaughey and did some beach calisthenics. We were in no rush to go home.

Our four-hour tour (one more than those Gilligan suckers) cost a quarter of what the sailboat would have. On the way home, we discussed our theories on the existence of a higher power and the origin of life. But, most importantly, Lauren mentioned a town near where we grew up -- Syosset. There are some words or phrases for which I must make a pop-culture reference. When someone says "Puerto Rico" I must say "Hoooo!" When someone says Syosset, I must say "Milton Morehead, of Syosset, Long Island!" Lauren brightened... "Soapdish?" That's correct.

Salty and disheveled, we grabbed lunch at the hotel bar amongst the assholes who hadn't left the sterile pool. A kindly older couple approached and struck up a conversation, their focus mainly on Lauren. When they asked if she had attended a "Reform Camp" their intent became clear -- these were yentas recruiting a bride for their eligible son. I thought "Reform Camp" sounded like somewhere you send a juvenile delinquent. But it was their kids' Judaism that was to be reformed, not their behavior. Lauren and Eliot Goldfarb will marry this fall.

Sunbaked, we attempted showers, but had no hot water. A series of little maintenance men entered our hut, each believing the faucet should be turned to a slightly different angle. Eventually we hosed off in the cold, one frigid body part at a time.

Craving a mellow night, we approached the front desk to procure a DVD from their small library. "Maybe they have Soapdish?" we joked. Of course there was no way they'd have a random, old, never-all-that-popular American farce. The fare was what you'd expect -- recent blockbusters. And, inexplicably, under 'S'... Soapdish! This was the first of a growing number of odd coincidences on this trip that would lead some rational people to suspect some kind of divine intervention. God wanted us to watch Downey. But we couldn't get our movie right now. The DVDs were in the same room as a wild boar. And the hotel employees had to wait until the one man who could enter -- the boar whisperer -- arrived. We were sure this was a joke, perhaps an idiom that didn't translate. Nope. Boar. In the DVD library. Awesome.

We didn't love our ceviche dinner. But how could we not finish all our food in a place like this? It was a supper of guilt and white wine. Deena headed back to the room early, feeling a bit under the weather. Her nose was stuffed. Fifteen minutes later, mine was as well. I dismissed it as my usual ability to outsuffer anybody around me. But we actually had the same cold, mine working exactly fifteen minutes behind hers.

Lauren and I Chardonnay-wobbled to the bar, where two couples were perusing the DVD selection. This would be the first of many failed attempts to socialize with other tourists in this country. We told them that we had dibs on Soapdish and about the boar. They smiled politely. I ordered a white russian with grey goose. They gave me a white russian and like ten shots of grey goose.

Back in Jasmin, there was no sound from the TV. Computer scientist touch screen interface product designer Tina and I pulled apart the surround sound speakers. They were color-coded. There were two red wires and no green. I boozily squatted, forgetting that I had the ability to simply sit. Eventually Tina made it work via the Costanza method, doing the exact opposite of what we were supposed to do.

Finally, our delicious Soapdish digitally unspooled. My eyelids got heavy by the time Elizabeth Shue appeared. Lauren went to the bar for another drink. They were closed so they gave her a bottle. Another entire bottle of wine. I shook my head at this sight and chuckled, my eyes like lead. I didn't make it close to my favorite line.