N’DAKIMENAN

Have you ever had a chance to listen to the loons? Maybe you’ve heard one mournful melody rising above the pine trees as a lone loon makes its way across a placid lake. Or a reverberating chorus of several, inspired by some unknown catalyst to join together perhaps just for the sheer joy of hearing their own song echo off the rocky cliffs. Since I first heard the call of the loon, a little bit of my soul has always remained floating on a clear freshwater lake waiting for the loons to return and start telling their stories again.

In August, as the northern summer draws to a close – touches of color appearing like rust stains on the green forest, cool mornings demanding you pull the blanket higher – the loons begin to gather. Normally solitary feeders casually swimming about, diving for fish in their own territorial waters, the loons take on a new social pattern in preparation for the migration south. Throughout the summer they may join with three or four of their kind from time to time, but as autumn approaches, they collect in groups of ten, twenty or more, forsaking their independent spirits for the benefits of group travel. There is safety in numbers and efficiency in more eyes looking for food while en route over unfamiliar waters between their northern and southern homes.

It was during this gathering time that I went to N’dakimenan, the land of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai – the deepwater people. The water that is at the center of this Ojibway First Nation is Lake Temagami, the deepwater lake. It is one of my spiritual centers on this planet and the loons are my fellow summer sojourners, all of us drawn northward by instinct and necessity before returning to the south.

My history on Lake Temagami isn’t as ancient as the loons, but it is as natural. It began in the 1980s when I was living further north in Charlton, Ontario and we would head south for canoe trips over Temagami’s extensive series of waterways and portages. It includes the summer of 1984 I spent educating the lake community about the reality of the acidic rain blowing our way from the Ohio valley and the steel mills in the south, threatening the health of the northeastern lakes. It includes years working with the Temagami Wilderness Society to protect the ancient pines and more years spent supporting the Anishnabai’s struggle to regain their inherent rights to N’dakimenan, their land. Chief Gary Potts was the young leader of the community who took them to the Supreme Court seeking a settlement on their land claim and through his intelligent eyes and careful words I absorbed lessons about patience and justice that have helped me in my own struggles. As he said, you can’t cry over each broken twig or you won’t have the strength needed for the struggle that will save the tree that alone the forest. It was helpful counsel back in 1990 as I entered into the long battle with Hodgkin’s Disease. Gary is as much a part of the Temagami landscape as the rock and pines.

My friend Peter McMillen has an island of rock and pine that has been in his family for generations. It is up the north arm of this deceptively huge lake, several watery spokes radiating out of a central hub. The further you move from the hub, the less civilization you encounter. Peter’s island sits between the two canoe-tripping camps I worked at in the 1990s, Keewaydin and Wanapitei. These camps, and the many others like them, are little settlements of history and tradition. Although the wooden buildings and crib docks are inevitably restored and eventually replaced, it is impossible to completely eliminate the spirit of the past. Returning to the lake after four years felt like traveling back in time a half a century.

Peter and Cocky and I had almost two weeks to listen to the loons, swim laps around the island, watch the occasional boat passing by, catch up with friends and gather news from life in the lake community. For the first few days my friend Jeff was with us, a newbie on the lake. I think he would agree that its serenity envelopes you as quickly as you move away from the public landing and head out of the hub.

Jeff left and Laurie – she of ECO Camp – arrived for her own reunion with the lake, as grateful as I for the holistic therapy it provides. The days were gorgeous, blue skies with enough fluffy clouds to add a little filter to the hot sun. It wasn’t until the day before we left that the weather started turning with warnings of a possible tornado that never appeared, but strong enough winds that we kept the boats tied at the dock and ourselves hunkered down in the cabin reading and napping. It was good that the storm didn’t come, as Peter, Cocky and I couldn’t agree among us where to seek shelter from it. I think we all would have run in separate directions and whoever survived the most intact would be rescuing the others with a big “I told you so” attached.

Besides the requisite R & R, socializing is a big part of being on the lake. Ears perk up when a boat motor breaks the silence. Up the north arm there is very little activity, so it is always a possibility that the sound of a boat means visitors, hopefully desirable ones. Some days we’d all pile into Peter’s boat and head off to see the neighbours such as our friends Bruce and Carol Hodgins at Wanapitei.  Sixty years ago, Bruce’s parents took an old fishing camp and later made it into a children’s canoe camp complete with the almost century old stately log chateau that now serves as a rustic bed and breakfast. I worked there for six summers and the place is full of nostalgia for me as it is for the thousands of campers who, over the years, have learned how to paddle canoes through choppy waters, raise a secure tarp in the wind, and cook gourmet meals on a campfire.

Although staff at these camps change regularly, at Wanapitei it is Heffy who is the constant. He came to camp as a teenager in the late 1980s and basically grew up there, amassing the skills to construct cabins out of reused materials and keep old boats and tired machines somehow miraculously running until the camp finally replaces them. He has been the year round caretaker for many years now, enduring the two months of summer craziness when camp is in session for the ten months of peace and solitude, the sweet part of the over-wintering job when he makes drums and watches the snow fly.

 

 

And you never know what you will see on Lake Temagami. It is remote, but there has always been an active community on the lake – whether it was centuries of the Ojibway community spreading out to fish and hunt, or the heyday of tourism in the first half of the 20^th century when celebrities like Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford would tour the lake on the steam ship, or the last hundred years of hectic summer canoe camps, the decades of mineral and lumber exploitation and jobs, or the years of political struggles when environmentalists and natives blockaded ill-conceived industrial plans for the land and worked for social justice. It may be northern bush but it is vibrant and always interesting.

One of the rules that Cocky and I always adhered to in our many years of living in the bush and on the lake was that just because you are a forest dweller it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dress for a party. Imagine running into celebrities like Bobby McFerrin or Grey Owl, both among the many Temagami part-timers, in your dungarees? No self-respecting bush babe would let that happen! I once facilitated a magical weekend that brought dignitaries from all over the world to camp on the rocks. In the morning we watched as the wife of a Philippine government official emerged from her tent (first time ever camping) dressed and adorned in gold jewellry like breakfast was being served in the palace! She outshone everyone with her grace and provided us with a little morning star-gazing. Another way to look at it is there is so much green leaf, brown soil and grey rock around, one should always do their part to add a little color and bling to the mix.

As it would turn out, Cocky, who can dress up a brown paper bag and make it look runway-ready, was even in sync with one of the Bear Island dogs, with their matching pink animal prints. That’s what I’m talking about – dress for all occasions!

That occasion was a wonderful barbecue on the shores of Bear island with our old friend John
O and his partner Katy. There is nothing as sweet as cool drinks, cool friends and all the trimmings (like schmores) under the pines as the sun sparkles
across the lake and the loons start their evening song.

In my last blog post I wrote about overcoming despair and living with hope. Spending time in Temagami’s natural splendor is a definite tonic for surviving this troubled world. Cocky and Laurie, both therapists, started tending the germ of an idea they had to create a retreat for activists on Peter’s island (I believe I’d be the cook!). They know that many of the people who are working full time to overcome the environmental and justice challenges of our planet never actually get out in her wild places and definitely need time to replenish their energies, so they brainstormed on the idea of a Temagami retreat for renewal. I bet the fireside discussions would be hot! I’ll keep you posted on their plans.

Temagami has always provided that for me. It is where I spent much of my time while in treatments for cancer in the early 1990s and it is where I retreated to on September 12^th 2001, out of range of the horrible images that were spreading over our psyches from New York City. This week is the tenth
anniversary of that unbelievable morning. New York and perhaps the rest of the civilized world changed that day, but the lake, the forest, the rocks and the
loon’s song have remained pretty much the same. The smell of the pines –
whether emitting from the majestic standing groves or wafting as campfire smoke when the trees have died – is my incense. Temagami has been a blessing in my life and fortunately I just drank from her waters and
renewed my spirit once again. Thanks Peter and Cocky. These are precious days.

MY FESTIVAL OF FRIENDS

I continued my July road trip up the Ottawa River valley to Mattawa. I went to visit good friends Patti and Leo and to see the new straw bale house that they built and moved into since the last time I was there. It also happened to be Voyageur Days in the town. We had a fantastic few days – music, sunshine & fresh caught fish all weekend long.

I’ve not been at an outdoor festival in the north in years. This setting was stunning – in one visual sweep past the stage you could see the convergence of the Mattawa and Ottawa Rivers and the forested hills of Quebec rising magestically on the other shore. There was barely a cloud in the sky and it was hot, but not dangerously so. It really doesn’t get better than this for a concert. The town has the logistics down – beer crowd on their feet on one side of the fence, non-drinkers in their chairs on the other, a pretty good view had by most, so very little tension between different parts of the audience.

I think that the performers had the best view, off the stage, over the crowd of several thousand attentive fans to the blue water, green trees and brilliant blue sky. The organizers of this festival cater to an older crowd. There is a night of local talent, a night of new country and then two nights of old rock and rollers – one of my favorite Canadian rockers, Kim Mitchell, Trooper, Brian Howe of Bad Company who was quite charming, Cheap Trick (recent survivors of a stage collapse in Ottawa), Stampeders and Eddie Money. I heard a lot of songs that I had almost forgotten about but turns out they still make me rock – imagine that!

They finished the weekend with one of the best fireworks displays I’ve seen in a couple of
years. Rumour has it that they save all their party pennies for this one night of the summer. Glad I was there to see it, all those ooh-aah explosions reflected in the water and set to a soundtrack featuring the music of the weekend’s performers. I could imagine the old voyageurs paddling their canoes around a bend in the Ottawa River and wondering what in the world they had stumbled upon.

The other great part of the week was being with Patti and Leo and all the family that
came by, some to take part in the music, some to take advantage of the social gatherings in Mattawa on this festive weekend.

Leo’s sisters Tucky and Myrna and their clans came and the guys spent a lot of their time out on the river catching pickerel. What a treat that was, fresh fish out of northern waters.

 

Another local delicacy is the local blueberries. Patti planted three bushes at the entrance to the house and they were all loaded with big plump berries, something that her granddaughter Lillie loves to pick. Anyone who has lived in the north or
anywhere that blueberries grow abundantly knows the pleasure of a bush heavy
with the purple fruit. I used to spend a lot of time in the summer picking les bleuets when I lived in northern Quebec and northern Ontario. Bears, berries and bare-asses – ah, those were the
days.

I originally intended to help Patti with landscaping around the new house, but it turned into a social time instead. We didn’t do much work, besides feeding
people, but we did manage to make a nice little perennial garden before I left.

Instead I got to enjoy the results of the last year of hard work that they put into building their home. Three of the walls are made of straw bale construction – clean bales of straw
stacked and packed tightly making walls that are insulated, about 18” thick. It
was a whole new form of construction to learn but the final result is organic
and efficient, as it holds the heat in the winter and keeps the house cooler in
the summer. Besides the adobe-type feel of the walls, the house has many
details designed by Patti and Leo, diamonds everywhere. Simply beautiful.

At my birthday party a couple of years ago, they met Dawson, who lives down in the Westport area of Ontario, a place I visit regularly and have
written about often. Dawson is both an excellent musician – stand-up bass – and
a talented constructor. He built his own straw bale house and worked on
others, and so he became a consultant for Patti and Leo on their project as well as a
friend of theirs. Patti drove me back to Toronto area (in her brand new
Mitsubishi Eclipse sportscar!) and we went via Westport, so that she could see
Dawson’s home and we could visit with some of those great Westport people. He
has used a different kind of covering on his straw bale walls, incorporating more organic material with the mud. It reminded me of the cob wall sauna that I watched being built in
Monteverde but built to last in the Canadian climate.

The finished effect is the same though – earthy and efficient – and beautiful.

Fortunately we arrived the evening that Dawson and our friends Chuck, Carolyn and Dave – together known as Stringed Tease – had a band practice. About once a year I get to catch up with these folks and they just keep getting better. They play a cool mix of gypsy, classic folk, and oddball Canadiana, with voices that blend well – and they laugh a lot.

As the sun set, we sang and danced out on the large screened-in porch at Chuck and Carolyn’s home that exists completely off the electrical grid. They have their own solar and wind generator and produce more than enough power. Recently the Ontario
government has offered a grant for people to install alternative power systems, guaranteeing that they will buy the excess power at a fixed rate for several years. A lot of friends in that area are taking advantage of this program and installing rooftops full of solar panels. Others are involved in very small-scale hydro-electric plants.  At the same time that there is such a backlash against massive wind-generating farms, this smaller scale seems much more feasible. I am sorry to see “Stop the Wind Machines” signs everywhere I go.I do recognize that there are issues with the large plantations of big wind generators but I haven’t looked at this issue to understand it properly.

In our whirlwind tour of Westport, I managed to see a lot of friends, including my doggie pal Ziggy and Chuck’s 91-year old mother, Lucienne, who moved to the area last summer. She is an inspiration for how to age gracefully, may we all be so lucky and blessed.

After nearly a month of visiting friends in their rural and forest homes, it was finally time to return to southern Ontario. A good transitional point from bush to city is the little historical gathering of cottages known as Naivelte in Brampton. My friends I visit in Guatemala, Treeza and Rick, and others now living in Los Angeles, Terry and Steve, all spend most of their summers here. This camp has a history as a place where non-secular but socialist-leaning Jewish and other Europeans spent their summers and now it is protected as a historical site. That is a really good thing, as the massive expansion of large suburban developments takes over all the farmland around the area.

They do a lot of things as a community including holding many meetings. I had a chance to
sit in on a community meeting as well as a “bagel brunch” featuring an activist involved in the continuing legal challenges brought on by the G20 fiasco last summer in downtown Toronto. Listening to the man talk, it reminded me of how disgusted I was when I arrived back in my northern home last year and saw what had happened in Toronto.

To balance the serious discussions, we did a lot of laughing and played a lot of games. We went through Scattegories, Taboo, Imaginiff, but really found our fame with Hummmzinger where you have to get people to recognize the song you are so terribly humming. I love people who like to play games – not head games, social games, war games – but fun games – and I love these folk.

We cranked out our tunes –hmmm-mm-mmm – try humming White Rabbit!

So much fun we had.

Headed into Toronto to celebrate my pal Jamie’s birthday in the UP house with more laughter, great food, and old friends. Jamie decided to be a really good cook a few years ago and we all benefit! Before he was playing music and we benefited then from his great songs and strong voice, but now he mostly fills our bellies!

A very sad word about the passing of Jamie and Tory’s good friend Mike Moquin in Toronto. Another fun musician, big character, an excitable boy – he made you laugh and sing louder – but he succumbed to a nasty cancer. Rest with peace, but also with joy, Mike. Your friends are missing you.

I spent a peaceful night at the Irie Festival in Toronto – a more laidback venue than the bigger and boisterous Carabana. It wasn’t all reggae, but it was a groovy
island vibe. We saw the Fab 5, a dance band from Jamaica celebrating 40 years
making people jump. Irie!

I got back to the Hammer just in time to turn around and go to the Lake Erie/St. Catherines area and do some cooking at Ecocamp 2011, a retreat and respite for activists organized by my friend Laurie Hollis-Walker. More of that next time. In the meantime, during the evening I was in the city, I went out with my friend Jeff, whose house I stay in. We had a plan to go sailing on his catamaran, but Lake Ontario was rough, the wind was blowing a gale, and this little tropical gal thought it would be cold, that alone a little wild for an inexperienced sailor like myself. Jeff has sailed all his life and didn’t need to work that hard for another sail, so we chose not to go
out. Others in the catamaran club did and the next day we saw some of them had been rescued by the Harbour Police out of the big waves. Thank you Jeff for not taking me out there!

Instead we left and went to see Miss Robin Banks, a very entertaining lady with a big voice who sings the blues just fine. Got in a little dancing, heard a new voice that I like, and stayed dry. Dancing is always the best decision! The cure for all! Never stop the music!

And very Happy 81st Birthday Wolf! May this next year be much kinder to him than the last. I heard he was seen chopping firewood recently – stronger still!

SUDDEN STORMS

Margaret, Paul, K, Jean, Al

I’m spending my summer in Canada as it is meant to be – swimming in refreshing northern waters, enjoying veggies out of the garden and spicy delicacies off the grill, and catching up with friends on their recent projects, latest travels and family happenings. I’m also enjoying the northern landscape – in Eastern Ontario, in July the fields are white with delicate Queen Anne’s Lace blended with blue chicory, and the woods are vibrant green and buzzing with insects.

Beautiful hot sunny weather has followed me wherever I’ve been, but thankfully not as scorching as what people have been experiencing in the south and central United States. I can only hope that many have access to clean water to refresh themselves naturally as I do, but I fear many more are cranking up their air conditioners and escaping inside. It is normal to seek shelter from the harsh elements but living in artificial environments to avoid nature can’t be good for us or the planet.

There are common themes that arise talking with people no matter where you go: the joys and tragedies of living, the burden of too much work or not having enough, the absurdity of what goes on in the world, and the petulance of the weather everywhere. Everyone seems to be witnessing this, some definitely in more extreme ways than others. Social networks help keep us immediately apprised of when a friend in Central America feels a significant earth tremor, another in the southern US is being blinded by the blaring sun, or another is digging through the ruins of a home assaulted by the wild wind. It was one thing when we used to follow these happenings in newspapers, and yet another when we could see the incredible images on television, but now that we can basically watch cataclysmic events as they happen – we can be talking face to face, skyping, with our friends as the waters rise around them – it’s as if we are all on a permanent voyage with Noah and the Arksters and forty days and forty nights may just be the beginning of it.

I was a couple of weeks in eastern Ontario and during that time a fast and furious storm growled its way down the Ottawa River valley. I was in the forest outside of Petawawa with Al and Jean Bair in their beautiful home. We had just finished watching the Japanese women out-kick the USA team in the women’s soccer finals, something I think gave most people watching a warm glow. Japan deserves whatever joy it can muster these days following their horrifying experiences with chaotic weather. And for those of us who like underdogs, this was truly the little guy beating the big guy, literally.

We were going to move on to watching the semi-final of the Copa America – big Brasil was about to get knocked out of the competition by little Paraguay (an apparent theme of the day) – but decided to get dinner together first. We had been inside watching the game, so didn’t realize how dark the sky had turned outside. As the BBQ was warming up on the deck, the wind picked up and within minutes trees were bending to the ground and anything not secured was flying. Pellets of water struck us and the sky crackled with electricity. Soon the drops joined together into a wall of water and as quickly as Al was drenched, the power also went out and we were searching for flashlights – we remained without power for 24 hours, the first time Al and Jean remember that happening in decades of living here.

At the same time, their son, Brad, who lives two hours away in Ottawa, was about to head out to the field with his daughter’s soccer team. Al called to warn him that if the wind picked up he should get everyone off the field since a doozy of a storm was coming. Turns out, as soon as they got on the field, the storm hit, debris started flying, hurricane winds and a downpour pushed them back to their cars just in time to watch a lightning bolt strike a tree on the edge of the pitch.

Not far away from Brad, at the Ottawa Bluesfest, the storm hit with a wallop.  Thousands of people were rocking to Cheap Trick, and just as they left the stage, the whole thing collapsed in the winds and heavy rain. The band wasn’t hurt and fortunately only a few others were hit by flying debris, but I have no doubt it was a very scary experience for the thousands present, especially those just leaving the stage.

That storm could be seen from my friends’ home two hours north, up the Ottawa River valley in Mattawa. Thankfully, it didn’t hit Patti and Leo, but they could see the black churning clouds across the Ottawa River in Quebec and hear the sinister warning rumbles of thunder. They buttoned down their own hatches but fortunately were out of its range. As it was, Cheap Trick was to play the following Saturday night at an outdoor festival in Mattawa, and fortunately they had a beautiful clear starry night for their show. I can’t help but wonder if they were feeling vulnerable. Just as people suffer from fear of flying and heights, I would think that fear of
whacko storms is an anxiety condition on the rise.

My days with Al and Jean began with a get together with some other Canadian Monteverdians – siblings Margaret Adelman and Paul Smith. We gathered at their northern home near Lake Dory in the Ottawa Valley. It was a Friday afternoon, so Margaret and I were feeling the pull of the regular Monteverde Scrabble game. Alas, we were the only two players so we weren’t able to get a game going. Instead we all walked down the road to the lake for a late afternoon swim. After the cool waters of the Atlantic in Maine, I found the water very warm, especially for early July. Even a Costa Rican could swim in this water.

It was a perfect lazy summer day to sit and talk. Paul showed me his workshop where he continues to make violins and play them as well. Margaret and Paul make music together in their little home on land that belonged to their grandfather. It is always nice to see where people call home, even when they may say that about more than one place. Even though I don’t have a bed of my own these days, I don’t think of myself as homeless, but instead feel homefull, feeling serene and comfortable in a number of settings.

Another part of my eastern Ontario tour was seeing old friends from my days working at Wanapitei, a canoeing camp on Lake Temagami a few hours further north. I worked there for six summers in the 1990s and my working partner and best buddy during those years was Cathy Fretz, a Tasmanian devil when it comes to work and play. We had both wonderful and hard times working our butts off in the bush at this often insane place, but survived the wild summers at camp by sticking together.

Fretz and her second husband Gerry built a home surrounded by hay fields and woodlots on land where Fretz raised her three daughters from an earlier marriage. The new house is several grades of luxury up from the original one, and the land has never looked so good, but there is plenty of the past still being honored. Old tool sheds, mature pine trees planted when her kids were small, a collection of rusted farm machinery, mementoes of their lives everywhere.

We had dinner with three other Temagami camp alumni, Fretz’ sister, Lexa, and her husband, Matt, and her son, Dan. We all worked together at either Wanapitie or Keewaydin and have many tales of life in the camps and on that magical deep water lake to
remember.

They recently built a new home looking over marshlands with forested hills in the distance. What an amazing landscape to watch and listen to. With a cast of silent herons and a chorus of frogs, that watery bog will go through its seasonal transformations -hidden under a blanket of white snow then bursting alive in the spring, to lazy summer swampiness and colourful autumn stillness before returning to that frozen pristine state again. What a beautiful place to call home.

We dined on Lexa’s great cooking – more delicious dishes than I can remember, each one better than the last – and did what old friends are prone to do: laugh about the past, remember things in unique ways, feel like no time at all has passed since we were last together, even though the proof of everyone’s labour is all around us. Friendship is a lovely thing.

I got a chance to see another of my ol’ dog friends, Harley. About seventeen years ago, as a favor to Fretz and Lexa, I picked up Harley and her brother, whose name was always complicated and escapes me, from the farm where they were born near
Petawawa. They were a little young to leave home and they cried the whole five hour trip north to Wanapitei, where I thankfully handed them over to their new mothers. The other pup didn’t live long, but Harley has become a fine old dame of a dog and is finishing out her years on the veranda of Fretz and Gerry’s country house. We have been close since Harley imprinted on me in the van all those years ago and then spent summers together at camp. She never forgets me even if years pass between visits. I felt very lucky to have had a chance to see her, as it is hard to imagine she will go on much longer. Seventeen is a very respectable age for a dog.

Our time on earth is so short, delicate and unpredictable. I have learned to accept my vulnerability but tend to see life as a game of chance that can go any which way, rather than an endurance test, though it does often feel like that too. We can survive numerous drawn out calamities and then succumb to a bolt of lightning. Some live well beyond a normal life span, and if they are fortunate, live it well. Others live very short and ultimately tragic lives. I don’t sit waiting for that lightning bolt, but I do like the buzz of electricity in the air and the smell of fresh rain – it all awakens my senses.

MAINLY MAINE

A Canajun in Maine, eh? Love that place: northern, coastal, progressive, backwards, homespun, a perfect place to launch a ship and sail around the world. It doesn’t hurt that I go there to stay with my soul sister Cocky and her partner, my pal, Peter, who live in a quiet Maine Audubon wildlife sanctuary. They can swim just minutes from their home in the ocean at high tide and are protected by the peacefulness of a forest from the consumer insanity of the LL Bean shopping mecca of Freeport. It also doesn’t hurt that Maine is just a timber toss from Canada, so if all hell breaks loose in the good ol’ US of Eh, I can scoot north and cross the border to my homeland real quick like.

 

 

Cocky and I got out swimming every day but we had an even more important mission and that was to dance as much as possible in the time that we were together. Although perhaps we can never dance enough, we certainly managed to dance a lot in those two weeks to a variety of music provided by many local bands in numerous venues.

 

Portland, just south of Freeport, was just starting to get busy with summer tourists but it is a young town and at any time of the year there is live music on every corner and seafood on every table. The day I arrived, rolling off an all night bus run from Montreal, we feasted on crab cakes on the salty dog wharf at the Porthole Fountain, followed by amazing Mushroom Spring Rolls at Havana South in the Old Port. These were so delicious we had to have two orders, and although I swore I would get back there for another round, sadly it never happened.

 

 

 

Havana South provided the first of two opportunities to see a very smooth, tight band called Primo Cubano. As you can guess, they play sweet Cuban son, ready for dancing. They have a regular early evening gig at Havana South on Wednesdays – between the mushroom rolls and the band, I can’t recommend it enough.

 

 

 

We finished that first evening by catching Eric Bettencourt, a local hot songwriter/guitar player and gravelly-voiced singer who performs in various musical incarnations, one being Giraffe Attack. That first night he was with his trio on a relaxed patio on the water’s edge, and a couple of nights later he was rocking with the band Velourasaurus at Buck’s Naked BBQ in Freeport. I love a versatile musician who plays both original music and cool covers – and makes you wanna dance.

 

I have to take a moment to rant about bars and restaurants with big screen TVs on every wall. It’s an obvious draw for the television-addicted masses who like to go out but don’t want to miss a ball game, but it drives me mad when they don’t have the decency to turn the screens off when a live band is playing. On more than one occasion I’ve asked a bar to lose the TV so that it doesn’t disrespect the band. Televisions draw your eyes and attention even when you have no interest in what is on. In the case of Buck’s on this night, even the band was distracted by the baseball game playing on the various screens around them. Minimally, the TV screens closest to the stage or the dance floor could be blackened for the few hours that the boys and girls in the band are performing. Please. Most people live with televisions cackling constantly in their homes – it would be healthy and appropriate to take a break while a live band is giving you a musical alternative.

In Portland they hold First Friday Art Walk – similar to Hamilton’s 2^nd Friday Art Crawl. The difference, from what I could tell, is money (well, and the salty sea air). Many of the galleries and restaurants that participate in Portland are well established and deal in sophisticated art. My hometown of the Hammer has been building its James Street North Art Crawl over the last few years and new edgy alternative galleries have been popping up like mushrooms but even though it is a wonderful showcase for emerging and established artists and a chance for local businesses to shine, I doubt that many make large sales during the festive artsy event – yet in the long run I expect that it is very good for the businesses. My friend Cat Schwenk is an artist and member of the Nine Hands Gallery on Congress Street in Portland and I know that they have made some significant sales during the Art Walk.

 

 

 

 

Each time I visit Maine, Cat has new projects on the go – from her finely mounted butterfly maps to concrete casts of babies and books (one beautifully reads: You may have tangible wealth untold, caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be…I had a mother who read to me). Check Cat’s work out at www.catschwenk.com.

 

 

This time she was working with her carpenter husband Jim to make adult toys – as in swings and teeter totters for full-sized bodies. The idea came to them as they thought of this stressful world in which adults, like children, need time to play. So now Jim and Cat come home at the end of a busy day and unwind together on the teeter totter that Jim built and continues to refine. It helps them find balance in their relationship, build communication and get a little outdoor exercise. Brilliant! I”m hoping they’ll build a push carousel by the next time I visit.

 

 

I was in Maine over the July 4^th weekend. LL Bean presents free outdoor concerts on Saturdays and had a special one featuring Red Horse singer/songwriters for the holiday followed by fireworks. Cocky and I were there and I noticed a familiar looking couple walking through the crowd. The Monteverde-small-world-effect kicked in and it proved to be Nat Wheelwright and his wife Genie. He is a biology professor at nearby Bowdoin College who invited me to speak to his class about Wolf Guindon a couple of years ago. We had a chance to talk for awhile. He is now co-teaching a course with a professor in the Music Department called “Bird song, human song.” He described the course as “listening to bird songs and singing along in class”. It sounds magical to me.

 

While on the subject of Wolf, it was my great pleasure to drive down to Exeter, New Hampshire for a special reunion with the class from Lister Street Academy who had spent this last year in a course designed around our book Walking with Wolf. Back in April the group of seven high school students and their two teachers had visited us in Monteverde and described what has been a life-changing experience for them, reading about Wolf’s inspirational life while studying the many themes in the book – social justice, peace, pioneering, conservation and community. They had worked together to raise the money for the trip and I was amazed at how many adventures they had in the time they were in Costa Rica. Our meeting on Wolf’s farm had been a very moving experience for all of us and it was wonderful to see some of them again and hear how their trip had wrapped up. They have posted many of their class video projects on YouTube.com under ListerCostaRicaClass. One particularly stood out for me called “This is Sustainable Education” by Winston. If you have a chance, check out the work of these students.

I had dinner that night with the teachers Bryan Mascio and Jess Hebert and their partners as well as Wolf’s son Carlos and his wife Lidieth who also live in Exeter. It was a pleasure to see them all and more Monteverde-small-world connections were made. It turned out that Bryan and Lidieth, who also works in education, realized that they had taken a course together, years ago. It also happened that Bryan had started a course that very day and found himself eating lunch with another Monteverdian, Jenny Rowe, a former director of the Monteverde Friends School. I expect Jenny was as surprised as Bryan was to hear that he would be having dinner with Carlos, Lidieth and I that night.

 

 

Back in Maine, we did a lot of great eating but of course these days consuming seafood demands research into its sustainability, eating local is environmentally wise, and everything is political, often leaving a bitter taste. We shopped in local Bowstreet Market and at the Brunswick outdoor Farmers Market on Saturdays, and enjoyed the friendly mussel man and his edible bivalves as well as the local organic produce. What a great time of the year!

 

Maine’s lobster industry is a big one and they work at being sustainable. We found ourselves out one night with Cocky’s friend Ed, a Freeport fixture, retired lawyer and dancing fool like ourselves. The two of them have been suffering since their favorite local dancing spot, The Venue, shut down a year ago. A new restaurant opened up this July on the downtown corner of Freeport, owned by Linda Bean, a heiress in the famous outdoor gear family known for her lobster rolls and her chain of restaurants called Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine. We went to check the new place out, as Ed is hoping to convince her to bring in live bands suitable for dancing. The owner herself arrived and bought our round of drinks. However when we got home, Peter showed me an article about Ms Bean who has been buying up businesses in the tiny coastal communities of St. George and Port Clyde, and is building a monopoly in the lobster industry. She is very conservative, supporting anti-gay, anti-women’s rights, anti-gun control, as well as anti-Canadian when it comes to competition in the lobster industry. Her policies have been dividing the communities that she is monopolizing, though she apparently feels that she is doing everything in her power to help the Maine lobsterman. As I said, food is political, and that will be the last drink I have at Ms Linda Bean’s and I will just have to forego her famous lobster rolls. I also really hope that Cocky and Ed find an alternative place for dancing.  

 

There were other great nights of dancing to Maine bands – Outerspace at Gritty’s and Wiley Coyote at Ciana’s in Freeport, and The Mallet Brothers (great!) at Alive at 5 in Portland. My last night in Maine took Peter, Cocky and I south of Portland to a place called The Landing at Pine Point where that sweet Cuban band, Primo Cubano, had started a regular summertime Tuesday night gig in this big fancy dance hall with a super dance floor. If you find yourself in the Portland area, check them out. Cha cha cha!

 

 

When I wasn’t out dancing with Cocky, I was hanging out with Peter, on his boat or helping him around the yard. I put in the garden only to have a cute little family of groundhogs eat it up as fast as I could plant it.

 

 

About seven years ago, when a neighbor succumbed to cancer, Peter took over the parentage of her cat, Chad, and Alpha, one of the nicest German Shepherds I have ever known. The funny thing about Chad is that over the many visits I’ve had in Maine, I’ve barely seen this cat as he was very skitsy, disappearing as fast as he could. However now that he is older, 21 years, and showing his age, Chad barely left the house. His spot of choice was right in the middle of the living room rug in the room where I slept and so we were roommates and finally friends.

 

Alpha, on the other hand, has been a wonderful companion for Peter and Cocky but also a pal of mine. She has visited me in Hamilton, we’ve spent time at Peter’s island on beautiful Lake Temagami, and when I visit in Maine she and I have spent lots of time walking the trails or going into town while the others went to work. I have laughed as people made a wide circle around her on the sidewalk in Freeport, fearful of this large dog who is actually the gentlest of giants. When I arrived this time, Alpha came bounding out of the house to greet me but with less energy than normal. At thirteen years, she, like Chad, was showing her age with cataracts on her eyes and her hearing obviously impaired – only her nose for food still worked rather efficiently. I felt like I’d moved into a house for the aged.

 

Over the two weeks I was there, Alpha was breathing heavily and became more and more lethargic to the point that she was barely lifting her head when people arrived. Finally Peter took her to the vet who saw in an X-ray that she had a massive tumor on her spleen. Peter brought her home and the next day the vet came and with us all present at her side, Alpha went to sleep. She seemed almost grateful to be put out of her growing misery and went as graciously as she lived her life. It was a sad day for us, but as I have found in other moments such as these, it is a great privilege to spend their last days with the ones you love and to be at their side as they pass. It is nice to think that you helped ease them into the next life and caressed them with much love at the end of this one.

We will miss you Alpha. 

 

WAITING ON A BUS

I’ve just arrived in Boston, riding the Greyhound bus from Montreal, Quebec to Portland, Maine with a couple of hours to kill in the bus terminal. I’m too cheap to pay $10 to store my bags and they are too heavy to be carrying around on a walking tour of downtown Boston…aah, the value of traveling light. You’d think an experienced traveler like me would know better, but when you have written a book and then need to haul copies of it everywhere you go, the weight of those pages really messes with your better baggage sense.

I arrived back in Canada a couple of weeks ago at the perfect time. Summer was just settling in after what people complained was a very wet spring. Fortunately the sky has quit its crying and happy sunshine has been the new norm. The migratory birds got here long before me, the gardens are in full bloom, and even sweet Ontario strawberries are in the markets! In the short time I was in Hamilton before hitting the road again, I squeezed in as much visiting as I could along with the inevitable springtime visit to the taxman – one must take the bad with the good.

The folks who are renting my house are happy there, thank goodness, and I’m happy they are there. For the first time in years, I didn’t return to an overwhelming jungle of a backyard in need of serious machete work. Instead I stayed at my friend Jeff’s beautiful home overlooking the marina in Hamilton Bay, facing west for perfect sunsets. It took me a couple of days just to leave this retreat and head out into Canada, the bayside balcony providing a very nice transition between tropical paradise and northern bustle.

Although I’m very good at living in the moment – meaning that I don’t usually pine for the friends, food and forests that I’ve left behind in “the other place” – I do arrive ready and excited to see my pals, taste familiar flavors and wander through different shades of green.

The very wet rainy season and the very sunny dry season in Costa Rica yielded a bumper crop of mangoes that never seemed to end – it seems we were eating juicy locally grown fruit for months and seeing millions more wasting on the ground. I arrived to piles more mangoes here in the northern markets, but resist them, as I am making the switch to local foods – those strawberries, rhubarb, fresh asparagus, salmon. My Canadian palette squeals with delight. Eating locally is not difficult at this time of the year – resisting exotic species, which I love, is a simple question of political will. I am one of the lucky ones who gets to return to the land of local mangoes, papaya, and bananas soon enough.

As always, the biggest changes I see are in the faces of my friends’ children. There are new babies to meet, children who can now ta-ta-ta-talk, others graduating from the innocent years to the hormonal ones. More and more of my friends are becoming grandparents, a role that brings a light to their eyes, unencumbered by the responsibility they felt when their own children were born. I’ve gone from Auntie K to Great Auntie K, a name I can only try to live up to.

I’ve taken the opportunity to catch live music and switch up my dancing from calypso and salsa to rock ‘n roll. Our buddy, Kevin, another music lover, came up from New Brunswick and we were the flops at Jeff’s flophouse. Our friend Randy holds house parties and one night had smokin’ guitarist James Anthony along with a band called Pop Cherry which does covers of the Stones, the Doors and Aerosmith. The singer, who I call Steven Mick Tyler, has the look and the moves of those tall lanky frontmen. It was a great night for dancing.

I also finally made it to an Island Party on Ward Island in Toronto (yes, for those of you who don’t know, Toronto has islands), where old friends Pat Allcock and Tim Bovaconti played their unique selection of covers to a raging dance floor. Tim, who has been on tour with Burton Cummings (Guess Who), plays guitar and sings harmony with the best of them but also is a ukulele king. Love versatile musicians especially when they are also real nice guys.

I managed to return to the Hammer in time for the James Street North Art Crawl (second Friday of each month) which keeps getting bigger and wilder each time I’m in town. I spent most of the time at Blackbird Studios, visiting with the gals, Lynn and Kerry, who create beautiful clothes for rock ‘n roller chicks (and dress Roller Derby Teams around the world). We stepped next door into Dan Medakovic’s studio to catch some of the great local musicians – Dan, Mike Trebilcock, Linda Duemo and the lovely Lori Yates – jamming and having fun. I have given up trying to do everything there is on an Art Crawl night, it’s impossible – better to just stay where you’re having fun and move on when you must.

There is no shortage of music, art, theatre or fashion in the Hammer, only a shortage of time to catch it all. But we try…

I also had a number of book orders to fill, but was hampered by the lock-out of the Canadian Postal Corp (thus the books in my bag which I will be mailing while here in the US at a much cheaper rate). There is a conservative corporate mentality raging in Canada that should be scaring my fellow country-folk to death – instead, enough of them voted last month to give the right-wing Conservatives even more power to deplete workers’ rights, diminish environmental protections, and continue to shift our beautiful country to a less progressive, less inclusive, less caring agenda that favors the wealthy and powerful.

We need Michael Moore to come to Canada and do an exposé on our bewildering society which he has idolized in his documentaries. What is going on? The media machine and corporate controllers have managed to get stronger despite all signs pointing to a diminishing social intelligence that is going to lead us into dark years. The amount of mis-or-dis-information about the postal situation in the media is a prime example. I think most people believe that Canada Post is still a tax-funded department of the federal government which is wasting our tax dollars paying overpaid workers who went on strike when it is actually a profit-earning distinct corporation that locked out its workers rather than negotiate fairly. The government, with their union-busting mentality, forced them back to work and the contract, when ratified, is going to take the workers backwards, not forwards. As I read somewhere, it is interesting that the work of the posties is not considered important enough for a proper negotiation of a progressive contract, but is essential enough to demand back-to-work legislation.

On my way to Maine, I passed through Montreal and stayed with my friend Donna and her partner Cem. Donna worked for the Canada Post Corp for years (when she wasn’t creating and teaching art). Cem and our friend Matt are still lugging mail up and down the twisting staircases of downtown Montreal. Like other posties I have known throughout my life, their bodies suffer from the years of hauling heavy bags of mail to homes and businesses, clocking close to 15 kilometers each day. And despite the use of the internet for personal mail, their bags are no lighter as businesses flood our psyches and mailboxes with propaganda. Not just with free flyers that we can refuse to receive, but the addressed commercial stuff that must be delivered to the person, bringing us the information that inundates our lives and begs us to consume. So knowing all this, I went out in solidarity with my friends and the other posties for their last morning on the picket line before they were forced back to work.

Not everything is as it appears. As can often be seen with the public perception of working conditions, such as happens with the teaching profession, people don’t have a clue as to how difficult the job is – for example the accumulative wear and tear on the posties’ bodies (through sleet and hail and snow…etc.) Some just see it as unimportant, overpaid union work. We now have a government in Canada who is working hard at removing the rights of workers to strike for better conditions as well as the rights of activists to assemble and protest. It comes from the same mentality that considers our health and our environment as expendable in the pursuit of more outlandish profits for the wealthy upper tier of society.

What are Canadians thinking? Exactly who is voting for Stephen Harper, a man known for his contempt of the democratic parliamentary process, his life-long commitment to reducing the taxes of the wealthy as well as lowering environmental and safety standards? He believes in and supports the economy of war, including the War on Drugs, even as experts speak against it. The WOD keeps a lot of people, including the narco-traffickers, the security forces, the courts, and the arms dealers, rolling in money while its customers roll expensive joints until they find out that crack is a much cheaper high.And they say that marijuana smoking leads to harder drugs? maybe it is just politico-economic manipulation.

Wake up! Even the United States is rethinking some of this stuff. Just as happened last year at this time, during the days of the G8/20 fiasco in Toronto, I return home and feel sick about what I see happening. Is it that people will sell their souls today, along with their children’s future, for the possibility that one day they too will be part of the elite class? Good luck with that! Is it apathy? Is it greed? Is it stupidity? All of the above?

                                           Happy Birthday Canada!  I hope you grow up to be a kinder, gentler nation. I always thought that it was your destiny, but lately I fear that you’ve been smoking a corporate crack pipe and the profits are all in the hands of the dealers. It is hard to stand on guard for a system that is exploiting everything I believe in.

MAYAN WATERS

I’m now back in San José, Costa Rica. Let’s get straight to the good news: two days ago, Wolf was released from the hospital. He is now very happily at his home in Monteverde. He is free of infection – may he remain that way for a very long time. He is taking medications that are keeping him alert and relatively clear but also allowing sleep (for everyone). I have spoken with him a couple of times and he is full of plans and optimistic.

On the book front, I have been snarled in the red tape of dealing with a big company, Café Britt, in Costa Rica. My contact there has been very helpful and most supportive, but there are procedures that one can’t get around regarding details like commercial invoices. With the help of the exceptionally wonderful Deb Hamilton in Monteverde (of Chunches Bookstore and the Bellbird Conservation Project) I think I have jumped through the last hoop to get the books into the airport stores for the thirty day trial.  As soon as I know they are on the shelves, barring any more unforeseen issues, I will let y’all know so that you can hopefully spread the word to travelers who may be able to buy a copy and help us secure a bigger contract.

Next week I will continue working with Lester Gomez, who is editing the Spanish translation of the book. We spent several hours together before I went to Guatemala and have many more days of work to finish. He is very keen about the project, even more so after talking directly with me about Wolf, Monteverde and this great project of love. He has become a valuable part of the team that keeps Wolf’s stories spreading further. I think the published book is beginning to come to a boil.

But it is really Guatemala that I want to write about. After those great few days in beautiful Antigua with EDITUS, I went up to San Pedro la Laguna on magical Lake Atitlan. There are other ways of describing this place – spiritual, serene, stunning – but magical is how it seems to me. The clouds and light and winds are constantly shifting. Tinkling laughter floats past, voices of ancient tongues rise then disperse, the spirits of the ancestors linger by the shore caught between the old world of their existence and the new world of change.

Owners of land within one hundred meters of the lake edge keep an eye on the rising water that has already drowned many individuals’ concrete dreams. All eyes are on the Mayan calendar that marks only twenty-two more months before turning its final page and we head precariously into the next five thousand years.

I was visiting my friends Treeza and Rick who built a comfortable beautiful home last year. Their property originally ran from the walking path down to the water’s edge – about 150 feet. In this last year they have lost more than fifty of those precious feet. They had a concrete gateway that is now in the water, their property line moved back substantially.

The good news is they now have waterfront property with American coots and other water birds floating in the marsh, men harvesting tule (reeds used for mats and baskets) from their wooden kayaks, local women washing their endless piles of clothes just over the bamboo fence that surrounds their property.

I was told that the lake, a cauldron surrounded by volcanoes whose slopes host several indigenous villages, has no natural outlet. It is a catch basin and, in the same extreme weather period that the whole world is experiencing, heavy rainfall has kept the lake on a steady rise. It is already the deepest lake in Central America and, it would seem, it’s getting deeper each rainy season.

Last year, the lake and all the living creatures that depend on its benevolence suffered from a serious outbreak of a Lyngbya microorganism (or cyanobacteria) which spread rapidly, forming mats of fibrous scum that floated on the surface. This was fed by the high levels of phosphorous and nitrogen that are in the fertilizers being used around the lake for the coffee crops as well as the wide variety of farm crops – corn, onions, lettuce, strawberries, cabbage and on and on. Untreated sewage flowing directly into the lake from the growing communities, introduced fish species that have diminished populations of endemic feeders, and a rising water temperature (that ol’ global warming) have created an environmental disaster that has affected every aspect of life on this beautiful landscape.

The Kaqchikel and Tz’utujil people continue their subsistence farming, speak their Mayan languages and wear their colourful traditional clothing. The culture is strong but change is everywhere led by these environmental challenges and tourism. Like in all places dependent on that fickle industry, the rise and fall of tourist numbers either over-stresses people and systems at its height or leaves boats empty and vendors’ stalls abandoned when numbers drop. After millennia of clean water supplies, the communities are now warned not to drink the water that alone bathe in it.     

Groups of women and children worked together to remove the mats of scum. There was little of it apparent last week so it is either under control or conditions are less favourable right now. The day Rick and I went out in a kayak, we returned to find a large group of local Mayan fishermen cleaning up the trash – both plastic and natural – along the shore. With the problems they are encountering, it will take a village – as well as a reluctant government’s money and international aid – to take care of this priceless aquatic and volcanic heaven.

People I met when I was in San Pedro two years ago told me that this last year was very hard for the lack of business due to the harsh weather and the bacteria-story keeping tourists away, besides the devastation caused by the rising water level. Then there were the serious landslides that washed many homes down in a river of mud and rock. If there is any truth to the prophesy that there will be mass confusion and disasters in the lead up to 2012, San Pedro may be a micro-example of what is to come.

A Canadian who has been in San Pedro for many years, Dave, lost his home and two of his dogs to a landslide last year. He closed one restaurant and then reopened a new one with new partners called Bubuluski’s. On Friday nights they have “white table cloth dinners” – fixed menu theme dinners. I was there for Romanian night. Felicia, a co-partner in the restaurant and a Romanian, created a beautiful menu of cabbage rolls (sarmale), a vegetable casserole (ghiveci) and tochitura which is tasty roasted pork in wine sauce. There was a fantastic beef salad as an appetizer and a chocolate desert. All this for about $7.50! Food in Guatemala is so cheap and in San Pedro, fantastic food abounds.

I went on a hike one morning with Dave, his two dogs Can Can and Mimi, and Steve, a sweet man from Oregon, through the community of T’zununa to a waterfall. As almost every day at this time of the year is on the lake, it was hot and sunny. We walked in searing sunlight up an exposed rocky trail. I felt the elevation – about 3500 meters or twice that of Monteverde – in my breathing. Arriving to the cool mist of this fresh mountain water stream was a just reward.

Another day I went by boat with another lovely man from Oregon, Michael, to the town of Santiago. I had seen the textiles from this town that feature beautiful embroidered birds and so I went to buy myself a bag with birds on it. Michael is old friends with Dave, the owner of the Posada de Santiago, a hotel and restaurant that’s been growing for 35 years. I have to say that I had a glorious French Onion Soup (of which I’m a connoisseur) for lunch, a tasty Caesar salad and excellent Bloody Mary. Next time on the lake, I’ll return to this restaurant for its great food and the possibility of hearing live music, something it is renowned for.  

One of the hottest food tickets in San Pedro happens only on Sundays. A big red-headed character named Nestor Castillo has created Smokin’ Joe’s BBQ. He started a couple of years ago with his own line of salsas and smoked meats and it has grown into BBQ gone wild! Held at la Piscina – a happening bar and swimming pool scene I wrote a lot about two years ago – Nestor keeps the BBQ hot for a huge menu until he runs out. People now come from all over the lake for his excellent products – meat, chicken and tuna steaks augmented by several sides of salads and vegetable dishes. I think this guy should be on the Food Channel and it is only a matter of time until somebody discovers him both for the great food he makes and his kinda crazy manner, that alone the cool order delivery system he has – a wire strung between where his wife sits at the bar taking orders and Nestor controlling the fire. She slings a clothes-peg carrying the little order paper across the yard with a “whhhhhinggggg” to Nestor. If you go to San pedro, don’t miss it!

Another thing not to miss is this – the finest hot stone massage you could ask for – two hours of slippery rock bliss, herbal seduction and the magic hands of Andrea, another Canadian living the good life in San Pedro. Follow the signs that are on the eastern side of town. For just over $25 US, you can’t beat the rub and you’ll float home to dream of sliding over rocks in a stream of soft fragrant oil.

I want to recommend a nice little hotel – $7 will get you a private room with cable TV and wireless. Hotel San Antonio is along the path heading east from the Pana-dock (where boats come in from Panajachel). I only stayed a couple of nights there as I wanted to be closer to Rick and Treeza’s, but would have been very happy there for ages. Nice people, beautiful rooms, and a little café downstairs open early for all your caffeine needs.  

As I wrote in an earlier blog, I was going to try to find out what the expectations for 2012 were in the center of this Mayan world. I spent awhile talking with a local ashuan, Juan. He has just come back from a tour, attending conferences and gatherings, speaking as a messenger of Mayan thought, and history and prediction. He is also the owner of Big Foot Travel and an expert on things local, touristy, and popular. Another character not to be missed.

I asked him about the changes in his community, on the lake, and the upcoming calendar climax. He is a very funny rather irreverent guy, but speaks about the Mayan prophecy quite seriously. The elders have been predicting much of what is happening – the rising lake, the sliding slopes – but so many people haven’t listened.

Juan’s main message was this – 2012 will be a year of great celebration. Party, as we’ve made it this far and life will go on after! Yes, there will be upheavals, and there will be collapsed systems. The further you are from the natural world and the more dependent on the false gods of money and materialism, the more you may suffer. But the closer you are to Gaia, the Mother Earth, and to the power at the center of the universe – whether you call that power Allah, Manitou, God or Self – the closer you will be to the biggest fiesta of our time.

It seems to me that we have about twenty-two more months to figure some things out. Maybe I’ll make it back to beautiful Lake Atitlan before…I love seeing Rick and Treeza and their friends and appreciate everyone’s hospitality. Thanks guys! In the meantime, it’s back to the jungle for me….

LA GRUPI EN GUATE

According to those analyzing the Mayan calendar, we are in for some pretty crazy events in the next couple of years. One should consider carefully where they want to be, especially on December 21, 2012, just in case any of these prognostications come true. An obvious place would be here in the land of the Mayans themselves – Guatemala – ground zero for safe passage into the future. As I realized on my last trip here in 2008, it would be a beautiful place to end your days if that so be the case. I’d happily wrap myself in colorful cotton cloth, feast on beans and corn tortillas, listen to the stories coming out of the rumbling volcanoes, and enjoy these brown people who will continue to call each other “amigo” even as the lights fade out.

I expect that strong Mayan spirit will be rising steadily to meet the challenges inherent in global chaos, aided by their experience over millennia of surviving environmental and social hardships. So I have returned to Guatemala to check out the preparations for 2012 before the big crowds come.

I left Wolf back in the hospital Blanco Cervantes in San José in good form, relatively speaking. He’s having physical therapy and feeling strong enough that he told me to go and have a good time, he wasn’t going anywhere. I heard from Stefany, his nurse, that the day after I left his blood sugar and pressure were all over the place, but that is part of the struggle, trying to regulate Wolf’s aged and problematic system – or maybe he just missed me. Latest word is that he should truly be going home soon!

Editus

 

In early January, as my ninety-day visa run out of Costa Rica was approaching, I knew I had to consider where to go for at least three days to be legal again. As it turned out, all the planets aligned themselves for this trip: I’ve been staying with Lorena and Edín, he the guitarist of Éditus, and they told me that in February they were playing a concert opening an arts festival in Antigua. I then contacted my friends Rick and Treeza in San Pedro on stunning Lake Atitlan who had been talking about coming down to see me in Cahuita. They’ve just built a house and have had too much company to consider taking the trip right now so they said why don’t I come and visit them? And the final sign came when I checked airplane prices and there was a great sale on. The winds practically blew me to Guatemala.

We all flew on the same day.  Lorena and I, along with violinist Ricardo’s wife Moy and percussionist Tapado’s girlfriend Monica, came together on the same flight. The band – with their two stage hands and techies Chino and Eric – arrived shortly after. It was the beginning of two days of living la vida dulce as a groupie in magical Antigua.

Of course Éditus had lodging in a very nice hotel befitting rockstars courtesy of the festival organizers. I, the lowly gypsy, stayed about a five minute walk away at the Villa Esthela, a charming little pension that cost me $10 for a private room (I splurged as there were shared rooms for $6). The best part of the place was the rooftop. When I went to Antigua before, I had spent a couple nights in a place with a rooftop (Hotel San Vicente – nice but too expensive for me now) and one night in a place without and realized that having access to the sky is a desirable feature.

If I can’t afford to stay in one of the many spectacular hotels in the city, at least I can sit on the rooftop of my humble abode and feel rich in the sunshine or privileged under the stars, surrounded by volcanoes and ancient churches. Villa Esthela was super comfortable, everything worked (though the only three-prong outlet for my laptop I found was up on that rooftop, a convenient inconvenience), the bed was comfortable, there’s a kitchen, and Daniella, the Dutch woman who runs the place, was very accommodating and friendly. Highly recommended.

Although I slept there and visited the rooftop day and night, I also spent a lot of time with the others at their hotel and out and about across Antigua.  One of the best places was Casa Santo Domingo, an ancient village within the ancient city: stoned walls in various stages of decay and refurbish (sounds like old rockstars, no?), a candle shop, a museum, a hotel, a restaurant and a spectacular open theatre where there was a wedding rehearsal going on – it turns out that Éditus played there a couple of years ago.

We ate dinner outside under the rising moon at Angie Angie, the restaurant of “the local loca Argentinian beauty” with live music, funky art, succulent parrilla and a super-suave Crème Brulee. Lorena, Monica and I cruised the streets throughout Antigua where every corner directs you to another magical sight. We checked out the textiles at Nimpot, the huge store of traditional huipiles and masks already advertising for Maya Y2K12 (only 830 shopping days until…)

Editus at La Ermita de la Santa Cruz

The main attraction in Antigua was the concert at La Ermita de la Santa Crúz, a convent built in the 1600s and destroyed various times by earthquakes. I’ve spoken many times in this blog about Éditus. They started out as a classical acoustic duo – Ricardo Ramírez on violin and Edín Solís on guitar. They added Carlos Vargas – lovingly and respectfully known as Tapado – on percussion, and their music moved into jazz fusion/new age colored by classical influences and upswept with Latino rhythms.

With their great friend, Rubén Blades, they received Grammy’s for Best Latin Pop Recording, Best World Music Recording and Best Contemporary Latin Recording. They are spectacular whether playing as an acoustic duo, a modern jazz trio, a classical quartet, or as the quintet EDITUS360 – an electronic world music version of their former selves. I’ve known them as friends since the 90s when they played often in Monteverde, and I cooked and cared for them during the music festival there.

With rockstar Alvaro Alguilar

They have been friends with the musicians of Alux Nahual for years and shared the stage before. Alux is a Guatemalan rock band legend, founded by singer Alvaro Alguilar and his brother Plubio in 1979, that has undergone various transformations. The band members switch up the lead vocals and their instruments throughout the concert – from guitars to cello to flute to keyboards to drums,.

On this night, Éditus opened the concert with a mix of pieces from various Latin American composers, their music perfectly blending with the heavy religious overtones of the site and the ethereal modern light and smoke show.

The audience received the music enthusiastically – Éditus’ violin and guitar solos seared the clear night air and Tapado’s always fluid river of percussive rhythms poured over us. Although I was only slightly familiar with a couple of the songs of Alux Nahual, the audience knew every word and sang along to what were obviously anthems in this country – lyrics that speak of justice, peace and equality.

Tapado filled the musical bridge between the bands as Alux Nahual took the stage. The Costa Ricans accompanied the Guatemaltecos on several pieces, the audience loving it all.



Their drummer Lenin Fernandez was a very friendly and amusing host over the weekend, as was Gloria Cáceres, a Guatemalan singer who accompanied Éditus on Esta tarde vi llover by Mexican songwriter Armando Manzanero.

There was some backstage drama when the organizers explained that Éditus shouldn’t sell CDs because there were representatives of an agency present who could confiscate their products since they didn’t have proper permission nor receipts. They  still opened a backstage table  to sign autographs and it took more than an hour for the line of fans to pass through, requesting photos with the rockstars. We had about eight heavily armed policemen around us and fortunately nothing happened to excite them.

Gloria then invited us to a late night gathering at the house of one of the older wealthier families of Guatemala – the Zacapa Rum family. We wound down dark, almost empty cobble streets well after midnight to arrive at a walled-off building that took up most of a central block.

When the heavy wooden door was pulled open, it revealed a preserved mansion behind the walls. There were courtyards with fountains and rooms full of heavy wooden antiques gilded with gold, brocade upholstery intact, crystal shining on the shelves.

We were night time wanderers in this marvelous place, amazed at what ancient luxury was hidden beyond the walls. Though everyone was tired, the atmosphere, the wine and a spectacular chickenpaté kept us awake and amused.

While we were playing in the day, and as Éditus played through the night, the roadies Eric and Chino worked setting up the stage and managing the lights and sound. Chino – Andres, Tapado’s brother – has been the stage technician for Éditus for years – as well as for many other bands and events in Costa Rica. He has a look that fits well amongst hippies and artists (and tends to attract crazy people in the streets), but it would appear he could also be a lord-of-the-rings-type if the opportunity presented itself.

It was a beautiful time we had in Antigua. Lorena and Edín have been very welcoming and generous with me at their home in Chepe over the last month while I’ve been on Wolf-duty. They were very kind to invite me along and I thank them. I’m a willing and enthusiastic groupie and love the Éditus maestros, their music, their lovely women, and their comical roadies. Gracias a todos ustedes por un viaje magico en Antigua.

I left the others behind on their last day in Guatemala and headed to Lake Atitlan. That’s the next blog…I’ll pass on to you what I find out regarding the end of the world, right from the mouth of the Mayans.  Recently, I was told by someone who is studying literature about 2012 that the land I have in Cahuita, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and tucked into the foothills of the Talamanca Mountains, will also be a great place to spend that momentous time watching the pendulum swing between the past and the future. Talamanca is considered one of the best places on earth to survive massive physical and social upheavals. It’s out of the path of some of the treacherous fault lines, not too close to active volcanoes, sparsely populated but loaded with native fruits to live off of, and with a spiritual native intelligence that will guide those of us who manage to survive into the next epoch – if one should want to linger around after all that mass destruction.

So I may be staying home in Cahuita that month after all, prepared to head out by foot to higher ground if and when the tsunami horn sounds. But that’s a question to ponder another day…here on the shores of magical Lake Atitlan, I’m reading the seeds and studying the currents, looking for more signs…. 

PANAMA RED

As promised and pre-destined, Roberto and I came back to Bastimiento to hang in the hammocks at the Hospedaje Seaview while we wait out my 72-hour extradition from Costa Rica. The island pace is slow, the Panamanian music is hot, the Caribbean sea is enticing, the local fish is fresh, the frogs are red, and life is seductively sweet, so taking this little trip every 90 days (only four hours from Cahuita) isn’t such a hardship.

 The weather here has varied, as I suspect it does much of the year. It hasn’t been nasty or threatening, just unsettled – from hot sun and calm turquoise water, to dark billowing clouds laced with thunder, to an overcast sky with a slightly tossed sea, and back to that hot sun again. But except for the need to grab a sweater because you might think a chill is coming on, life in the hammock doesn’t change. I shouldn’t say that – last year I could pick up the neighboring hotel’s wireless connection here under the rancho while swinging in the hammock.

This year, a little hut has been built between the hotels and that seems to have weakened the signal so that I can’t do anything more than get my home page once in awhile. It’s a weak signal even within that hotel’s office, as even with a full signal I can’t Skype (a new definition of slow –“Life and the connection is so slow, I can’t skype”.) This morning, as a gentle rain kept us from thinking more serious thoughts of taking a snorkeling trip, I happily set myself up at the Caribbean View Hotel with a cup of coffee and imagined a morning of online Scrabble and Skype-talk with friends as that rain continued, but alas, due to technical difficulties, it wasn’t to be.

I realize that complaining about online access seems like an unnecessary (if not addictive) behavior, but seeing as we don’t have electricity at our jungle home near Cahuita, having power and internet is part of what a vacation is all about, along with icy drinks and conversation with strangers. I can hear my friend, Cocky, in Maine saying, “Yah, right, making excuses, like a true addict.” –to which I’d have to agree, since entering the games section of Facebook and wanting to play online Scrabble.

 A big change here at the hotel ($12 for a seaside room with private bath) is that Victor Francis, the man who owns it and serenaded us last Valentine’s day with love songs, has rented it to a young couple to manage. The new host, Josue, is from the Dominican Republic but has lived here in Panama for many years. His wife, whose name escapes me as I almost never saw her, is in the middle of a difficult pregnancy and didn’t come out of their room much, leaving Josue and his daughter, Matilda, to take care of things. It turns out that Josue is quite a good cook. As he cooks his family’s food, he offers those of us staying here a plate for $5, a great deal considering the plate is full and the food is delicious. With his Dominican and Panamanian influences, he has a different style of Caribbean cooking than Roberto, but also uses lots of coconut and a lot of achiote. He makes nuggets of patacones, usually made with green plantain, using bananas, a down-sized variation I like. I don’t think I’ve seen him make a bean dish or rice and beans yet, but instead he made a nice spicy lentil sauce for the rice.

The way things change in these parts, I don’t know if he’ll be here the next time we come, but I know that is his plan – to work hard at keeping the Seaview the pleasant, cheap little hotel on stilts that it is but also developing a restaurant to showcase his cooking. His food and the price have been great, so maybe he’ll still be here next time we come. I wish him and his family well. I continue to recommend the Seaview Hotel – the sheets are clean but slide off the mattress, and the bathrooms are basic, but if you are a cheap, basic traveler like me, it has both charm and a sea patio of hammocks that balances out the drawbacks.

Another very disappointing change came when we stopped in the town of Bocas, where last February we danced all night to Taboo Combo at Carnaval. We had also enjoyed lunches and very tasty Bloody Maria’s at a place called Caribbean View (a popular name it would seem.) I have been thinking of these particular Bloody Marys – the trick was the Panamanian pepper salsa that the bartender used – since leaving last February. Unfortunately the restaurant is closed and I couldn’t find the woman who was making the drinks, so another great cocktail seems to have come and gone.

 

At the other end of things, the saddest continuing reality is that the garbage problem hasn’t diminished here. There is waterlogged litter all along the shoreline – the exception being on the northwest side of the island where the shore is shallow and rocky. I met a woman who has a home on that shore (who lived for years near the little town of Killaloe in eastern Ontario, a very out of the way place I know quite well.) She told me that the locals clean up the shoreline regularly. It is the only way to get on top of this scourge. Although the situation seems so out of control that it is hard to imagine getting it cleaned up, Marlize told me that once they were on top of it, it was easy to keep it under control. However there is so much garbage floating around in the sea, it never stops invading their shore.

Although I am always very aware of litter and tend to clean it up when I see it, here I am overwhelmed. My reaction to this much litter is to accept it, like everyone else. When a small piece of paper flew out of my hand yesterday, I wasn’t concerned – where normally I would go chase it. I’m appalled at my own reaction. I remember reading about one of the mayors of New York City taking the problem in hand and saying, “If we clean up the city and make it a place of pride, people will change.” If you set a good standard, people respond accordingly. I believe that can happen everywhere.

I hope that one day the community will start picking up the garbage. They’ll have to accept that they will always have to pick up what comes from the bowels of the sea and is continuously dumped on their shore. Garbage piles has grown by leaps and bounds since plastic packaging and disposal bottles and containers have made their way everywhere, especially to countries where poverty facilitates buying food in the smallest quantity available. Not long ago, all people carried their own woven or feed sacks to the local mercado, even for very small amounts, but now plastics are everywhere which facilitates micro-packaging. I would hate to make a list of what I see in the water here, and I won’t, as it would spoil my serenity. In my short stay there is nothing that will change, but I’m very aware of what is floating around me. Fortunately, once you head out to the other islands and beaches, the garbage disappears.

                                                                                                   

 Yesterday, we went to Playa Polo on the east side of the island with Louis, a beauty boy we met last time, who flies about in his boat and offers guided tours out of his family’s hotel, the Caribbean View. This time, his wife Zuly, his five-year-old son Naya and their new baby Calouie, came along for the ride. Naya, at the age of discovery and action, immediately wandered up the beach to where a shallow watery path meanders out of the jungle and onto the beach, no doubt connecting with the sea at high tide. Naya’s obviously familiar with it, as he took off like a shot to get there as soon as the boat landed. Out of curiosity I also went up to see what was of such interest to a young boy.

Naya started catching tiny fish and I stored them in my water bottle – liquid sushi. We saw a small shrimp and recently hatched frogs darting under one leaf to the next. Naya is not completely fearless yet, so when he disturbed the shrimp and it skittered near his hand, he jumped and called me in as reinforcement to help with the fish catch. Zuly came along just then, checking up on her son, and joined in his search.

“My mother always told me that before the hunt, you clear the area first,” she said, so we pulled leaves and branches out of the shallow water to see what we might uncover. The aquatic creatures darted into the shadowy waters to hide amid the small roots under a sandy overhang. Zuly, an enthusiastic mama-teacher, hitched her long skirt up and bent down into position to catch her son a wild specimen.

All of a sudden she shot straight up, pulling her hand back like she had just touched a hot burner. Releasing a slow breath, she exclaimed, “There is a snake there.” Sure enough, as I moved closer to her and we both slowly bent back down, you could see that one of the benign looking root stems had a forked tongue darting in and out at us. What great eyes Zuly must have to have spotted this little creature. Who knows if it was poisonous or not, but it sure looked onerous hiding there with that scary tongue.

 “Ay, Naya, see what can happen when you go off looking for things,” she sighed. Looking at me, but still speaking to Naya, she added, “We let him come down here by himself now, and the second he jumps out of the boat, that’s all he wants to do. But you have to be so careful. He could have been alone, looking for fish, and been bitten by the snake without us knowing.”

 That’s the truth of life – both in and out of the jungle. There are so many dangers that affront us in life, at any age, hiding in the shadows, coming out of the blue. You can only hope to survive.

 So speaking of surviving, the latest news I have about Wolf and Lucky comes from a phone conversation today with Berto’s wife, Angelina. She said that they took Wolf down to the city a few days ago, and finally last night (Thursday November 19) he was admitted to Puntarenas hospital where they have a ward dedicated to older people. He has been having the same problems with eating and keeping things down that was happening when I was there last week, but now, hopefully, he is being helped. The thing is that the problem may be bigger than anticipated – so we continue to pray for him and hope that the Costa Rican medical community will take care of him.

PS: I’m now in San José on my way to Puntarenas Hospital to visit Wolf. I’ll let you know what is happening. Hopefully, there are no snakes lurking in his shadow although I know for a fact Wolf would rather be in the forest wrestling snakes than where he is now.

BOCAS & A CELEBRATION OF THE FLESH

I wish I’d been paying attention to the somewhat obvious fact that “Carnival” is about flesh – as in carnivorous and meaty. I would have gone to one sooner. And I guess it makes sense to celebrate flesh while in the mouth of the bull, that is Bocas del Toro, Panama. I am sure a lot of vegetarians were dancing all night at Carnaval as well, but for the energy demanded, I’m thinking that a diet with some animal protein probably goes well with, and energizes the body appropriately for, a big party that translates as “A celebration of the flesh.” Certainly heat, skin & healthy spirits contribute to a great fiesta of the flesh.

We went to the islands on the weekend of February 12, knowing it was going to be Carnaval there. You either stay far away from the craziness, or embrace the moment. So after our five days of relax in Bastimento (see last post), we moved to the large town of Bocas on Isla Colon where the celebration was taking place. When we got to the area, we were told that Tabou Combo, a band originally from Haiti that has been playing great soca music for forty years, was headlining the festivities.

Roberto has been listening to them for as many years. He knows their music well, and sings and dances to it with his large Caribbean soul. The fact that they, along with The Beachers, a soca band from Bocas that he also loves, would be playing while we were there, was a huge treat for him. We went and got our tickets days before the concert, and after visiting several hotels in Bocas, were able to book an inexpensive hotel room for the Monday night of Carnaval, though the town was already booked up.

Something I discovered on our first trip into Bocas, and continued to enjoy each day we were in the town, were some great Bloody Mary’s at a small seafront restaurant called Sabor Caribeno or Caribbean Flavor, to the west of the main boat dock. The woman there makes the drink with a lot of Panamanian pepper in it and slushes it up with ice. It doesn’t taste like any Bloody Mary I’ve had before, and I’ve had a few, but was excellent in its own right. Super spicy and frosty at the same time – mmmmmmmm – on their patio floating over the waters of the Caribbean, watching the boats coming and going, it was splendor on the sea. We also ate an excellent meal there – a whole fish with coconut sauce that was divine as well as a warm seafood salad. All highly recommended.

Carnaval itself took place over several days but we caught the last two days and nights. The evenings began with the drummers gathering on the street, calling in the people to join them and wind and grind our way together down to the big outdoor stage. Monday’s main event was the big concert with The Beachers and Tabou Combo. There were some other local entertainers as well. We started dancing at about 8 p.m. and kept dancing until we collapsed in our beds at 4:30 a.m.

Like Roberto, I love soca music, but I wasn’t familiar with these bands although I know some of their songs. He, on the other hand, was thrilled to see not only the bands, but special guests who joined them. One of these was Gene Chambers, the Frankie Vallee of Panama. He now lives in Costa Rica but returned to his homeland to sing with The Beachers who he used to play with. This man is 62 years old but looked, moved and sounded like a 40-year-old. I’m not necessarily a fan of high-voiced men singing, but I loved watching him, and was amazed at the falsetto voice that came out of him. I kept looking for the woman singing on the stage, constantly being reminded that it was this handsome man.

We were in the middle of a crowd that kept growing in size and enthusiasm as the night went on. There was a group of wild women beside us who knew all the songs, danced with gusto, kept drinking like sailors, and were truly entertaining to watch. We made our way up through the crowd closer to the stage as the night went on…although there was a lot of boozing going on, and people were obviously getting drunk, we didn’t see any aggression in two nights of fiesta, the only exception being a gringo with a bloody face outside a bar as we walked back to our hotel just before dawn.

The other special guest who joined both The Beachers and then Tabou Combo, was Alfredito Payne, another Panamanian vocalist who has been singing soca for years. He used to sing with Tabou and was back to join them. Tabou Combo is a mix of generations of musicians  – some who have been doing this since the beginning including a couple of the original singers, other younger talented musicians joining to carry on making their music. They are originally from Haiti but are now based in Miami. They started their show asking for a moment of silence to honor their Haitian countryfolk who are suffering from the massive earthquake there, but after that moment of solemn respect, they got down to the business of making us jump. And they perform – they excite the crowd and dance on the stage and welcome the crazy women who jump up on stage to join them and shout out and wave flags and laugh and keep on singing and drumming and moving along with the crowd.

And the crowd keeps up with them. The spirit kept rising and it wasn’t the free flowing and cheap Smirnoff deals that was responsible– it was the energy and joy coming off the stage that kept us all fired up. I guess we must have danced for about seven hours, but it flew by. Needless to say, we collapsed into bed but the truth be known, we probably could have danced for several more hours if the band had kept going.

To recuperate the next day, we took a boat ride two minutes over to the little Isla Careneros. This was apparently where Columbus had a shipyard for his boats – they would be hauled up and put on their side to be repaired. It had some pleasant little beaches where we soaked up some restorative solar energy and these beautiful trees – I’m not sure if they are a type of mangrove tree (couldn’t find any information about them) but  it was an eerie yet magical part of the little island.

On all of the Bocas islands, the colors, the details, and the woodwork was gorgeous. Not because of money, but because of effort, skill, and years of loving care. Amidst the older buildings, constructed when wood was super available and cheap, are newer structures that I’m sure cost much more to construct and bring in influences that come with the foreigners now living there. In general, there was a pride of place throughout Bocas, simple homes with attention to detail and love of joyful color.

Life by the sea has its own magic. Bocas has a great mix of the old and new, natural and manmade beauty, indigenous and foreign.

Tuesday night, the actual day of Carnaval, began with the attack of the diablos. The story behind this remained a mystery to us, but was a tradition that people love. Young men and boys were dressed up in black and red quite ornate costumes as devils, monsters and mythical creatures, and took to the street with whips and sticks. The crowd gathered around them and brave, crazy or inebriated other young men, as well as kids, went running into the melee to grab the sticks off the diablos.

Some of these characters were truly frightening and though at first we thought that the whips only sounded harsh, we soon saw the scars and blood on the legs of the boys who had been fighting with the diablos, trying to take the sticks away from them. We think that the diablos stood for the slave masters and the boys who went after them represented slaves trying to escape and take away their power, standing up for their rights, bravely fighting for their own justice. That was our interpretation, but I don’t know that that is what was happening.

I do know that lovely Roberto seemed to have a strong resemblance to the diablos – between his long dreads and the color of his clothing that evening, he fit right in. I have to say that although I’ve known him for over sixteen years, having spent lots of time around him in his hometown of Cahuita – where everyone knows him – as well as in Puerto Viejo, San Jose and Monteverde, I’ve never seen people react to him like they did in Bocas. People were constantly yelling “Cool, rasta, respect man” and others would come up asking for a photo with him. It was like being with a celebrity and it was impossible to be anonymous while by his side! Everywhere we went in that week on the islands, people were super friendly and very animated in their approach.

Men, women and children must have spent a lot of hours having their hair done for this big week of festivities. We saw so many extreme braids, joined by flashy ornaments, multi-colored dyes and boys had a bleached hair thing going on and shaved designs on their heads. It all just added to the spectacle.

When the daylight faded, the diablos went away and then the local drumming bands and their dancers started getting ready for the big finale, the parade of drums, shakers, whistles and bodies leading the dancing crowds down the street for the final night of fiesta. The next generation of kids were already showing their genetic ability to shake and move their batty.

As I wrote about in the last blog, we had watched the community of Bastimento preparing for this during the previous week. Now we joined with them and the other four bands from other communities, jumping and chanting and swaying and rumbaing our way down the main avenue. The Bastimento drummers and dancers were definitely the best – and they had a song that people sang along with – part of which said that they were proud Panamanians and loved their soca, but “Rockeros – NO!” went their song. Then the Beachers came on the stage again for another couple hours of great soca music. The party carried on, but once the live bands stopped, we went home, our legs tired, our feet hurting, exhausted but with big smiles on our faces.

Bocas del Toro welcomed us with drums, smiles,bright colors, tradition, laughter, warmth and rhythm – si dios quiere, we will be back there next year. We’ll go back and see Francis and Louie in Bastimento, eat the delicious food at Roots Restaurant, drink Bloody Mary’s at Sabor Caribeno in Bocas, and join in with the music, that, no doubt, will still be shaking the place. Then we’ll collapse in the hammocks and watch the boats go by.

BOCAS DEL TORO – BASTIMENTO

 

Off the northern Caribbean coast of Panama is an archipelago of islands called Bocas del Toro. It means mouth of the bull, supposedly referring to a waterfall and was named by Columbus when he saw the resemblance. Today, perhaps the name would refer to the opening up of that wild creature known as tourism – it’s been a slow yawn so far, but once that mouth is wide open, it usually means there’s no shutting it up, or taming that bull.

I read on a website that Bocas has the distinction of being the only place in the world that all the different global variations of the big reality show “Survivor” have filmed at. I remember that the American version was around there years ago and it worried me that the place would never be the same again (as it was already on my list of unique places I wanted to visit while they remained unique). Then I read that every language version of Survivor has used the area, and I wondered if I’d arrive to a street with Survivor paraphenalia shops and every other T-shirt would say “Outwit, outplay, outlast.” I’m glad to report that I didn’t hear a word about the show while there, nor did I see a thing that reminded me of it except for windswept beaches ringed with palm trees.

Having been in Costa Rica about three months, it was time to leave the country for 72 hours and renew my visa so Roberto and I headed to these sweet Caribbean islands. For Roberto, it’s been ten years since he was there. This is where his father was from and Roberto can feel the pull of his roots, like a tidal current drawing him further out to sea.

It takes about three or four hours to get there from Cahuita. A bus ride to Sixaola, a walk across the rickety rackety old bridge over the Rio Sixaola which is the frontier between Costa Rica and Panama. A quick visit with the border guards. Then a bus or taxi to the port town of Almirantes and a water taxi over to the town of Bocas. We decided to head to the little town of Bastimento on a different island where Roberto had been and remembered it as a quiet place. The weekend of February 13 was the beginning of Carnival in Bocas and other places in Panama just as it would also be unraveling in Brazil and New Orleans. It was a good idea to get there early in the week and get ourselves a peaceful room before the fiestas began.

I love being in a water-based community, where yer horses are boats and everyone is paying attention to the clouds to read the upcoming weather. We had a combination of hot sun and some drizzly days. The sea breezes meant that it got a little cool once or twice.We chose not to take a boat trip out to a distant beach and through the National Marine Park where you can see dolphins because the waves looked like they’d take too much energy from us. Next time. We fell in love with the place enough to know that, si dios quiere, there will definitely be a next visit to Bocas del Toro.

We stayed in a very inexpensive room – $12 with private bath and a communal kitchen right on the water – at the Hospedaje Sea View. A simple wooden walkway connected the building to the covered dock where we spent hours swinging in the shaded hammocks, watching the boats come and go. Bocas area is the biggest touristic draw in Panama, after the Canal Zone, but in little Bastimento, you knew that the locals outnumbered the tourists by a large margin. The busiest sign of tourism is in the form of water taxis and tour boats.

And there were no mosquitos!

The island of Bastimento is quite big. There are different trails that lead you around the shoreline or up and over the higher land in the middle of the island. Everyone heads at some point over to Wizard Beach, a big sprawling, windswept beach with a good surf. There is a lot of tropical forest left standing all over the island, so you get the feeling of being in a muddy jungle for a few minutes before emerging on the beach.

You then walk through sand, swamp, mud and rock until you emerge on another smaller beach. You can continue doing this for a couple of more hours, through beautiful jungle, a breadfruit tree plantation, a topless beach (‘women only’ said the sign to noone there), and arriving at Red Frog Beach where there is a small bar and the beginning of a bit of new civilization. The beach is named after the little red frogs that are the poster boys of the place, getting scarce but apparently being bred for survival.

The only major sign of development that we came across on the island was the beginning of a resort with building lots divided up in this area where the red frogs live.When I googled Red Frog Beach, there is an amazing amount of people selling this island land out from the indigenous and local community – and it is scary to see what will become of the area.  After walking for a couple of hours to get there, we opted to take a $3 water taxi back to the town. There is a parklike atmosphere with manicured trails and gardens that links the boat dock with the beach. We had hardly seen a soul on our walk there and we arrived to few people at the beach. But in short order many must have been dropped off by boats, because all of a sudden there were dozens of people around.

There were also a lot of children from the local community of Ngobe bugle – the indigenous settlement on that part of the island. We couldn’t figure the kids out but got a bad feeling about what all this new development and influx of foreigners was doing to the place. These young kids – from between four and eight years old – would approach the foreigners in silence. A couple of the older boys brought a little can with a red frog in it, and seemed to quietly be offering something in exchange for a dollar. But the others were almost mute, shy, and we didn’t know if they were under orders to go and beg but with no instruction. Or were they just curious? Groups of them would surround one or two tourists – they seemed to like the university-age white girls who maybe were friendlier or less threatening. But they wouldn’t ask for anything, just stare and not go away.

We bought a drink for one very quiet little boy, but other than that they left us alone – probably, as Roberto said, because they didn’t expect a black man to have money or were respectful of us as a couple while we were laying on the beach. These kids were not starving and their clothes were in good condition and clean and they’d happily play soccer when a tourist pulled out a ball. Maybe they are just passing their time, amusing themselves at the beach – but it did seem that they were wanting money, they just didn’t want or know how to ask. And they did speak Spanish as well as their own tongue and probably some English. This remains one of the unanswered mysteries that we left with.

Old Bank, the original name for the town of Bastimento, is built on the sheltered side of the island. Many of the hotels and restaurants are right on the water, built on stilt legs with long docks that steadily receive boat traffic. It is like a courtyard where everything is right at hand. There are no roads or cars or motorized vehicles – a wide concrete path wanders through the town with some other smaller dirt paths heading off to houses and a lot development on a hillside behind the town. It didn’t take long walking along that path to have met many of the locals and found our bearings.

Folks sat on the balconies and verandas, hanging over the railing, greeting each other. For such a small place, it was interesting that there were four languages being spoken by the locals – English, Spanish, the indigenous tongue and Guati, the local name for the Caribbean patois. People told us that the community is still very tight, holding on to the unity that they have, trying to hold on to their culture and keep tourism under control. One of the main signs of this is that footpath that links them all, people strolling up and down, deliveries coming in by boat, no motors heard on dry land. But once that toro’s mouth is open, quien sabe? 

At Sea View, we shared the kitchen and hammock space with two other couples – a Portuguese/British couple, Shannon and Brett, and an Australian/Austrian pair, Paul and Lisa. I have to say that Paul and Lisa were particularly great folks to share a space with as they had just come from a coffee plantation tour and had a big bag of fresh coffee – unlike Costa Rica where there is lots of great coffee, we didn’t get such fine roast easily in Panama. They also shared chocolate cake that they got busy and baked one day. The last night together, which was Valentine’s Day, we all shared in making pizzas (thanks to Paul’s great dough-making) and were serenaded by Francis, the owner of the hotel, strumming his guitar and singing us love songs. He was a very gentle, humble host and we’d be happy to go and stay there again. There were a number of nice little hotels, many inexpensive and none horribly expensive, some on the water as we were, others up the hillside of the town, no doubt with great views over the bay.

For eating, the best food was next door at Roots Restaurant, which was always playing soca or reggae music that kept us rocking in our hammocks. We had delicious coconut-cooked fish and chicken there along with patacones (fried plantain). We liked having breakfast in the little waterfront restaurant called Alvin’s. The woman who ran the place was very friendly and funny and although she seemed casual about the place, she definitely knew her business.  

We also made friends with one of the boat chauffeur’s, Louie. His family owns the Caribbean View Hotel in town, and he was always taking people on tours, but was friendly and came around often to talk, make sure we were okay. A beautiful young man with dreads and strong opinions, he could have been Roberto’s son. I didn’t get a good picture of him, but would recommend to anyone that you look up Louie at the Caribbean View…., and tell him the rasta from Cahuita and his Kween sent you.

As is too often the case, garbage was an issue – it was floating in off the sea, not properly taken care of in town, and they are no doubt incinerating it somewhere. In the bigger town of Bocas, I read that they were trying to recycle but people weren’t cooperating and those responsible for the program were running out of patience to keep doing it. Roberto will say to me that this is cultural, that he wasn’t taught to throw things in garbage cans. But my experience is that it is a lesson that comes with a little affluence and all the stuff that comes with it. Once a community starts receiving lots of products to sell, all of them in plastic wrapping or tin cans or…, then garbage starts becoming an issue. Twenty years ago, most of the refuse would be organic. People would buy in their own containers. Now everything is wrapped in single serving sizes as that’s all that many people can afford. And they triple wrap things like cookies as one little hole will invite a whole bunch of ants, quickly. And people start acquiring things that break or run out. And garbage becomes an issue that sooner or later, people who live together have to deal with.

We watched the garbage scow come and pick up the garbage left at the end of the docks. We watched the birds and dogs scavenging and pulling the garbage out to scatter it further. As humans, we seem to have a real bad habit of creating garbage – and wildlife have become addicted to it as well.

It was an hypnotic five days and nights in Bastimento, intoxicated by the sea, swinging hammocks, Caribbean food, lots of walking, friendly people. Each evening, we would hear a multitude of drums, the sound traveling to us from somewhere in the town. The second night, we wandered up the path to the sea-overlook which is the center park of town, and there we came across dozens of members of the community. The men and boys were drumming, the young women were choreographing a chant and dance, hips and arms pumping. The little park was filled with old men talking, kids playing, pregnant women resting in the cool breeze of the evening.

We found out that they were practising to take part in Carnaval, the big event coming up on the weekend in Bocas town. In Bastimento, there was always a lot of music around us – coming out of houses, boom boxes and restaurants - and we would have the chance to hear plenty more at Carnaval in Bocas.

Bastimento is a place that I could easily find a cheap rental and stay for a couple of months. Food was cheap and excellent, transportation was easy, rooms were inexpensive. People were kind and had a great energy. I could see living there and doing some writing – Roberto could probably spend the rest of his life in a hammock on the sea, rocking his roots. It was enchanting. We left this quiet refuge on the sixth day, and headed to Bocas,where Carnaval had started. We managed to secure a room for ourselves, and in the end stayed two nights, longer than planned. I’ll write about the music and fiesta of Bocas next time. The energy level went up, and so it must for me before I can put my thoughts in writing.