La Regressa del Rey

And so it ends, my latest Central American escapade. True to form, the final leg proved to be the most arduous, time-consuming, and soul-shattering travel day yet...

August 7th began bright and early on gorgeous Little Corn island. My east-facing cabana afforded me one last magnificent sunrise over the Caribbean, although I had to be up at five to take it in. One last bucket shower (have I mentioned that yet? Showers at Derek's consist of a 50 gallon drum of water and some small buckets. You dip yourself a bucket full, and douse yourself to your heart's content. Lather up, then rinse the same way. Simple, yet effective.)then a last bit of hammock sitting and into the distance staring before heading into the village for the 7:00 boat to Big Corn.

Seas were considerably choppier on the way back, and the panga felt considerably more overloaded. As we hit some large waves I began to worry about capsizing and couldn't help thinking of ferry disasters and missing bodies. I began to inventory what would happen in the event of capsizing: ipod, camera, journal- gone. I'm a strong swimmer, so I wasn't to worried about that. I would, however, miss the flight, to Managua and my connection to Miami, and I imagined that rebooking with a possibly lost passport and soaking wet cordobas would be an enormous pain. However, we made it to the dock just fine. Taxi (this time) to the airport and settled down to wait for the morning flight from Managua to arrive. The turnaround time from it arriving, passengers disembarking and luggage unloaded, to us boarding along with our baggage and taking off was less than 15 minutes.

Arrived in Managua (where I had an initial 4 hour layover) only to be informed that we were delayed 2 further hours. As my connection did not leave until 7 the next morning, I wasn't too worried about missing it. I was, however, bummed about spending 6 hours in the Managua airport. A guy I had met incidentally around the island and I decided to head out to the local mall to kill some time. Managua's largest mall is open to the air (kind of sweltering) and it's main department store provided the perfect example of linguistic dissonance: It was called Carrion. Similarly, the Chevy Nova always sold horribly in Latin American countries as No Va literally means doesn't go in Spanish. Anyway, after a vaguely cardboardish burger at Hamburloco, and a tiny, watery espresso from Cafe Latino, we headed up to the movies where I finally broke down and saw the one where Diane Lane plays some sort of FBI cyber crime expert who eventually becomes the target of an internet super killer or some other such plot device so ridiculous that not even I bothered seeing it. The movie was predictably awful (although it did feature the loathsome Colin Hanks dissolved in a vat of battery acid), but it did succeed in finishing off the rest of our waiting time. Cab back to the airport where we found our flight had been delayed another hour.

We finally boarded and were off to Miami around 5:30. With the time change we made it into Miami around 10:30. We were one of the last international flights arriving that day, so the trams to passport control were moving slowly when they were moving at all. I managed to get at the very end of the line of several hundred people who were on our flight and made it to passport control behind a group of 45 or so identically dressed teen missionaries in Maroon polos with "Teen Mission Launch Team" emblazoned on the chest. At this point I was a little loopy, so I had to, with great effort, resist the urge to ask them "was it accomplished?...your mission?" and then giggle hysterically. They were also identically equipped with black military style duffel bags, and blue handled rolly backpacks. Waiting for my bags to go through customs I was one of the last 10 pieces of luggage to come off the carousel.

Customs was a breeze, and by a little after 11 I was ready to look for a place to bed down for the night. Unfortunately, the security checkpoints were closed, so I couldn't make it out to any of the terminals. I had to settle for the main (garishly lit and loud) section of the airport where you purchase your tickets or claim your bags.

Here are some of the many things that can keep you awake in the Miami Airport:

1. The surgically intense fluorescent lighting

2. The local time (preceded my a loud chime) is literally announced every 15 minutes

3. The bathrooms your are trying to sleep next to will be cleaned at least once an hour by loudly chatting Cuban employees from 12-5 AM.

4. Peole will constantly be paged to meet their parties on lower concourses despite the fact that it is 3:27 in the morning.

I did manage to briefly pass out for 45 minutes or so until I was prodded awake by a man driving an enormous industrial carpet cleaner who wanted to clean the 6 square feet of carpet in the corner that my prostrate body occupied. Suffice to say, I never made it back to sleep.

I whiled away the rest of the hours watching Gossip Girl on my ipod. (Don't judge me, I had an itunes gift card.) I actually enjoyed it tremendously, reminiscent of the fish out of water perspective of the Walshes in the early 90210 seasons or season 1 of The OC. Take away the terrible Jenny subplots (send her to Choate or something next season!) and Serena's histrionics toward the last couple of episodes, and you've got a damn fine season of television. Plus, Chuck Bass is the sleaziest piece of amoral good-timery that it's been my pleasure to stumble across in the last couple of years.

Finally checked in around four and made my way through security (airport was packed with the members of a sold out flight to Port au Prince at 4:30 in the morning.) Got on the plane on time, but we were forced to sit and wait for an hour (bear in mind I've been going for over 24 hours at this point) as technicians ineptly struggled to replace oxygen canisters on the plane. While we sat and stewed, our pilot, who may be an expert at maneuvering multi-ton fixed wing aircraft, but gamely attempted to keep us informed.
Uh, let's see. The technicians are still working. Flight time once we get going will be uh...just under 3 hours, but if we take a land route, because weather over the seas is tricky, then the time will be...just under 3 hours. Clouds at 5000 feet but we, um...will be flying higher than that, and winds out of the SE...will have no bearing on us at all, we'll be flying due north over Florida...Georgia...South Carolina, and then um....some other States. Then we'll fly over New York and begin our descent into Boston...ok, still no word on the technicians so...

We finally got off and watched 21, the god-awful adaptation of Bringing Down the House. Nonetheless, it distracted me from my exhaustion, and I finally made it home thanks to another ride from Gina. She really earned her rock, although given what happened to me on Cerro Negro, I guess you could say I payed for it in blood, or at the very least skin.

I'll add pictures to previous posts, and then email out invitations to my shutterfly stuff once I get them uploaded.