| VACATION #18 THE ISLAND OF SAN ANDRES You are on the island of San Andres off the coast of Nicaragua but owned by Colombia, just a small island seven miles long. It's a free port. Lots of South Americans come here to shop and to gamble. It's almost all jungle -- except for the ugly little town with shops full of maquinas and junk ... and casinos. There's a road that circles the island that is really charming. Oh, yes, and there is another island nearby, Providencia, that's mostly wilderness, not very populated. Many blacks live on the island who speak only Spanish, but you keep expecting them to break into jive-talk. You're staying at the Bahia Marina Hotel. It's a long taxi ride from town through the jungle. It's separate and exclusive, a complex of cottages with its own restaurant, swimming pool and marine facilities. The ocean's on one side and the jungle's on the other. It's a jungle from a movie -- with coconut palms (with real coconuts), spider lilies, hibiscus, so many varieties of green things vegetable and animal. You have a bungalow not far from the beach. When you arrive you go for a walk on the beach. The sun is out, the breeze blows constantly, for a moment it sprinkles. It looks as if a dramatic rainstorm is building. You pick up a sea shell and the old love comes alive in you again -- The Sea. You have returned to the sea. You are part of it. It makes you feel calm and safe. You're in a fantasy place, and yet, you're in familiar territory -- so much that is beloved to you, in a mixture you can question but easily accept -- the cerulean blue ocean, the soft white sand, the jungle, the Spanish language, the black people. It's quiet. It's the country. It's a piece of your inner home -- part of much known, and that which is unknown (Ah, but that's what makes it interesting.), so that your heart is mixed with nostalgia and anticipation. There are no bells to sound the time of say. The sun just softy crawls away. The reef off the coast is famous for divers as being second only to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Your diving instructor takes you out and loads you up with equipment. With mask and tank and fins you feel just like a robot, clumsy on land, but at home underwater. You are an excellent student. "You do very well," says your instructor, "When a person is afraid, he has trouble with the equipment." "I'm not afraid," you say. "You're lucky," he says, "Tomorrow we'll go out beyond the reef." It's spectacular underwater, so many blues -- turquoise, cerulean -they say it has to do with the salt content as well as the depth. You wish you had a radio like they do in the movies so you could ask your teacher what all those things are. There's so much that when you get up to the surface you can't remember it all. Blue fish, purple, bright yellow, green -- marvelous plants and rocks, sea fans and brain coral. A three-dimensional underwater painting. "There's a place near here you'll like," says your instructor. He turns off the motor of the speedboat and drops anchor. He outfits you in your robot suit, and you jump out of the boat. He holds your hand and shows you the way. You are swimming along and he lets go of your hand. You take it to mean that you are doing fine and you keep swimming deeper and deeper. You come to a place that looks like a desert, with big mounds of brain coral three feet in diameter, a fairy tale world. The fish come up to you and greet you face to face. Your ears pop. You pay no heed. You are intoxicated. Then your teacher re-appears. He has no tank like you, only a snorkel. He taps you on the shoulder and signals you to go up. When you surface he isn't smiling. "Don't do that again! I lost you. I have only my snorkel. I couldn't follow you. You went too deep. You could have hurt your ears! I almost burst my lungs trying to find you!" But his anger passes quickly, you are a good student. On another day you go to a fiesta at a village called San Luis. As you walk with your friend along the road that encircles the island you admire the old Victorian style houses set up on stilts, backs to the water. All is surrounded by coconut palms and fields of Peruvian daffodils. Birds sing, hiding themselves in the trees. Old people sit on their porches rocking and smiling as you pass. San Luis is lush with plants but plain and poor. An occasional old car is parked next to a house, a patch here and there of blacktop or concrete. Skinny dogs wander around looking for a piece of dropped meat and chickens peck at the dirt. It is peaceful. What a pity that modern times will come and it will be no more. The next day your friend takes you to the airport and presents you with a sea fan. "Because you love the naturaleza." And again you board the plane that takes you to another faraway home that is both strange and familiar. Adios. ***** |