The surf rumbles all day and all night.
Where water meets land, long white capped waves roll over, roll under, and roll onto the land like conquerors.
There are high and low tides and thin legged birds kick bubbles left by the waves like Colombian soccer players. In early morning there is a row of seaweed deposited on the white beaches and men with shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, move the seaweed, cover it up with dirt or bury it so still sleeping tourists have the white beaches promised by tourist brochures when they wake up for their breakfast of fresh fruit and fresh squeezed orange juice.
The sand here is Caribbean, white and fine grained. It sticks between toes, clings to you like a cranky child.When dry it is soft to walk on, When wet, you can run on it and make sand castles to your imagination’s limits.
When pirates ran these coasts there was nothing left but vestiges of an old Mayan civilization.
Natives lived in the jungle, fished the sea,worshiped old Gods left them by ancients. Stone walls and stone faces have been overcome by vegetation and old, precise, mathematical equations are forgotten. Tulum is now a place of loose wires and knotted plumbing, wind generators and rusted fishing hooks.
Before you move here, you would want to stay a month in August.
The rain, humidity, and heat will make you understand why you have the place to yourself.
After Spanish explorers conquered Central and South America, they scoured the present states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah and Nevada searching for lost cities of gold. Motivated by faith, Spanish priests established missions for the conversion of natives to Catholicism. These missions, outposts of European civilization, still operate, draw modern men seeking their ancient roots.
The Mission San Xavier is south of Tucson and it’s construction was finished in 1797. One of the mission’s two towers has recently been restored and funds are currently being saved to restore the second one to it’s original condition.
The church interior, though small, is intimate and shows icons of the Catholic church, carved saints, candles, Holy Water, wood carvings, high ceilings and stained glass.
Early morning, these church courtyards are in shadows, bells are silent, doors are ajar and tourists snuggle in warm coats as they file into the small church to say their prayers.
Churches built by hand, with wooden dowels, seem more trustworthy than those built with power drills, metal studs, with huge HVAC systems.
The Holy Water is in a metal container, on a chair, in a hallway, with little paper cups to drink from instead of a long heavy ladle.
This water has been blessed, and, in a torrid desert landscape like this, water is always Holy, whether it is blessed or not.
The Pima Air Museum is an equal opportunity museum.
It has fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, experimental dreams, cargo planes, There are hangers filled with donated airplanes of every vintage, staffed with volunteers, and a large open field where aircraft have been retired from service. There are early primitive planes, and then more modern sleek riveted birds made out of metal, plastic and fiberglass that fly higher, faster, quieter.
From the bomber’s seat in the nose of a museum B-52, tattooed with buxom women, the bomber squinted through his viewfinder at the enemy target below. In his gun sights were manufacturing plants, bridges, military bases, railroad tracks, airstrips – strategic targets.
With the gentle push of a button, the bomber dropped his death packages, watched his bombs spiral towards Earth like wounded birds.Airmen, long after their missions were complete, could still hear screams in their mind as metal and stone ripped into people and pieces of cities fell like a child’s blocks knocked over by a careless hand.
Most planes on display in the museum have curved lines and their angles are sharp. Rivets on the older planes were done by hand by women in California factories and a volunteer tells Alan and I how Los Angeles plants, in WW11, were turning out one B-52 bomber a day that were immediately put into the war’s service and turned the war effort around.
Old dreams of flying like birds have come true and old dreams of conquering the world haven’t gone away.
The next Caesar, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Hitler is just around time’s bend, and, when they arrive, there will be plenty of firepower at their disposal.
Making weapons is a human obsession.
The best way to understand the Sonoran desert is to drive to the end of a dirt road, take no water or matches, leave your phone in the car, don’t tell anyone where you are, wear light clothes and no hat, and hike till you get lost.
The second best way to understand the Sonoran desert is go to a museum and go through its exhibits.
The Sonoran desert starts in Arizona, spills into California and reaches down the entire Mexican Baja peninsula. It has multiple ecosystems and a variety of plants,animals, insects and minerals. Water is scarce but prospectors donkey’s know where to find it, the biggest discovery of all.
This morning, walking through paths notated on visitor maps, Alan and I see coyotes, a caged mountain lion, skunks, saquaros, desert springs,scorpions, barn owls, sun shades fashioned out of rope and netting, a boojam tree, aviary birds,flourescent minerals and underground bats, all part of nature’s bouquet.
We also get to see live wildlife in an auditorium where a skunk, porcupine, macaw, and bull snake are brought out for us to admire while a museum employee answers audience questions and gives nature lectures.
Our macaw is released from one handler’s grasp and flies from the front stage to an attendant’s arm at the back of our auditorium. His wings make a shoo shoo shooing sound as he flies over us and I can hear his beak cracking the peanut his handler gives him after he has completed his task.
This live presentation is a highlight of our morning expedition but two horned toads, embedded in a stuccoed wall at the front of the venue, are also memorable..
They are sharing a quiet moment before the sun goes down, like two brothers remembering baseball home runs in the intersection of Bellamah and Aspen street in Albuquerque, New Mexico in June 1955.
Tennis balls fly a long way when you hit them solid with an authentic Kentucky Slugger hickory bat.
In the downtown historical district of Truth or Consequences, hot springs bubble to the surface.
In old days dusty cowboys would hang their chaps on mesquite branches and swap stories with Indians who hung their moccasins on adjacent branches to look like rabbit ears. In newer days, hotels have been built above the springs and guests soak in claw foot tubs to their heart’s content.
The only admonishments to guests at River bend are not to indulge in drugs and/or alcohol, limit the time of your soak, keep hydrated, call for help if needed. River Bend Hot Springs is well maintained and now you hang your chaps on hooks inside private soaking enclosures. For social folks, there is a public soaking pool just outside the office.
Looking out from my Tierra private soak, the Rio Grande meanders, not in any hurry to get to Juarez.
Each time here, there are more amenities.
Jake, as one of his worker’s admits, ” does a damn good job of fixing things and making the place better. ”
When I lived here I visited two times a week. Now, two times a year has to do.
Hot water soaks seems to often straighten out my bumpy thinking.
A good placebo usually beats bitter medicine every day of the week.
There are only three countries in the world that have a primitive art movement. One is in Haiti, another is in Yugoslavia, the last is in Nicaragua.
In the southern part of Nicaragua are a group of 26 islands in a province called Solentiname. A Catholic priest arriving there many years ago noticed locals painting on gourds and helped them move their inspirations to canvas. Local artists continue to paint and earn livings from this stylistic folk art.
This room, at the San Francisco Convent Museo in Granada, is dedicated to the Nicaraguan primitive art movement that celebrates nature, community,order, and color.
The works and artists, though different, all belong in this room. They work within a style that is larger than they are, an ocean that supports their boats.
It is like the Garden of Eden calling you home.
The intensity of the artist’s focus is like the eyes of a tiger watching you from inside it’s cage.
In the San Francisco Convent Museo are a series of paintings that chronicle Nicaraguan history.
The paintings start with aboriginal peoples who first inhabit lands before they are claimed by anyone but God. Then paintings move, in book style, through discovery and founding, colonization, building and commerce, fights for independence, reconstruction and modernization.
These paintings wait for the arrival of a brand new brother or sister.
Maybe the next painting born will be of a new Panama Canal, through Nicaragua? Maybe the next will show the country moving from Socialist/Marxist group ideology to free market small business capitalism, the way the United States used to be before it lost it’s way.
People all over the world these days seem weary of their leaders.
People following their own drummer seems a healthier recipe than falling in step with someone else’s twenty year plan.
Ann’s art studio is also a gallery, a meeting place, a classroom, a resource of information, a great place to pick up a brush if you have an itch.
Studios, as opposed to galleries, are works in process.
There are finished and unfinished compositions on the walls, stacked in corners, left on easels. There are cans of brushes and rags, solvents and photographs of scenes that interest pinned to boards.The discussions here are about color, line, proportion, texture, what you want to say, how to put paint on a flat canvas to get a three dimensional shape and how to create art people want to buy.
Some of the works here have Nicaraguan scenes while others channel European or American traditions.
A studio is a place of discovery.
All these projects are around me, whispering, laughing, demanding attention, asking me to purchase them and find a place at home to show them off.
The pursuit of art is noble even if it gets messy and expensive.
The Historical District is deceptive.
Walking narrow streets and sidewalks, you meet massive walls and sturdy doors, wrought iron,sturdy secure steel gates.
When you peek through cracked doors, or open windows, you are surprised with glimpses of cozy interiors, plants, fountains, bicycles on tile floors, rocking chairs, big screen televisions. Drafts of cool air, funneled through the house, hit you in the face.
These old original homes are built with thick adobe walls which cuts noise, keeps temperatures constant, and keeps occupants safe. By opening windows and doors you get ventilation. There are multiple porches and open spaces for dining and entertaining.
If I lived in one of these old homes, I would spend much of my time on the upstairs porch, rocking in a chair, sipping coffee, listening to the neighborhood.
The rest of the day my shoes would be in the streets following the pied piper.
These colonial homes, re-habbed, or not, all use lots of space, built in a time when there were fewer people in the city, space wasn’t sold per square foot, and families were bigger.
There is still, in Nicaragua, plenty of space to lose, or find yourself.
When you ask locals where the best places to dine are, in Granada, El Garaje restaurant is one of the first to be mentioned.
The first time I walked past the place, it didn’t register as important.
It was closed then because of an electrical outage but the proprietor came to the door and apologized and shook my hand.
When I returned. he remembered my name.
The restaurant is called ” El Garaje ” because it occupies a spot that someone’s car used to occupy. Many homes in Granada have a garage directly in front of their house, You open the iron gates to your property, drive right into a garage, park, and then walk up garage steps and walk right into your living room. The owners of this restaurant have turned their garage, at the street front, into a restaurant.
This restaurant has limited seating, and, when full, stays full until someone leaves. Paul serves and his wife cooks.
The vegetable barley soup is so good that I go back to the menu for a pulled pork sandwich with caramelized onions and homemade coleslaw without mayo,
I leave without trying the sour orange cheesecake for my pocketbook’s sake.
There is fine dining in Granada.
You just have to find the right garage.
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