From My Notebook 48 Years Ago: Costa Rica to Nicaragua

In May 1975 I was making my way up through Central America. After 18 months on the road, in Africa and South America, I was almost half way round the track I’d set myself. Feeling a bit weary I was bedazzled by the prospect of California and, moving faster than I should have, I crossed into Nicaragua from Costa Rica.

May 11

Drove up to see volcano Poas. Was lucky that mist cleared just enough to get a good view and take pictures.

Then visited Michael and Cherida Cannon on their 480 hectare farm of dairy cattle. Holsteins – with mechanical milking machine from N.Z. The bull and his mounting block (the bull’s broken penis). Two gallons of diesel an hour to generate their electricity. Then visited Andy, the medic. Building his log cabin. Land up to $1000 a hectare. Very wet. Horrible storms. 7000 feet up on the Caribbean side.

[Of all the central American countries Costa Rica is the one that attracts by far the most American expats, and it goes out of its way to make it easy for them. In the relatively short time I was there I also made it easy for myself by hopping from one to another. They told me I should visit the Santa Rosa national park on my way north.]

May 12

Left early for Santa Rosa, stopping only in Liberia. Dry all the way. Heard later that rain bucketed down at San Jose.

Santa Rosa at midday. Spent afternoon setting up hammock with fly sheet and mending mosquito net.

The Malaria Inspector came by, on a small motorbike, with a sterile mask. He makes a call every fifteen days to make sure that people fumigate their homes.

Enormous Cebu bulls strolling through to waterhole. They are very timid.

The Park’s director came over to see who I was. Young man, zoologist from San Jose. Said he was waiting for results from Michigan about a scholarship. Told me about Santa Rosa’s significance as hide-out for a volunteer army in 1855 when, led by an assorted group of 4 Europeans, they beat a much larger army from Nicaragua and changed the balance of power in Central America.

In the night I met a small animal close to my camp. About 18 inches long, black with white stripes from nape to tail tapered snout, tail with sparse hairs, erect, blinded by torch, it moved slowly away, but turned once when trapped by tree roots, and jumped up and down on all fours to frighten me.

Bad drawing of strange jumping animal

Curious storm passed overhead in the night, flashes of lightening but no thunder, and gusts of wind coming in from the sea.

May 13

Saw another animal this morning, Dark rusty brown with big bushy tail. But bigger than the one above. Also large lizard and several aristocratic birds. One with long black feathers curling off the crown of the head and black ornamental band round throat (as painted by Beardsley).

It peers down and shrieks insolently at one. Creamy white body. Blue grey wings and fantail. Almost a foot long.

Exciting appearance of a band of horses galloping past to the water trough. They were so excited that they couldn’t stop when they arrived and were dancing around for minutes before they calmed down sufficiently to drink.

Left Santa Rosa at 10.15.

Frontier (with Nicaragua) at 11.15. Easy passage. Then stopped for beer and Coke. Very hot. Saw Nicaraguan male with huge paunch and fleshy face picked up by hitch-hiking woman. She wore a blouse of a net material, and trousers, with just a bag slung over her shoulders. She was quite good-looking, with an expression that invited attention without soliciting it. He wore an open white shirt, dark trousers, whiskers. Terrible studied impassivity. Had small truck. He was going to leave when she walked to the truck and whispered something. He came back to the table and waited for her. Then they left together. This scene became a prototype.

Took road through Granada (on lake Nicaragua) then Masaya, and finally found Susan Fowler (Pat’s cousin) in suburban estate above Managua. Quiet, intelligent woman, occupational therapist, married to US banker. Languishing rather in Nicaragua.

May 14

We went out to see the volcano Santiago. Walked a kilometre up to crater, then walked round to the opposite side. Was unbelievably impressed looking down into the cup, within a crater, and seeing the rock plasma, red liquid lava, slopping about, sometimes darkened over with flecks of black, sometimes bright cherry red, and occasionally spurting up. Like a window into the middle of the globe, full of mysterious implications – a reverse moon shot, and just as awe inspiring. We sat and looked for a long time, entranced by this shimmering, irregular fragment of pulsating energy. Occasionally, it seems, it rushes up to overflow into the cup and form a visible lava lake. What a sight that must be. A unique experience and, as at Iguaçu, I felt it justified the whole journey.

As close as I could get to the lava at Santiago

I was told that the dictator of Nicaragua, Somoza, got rid of his political opponents by hurling them down there.

The Iguaçu Falls

And Iguaçu again

May 15

Thursday. Wrote piece about Jesus.

[I have no idea what that refers to. I’m sure it wasn’t about Jesus Christ. It may have been about Jesus Clavijo, the padron of the hotel in La Plata, who had half his hand sliced off by machete while playing billiards.]