Every once in a while life throws you a character/sense-of-humor building exercise....
My birthday was the 27th of April. I turned 28.
No, I didn't feel old. I did, however, feel like I was dying... and the day just got worse.
For the week leading up to my birthday I surfed 4 hours a day and spent the rest of the time not sleeping.
Additionally, I ate about 1/3rd the calories I burned... despite nightly burgers and buffalo wings at GRIF's. Having a disgruntled 90 pound Canadian Nutritionist stock the boat for the week was a mistake. Notably lacking were candy, cookies, greasiness, and other legitimate calorie sources.
We did, however, have a shitload of beets and a smattering of utterly inedibles.
From this deficit, I got sick as hell for three days and it started peaking the night before my birthday. The worst fever of my life took over.
I didn't sleep a wink and pissed a gallon throughout the night. Getting out of my sweat-soaked blankets prompted a 15 minute spell of the chills so I peed in a gallon milk jug. Filled it.
At dawn on my birthday I had an appointment to meet "El Pirata" the craziest unlicensed taxi driver in Nicaragua. I had to get to the airport to pick up a crewmember.
He's called "Pirata!" by all the other taxi drivers because he is unlicensed and untaxed.
Pirata is 35 but looks about 25... drives a beat-to-shit nissan sedan with 298,000 miles on it... whistles or utters profanity at every "culo" we pass on the street... fat, skinny, young, old? he wants em' all... smokes like a chimney... drinks and drives whenever possible...
I opted for El Pirata's services because he charges 1/3 the going rate for the 5 hour round trip to MANAGUA AIRPORT... and his priceless ridiculousness came gratis.
Swimming to shore for our 7 am rendezvous, I couldn't swallow and the rest of me felt like it'd gotten shit kicked. I couldn't move my neck. Is this malaria? Spinal meningitis?
I need to get to La Pharmacia and get some NUKEY Pastillas.
Taking off his shades, Pirata revealed eyes almost as bloodshot as my own. Hammed.
I'm hoping to get some sleep but we pick up two hitchhikers and the questions start.... and the road is bone-shatteringly shitty... and the suspension is shot... and braking is all or nothing in Pirata's car... and naturally, though we've no rush, we have to drive as fast as fucking possible at all times... so I'm awake.... wide awake.
Maestra is loving it.
We ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere... Pirata offered complimentary smokes all around for the hassle and took off to beg at the next roadside shanty... ten minutes later he's back with a Coke bottle full of gas.
The car won't start so he pops the hood. Cig in hand, he casually removes the fuel line from the carburetor, sucks up a mouthful of gas and spits it in and all over the general vicinity of where it's supposed to go... takes a drag on his cig... sucks and spits another mouthful.
Classic.
The car fires right up and we're back underway.
We have to stop to pick up a tire being repaired in RIVAS and it occurs to me that we've been driving on the donut thus far. It also occurs to me that all the tires are bald as baby balls.
We make it to the airport damn early but I can't sleep because Pirata won't stop talking... and keeps fiddling with the stereo... trying to produce something other than deafening static.
It is 11 am.
SNOOTCH missed a connection due to storms in Texas and his new arrival time is 8:05 pm. I can't afford to pay Pirata so I convince him we'll have "the best day ever" if we hang out in MANAGUA until 8:05 pm... 9 hours to kill.
We go for lunch and end up at the most expensive restaurant in MANAGUA. I spend $40... I can generally live for a week on $40.
At the restaurant the dog keeps weasling out of the cracked windows so we have to close them almost entirely. When we're done eating, she's almost dead. Welcome to the club, sweetie.
Hosing the steamy dog off behind a bank, the cops show up and search the car and us for the first time of the day.
After lunch I cry out for sleep so we go looking for a shady park. We end up at the lakeside where a crazy, fat dominatrix prostitute won't stop touching my hair.
As soon as she goes away and I doze off under a tree, the cops show up and search us for the second time of the day. Then they make us leave.
We drive to another park and I nab an hour of sleep. For about five minutes afterwards I feel functionally human.
Pirata is bored so I suggest we go to a movie. After an hour of chaotic driving through trash strewn streets, refugee tent cities, strip mall development, mansion-covered stupidity, and the like we end up at a very disgusting mall.
Across the street folks are living under old vinyl Coke and beer signs but here the oppressors are living it up gringo style. It makes me sicker than before.
Pirata has never seen an escalator before and he is scared. He hesitates, stumbles getting on and faceplantsgetting off. This was the highlight of my day.
Naturally, I pay for the movie tickets. The movie theater is frigid inside. All I've got is a t-shirt and damp swimsuit. I shiver and get sicker as we watch vampires and werewolfs do blurry battle... the movie is a horseshit pirated version.
Pirata had never been to a movie theater before. He loved it. For the rest of the day, he frequently reminds me I missed the "incredible sex scene" when I embarked on a fruitless search for a hot beverage.
Now it's about 6pm so we head back to the airport. The plane is delayed again... now 9:30 pm. I convince Pirata to wait.. and I pass out in the passenger seat despite Pirata's booming music, until the police show up and search us for the third time of the day.
I check the board again and the flight has been delayed another hour... 10:30 pm. Pirata is now hitting on a female cop who apparently came to search the car. I neglect to tell him about the delay and pass out again.
At 9:45 pm I check on the flight status again. It has been delayed until 11:55 pm. I tell Pirata. He is less than stoked and demands to leave.
I've already spent $60 entertaining Pirata and there's no way I can afford to pay him $80 in cab fare on top of that. I have to convince him to stay for the next two hours.
What do you want to do, Pirata?
Una mujere.
En serio.
Claro.
OK. Vamanos.
So, at 10pm, I pay our $5 parking fees and we go off trolling for hookers in MANAGUA. In the sketchiest part of town yet encountered, we find a gordita streetwalker Pirata likes.
How much will it cost, Pirata?
$20
I thought the going rate was $10.
No, $20.
(I hand him my second to last $20)
Where are you going to do the deed?
In the car.
Fuck that. I'm staying here. The dog and I are not leaving the car. Take her to the "hotel" across the street.
Are you sure you don't want a woman too.
Yeah. I'm sure. Wash your hands, jefe.
Pirata disappears and I lock the doors. Pass out. 40 minutes later he's back. He whistles along with the radio during our return to the airport.
We get SNOOTCHER at 12:15 and I fail to sleep on the drive back to GIANT'S FOOT. After almost hitting a horse, stopping to get Pirata some beers, and assorted other nauseating disconcertion, we arrive at 3:30 am.
We pass out in the hammocks in front of Dale Dagger's. Snootch offered me his sleeping bag, which was the greatest birthday present I have ever received.
At sunrise, 5:30 am, we're awakened by roosters, parrots, rich old surfers strolling the beach with fancy coffee mugs and other assorted activity. B.C. shows up and describes the amazing day he'd had the before and we all swim back to the boat.
Apparently we sailed back to San Juan... I can barely recollect. The antibioticos made me super-sun-sensitive and I burned my nose off.
And that was the worst birthday ever. Fortunately, now I'm better.
Time to go kiting/sailing/surfing... back NORTH to PIE DE GIGANTE.
MAX