Nicaragua II: Scorpion Milk Volcano & An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter 15.3.10. San Juan del Sur woke up in our decadent palapa on some remote coast of Nicaragua | still half-dreaming i went into the bathroom & reached for a change of underwear & felt a piercing prick on my finger | i knew instantly it was a scorpion | as i mentioned in the previous post [when a scorpion was crawling high up on my thigh in the shower] i've always been deathly afraid of scorpions—probably more so than any other creature | living in Mexico i knew a few people that came close to dying from scorpions & indirectly knew of others [for example wailing campers on the beach next to us] that did die | ever since in tropical climes i've been obsessive about checking my shoes & not leaving things lying around on the floor [the underwear was up on a bench] | in any event now it was happening—the fear of the unknown had passed—i knew what that instant felt like | it was similar to the feeling when i was stung by a stonefish on the same finger of my other hand [only that was far worse—like a rusty hypodermic needle that hit so hard it went all the way through my finger & stuck out the other side] | what i didn't know was how poisonous scorpions were in Nicaragua | my first reaction was to get the scorpion [to eat the head if necessary—as they do in Mexico] but i was also just standing there—my heart racing—my arms shaking—waiting for something to happen | after a few minutes though i seemed to be okay | i shook the scorpion out & it plopped on the floor & ran into the corner & behind a pole before i could kill it | we never did find it which was a bit unnerving | we were supposed to go to some farm-to-fork breakfast thing so we grabbed cups of coffee & headed out across the suspension bridge to the main part of the lodge | i asked a security guard along the way about the scorpion & he said they weren't poisonous to most people & that the best thing for it was to drink coffee which i was already doing | my finger hurt & was numb but the pain remained isolated to my finger | all in all i'd say it was no worse than a bee sting | we got into the back of a truck & were taken to some farm where we preceded to milk a cow & collect some eggs from some hens & then made handmade tortillas | best breakfast we'd had yet in Nicaragua if not meal | somehow milking the cow using my finger that was just stung by a scorpion seemed therapeutic & the milk tasted amazing [coming from someone who typically hates milk] | after breakfast we went back & just hung out lazing on the beach & body-surfed & watched the sloth & monkeys & creatures & ran on the beach til our feet blistered & chewed tamarinds straight off the tree & drank free beer & explored the mangrove swamp & waited for the fisherman to come in to see what was for dinner | where we were staying [Morgan's Rock] was named for a U.S. senator from Alabama that was an advocate for putting what is now the Panama Canal through Nicaragua [if you look at a map it geographically makes a lot more sense] & where we were was where this Nicaragua Canal would've been but instead here we were | come sunset we went on a night walk but didn't see much except a mangy porcupine & some skunks & we got stung all over my mosquitoes & who knows what else only to add to our general itchiness from chiggers & jellyfish & scorpions & sunburn & nipple rash from body-surfing | it's such discomforts that you need to appreciate the everyday comforts of home | 16.3.10. Isla de Ometepe spent the last morning on the beach then pushed on | went through San Juan del Sur only to confirm our suspicions that it was a crap tourist town then through Rivas & to San Jorge where we waited for the ferry | before we even got to the island of Ometepe we could see the ash spewing from volcán Concepción & little bits of it were even raining down on us from across the lake | we drove our little red rental car onto the ferry & crossed [actually we traversed just a small portion of an otherwise huge lake so vast it's more like an inland sea] | there was some guy on the ferry from the government that was monitoring & filming the volcano as i guess it was acting up & there'd been small earthquakes, etc. | drove around to the other side of the island to playa Santo Domingo where we got a room with an iguana living between our ceiling & the tin roof that we could hear scratching around at night | 17.3.10. Isla de Ometepe the next morning we went on a long hike | they weren't letting people go up Concepción for obvious reasons so we went up volcán Madera instead | Isla Ometepe is essentially shaped like a figure-8 bra with the perfect conical shape of Concepción being some 1600 meters high & the more deflated looking Madera being 1400 meters | we got a trusty local guide [Douglas] which is a requirement & necessity as like the roads in Nicaragua none of the trails are really marked | it was hot as hell [Douglas said 45°C though that seemed a slight exaggeration] especially down low before there was tree cover | we started out in rocky yucca & bean fields with the occasional petroglyph then up into coffee fields & eventually to the canopy of cloud forest | the trail went straight up getting steeper & steeper & more overgrown & rutted with roots & denser tanglages of foliage | when we got to the top we dropped back down into the crater where there was a muddy lake where we rested & refueled [see video below for the full voyage] | other than that we wallowed in the shallow lake & lazed about reading | back at Morgan's Rock they had Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson which i've been wanting to read but it was in hardback & a beast to lug around | they also had one of Updike's Rabbit books that i took from their library but couldn't really get into under the circumstances | the last book i brought with me [that i was saving] was An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira which was definitely «saving the best for last»—the best book i've read in some time | it's told in that certain reportorial tone that Borges often used though there are passages that are as viscerally descriptive & surreal as Cormac McCarthy & all with a Cervantes mythical undertone to it | as the title would imply it details a certain episode in the life of a German landscape painter Johann Moritz Rugendas as he travels through Chile & Argentina with his sidekick Krause in the early 19th century documenting what they observed [based on a true story] | like the work/process being described the book itself reads like a natural history of the landscape they travel within—starting in Chile and crossing the border near Acongagua into the Mendoza region of Argentina | Rugendas' objective is to paint more than just landscapes but the landscape during certain events or actions such as during an earthquake or an Indian raid | his painting though static is a means of storytelling:
a spectacular tragedy befalls Rugendas of which i will not reveal the details of so as not to spoil it if you haven't read it suffice to say it was a rather electrifying & arresting passage that transforms Rugendas from the inside out leaving him bloodied but unbowed—in fact he seizes it as a regenerative opportunity:
for me [an artist often stuck between the interplay between text & image] the descriptions of his technique were particularly appealing & revealing:
not only does Aira succeed in articulating such insight but the story itself is a reflection of these sentiments making the book one of those wonderful objects that you can't pinpoint exactly what it is—fiction or biography or an art essay or just plain art? | there is a clear method to Aira's [via Rugendas'] madness & it's all quite methodical but there are also brilliant interludes that defy explanation nor need them such as this:
Aira neither shows nor tells yet simultaneously manages to do both in half the words [the novella is a trim 87 pages]:
18.3.10. Granada had breakfast & mosied back to the port picking up some weird dreadlocked hitchhikers along the way | caught the ferry back to the mainland then retraced our footsteps to Granada where we had another amazing churrasco then spent the night & woke up again & then drove to the airport [after getting lost in the maze of Masaya] & flew home |
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