Stories from the Road

The sun rises slowly but the noises of morning come suddenly. I’m used to hearing roosters alarm sleepers that morning has risen, but here a large community (or so it sounds) is quacking and twittering “get up, get up.” As I stand in the yard a parade of animals make their debut, one at a time. A pig is scoffing his nose in the dirt and in seconds a chicken and her chicks come shuffling through in a line. They flip leaves over to see if a worm or bean lays underneath. A dog who has seen better days wanders through looking for any resemblance of breakfast. It dawns on me, poor dogs, that they don’t have it as easy as the other animals because they don’t eat grass or leaves.

Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua We got a fresh start on December 1 out of San Juan del Sur, juiced up at Margarita’s restaurant and hopped on the chicken bus, like in the movies, right as it pulled out of town. We slumped into a sticky plastic seat and low and behold, our Japanese surfing friend