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I wake. Jason has chiralled Alison.
Andy moves around. He makes coffee. I get up and put on clothes. Andy goes on deck. I follow. I crack my head. It hurts. It wakes me up. I rub and laugh.
Andy and I have coffee. We watch the dawn. The sun comes up out of the forest. Reedbanks green up from blackness through grey. The sun trails light across the bay. There is no wind.
Alison and Jason emerge. We breakfast. Oats for vegetarians. Scrambled eggs and sausage for omnivores. More coffee for both.
Andy demonstrates washing river mud from anchor chain. We raise anchor. Jason scrubs and I bucket. We putter into the river. I have the helm. The wind is against us. I keep to the centre of the channel. I follow the trace on the GPS. I aim for landmarks.
We are alone on the river. We swing to starboard. We swing to port. The river closes down. I centre and aim. Forest canopies shuffle in to left and right. Red Hot Chilli Peppers soundtrack. Pelicans and herons observe our passing. Canoes bob in the shallows. A man stands in a rocking canoe. He casts a net. It swirls and vanishes. He hauls. He casts. We slide by.
Boats appear. Fast movers come from astern and ahead. They are few and far between. Some keep to the right. Trash bobs.
We follow the river into the canyon. Pelicans flotilla. The wind is light and mostly wrong. The canyon deepens. Orion glides 90 feet above the ooze. Buzzards and Pelicans use cliffs and light winds to rise into thermal air.
The canyon broadens and flattens. We smooth into the river mouth. Buildings and boats rot under tropical sun. Pelicans squat on decaying superstructures. Guano streaks white on grey. Beached hulks moulder under wrecked roofing. Livingston opens behind a screen of sailboats. Andy takes the helm.
I go below to arrange beds into seating. We anchor.
We collect our belongings. Andy brings the dinghy from astern to athwart. We scoot to shore. We arrange a tentative meeting for the day after tomorrow. We will take a launch to Texan Bay and meet in the afternoon. Andy planes away.
We meet Paulo Martinez. He is Garifuna. He is a slender black man in simple clothes. He has a white beard and white hair. He is the first and foremost musician of Livingston. Livingston has changed. Until the ‘80s it was a black town. There were no Latinos. Look at it now. They are converting marine ecosystems to trinkets. They have driven out the blacks. They are tortoiseshell racists.
Paolo sees my serial killer book under my arm. He asks me if I like the author. I say not much. He agrees. He asks to see the book. He looks at the blurb. He hands it back. He disdains Patterson.
His favourite author is Herman Hesse. I ask if he enjoyed Steppenwolf. Of course. He loves Narcissus and Goldmund. His favourite is Siddhartha. I say I never really liked Siddhartha. He asks me why. I say perhaps because I was too much into Buddhism at the time I read it. He says he doesn’t really get Buddhism and asks me to explain. I stammer.
I revert to Hesse. My favourite is the Glass Bead Game. He laughs. He never understood the Glass Bead Game. Never.
Paolo hears Jason and Alison speak. He asks if Jason is from Bristol.
He walks with us from the port to the other shore. The sun blisters concrete. Cement melts. He shows us Tilingo Lingo. It is a restaurant run by a friend. Alison has written it down in her list of options.
Paolo stands by the beach. He looks back up the hill. He divides the town with his arm. On the right is Livingston. That is the Garifuna town. He says nothing about the left side.
Paulo tells us where to find a taxi. Ask for the bridge. You have to walk from there. The road is out. Do not let them take more than 10Q each. He says goodbye and walks away.
We walk up the steep hill. We go back towards the turtleback of Livingston. We have walked from right front paw to left front paw. The road to the bridge intersects. It runs towards the tail. We wait. No taxis come by. We wait some more. We walk back to the road linking the paws. Paolo sees us. He hails a taxi. He lets me take a photo. He asks for a donation to a fund to feed the children. I have no change. I like him. I give him Q100.
The taxi driver rattles in Spanish. He drives without springs. The road is indifferent going on not so good. He recommends local dishes. They are savoroso. They are rica. They are seafood. The road deteriorates. He rattles on oblivious. His car bottoms and clatters. One wheel scrapes on the wheelarch. We baste and rasta in the breath of dragons.
We disembark. We cross the suspension bridge. It was built for 600kQ. We walk along the beach. The wind off the sea refreshes. The Caribbean vibes greyly murky. Whitecaps roll in unconvinced. Pelicans power past at wave height. We reach the Hotel Salvador Gaviota. We register.
Someone shows us our room. There are 6 double beds and 2 singles. There is a ground floor and a mezzanine. It is palm tree technology. A shower flimsies in the back corner next to the toilet.
Alison wants to walk. Jason and I need beer. Alison is frustrated. She has a Dramamine hangover and needs to undrug. She wants air. She wants to explore. We want beer. Alison walks on her own. She is disappointed. Jason joins her.
I read my serial killer book and sip beer. Two crew of a US merchant vessel sit at the table next to mine. The older one engages. He asks many questions. They are more interesting than my book. The young one sits sullen. He looks sidelong at me.
Alison and Jason come back. Alison finds a plastic card holder on the beach. It contains student cards and a credit card. Jason shows the student card to the hotel owner. He was at the hotel yesterday. The owner keeps the student card.
We order lunch. Alison looks at the vegetarian options and despairs. She selects boiled fish with fried popes. Jason attempts the ceviche. I go for camarones with ajo.
We walk north along the beach. It is narrow. The high water mark is stencilled in trash. Plastic and fragments of polystyrene form a long eyebrow. The debris is sorted. Little is larger than a fist. Flipflops and plastic bottles overlay sneaker inserts and cylinders from marker pens. Torch casings and Tupperware are rare. Bits of sandal and tangles of orange twine provide human interest. Polystyrene accumulates in drifts. Particle sizes run from marble to biscuit. In a democracy polystyrene would rule. Flipflops would foment unrest. Flipflops are ubiquitous. They are unreliable.
We walk between the sea and gardens. Houses are made of briezeblock and palmtree. Some homes have boats on rollers. Most have hedges and trimmed lawns. One house focuses a wilderness of weed and grass. It stands on 2-metre stilts. It is a briezeblock cube 3m on an edge. It has one window. A curtain breathes in and out. It is unpainted raw cement.
We walk on along the narrow shore. Waves wet the sand to the grass. We stumble upon Seven Altars. It is in Alison’s notebook. We climb to the ticket office. Notices in English and Spanish festoon the palm-tree construction. The building is a cement floor with a roof supported by pillars. A vague palm-frond wall delimits it. Inside a garifuna guy and kids watch football on TV. Mexico is playing Honduras. So far the good guys are winning. Honduras leads 1-0.
One of the kids wants to charge us. His dad tells us there is no water in the river. It hasn’t rained for 9 months. Everything is dry. He lets us in for nothing. He is in a good mood. The good guys are ahead.
We climb to a strange rock formation. I imagine a sandstone bed. It is level across its width. Its long axis tilts towards the sea. Furrows align across the bed of the river. I imagine stones and boulders grinding furrows until they break through the bed to other rock below. Horizontal potholes create a staircase.
We return to the TV marquee. Jason hallucinates Coke. He selects a big bottle. I offer 100Q. Garifa man waves it away. No sale. He can’t make change for 100Q.
We see historical stuff about garifauna on the walls. We see a strange shrine. The centrepiece is a picture of Bob Marley. In the margin Mary goofs and Jesus hangs on a cross.
We walk back past sea-sorted photo-degraded trash. I notice no nurdles. I see no Barbie dolls, bath toys, margarine tubs or plastic bags. I see plastic caps and lids, a plastic fork, a strapping band. I see expanded polystyrene in drifts and dunes. Trash litters the lawns tens of metres inland.
We swim. We sundown. We order coconuts full of milk. Jason adds rum. We sip.
Dinner parallels lunch. Alison has spaghetti. Loose carrots chase about her plate at random. Jason has fried not boiled fish. I stick with the known.
Animals with massive testicles slop around the table. They beg for food.
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