Last 24 Hours

I went down to the village to print photos for my neighbors before leaving. I did this even though everyone has a phone with a camera that has better quality than my camera, but the novelty of a gringo taking the photo appealed to everyone so I played the hero at great expense. The engineers all went off in a troop transport and I decided I had missed my ride home so started to walk the 4 hours into the mountains...but it turned out that I hadn´t missed my ride and went back to town and waited...and we started up the steep mountain road in his truck with the photos tucked into a case of soda.

The driver stopped to talk to his mother about 3-4 of the way to the top and as we were leaving crossed path with a motorcyclist going down the mountain...who turned out to be a policeman...who then slipped his sunglasses off his nose slowly like he was acting in a movie and revealed his eyes were crossed with moonshine/everclear poisoning.

I am illegally in this country because I can´t do anything right and am a pitiful fuck up who merely entertains dick smackers on the internet with my lame travel porn, so I tried to play dumb as the confrontation began, involving accusations, dogs barking, roosters with their legs tied tight so they have to walk like Contra prisoners in chains...and the policeman insists everyone is going to jail...and to prove his superiority turns his bike around, stalls, drives back up the mountain, turns around, crashes to the ground, struggles to stand up and almost hits the truck on his way back down. The confrontation lasts a little while longer and it occurs to me that the policeman is totally shit-faced drunk and about to navigate the worst part of the worst mountain road but I can´t say anything though I consider jumping on the bike and offering to drive down for him....or else handcuffing him in a citizen´s arrest and taking his keys for the safety of the community. I do none of this and eventually the policeman gets back on his bike, adjusts his sunglasses and helmet, says something with disdain and anger and revs his throttle like T-1000 and peels out at high speed and drives directly off a steep mountain cliff at the first curve. We flee, of course, because we don´t want to get involved or implicated and I am glad because I have no legal documents. We heard reports he died and also reports he merely broke his jaw and collarbone.

So I hand out my photos and spend one more night playing evangelical christian cajun music from a piano powered by solar batteries...and the next day drive down the mountain, picking up a woman who literally jumps out of the moving van after two dangerous curves and some ugly sounds from the suspension. It takes 50 minutes to descend 5 KM but I eventually get to the bottom and pat myself on the back because I survived the worst road I´ve ever seen and built a bridge in the process. I have video of the descent that will be archived until the fuckhead voyeurs find somewhere else to troll while they wait for their tranny porn to download. The brakes are ruined, my piano is upside down on the wood stove but I survived and drive south...

...and am stopped at the first police checkpoint I pass. The conversation in Spanish was painful and went like this...

Police - Your paperwork has expired.
Oggy - Why?
Police - Because it expìred one week ago. You have no legal documents and I am going to take you to jail.
Oggy - What day is today?
Police - The 22nd of August.
Oggy - Isn´t today the 15th of August? I am driving out of the country right now. I just spent three weeks volunteering to build a bridge. I had no phone service. I don´t understand.
Police -  Today is the 22nd, sir, so I am placing you under arrest and confiscating your vehicle until you pay the fine and acquire legal documents.

What followed was a delicate bargaining process to keep me out of jail as the cop was looking at my guitars like I was Santa Claus in a big blue and white sleigh. This is the second time in Southern travels that I undeniably broke the law and was caught and had to buy my way out of jail, which certainly is a better solution than what happens in the United States. This is good because I don´t want to have to ask anyone for help since I only know worthless assholes who sit around their lonely apartments and beat off and wouldn´t know how to bail a person out of a Central American jail if Moe's gave free seminars on the process.

I escape with a much lighter wallet and flee south, the van is still plagued by water in the gas and I have been sick for a week with vomit flowing from my mouth. I set the piano up in a random hotel and play some Cole Porter. Then I get into my hammock naked and it rains on me all night through the windows. In the morning I jerk off like a horny teenager who just found his father's stack of Penthouse magazines and then take a giant shit in a toilet I make of newspaper and nearly knock myself unconscious trying to get out of the van. I wash my hands and my ass right there on the street sidewalk and then I vomit in the park and try to walk to the lagoon but see and internet cafe and decide I should write this down quick because I might not have another chance.

Onward South

The bridge is complete and the van is in one piece. I am trying not to exploit myself for the entertainment of the frivolous.

Building Bridges

The first road in 8 years that defeated El Conquistador

But it was done to assist with this bridge building project.

Generic Travel Photos

Another Weapon Against Tyranny

I didn´t intend to get another photo of this church, but the van stalled and died directly in front of it. So I blocked the graffiti and took another one. The composition is better for this one but the lighting was better in the other one.

Not an uncommon position for Oggy

Hammock

Now I have everything

I should write a tale about how I installed this hammock, not only the details but also the philosophic implications. I bought 2 hammocks because I couldn´t decide between the one you see here and a traditional loose cotton weave...and then I found a third hammock that was made of jersey cotton and seemed more plush, like a combination of the two...but this particular hammock with the tight weave seems the best one with the least stretch. I don´t have much room to droop. The problem was the heat soaking into the foam mattress would not dissipate for hours after I laid down. Even then no air could reach the underside of Oggy´s tortured body. So, I thought a hammock would be an improvement and even allow me to leave the piano on the bed.

Rear Hook: One hole was too high to put the nut on so I drilled another through the curtain holder

But hanging it required some serious thought, and it turned out I over-thought the whole thing and bought a bunch of eye bolts and carabiners and rope, but in the end only needed to drill one hole in the back and hang an S hook from the front.

Front Hook: Merely bent the lip low so I can put the hook in. Double strength so it will hold anyone.

The rear hook was an epic feat of engineering as the rear metal is a stamped box with no access to the inside area except through the tiny area where the door latch enters when I close the door. But it was big enough to glue a nut to the end of a coat hanger and push a washer (arendelas) and the nut (tuerca) into the boxed area and blindly thread the nut...but it worked because I am Oggy and nothing can stop me.

Eventually, someone will try to determine how I did this...and they will conclude that I put the nut and the washer through this latch hole glued to a small coat hanger...threading it blindly onto the hook...and they will be right. But they won´t know I did it all in the dark next to a coffee processing plant in Esteli, Nicaragua...

There is just enough room to hang the hammock and be freely swinging. Not enough room to play the guitar while in the hammock but I can´t have everything. I have moved to the higher altitude so the heat isn´t as bad here but soon I will know if this is viable.
Traveling with this much crap really wouldn´t be so bad if I were just going from Point A to Point B but I´ve managed to find a project that will involve some hopping around and dwelling indefinitely in pueblas and cities and that is when everything gets tedious because I have too much shit piled around to do any specific living. Like, trying to find my sewing kit and do some impromptu embroidering was painful. And Installing this hammock would´ve been so easy had I not done it on the side of a cigar factory

In other news, the gasoline companies in Nicaragua add a red dye and also water to their gasoline. Yes, water. A trucker told me that and it explained why the performance had gone haywire recently. Not only was the altitude messing with the mixture, but the mixture included water...and red dye...and crappy octane gasoline...and the attendants will not reset the dial to ZERO...in order to sell you 400 Cordobas worth of gasoline at a cost 500 Cordobas...because the dial says 500, which includes 100 from the previous customer. And other times, they will simply hope you don´t confirm the dial says the amount you paid for, such as asking for 500...and they merely pump 400 and ask for 500. But the water in the gasoline really irks me...and I think there is a water remover additive I can look for.

It occurs to me that the idle issues came with less than 1/4 tank of gas...much of it probably water...stalling the engine randomly...and at high altitude.