Above: Toby at sunset
Tuesday 1/15/08 Maderas Beach, San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua
Matilda’s Camping is a quaint guesthouse/campground that is tucked away at the edge of the far cove at Maderas Beach. Cheap, clean, and accented with strange sculptures and funky wooden furniture, the place attracts an eclectic mix of weary vagabonds, spunky vacationers, and rowdy backpackers.
For nine days, it was home.
*****
When I first met Toby, a rail-thin, dreadlocked British chap in the middle of a four-month stint at Matilda’s, he told me the following joke using that raspy, accented, smoker’s voice of his:
Q—What is cold, white, and hides behind trees?
A—Shy milk
Above: Toby at sunset
For the past six years Toby has been working as a general caretaker at a hostel in England. I asked him about his job and his face sparked a big toothy smile.
“How do you like working at the hostel? You must get to meet so many interesting folks day in and day out, huh?” I asked.
Smile.
“Oh man, it’s great fun. I meet some real wackos and the vacation time can’t be beat, really. What other jobs give you four months off every year?”
“Wow, four months? I don’t know, not many I guess.” Pause. “Do you go to a different place every year?”
“Yeah, try to. This year I’m spending every day of my vacation at this very spot. Four long ones at Matilda’s. The rest of Nicaragua will have to wait—this place is just too magical right now. It’ll change in a few years as tourists come and smother the place, but right now it’s just…” His voice trailed off as he waved his hand at a rocky promontory silhouetted by a slipping sun, at the empty beach. “It’s special now.”
Above: Another sunset at Maderas
I knew he was right, that Maderas would change. Rumors of multi-year development projects slated to start in the next year or two shot back and forth between guests and residents alike like the beach volleyball that people bounced around at sunset. Ironically, the serenity that the place harbored, the placid calm that oozed from it and drew in tourists and developers like a flower lures bees, was the same ephemeral vibe that would be pulverized by contractors’ nail guns, jackhammers, and bulldozers. On the tongues of many, its honey would sour.
“Sacred,” I said, unable to pull my eyes from the pinks and oranges soaking the sky above us.
*****
Once the clouds faded to an ashy gray and we started walking back to Matilda’s to make dinner, I asked Toby about something I had been chewing on for the past week or so as guests came and went, taking small pieces of me with them.
Above: Louise, Me, Toby with a sunset in our eyes
“Hey, I’m curious. With all the guests that you meet at the hostel, all the introductions and the usual traveler questions you field and ask, do you ever get kind of jaded by it all? I mean doesn’t meeting people get tiring and less exciting with each year that passes? I imagine you must be so sick of talking to backpacker’s, listening to them think out loud about what they might, maybe, possibly want to do with their lives, what countries they have ‘done’, as if places on this planet can be completed like crossword puzzles or something. Don’t you ever get sick of it all?” I knew my question revealed that I was the one who feared getting sick of it all, that I feared becoming jaded, but I didn’t care.
Toby didn’t need to think twice before answering. He spoke with confidence.
“Absolutely not. No. Every person I meet makes me more excited to get out there. Out everywhere. You don’t need to dwell on all that stuff, man. Don’t go there when you meet people, take the conversation where you want to take it. All the usual traveler questions are silly and pointless, so don’t ask or answer them right when you first meet someone. They’re designed to keep the talk safe and polite. And safe and polite is always boring! Hey, people are filled with information about where they’re from, right? It’s up to you to dig through all that information and learn from it. Asking ‘How long are you traveling?’ or ‘What type of job do you have back home?’—it’s just a waste of time when you first meet someone. What if they leave the next day before you ever get to ask them the real stuff?”
I knew he was right.
When I met a bunch of Swedish backpackers at Matilda’s later that night, instead of asking them where they were from, what type of work they did, how long they were traveling, or where they were heading next, I asked them the following question after we introduced ourselves:
“If you could spend one day with any person dead or alive in any city on Earth, who would it be and where would you go?” (Thanks for the inspiration for this one, Patti!)
Sure enough, the conversation leaped over all of the usual introductory roadblocks typically blabbered among new acquaintances and zoomed right to the meaty anecdotes and responses that make nights full and memories sticky.
Above: Rock or giant squid–you decide.
Posted in Bike trip: Nicaragua
