Becoming a Local

I am fast becoming a local in a small seaside town on the Northern Pacific coast of Costa Rica. I get a discount in the supermarket. The weary vendors that plod along the beach in the gruelling heat selling coconuts, animal shaped whistles, full body massages and jewellery made out of shells have stopped lighting up when I walk past; they know I won’t buy anything. The lethargic man with leathery skin who slumps beneath the leafy shade of the same palm tree each day no longer lifts his gaze; even the local insect population has stopped biting me, savagely insistent upon my arrival, they now prefer the blood of the pasty-legged tourists, fresh off the plane.

I’m learning to read the waves and work out which way they will break. I plan my entire day around the rise and fall of the tide and know that a few moments of flat are followed by a crescendo of ravenous water. I can sense how long it will take for the rain drops to fall when the lightning flickers on the horizon and, from the shape and colour of the clouds, calculate how much time I have to walk to the store and pick up my groceries before the torrential rain converts the dusty road into a river of slushy mud.

The surfaces of the streets here are impossibly badly laid. The thirsty earth is dehydrated and cracks open in the punishing midday sun, a dust cloud enveloping pedestrians when a passing 4x4 skims by. It’s even worse when the Heavens open and the going becomes treacherously slippery. I desperately struggle not to dislocate a knee or fall over ungraciously on my behind, as the backs of my legs get splattered with sodden earth.

It’s not recommended to leave anything unattended on the beach, not even flip flops, so I fully experience the loose rubble, sharp beneath my toes, or the soft squelch as I slip and slide my way barefoot to the beach, surfboard tucked under arm and dodging shards of broken beer bottles, pot holes and monkey excrement. From their deafening call it’s easy to see why howler monkeys win the award for loudest land mammal on earth; their eerie lament can be heard for up to three kilometres away.

It’s ladies’ night tonight at Sharky’s and again on Saturday I believe. I have never been but I know their timetable, I walk past the sign every day. The few times that I’ve been out to bars here have left me with little desire to go back. They’re full of lecherous locals drivelling over and praying on drunken tourists and the music pumps distortedly and crackly out of large blown speakers.

My hair has been bleached a funny colour and my ribs are permanently black and blue from the pummelling I take in the ocean. I eat a whole avocado every day and my favourite snack is spicy refried beans spread over crunchy crackers, instead of the marmite on toast I devour when I’m visiting my family in the UK, or when they send me care packages abroad. I’ve had marmite posted to me around the world – that quintessentially English spread that represents a little jar of black gold for me, even if most people find it vehemently repulsive.

If I leave anything out on the counter the resident colony of ants will arm an invasion; I’m getting pretty good at clearing up after myself speedily now. I’m even getting used to the grating screech of the fan and the sand that gets in my bed sheets and all my important electrical items. I am mesmerized by the geckos as they patter across the walls or stop dead, suckered to the spot on the ceiling when they sense that I am watching. The bull frogs croaking in the undergrowth don’t frighten me anymore and the daily power cut is no longer cause for alarm, even my tenuous internet connection as reliable as an English summer fails to get me flustered these days. I think I’m becoming a local.

A Horse in the Road, Honduras

My eyes were glazing over from staring at the screen of my laptop too long. I lifted my gaze for a moment, just in time to see the horse that filled the windscreen; the wretched creature’s eyes widening with fear at the car hurtling towards him. There was a sickening scrape of tyres on the gravel and time played in slow motion as the petrified animal scrambled out of our path, the thick blanket of banana trees loomed ever closer and the vehicle zigzagged from side to side, like a rally car. Amidst the chaos I could hear someone screaming and then realised a split-second later that it was me. Time was temporarily distorted; decelerated as if watching one still frame of a camera after another.

At last the driver jolted awake in time to slam his foot on the break and we skidded to a stop, my head lightly banging the seat in front, the dust clouds rising around us and the smell of burnt rubber and dirt filling the car. The dense green foliage swayed in the breeze and there was a sudden anti-climatic silence but for a few birds cawing in the distance and the humming of the radiator. Two campesinos bearing machetes, cutting down crops a few feet away, were staring agape with a mixture of concern and bemusement written on their faces, as they beheld the dented rental car enveloped in a cloud of dust, with a horse flinching in its wake.

This wasn’t the first time I had the feeling that I might die in this part of the world or that my vehicle had swerved off the road; at least this time there was a line of banana trees to break the fall. In Guatemala when our bus nearly lurched over the edge of a cliff with a blown tyre, we tilted sharply to the right, the whole bus balancing on two wheels as the sheer drop below beckoned. I saw my life flash before me to the sound of merengue music and a rosary dangling from the rear view mirror; along with several chickens, bags of tamales, rice, and brightly coloured pinks, reds, oranges and yellows of the Mayan women’s clothing. It seems there will always be an animal present each time I brush with death to share a terrified glance with before we pass into the next life.

After assessing the miraculously limited damage and saying our prayers and a few hostias we continued back to Tegucigalpa. I don’t think I even blinked for the rest of the journey, eyes rigidly fixed on the road ahead, lost in thought about how I’d come to be here, working in a country like this where a simple journey could turn into several hours, on a constant look-out for bandidos, or gaping crevices in the road and stray animals that wondered into the path. Working mostly 12 hour days, running around in three inch heels giving interviews, breakfast meetings at 7am, night-time appointments in coffee foundations on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula, imagination running wild as the gun shots in the distance felt uncomfortably close.

The daylight began to fade as we finally approached Comayaguela, the gateway to the city that also happened to be the most desperate part of town and not where you wanted to be after dark, lost in this rats nest of dead-end alleyways, closed streets, road blocks, one ways, crack addicts, thieves, ghosts of people with vacant stares, shoeless children with gammy eyes, houses without roofs, shops without doors and far too few police to maintain order.

Nerves on the edge of a knife, I’d been awake for almost three days and tomorrow we had an early meeting with the Minister of Communications, an ironic misnomer due to the fact that he was the hardest man in Honduras to get hold of. How would I go in to that appointment as if nothing had happened today; as if I wasn't exhausted and my clothes weren’t damp and dirty shoved into a rucksack, my suit jacket left hanging on its perch from Friday night, that felt like an eternity ago now. Still… how else would I be spending Sunday if I were anywhere else but here and what’s the point in being alive if you aren't reminded of your own mortality from time to time? Even if it is by a horse.

Cienfuegos, Cuba

After the continuous movement of Havana, the throngs of people, beaten out cars, and salsa music blaring from every corner, the empty streets of Cienfuegos with their colourful buildings that looked like they were made out of candy were a welcome and peaceful relief. Cobbled streets lined with cheerfully painted houses were picture-perfect and fairytale clean after the crumbling apartment blocks of the city.

The searing midday heat pounded me like a sledgehammer and I had to concentrate hard just to keep my eyes open as the fury in my head pressed against my temples. The lack of people in the streets was a telling sign that the best way to deal with a punishingly hot climate was to stay indoors and fan yourself. But I didn’t come to Cuba to stay inside my hotel room, I wanted to explore.... Although it has to be noted, “hotel room” is a generous term for the bed I am renting behind the net curtain in the back of the casa of the señora with the permanent curlers in her hair and thin lips permanently set into a stern line.

Renting rooms in casas particulares here is a mixed bag of experiences. There are few hotels outside of the main tourist zones and the ones that were available blew my budget to pieces. The only option was to rent a room in a house where you could play with the children, eat dinner with the family and learn more about their culture. Well that was when it was good; when it was bad you were renting from your wicked old Aunt that imposed a curfew and made you eat all of your greens. If you’re not careful they will drill you into spilling all of the details of your itinerary and then phone their cousins (every Cuban has a thousand of these whether by blood or not) and get you to stay with them in different places across Cuba, delivering messages and even packages as you go, and keeping the business in the family. I understand the need to look out for their own but I detest being moved around like a chess piece, especially by a woman as domineering and cold as the señora of this casa.

I had not even the most minimal desire to go back to the casa but something was wrong as I never suffered from the heat, relishing in its every last ray, soaking up its goodness like a sponge. I had to hang back in the shade for a moment, as my dizziness caused the streets to move.

Loud speakers cranked up in the distance and the atmosphere outside began to change a little as a small rabble of people dribbled over to the plaza, eventually joined by a few more until a sizable gathering was formed. A powerful song played loud across the town plaza and neighbouring streets, commemorating the lost compadres who had died in the revolution, while freeing Cuba from the Imperialists. I thought it must have been an anniversary or some kind of commemorative occasion, but the lady beside me with the ill-fitting leopard print lycra top confirmed that this was a daily ritual.

Suddenly the voice of Fidel resounded loud and bold throughout the parks as he began his daily discourse, encouraging Cubans to stand firm against the evil and cunning capitalists, shoulder to shoulder in defence of communism and the Cuban way of life. The enemy to the North may try to bring Cuba down but they would stand and fight to the death, until they had nothing left, not the shirt on their back or the food on their tables, “patria o muerte” (motherland or death!), he belted out with a tremendous force that rattled the speakers.

The citizens of Cienfuegos looked about as moved by these stirring words as an adolescent in a bible studies class when his friends are out at a disco, unable to disguise the fact that they hear the same speech, or some variation of it, every day at the same time blasting out from the scratchy speakers, and Fidel has a tendency to waffle a little. As emotive as his words may have been, we were contending with a relentless heat that must have been approaching 40 in the shade. The mothers fanned themselves while chewing on gum and the children shuffled uncomfortably from side to side on their feet.

What a riddle this country really is. With a spirited people that you would have thought would have risen up at any moment and said “enough”, in the same way they find his speeches dull, and his doctrine wearing thin, Fidel is like that grumpy old grandfather who you complain about bitterly but tolerate and love because he’s part of your family. Actually it’s like one big family in Cuba; this is the overwhelming sensation here. Living with so little has fostered the need to ask for help from your neighbour and to give it back regularly.

The taxi driver who took me to the beach yesterday said that in his opinion there were lots of good things about Cuba, about the system, about Fidel, of whom he spoke with the same sense of love and frustration as one would a close relative; dismissive and respectful, rebellious and obedient all at once. They may not agree with many of his ways and bit by bit they are gradually more exposed to the realities of life under different regimes elsewhere, but they love him all the same. “Es lo que hay” is a popular expression in this little Caribbean island... “this is what we have” they say while shrugging their shoulders and continuing their conversations.

He showed me several of Havana’s 4 and 5 star hotels in which Cubans are allowed no further than the lobby. If I had wanted to get romantically involved with a Cuban during my stay I would have had to have gone to the police station and registered my consent, picking up a document to present to the police every time we were asked what we were doing and if it was allowed. The reason is simple; to keep Cubans away from the influence of foreigners and as in the dark as much as possible. Later on I would see the same thing happening in Venezuela, as Chavez removed English from the school curriculum and prevented the villages from having Internet.

This is shocking apartheid, especially within the white sandy paradise areas of Varadero, where the all inclusive species of tourists, wrist bands firmly in place, remain separated in their little patch of Cuban sand, eating imported food and drinks with no involvement in the country whatsoever, but for the fat Cuban cigar they smoke form the safe distance of their balconies. I shudder at the thought. Although there are easier countries to travel round and I have had to become extremely cautious being alone, I wouldn’t trade the real experience for any amount of paid-for cocktails or aqua aerobics in the pool.

Life is so difficult here. With a capped salary everyone earns the same; the equivalent of 15 dollars a month*, whether you are a doctor, a maid, or a technician. This money is paid in Cuban pesos, which clearly goes much further than 15 dollars would and is technically enough to subside on, but little wonder that the majority are continually scraping to make ends meet and that they see a foreigner as a chance to make a quick buck.

After my second day of non-stop intensity, where I was swept up by more than one Cuban, grabbed by the waist, invited out to dance salsa, proposed to and asked for money by more than fifty different people, I finally reached breaking point, screaming at the last man who had been so bold as to ask me for change that I was a backpacker and not a walking dollar sign, a woman alone and all I wanted was to walk the streets in peace. He was devastated by my reaction and profusely apologised afterwards, sensing I was on the point of tears. It turned out that he was a doctor. But why work his life away in service when he could ask 15 tourists for a dollar and make his monthly salary in an hour or so? You can understand the people’s frustration.

The taxi driver also told me how difficult it was to get hold of cars in Cuba, that usually they were handed down through the family or sometimes it was possible to buy one second hand, but never new, hence the antique Cadillacs and burned out Russian ladas, an echo back to the days of cooperation with the Soviet bloc. Nothing is thrown away in Cuba and even light bulbs, alarm clocks and things you would normally toss out are repaired hundreds of times.

There’s such a fading glory to Havana, the city frozen in time, the dull expression in so many people’s eyes reflecting the fading facades of the crumbling buildings. The stores are ill-stocked and most of the shelves are bare. In one restaurant I ordered a salad of vegetables “in season” and was presented with a saucer of 4 slices of cucumber. A portion of fries brought exactly nine and when I asked for ketchup it was rationed out, drop by drop, as the waitress returned with the bottle to the bar. There is a national shortage of absolutely everything and this is not the reality you see when you spend your vacation in a hotel.

Electricity is scarce and you have to use it while you can. There is only a supply some of the time and, apart from the 5-star resorts; they turn it off completely during the day. I had been trying to buy a writing pad for a while now, jotting down my notes on the back of a calendar. I went to seven different stores here and in the capital and with no success, having to line up for more than an hour, being bustled about, stared down, ignored, to at last be told “no mi amor no hay” (sorry love, we don’t have any). It’s frustrating and I have experienced three days; living with this reality must work away at the people like a drip, drip effect as they slowly descend into acceptance.

The floor starts to swirl and there’s a pain in my stomach so intense that I began to wretch and vomit. I feel my head hitting the pavement hard and everything goes black. A few hours later I awake and the son of the sergeant major señora is standing over me. “You’re going to be alright” he said soothingly, “take this” as he handed me a pill and pressed a wet towel on my forehead. It turns out that the skinny guy who hangs out on the porch of the house all day rocking in an armchair is a doctor too. This is a curious country. I need to find out more.

*I was in Cuba in 2005, when the dollar was still widely used and these details were correct.

A Strange Place To Buy An Alarm Clock

It was about 3am when the bus pulled into Campeche and I took a taxi straight to the budget hostal I had circled in my guide book, that apparently had 24 hour service. As we rumbled over the cobblestone streets and past the zocalo (town plaza) I smiled to myself at the familiar flags that drape every Mexican public space; the cheerful colours of the houses and the balmy late-night air evoking an infectious warmth throughout my body, despite the tiredness after a nine-hour bus ride. Campeche is striking at first sight by night, ringed by an ancient fortress wall, gloriously illuminated by powerful flood lights.

As we veered away from the centre and towards a back street, the destination of my choice was a fairly daunting site with its prison-like doors, robust with iron bars, and bells that required several rounds of ringing before a middle-aged man, grunting and cursing and scratching his head, came down.

I was instructed to wait while he readied the room, and I did so for about 15 minutes, with my heavy pack on my back. I studied the cracks in the walls and the insects that giddily danced about the open light bulbs. At last he made his way grumpily down the stairs and inclined his head, leading me, with no offer of help to carry the luggage, up the rickety staircase to the most spartan room imaginable.

The impossibly high ceilings made the empty room even more intimidating as the naked walls bore no sign of paintings or drapes or, in fact, any attempt at decoration at all. The large patches of open cement, where the paint had peeled off completely were accompanied by a ceiling fan that screeched with a desperate howling capable of waking the dead, and there was an awkwardly-placed wardrobe in the corner with a door hanging off.

There was no sheet on the bed and I received a thunderous look when I asked for one, as this far-from-welcoming hotelier growled off muttering loudly, with no attempt to conceal his clear dislike of me. There was no mirror in the room and when I went to the bathroom at the end of the hallway to take out my contact lenses, there wasn’t one there either. I took a deep breath and wrestled with my fear as I walked along the creaking hallway back to my room, pulled the sheet up to my ears and tried to think of something else until sleep finally relieved me from my nerves.

When the morning dawned a few hours later, the shadows that the moonlight had cast on my bed and across the walls, wreaking havoc in my over-active imagination, were gone. I had to arrange my trip to the ruins of Uxmal and I walked off in search of the bus station, which took me past the plaza, the market, and beyond the city limits as I sweated copiously and unbecomingly in the furious, unrelenting heat.

It is quite amazing the difference it makes in Mexico walking the streets alone or walking with a man. Having decided to part ways at this leg of the journey, my male friend and travelling companion, Paul, was now on his way to Cancun. Walking with Paul, the men around me were somewhat subdued and all I attracted were a few muted stares. Walking alone provoked overwhelming scenes of whistles, catcalls, bus drivers beeping their horns as they juddered past, old men asking me where I was going and inviting me to drinks, offers to carry my bags, and constant, omnipresent, ill-concealed,lustful stares.

It can be a little scary being a woman alone and I can’t deny that it’s a challenge but I’m getting to know a side of myself that I wasn’t aware existed before. There’s something empowering about ploughing through an unknown terrain in a foreign land that most people I know are either frightened by or have never heard of, and actually doing it – travelling it – feeding off of the colourful streets, the heady smells of boiling corn and fried tortillas, the broken sidewalks, pot-holed pavement and just... life – pure provincial Mexican life – exploding with music and vital energy before my eyes.

Exploring the streets and nosing about the markets, I don’t feel lonely at all. Lying on the “beach”, which in Campeche is really nothing more than a gravel pit with children’s play things and some patches of grass, that drops off sharply into horribly contaminated water (its name – playa bonita – (pretty beach) somewhat undeserved), I am quite content with my own company. My life in Madrid is such a frenzied blur of social activities, parties, outings, chat and company, it’s slowly dawning on me that I haven’t been alone for a very long time. I think I had almost convinced myself that I couldn’t be alone. I had forgotten about the solitary, reflective side of myself that likes to observe sometimes, happy to not be the centre of attention. Sitting here watching the kids play and the chubby Mexican lady at my side cackle with embarrassed delight as her husband places a cheeky hand on her buttock doesn’t make me miss anybody. It just makes me smile.

Plus I was still processing the curious event that had happened as I was walking back from the bus station. Paul had gone off with the alarm clock and I had no cell phone, or watch, or in fact any way of ensuring I made the early-morning bus tomorrow, so I stopped by the market that spread over the narrow streets, stand after stand that promised to satiate every sense of the body from pungent smells to florescent colours, delicious tastes of melt-in-your-mouth beef tacos and loud, relentless merengue music.

I challenge you to imagine of the most innately bizarre item you can think of and can say with absolute confidence that, in a Mexican market, you will find it here. From sex toys to steaming pigs’ ears and chilly-fried grasshoppers, flashlights and door fastenings, anything you could possibly need is taken care of in the mercado.

I stopped at a small stall that had batteries and watches, and little plastic dogs with heads that wagged up and down when you flicked them, to ask a lady if she sold alarm clocks, at which she called her husband over from the table behind, where he was swigging beer and playing cards. They engaged in a heavy discussion, arguing back and forth about something that seemed to be worthy of great debate. After a few raised eyebrows and smouldering looks between them, the lady turned to me, composed herself, and smiled, indicating that yes; they did sell alarm clocks and if I would be so amable, to follow her husband where he would get one for me.

He led me out of the market and down a narrow street far less populated and noisy, the throbbing music somewhat muffled in the distance. The Mexican Senor looked me up and down with a gap-toothed smile revealing a golden crown, as I continued to follow him further away from hub of the market and into his house.

With his instruction I waited in the living room, which was about as kitsch as you can imagine with a hideous infusion of tastes (bad ones) from ornate multi-coloured plastic feather birds on the walls, to a trickling fountain with neon lights in the corner and fake flowers in a vase on the crocheted tablecloth. He went into his bedroom and came back out, emerging with something that definitely resembled an alarm clock –theirs.

It wasn’t really a travel alarm clock and its analogue design and juddering hands inspired little faith in me as to its effectiveness – Mexico isn’t really famous for its punctuality – but he assured me of its flawless performance. You know when you walk into a small store and you’re the only person inside and the desperate shop assistant is stalking you, jumping out behind a railing with an offer as you’re trying to subtly look around? I didn’t really feel I could refuse this purchase, however strange it was coming in to their house and buying pieces of it.

He opened a fridge full of beer and pulled down a wooden flap on the dresser to reveal a perfectly stocked liquor cabinet with glasses, decanters and the whole works, offering me cerveza, tequila, ron, or anything I wanted, eying me in a slightly inappropriate way. I decided that perhaps I had gone as far as I should have, seeing as I was in a perfect stranger’s living room in a city suburb in Mexico and it might not be the best idea. I decided to say my polite “thank yous” and make my exit, chuckling to myself as I made my way back towards my hotel, examining the alarm clock in my hand that would always have a story behind it whether it worked or not.

I’ve certainly done my share of travelling alone. I’ve felt just about as lonely and frightened and desperate as it’s possible to feel and then – even worse – returned to my own country, even more of a foreigner, with friends I can no longer relate to and with little tolerance for listening to what I’d been up to so many miles away. I’ve reckoned with the stark realisation that most of my adventures will only ever exist inside my own memory and only live as long as I do, or as long as I am conscious enough to remember. The beating orange sun that dissipated over the fortress of Campeche that night, the salty smell in the coastal air and the story behind the alarm clock will live inside of me only. That is the sad thing about travelling alone.

I remember one time in New Zealand, on an impulse I decided to do a skydive, free-falling over a vast expanse of volcanoes, lakes and steaming geezers, the wind penetrating my ears and rushing through my nostrils as I plummeted at more than 200km an hour towards the earth. My heart literally jumping out of my body and the adrenaline pumping through my veins for the entire day and I had no one to share it with. Such was the time difference I couldn’t call any friends in England and I certainly wouldn’t have called my parents, having promised not to do anything risky while I was away; my poor father exceptionally paranoid after my parachuting instructor in England died a few months before I left because of a mal-functioning shoot. So I just ran into the little shops in the sleepy town of Lake Tekapo yelling “I just did a skydive!! I just did a skydive!!” as the bemused assistants smiled blandly back at me; absurd foreign teenagers doing outlandish things was nothing unusual for them.

Today I’m on some fake beach in the South East of Mexico, my current home a God-forsaken cell-like room that would evoke fear in the hearts of the bravest of men and yet I feel strangely, spine-tingly alive... Viva Mexico!

Gypsy Spirit

I still can’t shake the image of your eyes
Searching for answers as you left that day.
As I stood on the platform in Madrid,
Helplessly watching your bus pull away.

Standing all alone in a faceless crowd
Wondering if I’d ever see you again,
With an empty hotel room awaiting,
Bags packed and ready to get on a plane.

I have to be on the road one more time
My gypsy spirit keeps on calling me
Beyond the horizon, spontaneous
As the wind; so much of the world to see.

More than an ocean divides us now and
This is a harsh world of sadness and pain;
The rich lavish in their marble mansions
While the poor die in the street in the rain.

There are times I feel like my heart will break
With the injustice I see every day.
Though I miss you with every breath I take,
It would have been harder for me to stay.

You can’t keep a wild bird in a cage
As much as I think that you wanted to.
I love you so much for keeping the faith
That someday I would fly back to you.

Something Different... Little Girl

Little girl with the faraway eyes
Lost in the rolling tide of the sea,
The gentle waves that break on the sand,
And their hypnotising melody.

Your dress is threadbare with holes and your
Tired feet throb from walking all day.
Selling bread to ungrateful tourists
Who impatiently shoo you away.

I wish I knew where your thoughts went to,
As you stare into infinity.
Do you know what lies beyond the ocean;
Have you heard about people like me?

Who work in their air-conditioned rooms,
From 9 until 5 every day,
Complaining about how hard life is,
While planning trips and weekends away.

Your mother yells far in the distance;
Your long afternoon has just begun.
The light behind your eyes is turned off;
You know that there is no place to run.

I am so drawn to your hopeless eyes,
Little girl, and you will never know
That my heart burns with the image of
Your far-away face wherever I go.

The Moneda Crisis and Life's Other Curiosities

I sighed with that familiar exasperation as I opened my wallet and realised I only had 60 centavos in it. Now I would have to buy something just to get some change. Coins in Buenos Aires are like pens or plastic bags - you either have so many that you start to get careless about where you leave them, or you find yourself rummaging through your nightstand drawer, fishing out 5 cent coins from the fluff and dust.

Is there another place on earth where loose change is like gold dust and you would rather give a beggar a note instead of 10 cents because you have to keep hold of your change? Without coins in this city you are rendered immobile and simply cannot circulate; sometimes you can’t even buy things because the store owner is unwilling to part with valuable pennies for the sale of a cereal bar. He does the math and decides that it’s simply not worth selling it to you of it leaves him without change for the next client who will probably spend a bit more. A beaming smile and feminine charm get you nowhere when it comes down to this, trust me.

A little girl stopped me on my way to the bus the other day, her ragged clothing and disillusioned stare awoke a deep sense pity inside me. She asked if I could help her out with a “monedita” (a small coin). My heart broke as I looked at her, realising that if I parted with just one coin I wouldn’t be able to get the bus. She understood my dilemma and we began to search for a solution together. I ended up giving her my bottle of water; I could buy another one, but there’s nothing worse than finding yourself penniless and stuck in the middle of a derelict avenida late at night.

It’s just one of those integral and widely complained about, yet resignedly accepted malfunctions of Buenos Aires. The moneda (coin) crisis has been going on ever since I’ve been here and seems to have no resolution. The subway is only useful if you happen to live near a stop or don’t mind walking several blocks out of your way. At some point, if you have no personal transport, you will have to take a bus. I’ve wasted quite a considerable amount of my life waiting for and sweating inside tightly-packed busses as they creep across the city, spluttering black exhaust fume and driving too close to pedestrians.

Allow me to explain, to board a bus in Buenos Aires you have to pay with coins, dropping them into the slot machine with dexterity and skill as the driver accelerates on purpose while you have one hand on your wallet, the other on your carrying bags and no way of supporting yourself as you crash into the passenger next to you.

This need for coins on busses has led to a city-wide shortage and people are fiercely protective of them. It’s more likely that a stranger will give you their shoes than part with their loose change. Well, perhaps not their shoes, but maybe their bottle of water. There have been some solutions offered to resolve the crisis. I think extra coins were fabricated at one point but it didn’t seem to ease the shortage; some blamed the Chinese mafia for hoarding them and charging desperate store owners a hefty percentage for rolls of 1 peso coins. A few bus lines began implementing a swipe card system, which seemed like an obvious solution to me, however, the reality is that most of these have been incorrectly installed, don’t work, are vandalised, or simply haven’t arrived yet; the plans still stuck on the drawing board after more than 5 years of conception.

I walk past a little supermarket and desperately think of something I need so that I’m not simply wasting money just to get a few pennies. I know it seems ridiculous but this is a daily problem. Let me reinforce, unless the stars are aligning for you and you’re having an exceptionally lucky day, no one here will actually change a note for coins, so you almost always end up buying something cheap just to get a few pennies back. This is more of a strategic purchase than it might sound. You can’t buy just any old thing, and certainly not something with a rounded-off price tag; paying 5 or 10 pesos will only use up one note or get you another right back. Then you’re left with something you don’t want and still can’t get the bus home.

I look for a useful item for less than 5 pesos that suits my budget and needs. I scan the aisles, checking the prices and at last come across some rice cakes for $4.40. I am curiously addicted to these disgusting things and 60 cents will get me home. I approach the counter and the po-faced Chinese lady hands me a 50 cent coin and a boiled sweet. I look at her questioningly but she fails to respond- “but what about the other 10 cents? I need the 10 cents.” She shakes her head gruffly, grunting something I can’t understand and gestures towards the sweet. I hate getting my change in sweets. What good is a boiled sweet to me when I’m trying to get a bus? I sigh and walk back out onto the damp streets, slippery with the summer rain, rice cakes in hand and just enough for the long ride home.

Somehow this absurd city and I are strangely intertwined. This bustling metropolis that recompenses people with candy is tied into my DNA. It’s rather a volatile relationship and we fight constantly. Sometimes I end up crying with frustration, other times I am mean and prickly right back but somehow we always seem to make up again and for as much as I try to leave, it keeps on pulling me back. Arturo’s step-dad calls this city the “pulpo” (octopus) because it seems to suck people in with its tentacles. I certainly know a considerable amount of people (myself included) who have come here for a few weeks and ended up staying for years, all trying different and creative ways to scratch out a living in this chaotic yet curiously appealing urban jungle.

For those of you who follow my blog, scrap everything I said in the last post. Except the part about loving life because you never know what it will throw at you. I had no idea on Monday morning that this would be another a life-changing week. I still didn’t know where we would be staying at the end of the month but at least we had the country defined; project Uruguay was firmly in motion.

In a few short days that’s all changed. The universe connected me with two special people who run an exciting online music distribution business and have kindly asked me to work for them; after an interview of course. Technically, writing and account management you can do from anywhere as long as you have internet. In reality however, getting this job has halted our plans for moving to Punta del Diablo. Living in the middle of nowhere with an internet connection that crashes for a whole morning because a sea bird is sitting on the line probably isn’t all that smart.

So the upshot is I finally I have a fixed address from which I don’t plan on moving for at least the next few months. I have a sofa bed, a garden and lots of room for visitors. Our future home is literally an oasis of calm in the middle of the swirling, relentless insanity. Angel gets back from Uruguay next weekend and we will move there at the end of the month. Plan Buenos Aires is back on track. It’s really not surprising that we just did a complete 180 – our move to Northern Spain ended up with me being sent to Honduras. Latin America isn’t in my blood like it is in Angel’s, but it’s certainly in my soul.

At the end of the day the old adage is true; everything happens for a reason. I don’t believe in coincidences. You get back what you put out, pure and simple. I can literally feel the positive vibes radiating from me from months of hard work that have finally paid off. I have more clients, I’m finally getting published and I’m developing my writing skills in ways I never imagined. For anyone who is interested I just finished a very informative article about cupcake and cake ideas for boy scouts. There’s also one about tips for preventing plagiarism; we all have to pay the rent.

But finally after so many ups and downs and periods of nerve-crunching instability, I’ve found my balance once again and feel more like the old me; the one that helps old ladies cross the road and laughs when the heel of my shoe breaks or my skirt blows over my head in a sudden gust of wind. This week I held out my hands and received a fantastic job, an ideal place to live and, rather more curiously, a gold bracelet. The latter was definitely the most random and unexpected of all. I arrived home from lunch today and went to take the garbage out. There was a man sitting slumped upon my door step with dirty fingernails and a small mirror in his hand from which he had just snorted some crack. He raised his eyes to look at me and asked something I didn’t really understand. Most of his teeth were missing and he had dry white saliva in the corners of his mouth. His shoes were ridden with holes and his young face already etched with wrinkles and a deep scar on his cheek.

His name is Esteban, and Esteban by profession is technically a cartonero. This is another inherent cultural element that I’m not really sure exists outside of Buenos Aires, but is basically all about recycling. In more developed and regulated countries, garbage is separated and recycled at the plant (at least we are told that it is) and the garbage trucks come and take away what you’re allowed to throw. What you can’t, like sofas or fridges or toxic waste, depending on how good you are, you take down to the dump or deposit on the street late at night when no one else can see.

Here the cartoneros basically manage the city’s recycling system. You see them fishing through the garbage bags and extracting materials that can be exchanged for cash; cardboard, plastic, clothes. It may not be the most efficient system as the poor cartoneros have to rummage through sack-fulls of rotten food and waste and the streets usually end up full of discarded litter, but at least they are able to make some kind of a living from the stuff that other people ultimately don’t want. It’s a hard life being a cartonero and you see them, the successful ones, pulling a large cart behind them, sweating in the heat, loaded up with boxes and recyclable materials. The smaller players, like Esteban, just rummage around in the hopes of getting lucky and finding things they can exchange for food, or drugs, or alcohol to numb the desperate biting harshness of their daily lives.

It’s generally accepted that you don’t interact very much with the cartoneros and certainly don’t engage in conversation. I think a lot of people believe that if they ignore them long enough then they will eventually go away. It reminds me of when I was in Alice Springs, a bizarrely hostile town in the dead centre of Australia, probably the strangest place I’ve ever been to in my life. The Aborigines just hung about the plaza or underneath the shade of a tree whilst the predominant white population just pretended not to see them, carrying about their daily activities as if they weren’t there. The sad truth is that most of us don’t care that much about anyone else until they have penetrated our outer layers with a smile, a stare, or some sort of communication that forces us to drop our guards and let them in.

I’m the first to admit that Esteban and I probably don’t have much in common, but what right do I have to deny him a few moments of my time? At least have the decency to acknowledge his presence on my doorstep. Most people in Latin America don’t give money or time to street tramps, beggars or charities, believing they will put it to bad use in buying more of whatever substance they need to get them through the day – and in most cases it’s probably true - so there is a tendency to look away when people jump onto the subway and start to ask for money.

Yesterday a little boy, maybe about 5 years old, began to speak loudly, engaging the commuters with his commanding voice. He took out 4 balls from a large sack and began to juggle, catching a few in the nape of his neck and throwing others under one leg and over his shoulder. Despite the gripping performance and spectacular efforts of this marvellous child, you could almost see the discomfort radiating off the people whose eyes remained fixed on the floor. He finished his act and I began to clap as he pleaded the silent people for applause. What level of separation from strangers have we reached that we can’t even praise a little boy who should be playing football with his friends that is instead juggling balls in a crowded subway car? I told him he was “fantastico” and his chubby face burst into a smile. Of course he wants money but even more than that I think he just wants to be acknowledged; like this cartonero in my doorway.

Staring at me in his drug-induced state, Esteban asks me where I’m from; apparently I was even harder for him to understand than he was for me and we limped our way through a stilted conversation. His eyes were rolling slightly in the back of his head. I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone can really find their way back when they reach this low in life. I have to hope that they can, I need to believe that it’s possible. Life is unpredictable. I ended up giving him a few pesos and a printer. I thought that maybe he could do something with the spare parts as the machine that I had stopped working long ago and has been taking up space in my living room.

He smiled and pulled out a shiny gold bracelet from his pocket “this is for you”. I lit up with a smile – “are you sure?” I asked him as he nodded his head again and rather painfully attempted to fasten the fragile clasp around my wrist, whilst swaying from side to side. I can only guess at the past life of this little trinket. A stranger didn’t give me shoes today, but a stranger gave me a gold bracelet. If we just let our guards down for a moment and remember that we are all human after all, amazing things can happen.