05-20-2018, 11:08 AM
Monkeys giggled in the manjack trees
as we bumbled sweat gorged and crimson
to the volcano’s base.
Julio, our guide, was unaffected,
“We only went halfway up, Chico's,
you should only feel half dead!
You guys like beer? I know a place that’s close.”
His suggestion hit us like espresso,
and we started buzzing down a dirt road
towards a pebbled, rocky beach
with a small shack nestled in the shade
where the sand and forest meet.
Plastic chairs were arrayed around the shack
with a view of the lake, and as we took our seats
I noticed no one was around.
Peeking into the shack, I saw an old woman
napping on a bed with pink sheets,
and a young man fiddling with his phone
beside a generator.
At the sight of me, he roused the woman,
who I guessed to be his mother,
and walked over to a boom box
to play Spanish hip hop.
Using nearly the full extent of my Spanish,
“Hola senor, cinco Toña por favor!”, I ordered five beers
which he took from a large top-up fridge
to where we were sitting.
The first swig of that cold beer was rainfall
on a desert glen, and I marvelled at the greens
and blues engulfing us.
With all important matters settled,
I pulled out a deck of cards
and dealt a hand of euchre,
which Julio wanted to learn.
After a few spirited discussions
as to why trump is a good thing,
he took to the game, and I sat the first match out.
As I walked over to the shack to get another round,
a truck pulled down the dirt road
with about a dozen people in its bed.
An old man in a white shirt exited driver side
with a big bottle of rum, and a cavalcade of people
got out of the bed and gathered at the edge
of the road and beach.
They bought a few beers
and took the remaining chairs
to form a circle with some rocks
where the children were sitting.
The old man lit a cigar and sipped a glass of rum
while the children played marbles, and the younger adults
lit a fire in a small pit, to set up a grill.
They placed a few cobs on the grill,
and as the cigar smoke and buttered corn danced
in my nose, a man walked to the truck
and pulled out an orange horse
with yellow rope dangling from its neck.
As he walked towards a tree,
the children dropped their marbles
and rushed to follow, with the oldest boy
scavenging the base of the tree
for an appropriate stick.
When he found one wrist thick
and the man dangled the horse above a branch,
keeping the end of the rope in his hand,
the adults made their way to the piñata.
The youngest child swung first,
and as the stick neared the horse,
the man with the rope yanked
and it pranced safely out of reach.
This repeated a few times until a girl
who looked about ten years old got up to bat.
When she neared the horse, she faked a swing,
and it jumped upwards on instinct.
She caught it up the middle on the way down
and candy flew like shrapnel from a bomb,
sending children and parents diving
for the shelter of mango sweets.
as we bumbled sweat gorged and crimson
to the volcano’s base.
Julio, our guide, was unaffected,
“We only went halfway up, Chico's,
you should only feel half dead!
You guys like beer? I know a place that’s close.”
His suggestion hit us like espresso,
and we started buzzing down a dirt road
towards a pebbled, rocky beach
with a small shack nestled in the shade
where the sand and forest meet.
Plastic chairs were arrayed around the shack
with a view of the lake, and as we took our seats
I noticed no one was around.
Peeking into the shack, I saw an old woman
napping on a bed with pink sheets,
and a young man fiddling with his phone
beside a generator.
At the sight of me, he roused the woman,
who I guessed to be his mother,
and walked over to a boom box
to play Spanish hip hop.
Using nearly the full extent of my Spanish,
“Hola senor, cinco Toña por favor!”, I ordered five beers
which he took from a large top-up fridge
to where we were sitting.
The first swig of that cold beer was rainfall
on a desert glen, and I marvelled at the greens
and blues engulfing us.
With all important matters settled,
I pulled out a deck of cards
and dealt a hand of euchre,
which Julio wanted to learn.
After a few spirited discussions
as to why trump is a good thing,
he took to the game, and I sat the first match out.
As I walked over to the shack to get another round,
a truck pulled down the dirt road
with about a dozen people in its bed.
An old man in a white shirt exited driver side
with a big bottle of rum, and a cavalcade of people
got out of the bed and gathered at the edge
of the road and beach.
They bought a few beers
and took the remaining chairs
to form a circle with some rocks
where the children were sitting.
The old man lit a cigar and sipped a glass of rum
while the children played marbles, and the younger adults
lit a fire in a small pit, to set up a grill.
They placed a few cobs on the grill,
and as the cigar smoke and buttered corn danced
in my nose, a man walked to the truck
and pulled out an orange horse
with yellow rope dangling from its neck.
As he walked towards a tree,
the children dropped their marbles
and rushed to follow, with the oldest boy
scavenging the base of the tree
for an appropriate stick.
When he found one wrist thick
and the man dangled the horse above a branch,
keeping the end of the rope in his hand,
the adults made their way to the piñata.
The youngest child swung first,
and as the stick neared the horse,
the man with the rope yanked
and it pranced safely out of reach.
This repeated a few times until a girl
who looked about ten years old got up to bat.
When she neared the horse, she faked a swing,
and it jumped upwards on instinct.
She caught it up the middle on the way down
and candy flew like shrapnel from a bomb,
sending children and parents diving
for the shelter of mango sweets.
