Attendees:
- Mitch Bentley
- Bettina Forget
- David Hardy
- Dr. William K. Hartmann
- Elizabeth Smith
- Kara Szathmary
- Erik Viktor
On the Way to Nicaragua: Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 Valentine's Day
I awoke at 3:49 AM to ready to get to the airport for 5. My
flight from Panama City FL would leave to Atlanta GA at
6:05, but first I had to get my e-ticket and head to
security where once again it meant taking off shoes, belt,
watch, bracelet, necklace, empty pockets of coins, keys,
metal pens et cetera, a general ordeal. Once through, I
found the gate where I would wait while reading DARK COSMOS
by Dan Hooper.
After the call for boarding the aircraft, we headed off in
the morning dawn, flying northeast to Atlanta. Once above
the ever increasing mounds of clouds, due to a major storm
system that was sweeping across from the mid west and up
through to the northeastern seaboard, gradually the stars
faded from sight in the twilight sky, giving way to the sun
majestically rising in the east. Throughout much of the
central and northeast snow and ice was wrecking havoc on
the populace below on this Valentine's Day morning.
Our flight arrived to Atlanta around 8:25AM local time. I
still had another hour and a half of waiting time, so tried
to exchange some of my US currency into Cordoba, Nicaraguan
money. Unfortunately they didn't have any, so off I went
to find my concourse and my gate E15 to catch my flight.
With some 70 minutes still to wait, I decided I'd enjoy a
cappuccino and continue my light reading. After hearing an
announcement for Nicaragua, fifteen minutes before
boarding, I approached my gate, only to see no one there. I
walked across the aisle to another gate where I was told
the gate was changed to E34. Oh my gawd, with my luggage I
had to run what seemed to be eternity through the hordes of
people catching later flights and/or killing time for their
boarding. I was the last person to arrive to a line of five
entering the gateway loading onto a 737 jet to Managua. The
sweat was dripping on my brow, washed hair and under my
clean clothes--so much for showering this morning. I left
my knapsack in the overhead above seat 2D and headed to the
back to find my window seat, 27F. Along the way I met,
shook hands and talked a bit with Bill Hartmann and his
wife Gayle. I didn't see Bettina Forget, nor did I see
Mitch Bentley and his wife Cathie. I assumed my seat and
waited for take off.
At 9:55 our jet rumbled onto the loading lanes joining
eight other Delta aircrafts ahead in taxi formation towards
the run way on this overcast cloudy Atlanta morning.
Eventually we were off, thrusters roaring, pushing us deep
into our seats as the aircraft ascended. Once through the
clouds, barely fifty or so feet above, I saw the shadow of
our airplane with a rainbow ring—glory, around it. The sun
with the clear blue sky held a promise of excitement as we
circled around Atlanta and headed south. We would be flying
at 36,000 feet, along the western edge of Florida, past
Tampa, St Petersburg, and Fort Myers before leaving the
coast and into the Gulf of Mexico. We would eventually be
flying between Cuba and Belize into the Caribbean Sea
before reaching the northeastern airspace of Nicaragua and
the autonomous Miskito indigenous nation near the Honduran
border.
Neither the earlier conquering Spaniards of the 16th
century nor the previous early 20th century dictators had
ever conquered this Columbian Indian tribe that settled
this region 700 years before Columbus who visited the coast
while lost in the trade winds off Gracias a Dios point
(Honduran Nicaraguan border) sweeping through the
Caribbean Sea. The first Spanish expedition arrived and
made landfall about 1500 in search of a route to the great
ocean on the west coast. However, this region fell in favor
to English and Dutch speaking pirates as they were not
interested in conquering the Miskitos as were the Spaniards
but rather the pirates preferred to relie instead on trade
for food and water. Neither did the current Sandanista
Luminatos FSLN (The Shining Path Party) manage to convert
the locals into speaking Spanish and submit to Communist
rule. Instead the Miskito Nation once again turned to
English help by training in southern Honduran mountains
with the US military. Fortunately, the fighting has ended,
as I learned from the literature I read, with the public
preferring to normalize their society with constructive
humanitarianism for all.
From the sights above, through my 737 jet window, jungle
and a network of rivers appear to be and are the only means
of getting trade with the western Spanish speaking. Dugout
boats and other river crafts meander up the snaking like
rivers to towns 50 miles inland. Otherwise airports
connected the east and west coasts. The greenery of the
eastern coast jungle changed into rolling hills and semi
desert landscape within a100 miles from the Caribbean and
remained this way westward.
Delta Flight 317 arrived to Managua International Airport
at 12:30 CST into a city that was filled with corrugated
roof tops. Several missionary groups from the US were on
this flight who would head northwest and central east to
some very poor regions of Nicaragua to help construct
churches, schools and other infrastructures. At customs
everyone had to pay a $5 visa to enter the country. As I
entered the airport, I was greeted by Bettina and one of
the hotel employees. She had arrived on an earlier flight
so as to avoid being stuck by bad winter weather in
Montreal via Atlanta. We talked briefly about when others
would be coming. Mitch and Cathie were said to be arriving
at 1:30, whereas Betsy Smith had caught an earlier UPS
flight the previous day from Louisville KY instead of
returning home to Manchester NH during the snow storm in
the east. As a pilot, Betsy carried her workshop gear with
her during her working shift; sensible, no?
A few minutes later I ran into her as I marched off to the
washroom to take off some of my clothes. Even with a
Floridian wordrobe, I was OVER dressed with my black
sports coat, black jeans, tee-shirt, shirt and black vest,
clothing that was my staples back in Quebec in Canada,
minus a winter coat, gloves and boots. After returning to
Bettina and Betsy, Bill and Gayle had arrived with their
Peruvian friends, Maria and Samuel. They spoke a level of
English I wish I could in Spanish; but, alas I would have
to fudge with the slang French Quebecoise I still knew.
However, I would have to remember to an “o” to almost every
ending or so my naïve mind insisted. While waiting for
Mitch and Cathie's flight, I discussed ‘Cosmic
Expressionism - The Land of the Swirlys' Chapter for our
25th Anniversary Art Book with Bettina and Betsy.
Then we learned that Mitch and Cathie's flight was delayed
until 9PM, so the rest of us gathered our gear and headed
out into the humid hot 96F afternoon air to the parking lot
to load the hotel bus to Granada, 60 kilometers to the
south. The 45 minute bus ride took us part of the way down
the Pan-American Highway, past single story buildings with
corrugated tin roofs that often resembled sheds, storage
area, meager business garage, cantina or run down poorly
maintained family dwellings et cetera. Court yards were
often surrounded with barb wire fencing, cast iron gates
and pilings, and/or stone walls with broken glass bottles
at the top as deterrents for trespassers and separate
properties fro neighborhoods. The streets, ditches as well
as the landscape outside of cities and towns we drove
through we littered with plastic bags, black, pink, blue
and tan, debris of all sorts, including bottles, used
tires, broken furniture, etc. Talk filled the bus in route
to Granada with what each of us had done since the DV3
workshop to current projects. Tonight after our arrival and
settling into our rooms at the Hotel Patio de Malinche, we
would gather for our first meeting at 5 PM to help usher in
our itinerary for the next ten days.
Erik Viktor and Dave Hardy greeted our arrival at our Hotel
in Granada. Dave, while wearing his Icelandic
Soviet-American/UK/Canada IAAA tee shirt, arrived a day
earlier from his flight from Birmingham UK, via New York
and Houston. Erik took a bus up from Costa Rica where he
lives to pursue several business opportunities in Central
America. While we were told not to convert our currency at
the airport for better rates in Granada, we could now get
to do this once we walked up to the center city plaza area
three blocks north of our hotel. Along the way we would go
to visit our host gallery, the Casa de los Tres Mundos,
where our exhibition and art workshops would be hosted.
Close by, outside banks, money exchangers would covert our
monies at a rate of 1$ for 18C$ (Cordoba).
Next:
Day 2
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