In Which I Meet A Cast of Characters

Take a drunk, a mute transvestite, a Canadian soul searcher, a Kurdish world traveler, a guagua driver named Moses, and what do you have? That would be my last 36 hours.

As a little beach break, Kate and I went to one of her favorite ¨get away from it all¨locales yesterday afternoon, located a quick 2 hours from Pedernales. After squishing ourselves into the guagua, and then sitting in the guagua for 15 minutes while the driver got good and ready to leave, we trundled off down the road toward our final destination. We almost didn´t make it out of Pedernales due to the immigration stop every public vehicle is required to make on departure (they have a bit of a problem with illegal Haitian immigration through Pedernales into the D.R. interior), as the dude inspecting our vehicle demanded passports that we didn´t have on us (Kate isn´t allowed, in fact, to carry her passport and has to leave it in the capital). Thank goodness that Kate is skilled at talking her way out of such situations, because phew, we were then allowed to leave.

Of course, three seconds after we left the army station, the guagua stopped to pick up all those passengers who had bypassed the entire inspection by waiting about three steps beyond the army base gate. So, full beyond capacity, the journey continued.

About thirty minutes into the ride, it became entirely noticeable that one man in particular was a talker, to say the least. Whether actually having a conversation with someone or just kind of addressing the van as a whole, his mouth ran almost constantly, unless, of course, his mouth was busy imbibing some of the 1/2 liter rum bottle he all but finished over the course of two hours. I couldn´t understand a single word coming out of his mouth. Kate, fortunately or unfortunately, understood the entirety of it all, and thanks to her translation I was able to find out that no, he wasn´t an alcoholic, he just had to drink a 1/2 liter a day because it was the only way he could get to sleep at night as he just thought way too much and without the booze his thoughts would drive him to insomnia. This home remedy had the side effect, however, of getting him extremely drunk. Imagine.

Things got all the more interesting with a random stop in another small dusty town on the way to the beach, where the guagua driver picked up a woman who was obviously, obviously a man - bright red hair, turquoise eye shadow, and mini-skirt aside. The man-who-was-not-an-alcoholic then had a focus for his attention - he alternately went from rants of what a fag, bird, etc. etc. s/he was to continually passing the bottle in her direction to what seemed to be hitting on her. Oddly enough, the woman-who-was-a-man seemed to not mind, and perhaps even enjoyed the attention. It was unclear, however, as s/he was incapable of speech and instead could only make these odd sounding vocalizations that I can only describe as sounding like a goat bleat. Surreal? A little bit.

And I was very proud of Kate. Having to listen to this guy for two hours straight would drive anyone to the brink, and she held it in almost the whole way to San Rafael. It got to a point, however, when listening to him heap this weird abuse on a mute transvestite grew to be too much and finally she turned to him and said (in english, so as to be less understood) ¨You need to shut up. OH MY GOD will you please just SHUT UP. Someone MUST be able to make this man JUST STOP TALKING.¨ At which point, the non-drunk seemed to feel they were co-conspirators as he started smiling and jabbering away to her and insisted on a few friendly high fives, at which point Kate started hysterically laughing (there was just nothing else to do), and thank goodness, 10 minutes later we were dropped off.

A bit dazed, suffering from hiccups of residual laughter, we headed down to Kate´s hostel respite, and what a respite it was. The small hostel is located basically on a cliffside overlooking the Caribbean Sea far, far below, with a porch facing out over the water where one can see both the sunrise and sunset. Compared to Kate´s house in Pedernales, it´s a mecca of quiet.

On arrival, we were surprise to find two others staying with us there (in the numerous times Kate has gone, she´s always been the only guest), and in fact were greeted by a tallish red head cooking on the stove as soon as we got in with an immediate invitation to join him and his friend for food as there was plenty. Faaaaaantastic!!!

As the sauce simmered, we got to know our fellow hostelers, and turns out the redhead was a 26 year old Canadian who did not have opinions, only feelings, and felt that the world was inherently selfish and pretentious and we´d all be better off if we just gave into it, and thought that pain was just as beautiful as pleasure, and that he found it so much easier to love a man than a woman, because women start out fine but then have all these damn ¨needs¨and ¨expectations¨but luckily his current girlfriend was cool as she seemed to have more testosterone than other women and didn´t weigh him down. I could go on, but basically, that was the Canadian, who shared his strong ¨feelings¨with us about the world whenever he got the chance. For being the loner he claimed to be, he sure sought out a listening audience.

Antonio was his then-traveling companion, who was of Kurdish origin, spoke 10 languages, had 44 years of life stories to relate (much more interesting to listen to than his diahrrea mouth friend), and participated in beach side workouts, lifting heavy rocks and gyrating in interesting fashions for his daily dose of exercise, to the great amusement of his Dominican spectators (and let´s face it, me too). Antonio and the Canadian had a bit of a falling out this morning before Kate and I left, as Canada tried to intervene when Antonio was raging at the fifth person staying in the hostel who was very obviously there for less than illegal pleasures, involving, mayhaps, the young Dominican girl he happened to be hanging around with. Hm.

So in between getting to know these characters, Kate and I went to the beach, and read our books, and had quality time in an absolutely stunning locale, and were both completely unable to sleep thanks to the malaria medication we´ve been taking thanks to a recent scare. We finally took off back to Pedernales around two this afternoon (when we were coming up with a plan for the day, i.e. when to go back, etc. with options a, b, and c, Canada chimed in with option d, which is to like, just go with the flow, and just see where life takes you). Thanks to a bit of money mismanagement on my part, i.e. I completely ran out and there were zero ATMs so my card did nothing, Kate and I ended up with about 50 pesos to get back to Pedernales (Kate had to pay for the room). As it cost 200 for the two of us on a guagua, it looked like we´d have to bola it back.

And damn, did we do a good job.

Not only did we get back in less time than it took to get there, but we got to sit in roomy air-conditioned truck cabs the whole way in a three-part trip. The favorite part: our ride with Moses, leg 2, who promised to part the waters whenever we needed it and on finding out we were bola-ing on account of no funds, insisted on shoving 200 pesos into our hands and refused to let us go without taking it, despite our firmest protests. So not only did we get back for free, BUT we made a profit! Or should I say, prophet? (yes, groan, go ahead).