Bluefields
“You want to see the wharf?” said Jorge.
“Sure!”
Too-fast taxi slithering around cars, brown women, fancy girls with prying eyes on the new gringo in town hurtling through narrow streets. Every few meters another shop. Shoes, then clothes, then a pulperia, a bar, a casino, house, hotel, restaurant. In front of the shops, nearly blocking the sidewalks, a sunglasses stand, a bootlegged CD stand, a jewelry stand, a pocket knife stand. Aqua, peach, pink, white, green walls.
Music outside, first reggae, now reggaeton, now ranchera, now bachata, now country. Soft, warm tropical air caresses my face through the open window. The taxi lands at the bottom of the hill, we reach the wharf. It’s the town square - no cathedrals, meager churches – the plaza, the center of town, is the wharf.
Bluefields is the wharf. Lobster, shrimp, crab, fish. The taxi parks in the wide plaza, we walk to the wharf. Wahrf, the locals pronounce it. People everywhere. Goods coming, going. Men working, shouting laughing. Women sitting, talking, laughing. Rowboats, pangas, shrimp boats, barges, ocean ferries. I turn to see a forty foot open panga boat launch with fifty passengers neatly seated five to a row, orange life vests obediently around their necks. Strange, I thought.
Jorge said, “See the sport fishing boat over there?”
“The one next to the rusty ship?”
“Yeah. That’s the boat I arrived here on. I came straight from Key West.”
“Key West?”
“Yeah, what a trip that was. I sold the boat, now the engines are gone.”
The wharf teems with humanity, commerce, energy, life. I turn to see the rusty barge, piled with pallet after pallet of beer bottles, both Toña and Victoria brands I can see from the brown and green glass.
Beer leaves the brewery near Managua, goes by truck to El Rama, by barge to Bluefields, to the mouths of everyone. Through the body, then to the sidewalk, the gutter, some to the bathroom. The beer returns to the earth having gladdened its host.
“That yacht in the marina over there belonged to a Swiss banker. He sold it when his wife left him. Aluminum hull.”
I see the giant white motor yacht, standing out among the fleet of grimy working vessels.
Back in the taxi, I wish I could spend all day at the wharf. There are other things to do. More to see. On the hill above town, Jorge points out the finer houses.
The taxi driver explains, “The white stuff washes up. Maybe a boat sinks headed north, maybe they throw it overboard. When they find it here, they’re winning the lottery. They spread the money around. Build a nice house.”
What Jorge told me at lunch pulled at my mind. “It’s over-fished down here. The shrimp are almost gone. Soon there won’t be any fish and they’ll have to find another way to make a living.”
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Originally Posted by John
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