In Nicaragua there's a island in the middle of a big lake, and there are two volcanoes on the island, the island is actually made by the two volcanoes dabbing each other. One of the volcanes is sleeping and the other, named Concepcion, is awake. The tip of the two volcanoes is almost always hidden by a dense blanket of clouds, and both are covered by a thick rain forest populated by mysterious and dangerous animals and insects. All around the coasts are the villages, and long long beaches made of brown and black sand. The water of the lake is of a light brown color and you can't see the other side of it. The spanish who first came here called it Dulce Mar. The Nicaraguan cowboys ride along the beaches, taking the cattle down to the lake to drink, and to move it from one part to the other of the island. Sick and thin dogs by the ghostly appearance follow them, without hopes. People is very good looking and shy and prideful and authentic and all the other too much used trite words, they rarely smile, they jump in the waters of the lake with all their clothes on, they love bicycles, they always wave back if you wave first, the girls have black eyes shiny like pearls and white teeth, all the pupils at school wear blue and white uniforms, and the men are almost always serious and focused on something, but not always. Sometimes, walking across the villages far from the coasts, you can hear music being played in the small houses by two or three instruments, and people singing and dancing in the inside of the houses in the dark. Almost all the houses have pavements of dirt and pallets on the floor and kitchens made of piled stones or pieces of wood on the outside. Sometimes there's a hammock, often a radio. All the radios play the same station.
The food is either bad or very bad and makes you worry, like the water or the insects, especially if you don't have any vaccination like I do. There is always rice and beans to eat and chicken and few other things but soon you get accustomed to it. Not so much fruits, and some mediocre fish from the lake. But food doesn't matter anyway.
There are acacia trees by the red flowers and the long blisters of seeds, looks like africa, and sick banana trees growing on fields covered with trash, and blue birds by the long wide tails and the loud strange songs. A strong wind is always, incessantly, blowing hard across the island coming from the east. They say that the wind ceases only when there are hurricanes sweeping the gulf far away, but I wouldn't know. The wind never ceases.
This island is one of the most beautiful places I ever visited in my life. I wish I could stay here forever, lounging on the hammock, walking across the villages, getting to know the people and building my own house and stop waiting for something or searching for something. I don't know in how many years this place will be turned into a miserable fake resort for north american tourists (sorry, but it's true, Costarica is the perfect example), probably not so many. Everything is for sale in central america.
And it's always that strange mixed feeling, to be finding and losing things at the same time, following the tourist everywhere he or she goes.