I have a small traveling meltdown

Back of the bus views from Moyagolpa to AltaGracia

Leave Salinas on 6:30 am bus to Rivas. Natalie and Paul come too to get their big grocery shopping done (nuts! coffee! cheese!) so my final trip is an excursion.  We are hoping to beat the heat and maybe also the crowds but the bus comes and this is the worst it's ever been.  Playing twister on the bus. Not squeezing in not an option as the next bus is at least another hour depending on when it shows up. 

So people squeeze in. The lucky ones sitting, usually women, usually 3 to a seat with their babies and small children piled on top. Did the Canadian Blue Bird Compay ever think its yellow school buses would work quite this hard? Be filled quite so high to the gills? Even the space over the seats is occupied because people dangle there, leaning so far forward from the aisle as more people crowd on or past to get off. Personal space is meaningless here, so abstract and irrelevent a concept as to be laughable when I think of the eyerolls and heavy sighs at rush hour on the NYC subways back home. 

Here even the babies just deal with it, their little foreheads shiny with beads of sweat, their faces practically serene with non-crying as if savvy to the question what would be the point?  There is nothing to be done. I would only be contributing to the chaos if I cried.

At one point I am so awkwardly straddling Paul's leg in front of me, hanging by the handlebars above into a seated woman's lap that she offers me a spot on the seat beside her, only a few inches or so since they are already two but I gratefully accept the offer and make it work, just glad to be out of the morass above and around me, as conscious of my sitting being a relief for those still standing as it is a relief for me to be away from them.

Same thing again once I arrive later that morning via ferry to Isla de Ometepe, where I've returned to spend the week this time for a retreat. Same thing as the first only this bus is smaller, more mini van than bus. I get on from the back this time, the trouble with traveling with a 70 liter mochilla attached like an appendage sprouting from my back so big I'm afraid to take it off for fear of having to put it back on.  Once situated on the bus I do, resting it among the crates and the sacks of rice and wheat and coffee and sitting on it as more people pile on and on and on...

And this is where I have my meltdown, sitting on my mochilla and staring at legs all around not even windows with a view, as the question "why why why why why am I here?" rises up and my face suddenly scrunches up and rivulets of tears join the sweat already there so that noone even has any idea I'm crying. It's one thing to be touting all the suffering you've put with for the sake of climbing a volcano.  However do I explain this?

But then more people pile onto the back of the bus along with their crates and sitting on my backpack on the floor is no longer a luxurious option so I stand. One of them happens to be a wisp of an old lady, so little she barely reaches my shoulder. She is wearing slacks, a flowery blouse and wire rimmed glasses, her straight grey hair pulled back and tucked behind her ears. We are standing there among the mostly men and teenagers and there are no handebars for her to grab, no window or door she can lean on because she is in the middle. So I think fast and make a handlebar for her with my arm by pressing it against the window and she grabs it.  Eventually we decide my shoulder is a more sturdy option so she holds on to that instead until we reach our destination in AltaGracia.

I am still not sure about directions to InanItah, the permaculture spiritual farm community where I'll be staying. The website says one thing, the guy James who I meet says another, then Paul on the phone from the farm says something different. I opt for Paul's version and take another bus and get off where I think he's told me to get off at Santa Cruz.  It is now about 2:30 and I am lost. There are no signs and I have no idea where I'm going.  The mochilla is back on my back and I am carrying my knapsack in front as I start to just walk, stopping people I see to ask.

Inan Itah signage

Fortunately, some of them have heard of this place and soon I am climbing a hill, then left and up another hill. Jorge with the bicycle has become my unofficial escort and I am sad to part ways when he says good bye, gives me a toothy sympathetic smile and points me in the direction of a handpainted sign that reads: Sendero para la laguna: 6 km. 

Another climb, several fields and 40 minutes later I pull into InanItah. So to speak. I've arrived via the back dirtroad it seems, happening upon Jared who is calmly watering the garden plugged into his iPod.  He confirms that I am at the right place and I follow him into the kitchen. 

He hands me a glass of water and then asks if I am ok.

I am now.