The body count rose sharply when I got to San Juan del Sur: 1 scorpion, 2 spiders and 4 cockroaches. The mosquitoes and ants were too numerous to count. And that was just my first two days in my little room.
It was interesting getting to San Juan from Granada on a $15 shuttle bus which I thoroughly enjoyed. I rode with two other giggly 20-year-olds from Canada and a thoroughly self-absorbed fellow from Ottawa who talked non-stop in order to impress the girls, but they weren't impressed.
I was dropped off at the Pali Supermarket and met up with two people I'd arranged to meet. I was checking out a suite they had for rent, an apartment outside their house. They were a little nutty, well he was, a mouthy Steve Buscemi lookalike with a mousy wife who agreed with everything he said. We drove in a filthy, red jeep on a choking-with-dust gravel road full of huge potholes and incongruously with that - speed bumps - towards their house away from town. It wasn't feeling good. I arrived to my accommodation - a broken down converted garage - throw in a bed, a wall hanging, put in a fan, a counter and a bathroom - voila, your over-priced bed and breakfast. No one around to talk to except them. I plopped down on the black vinyl couch in the 'living room' because I thought I was going to collapse from the heat. The sweat rolled down my chest in five different directions and I said 'it won't work for me, I need people in my life. I'd have a nervous breakdown here.' He nodded, 'I see.' She nodded. 'I understand.' Perhaps she had already had a few nervous breakdowns.
We went into their house and out to sit on their balcony and I waited while they debated who else had accommodations in town that I might like. An excruciating amount of time passed for him to also finish his beer and cigarette and stop gabbling long enough for him to order a taxi back into town. I sat on their balcony in the direct late afternoon sun and melted.
A taxi driver finally arrived, a large jovial sort with metal teeth. I was so relieved to get in and get gone. However, I was under the impression he knew where he was going, they told him twice and he with his 'si, si,' we're all good, scuttling me into the car - La Social. But then we were on a search in town cause he hadn't a clue what to look for and by this point I just wanted to get away from him. His insistence ground down my nerves and I was about to explode, but the air conditioning kept me in the car. After I hauled out my computer and got on line, we were in business and he dropped me off. I got stiffed on the taxi but not as much as he tried to stiff me. I then wandered into a different structure, another atrocity posing as accommodation. An over-priced moldy hole in the wall and a common room shared with a grumpy Italian. Nope.
I sat down at a table and pushed a dirty ashtray aside and Facebook called another guy I'd been talking to about accommodation and he met me. 'I'll be there in one minute,' he said and gosh if he wasn't - a pot-bellied, bald German of about 70 and his truck parked outside. I threw my carry-on bag in the back and hopped in and doesn't he drive down the same dusty pot-holed road as I did with the first couple, past the same volcanic garbage heap, but further into another compound.
'That's my house,' he points. 'I own that house, too,' pointing to another, 'and 'I have three apartments in that house.' I didn't say anything because my brain was backing up from the heat and frustration. 'My ex-wife lives in this house here,' he said, waving it away before we're in front of a metal gate 13 feet high. We drove in and he shut the gate and there's the accommodation - a dusty adjunct to his house separated by some sort of Jacuzzi/pool. I knew immediately that I didn't want to be trapped in this compound with a fellow who reminded me of the German who almost raped me in Mexico in 1986. Case over. I glanced in to show a modicum of pretend interest. It hadn't been cleaned in months, if not years.
Back we went into town and I staggered around and took the first over-priced accommodation I could find and lay on the bed, spent, relieved, naked.
This is what can happen when you don't thoroughly plan your nocturnal nest.
