Alaska
Island life….
Up steep hills and hairpin curves the road flashes serpentine green. Muted sunlight from dense cloud cover filters through a verdant rainbow of leaves from Mango, Cecropia, tropical Oak and the living fences of Gumbalimba. I carefully dodge a nursing Brahma calf in the middle of the road as I pass a paintless shack selling gallons of gasoline from plastic jugs. I no longer even register the walking men with machetes…they’re simply going to work clearing back the jungle in places where they had cleared just a few months before. Without machetes there would be no views, no roads, no thatch roofs and no coconut lunch. Business finished, my return trip bounces me from one collectivo ride to a corner where I buy a bag of mandarines for about a dollar from George Hamilton…and yes, he was very tan. Another collectivo hailed and further east I go with a sidetrip through the iguana farm to land at the improbably named “Roymart”, a kwikeemart owned by popular ex-presidente Roy Maduro. I enjoyed his daughter’s wedding. Welcomed with affectionate licks from a spotted dog name Capitan, I walk the last half mile up and over hills, past numerous other barkers and the neurotic Rocky, who gets in bloody fights when he’s nervous…with his own tail. Having dispensed the dozen mandarines to various children along the way, I pocket the empty bag as I pass three different houses all containing residents named Wendy. Peter Pan-land on a Saturday afternoon to arrive home to a PB and J on bread from the Jewish bakery that doubles as an Italian Bistro on Thursday nights, but only to those who know and only if they like you.