Lost or Stolen

It will sound obvious to everyone, but especially to my fellow Noo Inglundurs, when I observe that it is wicked hot down here. Really debilitatingly hot and by no means a dry heat. I have already had my first travel screwup, and I´m blaming it on the heat. The heat muddles my head and makes me rush things so I can get back out of the heat, which makes me hotter yet and contributes to a vicious inferno circle.

Weeks ago in cooler climes I carefully selected a pair of sunglasses especially for this trip. Lightweight polarized lenses are always good for fishing, but when they have little removable gaskets that shut out all air, vapor and insect life, they are especially good for fishing among Nicaraguan chayules. Chayules are little gnats that hatch in such profusion that they are known to blot out streetlights around here. Bottles of beer are served with protective napkins and a straw to keep them out.

Normally they´re light in Granada, but I was lucky enough this afternoon to run into a hatch of them down by Lake Nicaragua. They turned a stiff cooling wind into a pricking, itching little storm of exoskeletons. I pulled out my shades, popped in those gaskets, and immediately started feeling like the cleverest bastard on the planet. Such hubris is never meant to last . . . .

My whole aim in making that hot trek down to the lake was to pick up a ticket on the ferry to San Carlos. These are sold from a dank little barred window manned by a slurring red-eyed soldier type. He took my passport and made a long, careful inspection of it before handing it back and telling me I can´t actually get a ticket until the day of the departure, Thursday. Gringos are all `puro reloj´ and I am a grumpy example as I go off in a huff. It takes me about a half second of chuyul wind to realize I no longer have the shades attached to me. They´re not on the ground, nor on the sill next to the window where I probably would have put them down. I ask the ticket pirate about it, and his hyperinnocent attitude convinces me that he has them in his pocket.

Now, to give some sense of audience participation to this bloggishly pointless blog, I might ask: does this count as a stolen or as a lost pair of glasses?

Either way I know I count as a pretty big idiot, one who has entered the Nicarguan market for sunglasses.