Puro Reloj NOT

In my last post I mentioned the phrase ¨puro reloj,¨ which seems to refer to the tendency among gringos to do everything by the clock, on tight schedules or strict guidelines. Would the best translation be ¨all clock¨ or ¨all by the numbers?¨

Anyway, it´s one thing to say it, and quite another thing to live it. Yesterday I lived it, a lot. An ex-technical writer might fall back on a procedural format (being verbally puro reloj) to describe the debacle of my attempt to get to San Carlos as planned:

1) Get to ticket window exactly as instructed at 10:00 a. m. and find a big long line and no tickets being sold.
2) After 45 minutes the line starts to move at a snail´s pace; 45 minutes later I am far from the ticket window and a half hour past my checkout. I bail on the line, thinking I´ll come back closer to 2:00 (when the window is supposed to close).
3) For a little while I live in ignorant bliss, watching Arsenal beat Charlton. When the match is over I head back down to the ticket window.
4) To my dismay, the line is yet longer than before. And, though I join it and suffer the heat for a half hour, the same folks who opened it 45 minutes late do go ahead and close it right on the hour. 2:00 p. m., no more tickets being sold.
5) OK. Fine. It´s hard to get to San Carlos, but I am a guy who tries hard. I grab a taxi who will take me to San Jorge for thirty dollars (six or seven times the cost of the ferry ticket) so that I can get a ´quick´ ferry to Ometepe island, where the San Carlos ferry makes a 6:30 stop. I will try to outrun it by land.
6) To make a long story short, I will fail in this hopeful endeavor. I get to the island with a little time to spare, but then the bus to the port (no chance of the two ferries leaving the same dock -- that would be silly puro reloj) stops everywhere to load on everyone and everything, and as it gets dark I am deep in Latin American travel hell: crammed so hard in a stifling school bus that only one foot makes it to the floor.

Step 7 seems to be to wait here on Ometepe until the same ferry makes its next pass Monday. I´m considering camping next to the ticket window this time. Meanwhile I´m headed to a place on the island´s back side called Charco Verde, which looks like it has some nice paddling and possibly even some fishing. It ain´t no Solentiname, but maybe it will tide me over. The only option is to run back to the mainland and try to catch a bus to San Carlos, which is said to be cruelly long and bumpy (even the locals speak of it with dread) and will probably be full, very late, or out of service, if my luck holds. Better to go with it a bit. Right? Gentle Readers, do not be too surprised if, in a giant spasm of impatience, I fly right back to California, checking my clock all the way . . . .