Time is a funny thing. It speeds up
and then slows down. A moment can last a
lifetime. A look in someone's eyes as
you close the door on them or the gaze into another’s eyes as you see
recognition and connection. While diving
a 45 minute dive can seem forever or be over way too quickly. A moment snorkeling with dolphins in the open
water can last a lifetime. These last two months on Roatan have been infinitely
long and terribly short. I kept meaning
to write, but time slipped into the future.
I got older this last month. I had a
wonderful birthday. I went with my
birthday buddy Max on his first dive. I
was surrounded with amazing people and got to hear from friends and family.
Also, I moved into my 3rd place in Roatan, back to West End. And as my 3rd month here came to an end, I
needed to leave the country to renew my visa.
My plan was to go to Guatemala.
See Copan along the way to Antigua, San Marcos and finally to
Tikal. But anyone who knows me knows
plans can change in a moment’s notice. As I was sitting at my friend's tattoo shop a
yogini came in (they do yoga at the tattoo shop naturally). The yogini was talking about her upcoming
trip to Cuba since there was a time limited direct flight from Roatan to
Cuba. Cuba, I've always wanted to go to
Cuba.
So I went to Cuba 3 days later.
Cuba, where time stands still yet is moving forward at a rate
unknown. Stepping into Cuba was like
stepping into the past. Streets were
filled with beautifully colored vintage cars.
Colonial buildings crumbling in majestic watercolors, street corridors
went on forever until they hit the sea and people filled the streets.
Cuba is her people. My waking hours
were filled with meandering through the 2 cities (Habana and Trinidad), going
to galleries, reading "Islands in the Stream", eating, listening to
music, a little dancing and conversing with Cubans. In Habana, I sat with a bike-taxi business
owner for a couple hours. In Trinidad, I
celebrated a 54 yr old's birthday with a coffee, a climb to the church of San
Francisco de Asis and a visit to a revolutionary museum. I ate dinner with a girl my age at her
"basic" (her words not mine) house with her family. I stood in streets, cafes, restaurants and
stoops talking to people about life- from the mundane, political, cultural and
philosophical. I received relationship advice and a few offers of marriage.
If Habana was a 50's watercolor picture, Trinidad was stepping further into
the past- a pastel version of it.
Trinidad was life through rose colored glasses. The first night walking
through the streets I heard Edith Piaf's "La Vie en Rose" filtering
through an open door. I lingered outside
until the song was over. And then I saw
the sign "Por el futuro del Pasado- Trinidad 500 anos." For the future of the past. The second day in
Trinidad I rented a bike and rode the 4 km through the countryside to a beach
called Las Bocas. There's so much more
to explore of Cuba. Someday, in the
future, I will go back to Cuba and hope that the past will still linger romantically
in the air.
****
I recently spent 7 hours floating in the Caribbean waiting for a boat that
had failed to come and pick us up after our dive. 4 of us went to the sea mounts, 25 miles off
the coast of Roatan. A seamount is a
mountain rising from the ocean seafloor that does not reach the surface. They are formed by extinct volcanoes. This seamount was an unexplored on and it was
a beautiful dive. We did the dive
according to plan and came up after 50 minutes to our surface marker. No boat.
About 45 minutes later we saw a boat far away, our hopes soared but then
we watched him circle around us and apparently didn't see us. We attached 2 other lines to the sea mount
after that as a safety precaution. We
floated on our dive gear in the open sea near the 3 markers. Time stood still, there were frigates and
boobies flying overhead, turtles swam and surfaced around us and small jellies
floating all around us. My roommate Mel
and I said many times that it was a dream and that we would like to wake up now. We consistently checked our watches about
every hour to half hour; time ticked by and sped up. An hour would fly by. We discussed all possible options- whether to
swim to shore (10+ hours away), what to do with switching currents and the possibility
of spending the night in the open ocean.
The sun was setting. I said "I
think it's going to be a beautiful sunset" to which I received a few
"shut ups". The sunset was
epically beautiful. As the sunset,
someone said "I don't think they are going to find us" to which I (in
my most authoritative nanny voice) said "That is NOT going to happen. Then moments later Mel said "There's a
boat, I'm not joking there's a boat!"
As the sun set we saw a boat, the boat was perfectly circled by the sun
as it was sinking into the ocean. The
boat was coming directly towards our GPS coordinates that had been left with
the owner of the boat. We were exactly
where we were supposed to be, sunburnt and dehydrated. I never thought for one moment that we
wouldn't be found and that nothing aside from a few jelly fish stings. I was fully present in those 7 hours and they
passed by quickly. It seemed that it
wasn't long at all and eternity as well.
****
