Trust

4/18/14 (Good Friday)

En route, CA-15, Honduras

“Honduras Complete.”  I was pretty sure that I would have to apply the Darien Exception and bend my definition of success in order to check off the Rio Platano Bioshphere Reserve and say, “Honduras Complete.”  I did not expect to have to bend it so little.  We allowed ourselves to sleep in a little, meaning we didn’t wake up until almost 7AM.  The plan for the day was to have breakfast, head to the legislature building, take a picture, go to a nearby souvenir town, and drive to the end of a dirt road, getting us as close to the Biosphere Reserve as possible.  At that point, I would take a picture of whatever trees were nearby and apply the Darien Exception.  The beginning of the plan worked as exactly as we expected.  Breakfast was what they called the “desayuno tipico,” along with some great coffee.  It was a short walk to the legislature, during which we passed the preparations for the Easter procession and many closed souvenir shops.  Fernando was certain that the souvenir shops would not be opened today, and the lady at the hotel confirmed it.

In every town we visited today, streets were closed to allow for these preparations, which began last night and consisted of intricate images made from colored sand.  I could not wait until Sunday to see how San Salvador celebrated Easter.  I got the picture with at the legislature, and we were soon on our way to Valle de Angeles.  Silently cursing Good Friday for closing all the shops, I lit up a Trinidad.  Valle de Angeles was a charming souvenir town with beautiful mountains in the background.  It was before 9AM, and all the souvenir shops were closed.  I suggested that we stop for one last cup of Honduran coffee while we waited.  I had a “café de la casa,” which was basically an Americano with a thin layer of milk.  I hated it.  I should have just asked for an espresso.  As we sipped our coffee, I explained to Fernando the different coffee regions and the different methods of coffee preparation.  We agreed that Honduras had an amazing natural coffee crop but that the shops did not know how to prepare it correctly.

He also asked for more advice about his idea to sell Central American coffee beans online.  Here was a man who wanted nothing more than to create wealth through his capacity to think.  Well, that, and to get paid to do archaeological research.  I was glad to give him whatever advice I could, and American’s taste in gourmet coffee happens to be one of my areas of expertise.  By the time we were done, the shops had started to open, and I found everything that I needed.  I took over the driving responsibilities, preparing for the worst.  A significant portion of the drive consisted of dirt roads worse than anything I had ever experienced.  It had tremendous amounts of gravel, in addition to potholes and unmarked speed bumps.  I’m sure that I severely damaged the car, but it was fully insured, and I only cared about being able to drop it off at SAL Sunday evening in once piece.  I like to talk about the unusual things you see in different regions that are also universal to those regions.  In Central America, there are no shortage of pickup trucks with large families or groups of friends riding in the back.  The other thing is police checkpoints.  The first three days we had gone without being stopped once before getting to Tikal.  Fernando had remarked how lucky we had been.  Our luck was to change.  We were stopped at the first three checkpoints in Honduras, but it was just a formality.  At the third one, I asked Fernando what the officer had said.  His response was something to the effect of “He asked if we had any guns.  I said that we didn’t.  He asked if we wanted to buy any.”  Fernando was joking, but I had to ask him to make sure.  Our luck did not continue today, and we were stopped more times.

Each time I have to pause, it is because we are getting stopped.  This time, it was more than the regular formality.  They checked my bags and passport, questioning the Arab and Iranian stamps, insisting that I was either Arab or here on a business trip (in re: my suit).  After a short stop, they let us go.  The only other incident was when I went down the checkpoint on the wrong side.  A very small bribe, and we were on our way.  As described, the dirt roads were unimaginably bad, but we soon get back on the pavement.  I found a nice straightaway where I was able to hit that magic 161 before slowing down and driving a more reasonable speed the rest of the ride.  The thing about the GPS is that it estimates, I think, 70 km/h on the highways, which turns out to be a reasonable estimate.  Sure, there are stretches where you can easily go 100 km/h (or 161 km/h if you choose), but there are just as many times when you need to slow down to 40 km/h or below due to potholes, speed bumps, traffic, or just coming into town.  It all evens out in the end, usually even adding time to the trip.  When we got to the last town before the dirt road, it was supposed to be another 55 km on the dirt road to the last town the GPS could find, followed by about another 50 km to the end of the road.  While we had enough gas and water, I did not relish the idea of 200 km on these awful roads.  The first 25 km or so were actually paved, but even 150 km seemed too much for both us and the car to handle, but I lit up an Aging Room and hoped for the best.  I estimated that we needed to turn around by 3PM to make the drive to Managua work out reasonable, and I wanted to back to civilization before dark.  I had thought that there was just one road that left the town (Dulce), but I was wrong.  I struggled a bit to pick the right road, and my GPS, Google Maps, and the paper map all disagreed on what would come next.

Eventually, I realized that we were coming to a turn to the left that would be as close as we could get to the Biosphere Reserve.  I decided we would stop there, take a picture, and turn around.  We got there, and Lo!  There was a sign for Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve.  I wouldn’t have to stretch anything.  That sign, along with a few trees would be enough, but, behold! there was another road that appeared to be leading into the Biosphere Reserve.  Fernando was as excited by the sign as I was.  I lit up my Cohiba, we took some pictures, and I announced, “Honduras Complete,” adding that I would take what I got.  We decided to keep going, seeing where the road would lead us.  We first came to a recreation area with a river where people were bathing and feasting, probably just as they had for hundreds or thousands of years.  We kept going.  We were now clearly in the biosphere.  Yes, we might not have been in the area designated as a protected site, but certainly was the same biosphere with the same natural characteristics.  This was not a road.  This made my loving road in Bosnia look like an Interstate.  It was hiking trail that had been modified to allow the passage of cars.  I asked Fernando if this was a bad road even by Honduran standards, and he admitted that it was.

We came to a turnout where there was a gap in the trees, allowing us an amazing view of the Biosphere Reserve.  Doubting that we would get a better viewpoint, I decided that this would be the stopping point, and we took some amazing pictures.  I started by taking a U to properly christen the site, as I do with all Natural WHS, and I just contemplated the amazing view.  Eventually, I announced that the view wasn’t going to be changing and gave Fernando the keys.  We were well ahead of schedule with an anticipated arrival time of 11PM plus stops.  Wanting to get back to civilization as soon as possible, I said that we should wait until we got back to the paved road before stopping.  Unfortunately, everything was closed, so we had to keep going.  Eventually, we found a restaurant in the “tourist center,” which had the Honduran equivalent of a pool party.  I order a beer, Conch soup, and a mixed grill.  I asked Fernando if I thought that I could smoke?  He said that we could ask, or I could just light it up.  I preferred the latter option, and no one stopped me.

The food took at least 30 minutes to come, probably more, and I was pissed, since it was blowing our chance of arriving at the hotel before midnight.  How long could it take to ladle some soup and grill some meat?  My Imperial beer and Jaime Garcia cigar were almost done.  I decided that I had two options.  I could either stew and ruin my day, or I could realize that I am smoking a cigar in Honduras after having just said “Honduras Complete” on amazing terms.  I chose the latter.  Meanwhile, some guy was making Fernando’s ears bleed.  The conversation was in Spanish, and the music was too loud for me listen in, anyway.  The one possibly somewhat negative thing about Fernando, and, he otherwise makes a perfect guide, is that he is overly friendly and gives out too much information.  I trust his danger sense not to say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and he has steered me right so far, quite literally.  Sure enough, he didn’t give this guy any real information.  The issue with the food was that they had to bring the pot of soup to a full boil to kill any bacteria.  Meanwhile, my mixed grill was cold and overcooked.  In the form of fried plantains, I probably had more carbs than I should have had for the day, but, other than pork rinds, I had not had anything to eat in 10 hours.

I paid the bill, since Fernando did not have enough lempiras.  I’m sure he’ll try to pay me back, but it doesn’t matter to me.  I will be giving him such a generous tip that it completely dwarfs whatever I lay out on meals.  Delayed by over an hour, we got back on the road, and I proceeded to write this entry, which I had to pause twice as we got stopped.  I will now close so that I can take a nap and be refreshed by the time we get to the Nicaragua border crossing.  I will either save the philosophy for the next en route entry or for the Managua entry.

En route, The Pan-American Highway, Nicaragua

“I trust him.”  Those were the words that entered my mind as I put on my eyemask to take nap.  We were back on that dirt road from the morning for 50km.  I had complete trust in Fernando, trust that was not misplaced in the slightest.  There are many kinds of trust, but the two main kinds are trusting someone to be honest with you and trusting in someone’s ability.  I had trust in both for Fernando.  We can further break down the first kind of trust into trust of words and trust of actions.  Trust of words means that you trust someone not to lie to you.  That is the most basic type of trust.  It is the basis of any relationship, business, personal, romantic, anything.  Rand talks about how people often assume that the liar gains a victory over his victim but that is a wrong perception.  In order to lie, you must sacrifice your whole sense of reality to that person, becoming his slave.  Someone who lies to the world becomes a slave of the world.  Similarly, you can trust someone not to steal from you, not to defraud you, even if he does so without saying a single word.  I will call on Rand here again, since she would say that any material gain earned by fraud is worthless, that only a breach in self-esteem would allow you to enjoy the products of someone else’s labor if you did not obtain it by honest means.

These are the simple types of trust.  Each person can choose to be honest in his words and actions, whether or not to earn the trust of his fellow man.  It takes a long time to earn that type of trust, but it can be lost instantly.  The trust in ability is a more complicated animal, and it ties in to respect, which is beyond the scope of this entry.  When I present a proposal to my boss and he is hesitant about, we have a back and forth.  In the end, he makes the final decision, but we hash it out so that he feels he is making the right decision.  Sometimes, he might go with my opinion, even if he is of a different opinion, saying that he trusts me.  When he says that, he is not saying he trusts that I did not lie about the circumstances of the bid.  He is saying that he trusts in my judgment on the bid.  We have worked together long enough that he has a feel of my ability, and he can place trust in it when need be, and that means the world to me.  Judgment is something that is pretty much impossible to learn.  Either you have good judgment, or you don’t.  It might also be called instinct, but I think that that is slightly different.  When I told myself that I trusted Fernando, I trusted him to drive safely, to make the proper judgments on the road condition.  Earlier, he had asked me how fast to drive, and I told him as fast as he felt comfortable, knowing that, if he felt comfortable, so would I.  For a great deal of this trip, I have trusted in his judgment, the value of that alone exceeding his fee for the week.  There are very few people in the world whose judgment I will trust on face value.  My boss is one of them, my father another, as well as my own.  In the context of this trip, Fernando has my absolute trust in his judgment.

The final type of trust is trust in someone’s ability.  When I said that I trusted Fernando, I also meant that I trusted his ability to handle the tough roads, to use and follow the GPS, and to get me to highway in one piece.  Every person has their own abilities, areas where they are stronger and weaker.  One of my co-workers might be better talking to people on the phone, while another might be better at organizing a new file system.  Management needs to know whom they can trust the most to do what, where the ability is and where it may lack.  They need to know where they can place their trust.

I just asked Fernando if he wanted to switch with me, and I need to know that he will not drive himself to the point of being dangerously exhausted.  I trust him to tell me when he’s ready to switch, and I trust him to be able to drive effectively until that point.  Those are two different types of trust, but they are both equally important.  Right now, all that matters is getting to our hotel safely.  It is the biggest obstacle that remains between me and CA-4 Complete.  Nothing else matters at this point.  I have come in under budget on this trip, and tomorrow will be a pretty easy day.  The two WHS are right by Managua, so picking them up should be pretty easy.  Then, once we get to San Salvador, I have a full day to take my picture with the legislature and explore Fernando’s city as he sees fit.  I love it when a plan comes together, and it certainly looks like this plan is coming together.  I will not yet recount the adventures that brought me from the time I closed on CA-15 to the time we got on The Pan-American Highway, as I want to wait until we get to Managua so that I can properly treat it in the context of the entire drive.  Since Fernando might soon call me to drive, I will now close until Managua and maybe work on some proposals.

Managua, Nicaragua

I probably should tag a new dateline on this, since I think I fell asleep at some point during the ride after midnight, but I’d rather treat it as one entry.  It turned out that getting to the Biosphere Reserve was the easy part of the trip.  It was getting to my hotel room in Nicaragua that was hard.  We were running low on gas, and we couldn’t find an opened gas station.  I told Fernando to wake me when we were either at a gas station or got to the next town.  Next thing I knew, we came to stop, and he said, “We made it.”  We were in a gas station and on empty.  After gassing up and using the rest of my lempiras, or at least most of the rest, we geared ourselves up to head to Nicaragua.  The border was close, and I was afraid that it might be closed at that late hour.  We then came to a bunch of cones with chains.  Our worst fears had been realized.  The border appeared to be closed, but there were people waiting around inside the crossing.  Fernando honked, and eventually someone came to move the chains.  It took us an hour from that point until we had passed the chains on the other side of the border, having to stop at 6 different places, almost each of which required a small fee to be paid.

First we had to through Honduras Customs, followed by Honduras migration, but no one was there.  We knocked and knocked, and finally someone came out wearing a towel.  I joked that he probably just came from the shower.  Next, we had to get our car fumigated, and then we had to pay for the privilege of them spraying our car, inside and out, with noxious gas.  After that, it was the Nicarguans turn.  First we had to go through their immigration procedure, a mere formality and a fee.  Next, we had to get a permit to bring the vehicle across the border.  Since Fernando was Honduran, and the car was rented in El Salvador, they said we couldn’t do it, but one flash of my American passport, and they were willing to make an exception.  It looked like we were good to go.  We took a picture at the “Bienvendidos a Nicaragua” sign, but they wouldn’t let us through.  We had to show the permit to a police officer, and he needed a copy along with one of the license and registration, but he couldn’t make a copy.  He suggested we try the fumigation station.  Otherwise, we would have to go all the back to Honduras and look around for a place to make copies at 11PM on Good Friday.  Fortunately, the fumigation station had a copy machine, and we were finally on our way, now looking at a 2AM arrival time at the hotel, being delayed an hour while they boiled my soup at the restaurant and another hour here at the border.  Maybe I should start calling it Honduran Time instead of Dutch Time.

I immediately lit up my last Davidoff Nicaraguan Toro.  Sure enough, we were stopped at the first checkpoint, and they actually went through my souvenirs.  Once we got on The Pan-American Highway, I wrote the previous entry, which took me up until midnight.  It was now too late to take a nap without having to use a new dateline, though it is not impossible that I drifted off.  We stopped for coffees, which I gladly bought, and it was really good coffee.  Refreshed, we were on our way.  When we got into Managua, we were stopped again, and he gave us the third degree.  He wanted to write Fernando a ticket for a lane violation, and, after a while, I started to worry.  It was taking too long.  He should have come back to me by that point, saying how much he needed to “fix it.”  He did, and I handed over the nominal fee.  We were on our way and managed to find the hotel easily enough.  It was completely dark.  While Fernando tried to find someone, I tried calling the hotel, but the numbers did not work.  I also saw something that made my heart stop.  It was an 18-room boutique hotel, which meant it was very unlikely to be staffed 24/7.

I looked around for another hotel, but he came back, saying he found someone.  The whole point in staying in a capital city is that you get a great view from your hotel room.  This hotel room was an interior room and had no windows.  It was a non-smoking room, but I didn’t care at that point.  After settling in, I lit up an Avo and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close and publish so that I can get a little bit of sleep before we attempt to say “Nicaragua Complete.”  Tomorrow night should, after two border crossings, bring us back to San Salvador.  At that point, it will just be a legislative building that stands between me and CA-4 Complete.