PERFECT BEACH

GRANADA, NICARAGUA: JANUARY 30

Gillian and Joe take me today to the perfect Pacific beach. The beach is protected on each side by rock reefs and from the front by a small island. The sand is soft, the sea is clear. A fishing skiff floating to moarings would be to the beach as an olive is to a martini - delightful but not truly neccessary.

We swim and later drive to a small fishing village and eat freshly-caught snapper at a wooden table overlooking the sea.

Joe's father used to say that even a blind hog could occasionally find an acorn.

Joe drilled for oil on his ranch in Texas. He named his oil company, THE BLIND HOG OIL COMPANY. It was a one-acorn search.

FAKE HOUSES AND REAL BIRDS

TO THE FRONTIER: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5
Sixty Ks to the frontier: this is indigenous territory. Chavez posters border the coastal highway. Many posters boast of new houses built under the partnership of Chavez and the State Governor. I pass a clutch of pale blue huts crammed on a patch of freshly spread gravel, no shade. The huts are the size of a suburban garden shed. Each hut has a door and one window. The huts are new and unoccupied. They are statistic houses - glories of the Revolution.
The highway cuts across a tidal lagoon and damns the flow of water. The lagoon inland of the highway is stagnant and odoriferous. The seaward side is a shallow haven of water birds. A herdsman dressed in shorts and a baseball cap drives a few thin cows across the lagoon to graze sparse grass on a dune. I park and count bird species: two kinds of heron, waders, ibis, duck, oyster catchers, what appear to be moorhens, a small bird with long legs and a long, thin, curved beak...
Why, oh why, don't I carry a bird book?
Because I don't have space.

ROBBERS, MUGGERS AND REVOLUTIONARIES

ROAD TO CARACAS: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1
I resist riding a 200 kilometre detour. Bikers ride through Caracas every day. Not all of them get hijacked or robbed. Nor can the robbers and muggers be more dangerous than Venezuela's drivers.
The anti Chavez vote mounted a huge demonstration in Caracas last night. Today is the Yes vote mobilises. Every bus in the country is crammed with red shirts headed for the capital. Banners wave, fresh painted slogans gleam, klaxons screech a premature victory tattoo. Buses, old and new, collect at service stations. Red shirts swirl in the forecourt and in cafeterias or clump forlornly beside a steaming radiator or a flat tyre with the tread worn smooth as an egg. Hills slow the ancient to a crawl. Putative mechanics peer under a relic's hood. Bricks support an antique marooned by a broken spring. A shattered half-shaft strands another.
Six chrome-and-polish monsters steamroll me off the hard shoulder. I hit soft dirt, skid as I break and nearly fall. The engine stalls. I sit astride the bike, legs trembling, heart pit-a-pat and a fear-pain in the belly. Thanks buddies, thanks for the brotherhood of man. Long live the Revolution.

FUN DIRT

POSSADA NENA: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29
A German in his 40s is on a GREAT ADVENTURE. He has shipped a big Suzuki trail bike from Germany. He has tattoos, muscles and a pony tail.
I ride a small Honda and have a grey beard and a belly.
The German's geographic knowledge is a little vague and he doesn't carry maps. He is heading for Chile to visit an uncle. He sort of knows where Chile is - Down there.
He is excited at meeting a fellow biker. He serves me a beer. He suggests we ride up some dirt-road mountain tomorrow. The road is rough. We will have fun bouncing from rock to rock and the view from the peak is great.
I say, "Old men on pizza delivery bikes don't do fun dirt."