Words by Spencer Klein

Photography: Alvaro Calero

They said there was no road, and then after a few drinks they said, "Well, I suppose there is, sort of. That was enough for us; we left the next day. The sun was still low, nine o'clock maybe, and it was nothing like we expected. Across the street and down a little ways there was a group of borrachos passing around a bottle in a brown bag.

This was in the center of town, near the malodorous fish market. They were huddled beneath the awning of an old, defunct building and between pulls from the bottle they would hoot and jeer, and throw dice for coins in the gutter at their feet. There was the sound of the smash of glass and then they all hollered and pooled their coins, and one of them moved into the darkness of the market across the street and emerged with a new bottle in a brown bag.

Beyond them was the entrance to the harbor, the same harbor that flourished only a decade before; it was polluted, empty and unarguably depressing. The town was the same way. When the banana companies pulled out the whole place collapsed in some debaucherous cacophony of foreclosures,bankruptcy, and booze.

Still, it was the only way to get where we wanted to go, so there we were. My wife Emily needed to use the restroom, so we strolled. There were still a few hours left until low tide and the truck wouldn't leave until an hour or so before then. Every
bar was open, blaring music, and unimaginably buzzing with patrons. They were hunched over billiards tables, belching karaoke, or tipping bottles purposefully toward the sky.

I remember Emily asked at one point, "Is this real?"

Nothing else was open, not even the one bank we found on the corner, and there was no way we were strolling into one of the bars to use a restroom. The drunks were
roused enough just seeing Emily stroll by the doorway.

Finally she found an alley to do her business and we made our way back to the truck in front of the small park. We passed four grown men dancing in the streets and for once in my life the sight didn't enliven me.

Usually you think revolution, but that day I didn't know what to think. It was depressing.

We put our temperature gauge on top of the truck and it read one-hundred fourteen degrees. All we could do was huddle in the shade and sweat and wait, and we waited
like that for a while, until it was unbearable, and finally I made my way to the market for beers before noon.

"I think I understand," I said to Emily. She smiled and helped me back up into the bed of the truck, and we passed cold bottles to anyone who wanted one. There were seven other passengers; nobody declined. Read More...