Simply marvelous. The Flor de Caña lingered in my head this morning. At 9:00am on Sunday I knew I could go back to sleep—and should as this would be my only day to sleep past 6:00am. I was moved by the sound of rubbing steel as the pieces of the coffee press were skrewed together. Such a beautiful ruckus. I sat at my kitchen table—the only legitimate furniture in the house save a hammock—sipping consecutive cups of coffee from 9:00am-1:00pm.
I had planned to take a nature walk with Pablo. How can I describe Pablo? Perhaps a little like the Honduran version of my own father, a middle-aged single man who spends the majority of his time wandering the woods watching the birds and the trees, listening. We walked to a waterfall outside of town they call Las Golondrinas, or the swallows. Las Golondrinas was given its name for the swallows that come to roost every evening just after the sun goes down. The birds dart one after another like bombs dropping into the crevices in the rocks around the tiered pools of the waterfall. We walked there together to watch the swallows fly in at dusk. As we walked, Pablo would frequently stop to share the name and purpose of a variety of flora, and to talk about the effects of the surrounding coffee fincas on the land.
When we arrived at Las Golondrinas, we sat on a rock above the water silently as the sound of whizzing swallows filled our ears. I was standing on 19th and Agate St. with my dad, green tea ice cream in hand when he stopped me to stare at the chimney above where we stood. A swarm of swallows circled the chimney like a dust devil until one by one they shot into the chimney. Strange. Two such disparate worlds. Dad and the swallows, Pablo and the Golondrinas. Funny how they carry me to the same place.
We watched until we could no longer see the golondrinas. Pablo handed me a can of pear nectar and some Pringles. I don’t really like Pringles or sugary nectar juice, but in that moment it was the most perfectly delicious snack. We walked back in the dark. The frogs were singing for us as we crossed the stream. This frog is endangered here. We stopped and watched them with the flashlight, their throats expanding into bubbles bigger than their heads, singing as if we were not there. Simply marvelous.
