"The Freedom Fighters have been employed in an effort to interdict arms smuggling to the communist guerrillas in El Salvador, as well as to halt any destabilization efforts against the democratically elected governments of Central America and the Caribbean. We favor a toughening of U.S. policy in the region, including, but not limited to, an escalation of military pressure of all kinds, using overflights, various naval interdictions, and lots of military exercises."

-Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States of America

Alex Ferraro wanted to breathe.  Inhaling the fragrance of jungle swept in by the Caribbean trade winds, the healing oxygen soothed him.  After picking sea grapes from the trees shown to him by an eight-year-old troublemaker from a local barrio, they sat against the dune enjoying the purple sweetness wrapped around an inedible pit, spitting it at at the sand crabs. 

"Why do you wear pants and boots to the beach?" the funny-annoying kid who would not leave him alone asked in Spanish.

"Don't you have school?"  This was no vacation for Alex, and the local men never wore shorts; those were for gringos.  "I'm looking for a boat to La Moskitia.  Know where I can find one?"  Alex planned to travel down the coast to the isolated wilderness of highland tropical forests and thick low swamps, unreachable by road from the rest of Honduras, where the Miskitu Indians lived.

"Gonna get killed with poison from a bush doctor," the kid said.

"What do you know?"

The kid shrugged.

Dunes seemed to rise around them like creeping terrestrial iguanas clinging to this sun-baked, wind-blown, rain-soaked paradise.  Foamy waves splashed into sand, the sweltering sun made him languid and sleepy -- how could he get anything done in this backwater?  They all had told him not to come.  People said this coast was still too wild to build a resort, six years after the end of the Contra War.  Let them think what they wanted.  Paradise was to forget all failure fears instilled into him from past dissident girlfriends, setting free his parent's dream of a solvent son, to eat the fruits of the trees and watch the choppy surf break into mounds of conch shells strewn by fishermen down the beach.

Alex Ferraro, the kid trailing, walked down the beach to meet with the employer-benefactor, John Blakemore; as well, he could ask about transport from the gringos around.  Scanning the coastal ridge of mountains: did the guanacaste trees resemble wild beasts ready to attack?  Did the giant black clouds looming over the horizon look like angry monsters stalking him?  Only a little.  A flock of black birds that colonized the beach coconut palms kept him on edge with their squawking and screaming. The palms stood over the thatched champa huts where fried fish and beer were peddled to the tourists.  He lost the kid by entering a North American-owned champa where the old benefactor relaxed under a palm-frond roof shading lounge chairs and hammocks with a sandy front beach-area.  Alex had a moment with a pelican perched on a palm stump.  It flew away, strafing the blue-gray water, and soared through the air.  He ignored the stuffed marlin and a stretched jaguar pelt prominently displayed on bamboo poles.  Feeling the thumping beat of reggaeton blasting from a boom box, this dangerous dance with wild jungle anarchy enlivened him.

Blakemore was there on a wooden recliner, fanning himself, having a Salvavida beer.  The view stretched eastward along the Bay of Triunfo, a serene green-blue terminanting at the peninsula of Puerto de la Plata, where Columbus said the first mass on Central American soil in 1502.  Last night's deluge left the air so sparkling one might see clear across the Caribbean to New Orleans, but the Dole port built by the US military blocked the view, where a Polish container ship loaded banana, pineapple, and African palm oil.

Blakemore, sunning his white pant-chafed legs, leaned forward in his chair so the proprietor of the beachside champa restaurant could not see him hand Alex a check.  "If you do your job right, we will open up the entire coast of La Moskitia for ecotourism, for seekers to learn and study with the Miskitu.  It's exciting..."

Alex looked around to see who was watching, just down the hill from the oldest town in Honduras, but no ancient building remained as pirates sacked and burned the grandiose plans the Spaniards envisioned for a new society.  They even shot the freebooter William Walker here, leaving his dream of a new gringo colony to the red soil worms of the Triunfiano cemetery.  Why did he have to accept the job?  He came to Central America to escape the life-debacle back home in Boston, good-bye to suit-wearing, train-riding, clack-a-clack-a-clack.  Alex had lost his job at a land development firm and his girlfriend Bridget deemed him a refugee from reality after he announced his plans to head south.  Enduring six months of unemployment and a month on the road starting in Mexico City, riding chicken buses down the isthmus to the Caribbean, all he really wanted was to find a small village and learn to live without.  How long can someone subsist on no money?  Not long: ecotourism sounded like something he could do.

"I don't know about this..." Alex said to Blakemore.