A Day At Casa Primo

Yes. Well, my first task of the day, as a houseguest at Casa Primo, was to get out of bed while it was still dark, creep down to the banana plantation, and, with the aid of a tiny muffled Maglite, check around the roots of the banana trees to see if the delivery from the mountain had yet been made by Clemente, the FedEx man. Had that been the case, much commotion would have ensued, but on this particular day to which I refer in my title no such hubbub awaited. The day stretched before us―calm, limpid, its silence broken only by the pneumatic protestations of the donkeys across the river, the remonstrations of roosters attempting to herd their hens into more bug-infested pastures, the Dopplar-enhanced symphony of many boom-boxes passing on the trail playing the indigenous lays and chansons of the region, the famous pack of Fifty Barking Dogs of Yelapa, and always one or another of the village caballeros shouting imprecations at his runaway horse while beating the air with his machete and screaming further curses at the pursuing schoolchildren vainly attempting to earn a few centimes by catching the fleeing animal.

But the day did not truly commence until the moment that Primo, emitting an acoustic band's worth of assorted sound effects (for that read Spike Jones or The Kinks), rose from his bed, scratched his head and then gave certain other areas of his body the same treatment, and almost instantaneously began the first of several Plans du Jour by which we were to occupy ourselves for the rest of the day. Had we―or shall I say I―but known, on this unforgettable occasion, what was to come, my natural sanguinity would have fled, and very possibly I would have fled with it. But at first there was no indication that the day would come to―what it did, with its agony of fear and trembling a la Kierkegaard. Or worse. I watched a flock of egrets swoop up and down the river like a great broom of white feathers, gazed wonderingly at Primo as he sat, sunk in thought as one of the great Rodin “Three Shades”, found my place in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and settled down to savor my tranquil existence. But I had neglected to remember what the Three Shades were contemplating in their pensive postures―it was the torments of hell that they pondered, the agonies of the damned.

(To Be Continued when Beth returns from a 2 week Yelapa sojourn)