I woke at daylight desperately craving a good cup of coffee. Rummaging through the kitchen, I found some frozen beans in the fridge and managed a cup. Staring across the mug, I decided to leave the Bertram at anchor and set out across land. I needed to get to León, then Corinto, and while she could certainly get me up to Corinto, she’d be no good to me once there. Colin’s home had a well-protected and safe berth. I just needed transportation.

Standing in the kitchen, I pulled down a framed picture of Zaul where, undoubtedly, Marguerite could look at it while washing dishes. I removed the picture and put it in my wallet.

The garage was empty, but there was a single room next to it that looked like it might house the lawn equipment. I tried the handle, but several locks barred the door. Evidently, the partygoers had not bothered to open these. I found Colin’s keys, unlocked the doors, and smiled at Colin’s good taste. “Bingo.”

Colin’s house bordered a Costa Rican national park. Mostly dunes, it contained miles of sandy roads and was an ATVers paradise. Obviously, Colin and his family had bought the truck to chase waves and the ATVs to ride the dunes. This room was where he kept all these toys. Complete with three four-wheelers and two motorcycles, one of which was a KTM 600 with a few modifications. Essentially, an Enduro dirt bike bred for long stretches on the desert or back roads on which someone had slapped a tag and two turn signals thereby making it street legal.

Perfect.

I grabbed what I needed from the boat, stuffed it in a backpack, and hid a key for Colin’s workmen who would arrive throughout the next week and begin repairing the house. Then I hopped on the back of the motorcycle, pulled down my Costas, and turned north.

Six hours later, I was circling the cathedral in León, searching for both a hotel and a really good cup of coffee.

I stepped off the bike, blanketed by humidity and a sweltering mirage of heat. Hotel Cardinal promised air-conditioning, hot water, and Wi-Fi. I paid cash for my room, and the tall skinny guy at the counter led me through a lounge, down a long hall, around what looked like a communal kitchen, out into an open area filled with enormous trees, and finally to one of two rooms in the rear of the property. It was large and did in fact contain AC. I dropped my bag, set the air control on “snow,” and set out on foot in search of a café.

León has sixteen churches, but the largest single structure in León, and most of Central America for that matter, is the cathedral. Rumor holds that when the Spanish landed here almost five hundred years prior, they thought they were in North America. Wanting to stake their claim to the land and establish the new national religion, they set out to build the largest cathedral in the Americas. To their credit, they succeeded. Problem was they did it in the wrong Americas.

I walked the sidewalk next to the cathedral and spotted a café kitty-corner to the entrance. The café offered umbrella shade and oscillating fans, which served to move the heat from one table to the next. I chose a table with a good view of the front of the flowing fountains.

Once seated, I began to detect a smell that did not agree with me. I first blamed the sweaty guy next to me, but then the fan oscillated in my direction and pushed it back at me. I checked my shoes. Nothing. I checked the table. Under the table. Still nothing. Finally, my nose convinced me that I was what I was smelling. I was ripe. And I was in desperate need of a shower and some deodorant.

The kid waiter stood in front of me and tapped a pencil to a pad of paper. While I didn’t speak Spanish, I knew enough to say, “Café.”

He smiled and said, “Con leche?”

I knew what that meant and had heard it before, but the words weren’t taking shape in my mind. I shrugged and shook my head. He began making hand motions like he was milking a cow. “Vaca. Leche.”

I smiled. “Milk would be great.”

He returned in a few minutes with a very hot and very good cup of coffee.

I didn’t know where to start, but I had a feeling that if I waited until dark, I could find the party by the sound. My experience with folks in Central America was that they loved music. But more than that, they loved it loud. I finished my coffee, ordered a second cup, and watched the city unfold around me.

The fountains fed out from the front steps of the church and serpentined through an open park for the better part of a city block. In terms of volume of water, they certainly contained more than an Olympic-size pool.

Sipping my coffee, I noticed that several cars had pulled up to my left and parked with an advantageous view of the park. The drivers had exited and were now sitting on top of the hoods of their cars. Next to them, several police cars did likewise. The officers were now standing, tapping their hands with their billy clubs and making light laughter as they waited for something to occur in the park.

The police didn’t look like cops in the States. Their clothes were disheveled, unkempt, shirts untucked, no pistols on their belts. A few rested shotguns on their shoulders, but they didn’t look all that ready to use them. One of them had a radio, but it looked as if the three of them were sharing it or the other two didn’t care enough to carry it. Their vehicles looked much like they did. Dirty. Hadn’t been washed in a while. Little tread on the tires. Numbers and emblems faded. The manner in which they held a conversation with the guys in the cars next to them gave me the impression they had not so much accepted their task to “enforce or keep the peace,” but rather to “observe the festivities until they got out of hand, at which time they could either join in or quietly disperse.” Their friendly, just-one-of-the-guys banter gave me the impression that they were friendly with whom they wanted to be friendly.

While I observed them, one of the guys started snapping his fingers and pointing in an attempt to get the attention of all the rest, which he promptly got. Before me, something of a loose crowd, maybe fifty or sixty people, had gathered at the park. All eyes were trained on the far end of the fountain where a young lady, probably early twenties, was standing on the edge of the fountain wearing a trench coat.

She had dark hair to her shoulders, no shoes, and her hands were perched on the belt of her coat. She twirled once, then a second time, and began what can only be described as a ballet on the edge of the fountain. This continued for a moment or two while the jeering and catcalls increased. Judging from her appearance, something was a little “off” in her expression. She neither heard them nor cared. She wasn’t performing for them.

With little notice, she unbuckled her coat, slipped it off her shoulders, and continued her dance.

Completely naked.

The boys around me watched in marked fascination, but there was nothing seductive about it. The more I watched her movements, the more it became obvious that she was not mentally functioning on the same level as everyone else. Dancing for an audience of one, her ballet continued. Her spins were not fluid, turns not complete, not beautiful, nor was she or her figure. She would have never graced the cover of a women’s fashion magazine. None of which mattered to her.

She continued spinning and turning like a top out of balance. While I say she wasn’t beautiful, she was very much a woman and—despite her deficiencies at dance—that was what the crowd had come to see. Spinning her way toward the middle of the park and the fountain, she dove into the water and frolicked about like a dolphin, baring every side and end of herself. People stared through binoculars, long camera lenses, and inched closer for a better look.

While this was occupying center stage of the park, some seventy-five yards away, several hundred husbands, wives, and children were climbing the steps into the cathedral for Friday evening Mass where the organ was ushering the call to worship.