Tropical nights

For some women their “nighttime ritual” involves the use of a milk-cleanser, toner and moisturizer for the face; maybe some yoga and meditation; or falling asleep to glow of The Tonight Show. My bedtime ritual however goes like this:

Stay awake as long as possible to postpone the inevitable dreaded bedtime. If the weather is nice this glamorously involves sitting in the air conditioned hotel lobby using their electricity and wireless internet (careful not to consume too much wine, as I still must descend three stories of stairs, walk the darkened rubble path to the concrete pyramid-of-doom and lower myself down it's steep crumbling steps - watching out for bugs and rodents, scootch across the flimsy plank over the water - muttering words of calm so I don't freak out if I see the jacare, stagger across the wobbly dock, clamber onto the big steel boat, climb over the rails and board DOMINO at last!)

However if, as last night, there is a recurrence of the great flood with Noah and the Ark expected to appear coming down the river, I sit at the dining table in DOMINO’s salon; all dark except for the red courtesy lights and glimmer of the dulled-as-much-as-possible computer screen … until all the wifi I’m pirating is shut off for the night.

Earlier I would have doused my cabin (which is just at water level, on the port side) with bug spray: now I enter and, stripped down to a pair of choneys or a pareo clinging to my sweaty flesh, position a mosquito net from the bottom of the upper bunk down around the foot of my bunk.

This involves taping it to the bulkhead and walls with masking tape and stacking books and my camera bag around the foot of the bed so the netting doesn’t slip out; then I slide through the sliver of space left on the inside bulkhead -- and from the other side, trapped in my netted cage, finish taping the remaining space so as to deter the influx of mosquitoes and flies.

Heaven forbid I should have forgotten my bottle of water, or to stack my tote bag against the courtesy light to dim the red glow; and I have to climb out and repeat the process!!

Then, I turn on the fan: a 10” rattletrap that sounds like a bi-plane firing up … but I will admit: it's the most magnificent music to my ears. The fan has three settings and at the highest it whirs and whizzes and tap-tap-taps loudly to my delight. It also has four timer settings: 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours and 8 hours – alas my fan must have flunked math, as I turn it on at midnight and at some point in the hot steamy night the blue light turns off and fan silences. I wake up immediately, reset the fan, and resume a fitful slumber.

But first, I must fall asleep. I stretch out like a starfish on a towel on my bed; listening for renegade mosquitoes; tickled by the rivers of sweat on my body; intrigued by the sounds of the crocodile who has taken up residence beneath DOMINO and is tonight scratching and bumping against the hull as he sings his grunting, raspy love song; awaiting dawn and the hint of fresh morning breeze in the air. But my mattress is comfy, my cabin spacious and private... such is life in the tropics, on a boat!

And today we are on-the-move! Leaving the YC and hotel complex south of Asuncion; back to anchor at the estillero where we’ll do last-minute fixes on the boat; then departing Saturday (!) Jan 9 stopping nightly along the Rio Paraguay (which becomes the Rio Parana and Rio de la Plata) at Pilar, Bella Vista, Esquina, Parana, Rosario, Barradero, Tigre, Sacramento, Libertad, Montevideo, and Punta del Este!!! I may be offline for this time so keep your fingers crossed and keep us in your thoughts and prayers. DOMINO-A-GO-GO-GO!