Bluefields Street Photography
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In the tropics, warm sunshine, prolific rainfall and a fierce cornucopia of otherworldly beasties all accelerate the twin processes of expiration and biological breakdown. Some of the forces are microscopic, some grotesquely large, like blaberus giganteus; the Giant Central American cockroach. But in the sultry port of Bluefields—a city perched on the Caribbean shores like some ragged black vulture—my basement room at the Hotel Don Caribe was a virtual shrine to the ever–ravenous Lord of Putrefaction.
Giant rats, roaches, fleas, flies and an array of creeping multi–coloured moulds had all encroached on my quarters. Packs of wretched feral dogs would gather by my window to howl at the moon, and some time during my final night in that iniquitous hotel, I sensed I had died and finally succumbed to rot myself.
What had brought me to Nicaragua’s far flung eastern seaboard? And why had I endured so many nights in the infernal Don Caribe?
My English taste for humiliation could not entirely account for it. Neither could my fatal streak of masochism. Sheer intrigue had drawn me to the region, but a lack of funds had been my first concern. A desire to plunge into the seamy chaos of local life had been my second. Ultimately, however, I was indulging my taste for the margins. And once I began unravelling the layers of Bluefields’ crumbling psyche, I became hooked.
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Tags: Bluefields, decay, PHOTOGRAPHY, street
Mon, Jul 19, 2010
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