Luke, Modern Renaissance Man

In memory of my dear friend Thomas “Luke” Lukaszek

Yesterday I woke up from a dream about a former co-worker and friend, Chris, who had a stroke that he only partially recovered from. I thought briefly that maybe it was a sign that Chris passed away. But then my thoughts quickly jumped to Luke. Maybe my brain made that quick connection because Luke and I had tentatively planned to visit Chris together.

I remembered I hadn’t heard from Luke since he first returned from Colombia this past June.

Impact of the Border Closures

I had gotten a short email saying he’d finally been allowed to fly home to Vancouver after having been stranded in Colombia since March, when borders closed due to Covid-19.

The pandemic and the need to self-isolate meant everyone behaved differently than usual. I hadn’t heard from him again, so I assumed he was choosing to stay quiet after returning home. He must have been tired from his “harrowing” experience (as he’d described it) I thought, and patiently waited for him to contact me.

After a couple of weeks I tried calling, texting, and emailing Luke. To no avail. I was a bit worried, but thought maybe he’d changed his cell number and wasn’t looking at email. After another week or so I tried again. Again to no avail.

Then as life goes, something distracted me for the next several weeks. But recently I started to seriously worry about Luke. It was unlike him to not be in touch.

Luke loved telling and showing his friends about his travel adventures. So his silence truly was out of character. Sadly, we will never have a chance to hear or see anything of Colombia through his eyes. That was Luke’s last trip.

As one would expect of any Renaissance Man, Luke was an avid traveller — particularly to and in SE Asia. After he retired in 2012, though, he decided to start exploring Central and South America. After his first trip to the former, he was hooked.

A Noteable Trip

A 2017 trip to Guatemala and Nicaragua netted loads of photos and one of Luke’s signature long E-travelogues. I found both in my inbox today and would like to share excerpts of them with you.

Luke’s witty point of view was always on. But it was never as apparent as when he wrote emails and travelogues to his friends about his trips. He wrote while either on the road or shortly after returning home. Here is one example.

Aero Mexico was a much better choice of an airline to fly into Guatemala than an American one. I’m not even thinking of being a frog marched off the airline because they wanted my seat for a French poodle who needed to get to the White House. No, I’m thinking of something more basic like a ‘free’ hot meal with wine (gratis). No six- hour layover in an American city somewhere. And no ‘heavy’ Immigration interview. The flight was a ‘red-eye ‘ leaving Vancouver at 11 PM and got in at 7 AM. Then a connection to Guatemala City arriving late morning.

I found profound value in revisiting this record of that February 2017 trip. The following excerpt shows more of Luke’s wit, while giving readers a sense of his movement from Antigua, Guatemala to Nicaragua.

After spending three days in Antigua, there was a small thing of a 17-hour trip to Leon, Nicaragua in a shuttle van.

I would call this the “surf shuttle” because most people were surfers heading to El Salvador, which has a high reputation as a surfer’s paradise. There were boards stacked everywhere. Question to me: where’s your board, bud? Being a meek birder, I quickly changed the subject.

A Birder in Nicaragua

A bit further down the same E-travelogue, Luke describes his observation of local travel and industry on the San Juan River in Nicaragua.

From here on in I would describe this part of my journey as a “Birder’s Tour”. My first river trip was up the San Juan River, a mighty ribbon of water that empties the Inland Lake into the Caribbean Sea. This is the dry season, but the amount of water is immense. Taking a public passenger boat up, it maneuvers from side to side to catch the deeper channels.

The countryside is a mix of farming and jungle. My first destination was the small village of El Castillo — can’t be more than 200 inhabitants. As you approach it, an oval shaped fort looms up on a hill over the village. Its name is Castillo of the Immaculate Conception. Built of large sandstone blocks, it peers menacingly down at the village. The boat approaches the peer and people jump off to and fro, big bails of goods are heaved up to the dock. The town is supplied by boats like this. Everything from fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dry goods…even an ice cream cart is offloaded to do business for the day.

River Life

The record of yet another day in the San Juan River area is nothing short of delightful. It illustrates the sense of adventure and spontaneity that characterized Luke.

I met an English couple at the hotel who were birders. They were interested in renting a canoe from the hotel owner to paddle up a smaller river off the San Juan River. We got together the next day and the owner took us across the San Juan to the outlet of the Rio Sabados. We got in the canoe he had been towing and started to paddle up the river.

We left him to fish. It wasn’t a canoe that we imagine in Canada. This was a boat carved out of a tree trunk. Heavy is the operative word here. So, the three of us paddled up the river for about one and a half hours. It was a narrow river with little current. The banks were lined with jungle or open farmland. You got a sense of river life as the water was central to the people’s lives. Children swimming and bathing, people taking small boats to go fishing or to visit someone on the other side. Women and children washing their clothes — -whacking the clothing on rocks. Other kids hauling buckets of water up to their small homes.

Along the way we saw many birds. My first Toucan was spotted, as well as a Montezuma Oropendulla. This is a large brown bodied bird with a white head and tail. It lands in a tree and starts making this unbelievable sound — -like someone gargling with Listerine. Of course, we see and hear the howler monkeys — the classic jungle sound used in Tarzan movies. They are loud and they howl and scream! It’s a very peaceful and tranquil voyage with only these animal sounds. Suddenly we realize the time and we turn around.

On the return we see many green Lored parrots. They are perched on palm-oil trees catching the last rays of sun. Later we see flocks of them heading to their nightly perch. The sky is starting to turn 100 shades of orange and red. The colorful palette is reflecting on the water. When we arrive back at the big boat, the hotel owner is still waiting — and no fish in 3 and a half hours. So, I’ll buy one at a restaurant tonight. What a marvelous moment.

Sonia and Jungle Lodge

Another day, Luke had the pleasure of meeting a local woman he described as “cute”. Unfortunately, there are no photos of Sonia in the E-travelogue, though. He told the story of what happened after a woman noticed the lost, glazed look in his eyes.

Sonia approached and introduced herself as the manager of a place where he had hoped to stay called the “Jungle Lodge”. Their connection was quick and the rest of his day went like this:

After settling in, I walk out to the boardwalk in front of the rooms and settle in a chair. Sonia comes over and starts answering my questions like where to eat and what to do around the area. After she discovers I like birding, it’s instant bonding.

Over the time spent at Los Guatuzos, she is constantly showing me birds around the cabins. As well, she lends me a Nicaraguan bird book . She points out that there are guided tours that I can sign up for — -I’m the only one staying at the lodge, so it will be a one-on-one tour.

The next day Sonia takes me on a jungle tour looking for birds and the next day a tour in a kayak. Both tours are very personal and exhilarating. She has an amazing ear for bird calls and a good eye for spotting them. Left to my own devices, I’d walk past most birds in the jungle.

That leg of Luke’s trip seemed to be a very special time in the last few years of his life. In revisiting this E-travelogue, I’m indeed happy to see he gave himself the gift of travel. And I’m certain that Sonia and everyone else he met in his travels felt they’d been given a gift in meeting Luke.

A couple of minutes walk from the cabins was my restaurant. It was a covered outdoor restaurant run by a family; over the four days I spent in the area, I was the only customer in the place. They spent a lot of time preparing the meal and serving it as if it was a Michilin-rated eatery. To say this hamlet was the highlight of my Nicaraguan travels is an understatement. Over the time there, no other foreign traveler stayed in this small place.

One day there was a group of birders who had come over the Costa Rican border for the day. It was a strange, but positive feeling to be alone among just the locals.

Another day Sonia invited me to accompany her on her walk to her family home. Along the way she pointed out birds and more birds. She introduced me to her mother, grandmother and siblings. Then I trotted back into the hamlet and my nightly meal. Walking back to the lodge was a pleasure. Going through some dark jungle, then looking up into the night sky to see countless stars twinkling away.

What did I do to deserve this? I was glad that I’d looked on a map and wondered what was in this small place at the end of a river.

Final Words

The above excerpts represent one of Luke’s trips, but within that trip were so many adventures. Over a period of eight years, I know Luke had some remarkable experiences in his travels . I miss my dear friend and intend to pay homage to Luke by writing about another of his trips in the near future. Thanks for reading. He would be over the moon to know it.