Delfines Dulces

I splurged.  After my bioluminescent journey, I wanted to spend more time on the water today, and I especially wanted to snorkel and see dolphins, so I bought my way onto a boat tour of the gulf.  The boat is owned and captained by John, the guy who owns Cabinas Jimenez where I'm staying.  It turned out to be money well-spent, worth every penny of the $60 cost, and more, considering the marvels I saw.

We left at 8:30 this morning on a receding tide.  There were 9 of us:  John, Sam (his Hawaiian sidekick/dolphin spotter), Oso (his bow-riding, dolphin-spotting dog), me, and a group of 4 brothers and the girlfriend of one of the brothers.  They were an interesting family:  all four in their mid-to-late 20's, slim, good-looking professionals (doctor, lawyer, jazz musician, Sierra Club director).  It was great company for a four-hour journey.

The Golfo Dulce is approximately 35 miles long by 10 miles wide, and is fed by many clear local rivers, hence the name, "The Sweet Gulf".  We sped first around a small cape and back into a mangrove lagoon before the tide was completely out, spotting a couple of what I believe to be bare-throated tiger herons.  After exiting the lagoon, we spent the next half-hour to 45 min. cruising around the gulf to various places that were known to have dolphins, 9 pairs of eyes constantly searching the water for signs of the dark, arcing fins.  John was amazingly patient with his explanations of all of our non-dolphin exclamatory sightings:  floating trees, limbs, brush, coconuts, sardines balled together to escape predators, jack tuna.

Finally, he took us to a small, older coral reef off the opposite coast which hosts a large national park.  There he busted out the plane boards, an unforgettable experience that I had completely misassumed would be something like wakeboarding.  Instead it was to snorkeling what bicycling is to walking....just a slightly faster way of seeing the same thing without as much work.  The plane board was similar to a large, varathaned cutting board with handholds cut near the top and the bottom and a 30' rope attached at the top end. We jumped into the water with a mask on, grabbed the plane board with both hands and John idled us along about 3-5 miles per hour.  When ready, I angled the nose of the board downward, and it took me underwater among the tropical fish and coral.  When I wanted a breath, I angled it back up to the top, gulped some air, and immediately angled back down again.  I was able to angle to the side to explore, angle more steeply to go deeper (12' was the deepest that I went), and level off underwater at whatever depth that I wanted, including going up and over any coral extrusions I wanted to avoid.  Too soon, my turn was over and each of the others jumped in for the experience.

After a quick snack of fresh melons, mangoes, pineapples, and granola bars, we all jumped in to snorkel on our own.  Parrot fish, angelfish, sturgeonfish, dorados, sergeant-majors, et al, glided, darted, and schooled for us until one by one we surfaced and climbed aboard John's boat.

The search for dolphins continued, but John looks for everything that he can find of interest, so we stopped along the coastline to observe a troop of capuchin monkeys, white-faced and curious.  He did a 180 for a caracara that landed nearby and kept making short excursions each time we approached, finally affording us several close-up photos.  But no dolphins.  We scoured all of the known spots along the opposite side and started heading back to Jimenez.  There were two high spotting chairs located on the front rails right and left.  I took one and Dan, one of the brothers, took the other.  We saw rays and sardines and tuna, but no dolphins.  We switched out so that Paul and Tim could take the chairs.  Then Nicole and Mark.  Then I returned with Dan.  He spotted them first.

 It was a small pod of 8-12 bottlenose dolphins.  When we came up on them, I thought that we were going to run over one.  He must have been curious because he slowed his pace so that the boat was overtaking him on his exact course, waited until he was right under the bow, slipped just slightly over to my side of the bow, and turned his head sideways just underwater so that he could look up at me sitting in that chair while effortlessly keeping pace.  Then they were all around us: surfacing, arcing, blowing, diving, slapping the water with their tails, sliding across beneath the boat, playing with an errant palmetto leaf.....just hanging out with us, letting us observe for a while, going under for a while, coming back up and playing.  All this within a mile and a half of the town pier where we had started.  John hung out there with them for 20-30 minutes, letting us get our fill, or so he thought.  Or not.  I'm sure that somewhere deep inside he realized that we could have stayed out there all day and night, beginning again the next morning, and never tired of it.

Timing Isn't Everything

Timing isn't everything, but it sure beats the alternative.  The rain is pounding the darkness into submission here in my little corner of Golfo Dulce.  But I lay snug in my room, typing away, content with la pura vida.

I snuck one of the kayaks out for an evening paddle, with the hope of catching some luminescence, some dolphins, some friends on a sailboat for a beer.

I paddled out into a calm, deep, reflective sunset, though dramatic with towering thunderheads and roseate colors.  I fell into an easy rhythm that took me quickly towards Annie and Cochi's sailboat, with an ice-cold six-pack hurried straight from the 96 Market to a drybag full of ice in the forward hatch of the nondescript (but free) fiberglass sea kayak that I was lashing to the stern of their 52 foot wooden ketch made in New Zealand in 1941 or '42.  There's loads of history in that boat, including some bits of service in WWII, but this evening we were content to talk dog-training over a couple of beers while we watched the sunset.

All too soon, it was time to bid farewell in order to get the kayak back without too much repercussion, so I crawled into the cockpit and started paddling.  Although the kayak was lighter by a six-pack, it seemed to take quite a bit longer coming back than going out.  I settled into it, though, enjoying the stars as they appeared, and watching the tiny bits of luminescence off the blade of my paddle.  Halfway home, I heard/felt a thump on the bottom of my boat, and something rose to the surface a few feet to my left and jumped.  Porpoises, I hoped!  And became vigilant about the water around me rather than looking more toward the stars like I had been doing before.  Suddenly the water began exploding with little fireballs of light. I had cruised into a school of flying fish just as the bio-luminescence was  strengthening, it seemed.  The fish became little torpedoes of light that would appear beside me to flash as they left the water and re-flash as they entered again.  They were on both sides of me, hitting the boat, hitting my paddle, flying through the air, appearing and reappearing.  That, combined with the magical puffballs of light emanating from each paddle stroke, created a cosmic light show that began to be accentuated by lightning in the thunderheads towering above me.

The fish stayed with me until I neared the pier where 2 guys were fishing with handlines while the girlfriend of one of them sidled for attention.  The luminescence receded as well at that point, and I was left only with lightning and stars.

"Jesus! Did you see that lizard?"

I realized that I haven't spoken about the most incredible creature that I've witnessed on my Central American tour.  It happened in Boquete, so this blog will be a bit out of sync time-wise with the trip, but the story is too amazing not to include.

At Suenos del Rio, my hostel in Boquete, the owner, Itza, contributed daily to a compost heap at the top of a 12-15 ft. boulder containment wall for the banks of the Rio Caldera.  She said that the government had taken about 6-8' of land from her in order to make the opposite bank extend farther into the river so that they could accommodate their own fairgrounds where they grow flowers and have daily tours.  So she is trying to gradually recapture that 6-8' of land by composting over the boulders.

From the first day I arrived, I began seeing the same two lizards munching papaya skins and melon skins and other delectables from the pile.  One of the lizards, whom I took to be the male, was larger and had an obvious crest.  The other, the female, was smaller and plainer, without a crest.  They took turns at the pile, and never gave each other any flak, so I assume that they were mates.

One day, as I was standing on the containment wall talking with Bruce, I noticed 3 other smaller, plainer lizards at just about the same time that the resident male noticed them.  In a flash, he took off after one of them. The smaller lizard ran toward the water and without hesitation continued running once he got there....running some 15-20' over the top of the water to a boulder mid-stream.  In the midst of my delighted shouts, it happened again.  The large male made a run at a different small lizard who ran to the water, hit the river and kept running.....upstream!

Apparently they are known as the Common Basilisk, but I find nothing common about them at all.  They are also known as the Jesus Lizard or Jesus Christ Lizard for their ability to walk on water.  Studies have found that they push forcefully downward with their feet, which every good kayaker or canoeist knows is a low brace, creating resistance to push against, thereby neutralizing the liquidity of the surface somewhat.  Then they push forward with the foot quickly through the air pocket they had just created, so there is less drag.  They achieve water speeds of 5.2 mph, just slightly slower than their land speed.  Smaller basilisks can run 10-20 meters on top of the water before dropping down to swim if they need to continue to evade their predator.  Larger ones can go 3-5 meters tops, so I assume that's why the larger one didn't pursue the smaller one once they got to the water.

This spectacle was the highlight of my day and a great reminder to practice my low brace when I get home.

Awkward Beauty

I have always been a champion of justice, wanting the underdog to win, to see Goliath slain, the bully humbled, even humiliated.  I relish the balance inherent in the scales of Libra, my sun sign.  However, as most of us do from time to time, I  turn a blind eye towards my own aberrant imbalances.

A volcano of vultures was swirling lazily overhead. (Yes, I know, the correct term is "kettle", but I like to stir the pot.)  Revulsion and boredom mixed together inside my head to cause me to look away, look for something interesting, some scarlet macaw, Cherrie's tanager, or spider monkey.  Then within the volcano glided a frigate.  I paused to compare its elegant dance to the awkward, stumbling jig of the vultures.  Somewhere inside, their jig became my own ungainly attempts at playing tennis, or surfing, or social grace.  I found forgiveness for them.  I found myself realizing that their flight was what had originally drawn my eyes upward to the sky, that their mundane nature actually invites other birds into their realm.  They are gentle giants of the air.  Soon swallows swarmed through the volcano, scooping unseen insects from the air in salacious glee.  And the scarlet macaws squawked past in pairs.

The vultures I saw were probably the ubiquitous black vulture of Costa Rica whose flight is not quite as side-to-side slipping as the turkey vulture.  Furthermore, the black vulture seems to be monogamously mated for life, both males and females taking turns caring for the hatchlings by sharing their regurgitations.  Meals are more often fresh kills than carrion, more often fruit and vegetables than weak and sickly animals ready to be taken.  They are the house cleaners of the jungles and roads of the Osa.

Water to Water

The humidity here creates a constant human body water cycle, taking in and expelling, so my clothes are usually drenched by the time that I finish the 10 minute walk to school in the morning.  I spent the morning doing number identification with pre-kindergartners, and if you don't think that that is blue-collar labor, try it some time.  At recess I was playing catch with one student, then two, then three, then suddenly there were about eight different types of balls coming my way at once.  All of the kids on the playground were laughing, the teachers were falling out of their chairs, and an uproarious time was had by all.

School was let out before noon, but I waited around for my couchsurfing host to coordinate a volunteer project.  After walking to the library with two friends, we walked back to her house to say goodbye.  I was switching  my lodging to Cabinas Jimenez because my host had some new surfers coming in for the night. I checked in, got all of my things dispersed in the room, then took a kayak out for a paddle around the bay.  About 1/2 an hour out, I ran into the front of a squall, so I did a U-turn and enjoyed my first afternoon downpour since leaving Ashland.

Tonight, I'm enjoying a beer, watching a ball game on the laptop, and basking in the first air-conditioned room since I left Panama City.  Tomorrow I'm up early to see whether I can help get the kindergartners ready for their parade, after which will be a local bake sale and fair.  Then I'll be checking with all of the local tour companies to see whether I can glom onto a group hike into Corcovado National Park to get the group rate.  I've been conserving money on this trip, but the promise of exotic bird and animal sightings will make it worth the expense of hiring a guide.

Don't Believe Everything You Hear, and Only Half of What You Google

I met my ping-pong buddy, Willie, at the bus stop this morning at 8:00.  We were both heading to Costa Rica today, and he proved to be an invaluable asset at the border.  There is a four-step process at the border that involves going to four different stations:  the immigration window for leaving Panama was first, only one woman in front of me, so I was through in less than 5 minutes.  Willie then led the way to the money-changers and worked the best deal ($1 for 500 colones).  The money changers were under the same roof as the Panamanian immigration but with no signs advertising their service.  Next he led me across the street and down the block to the Costa Rican immigration, no simple matter in itself because trucks are lined up for hundreds of yards on each side of the border waiting to get through, then roaring away quickly when done.  Finally, we returned back toward the Panamanian immigration but on the other side of the road to catch the bus to Golfito, a town on the coast about an hour-and-a-half by bus.  

Willie had lived in Golfito for the last 20 years, having moved there from Hawaii, with a few Rainbow Gatherings sprinkled in between for good measure.  He got us off at the right bus stop in Golfito to check on the lancha schedule for Puerto Jimenez.  We had time for a beer before catching the lancha at 1:00, so he led the way up the Street of Dreams to a nice little bar where we had a cold one to celebrate our arrival.  He saw me off at the landing, putting me on an 18-passenger lancha whose pitometer was reading 35 knots, and it still took 1/2 an hour to get across the Golfo Dulce, 3rd deepest gulf in the world, rimmed by green, tree-clad mountains above a calm, aquamarine, inland sea.  It was so unexpectedly beautiful that I couldn’t stop smiling.  I say “unexpectedly” because all of the other travelers I had talked with had found Costa Rica expensive and unappealing compared to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama, so I wasn’t even sure I wanted to come over here.  Wrong!  Southern Costa Rica is beautiful, and although more expensive than Panama, a couple of amazing contacts have softened the landing.

Janina, my couchsurfing host, met me at the Puerto Jimenez dock with her bike, and walked me back to her house, where I learned about her company for the next couple of hours.  She coordinates homestays and eco-volunteer situations for people who prefer to go on vacations by volunteering to work to create a sustainable Costa Rica.  She easily has all of the bigger eco-tourism places beat on price because she does all of her own legwork for finding volunteer situations and places to stay.  She has me going to both a public and a private school tomorrow to help teach English to elementary school kids before heading out to her friend’s sailboat for cocktails at sunset.  If you're interested in a volunteering vacation, check out her website: Green Life Volunteers

Puerto Jimenez is on the Osa Peninsula, home to the Corcovado National Park; squirrel monkeys, surfers, and scarlet macaws; 50% of the biodiversity of Costa Rica; and 2.5% of the biodiversity of the world.  Dolphins and whales are frequently spotted in Golfo Dulce while bicycles and gringos are frequently spotted in Puerto Jimenez. 

I plan to stay a few days to sample the sights of this natural paradise, to soak it in with the help of my newfound friends.

Blowing Out of Town

Cool breeze dominates Boquete with an almost

full moon chaser of life, adventure, stars

to hang my eyeballs on when I put them away for the night.

River sound, leaf sound separate and commingle

slipping in and out of wind-blown branches

curling into my cabana like a friendly boa looking for my mice.

The boa,searching onward, slithers across a line on a map

unaware of silver other than as a cool sliver

on the rock that has lived on the face of the timeless cliff.

The almost moon gives a jagged smile to the constrictions

painted here and gone, leaving behind

the barest trace:  a mouse hair or three, an “s” track in the sand, a drop of blood.

No politics or presidents, only silent assassinations in the night

small mice missed only by their families.

As the snake resumes its affiliation with the hunt,

the breeze from Lower Monkey laughs and sends him on his way.

Meant to Swell a Scene or Two

This business of blogging daily requires a belief that my words are meaningful, even simply to myself.  The humdrum, the everyday occurences can happen even when traveling.  A traveler, a writer, a person, anyone has to work sometimes to find the nugget of beauty within the ordinary.

My verbal sparring opponent and I went for a walk to look at neighborhoods in Boquete, and wound up in a resort community that included a couple of labyrinths, a tennis court, an indoor pool, a golf course, a mini-golf course, two koi ponds, an amphitheatre, and a chichi neighborhood of multi-million dollar homes from which we were escorted out by a couple of security guards in a golf cart.  Apparently we were suspicious because we were on foot and taking photos, probably to case the residences for later robberies.  I'm sure we broke several other laws along our route through that community known as Valle Escondido (Hidden Valley).  We walked on cart paths that said "Golfers Only", we sampled basil and cilantro and oregano from the herb labyrinth, and we were tempted to pick bananas, but they were out of reach so we contented ourselves with devising schemes for harvesting them in plain sight of the security guards.

After leaving the resort, I fell prey to the relaxing song of the river, spending the rest of the afternoon vacating:  chatting with the other travelers in the hostel, watching sports on TV, and sending emails back and forth to my couchsurfing host in Costa Rica.  It looked for awhile as though my couch was falling through, and it has been trimmed back to a single day, but I'd like to check out the small town where it's located,  Puerto Jimenez, even if just to say that I made  it to Costa Rica.  There is a Crocodile Sanctuary there, so that should be interesting, and my host is involved in several conservation projects, so I'll be talking with her about the possibility of other Ashlanders coming down and getting involved.

The couchsurfing project sounds intriguing, bringing people from all over the world into your living room or spare bedroom.  I'm dipping my toe in to see what the water temperature is, but my friend Debbie says that she's had some great experiences with it, and never had a bad one.  The key seems to be vetting the potential surfers by reading their profiles, seeing what they have to say about themselves, and what others have to say about them, especially those who have already hosted them.  I have another potential host down in Panama City with whom I'll be talking today to see whether we can arrange some dates that work for the two of us (although it sounds as though I would be staying with an entire family there.)

I think that two surfing experiences will be enough to help me decide whether to recommend to my wife that we offer to host once I get back to Oregon.  It seems to be a way to get some of the flavor of travel without leaving home, which actually sounds very appealing to me right now.

That's a Fact, Jack

Laid low yesterday, doing a bunch of couchsurfing for the rest of my trip - inquiries in Bocas del Toro, Panama City, Colon, and San Blas.  So today I'll do a bit of walking, shooting photos, and fact finding about the town.

The infrastructure of Panama is very solid.  The highways connect west to east between Panama City and Costa Rica, some in better condition than those of the US.  The highway continues east of Panama into the large, untamed area known as the Darien Gap, but there it ends on the way to Colombia.  There is talk of continuing it on into Colombia, but for now, there remain only rutted, rocky, smuggling roads to get from one country to the other.  The northern coast along the Caribbean is also rather remote, with limited access to the coast except near Bocas del Toro by the Costa Rican border, and down by the canal, in the central portion of the country.

The internet grid offers great coverage through the developed communities, and cell phone service is widespread.  Although electricity is prevalent throughout Panama, even the more up-to-date communities like Boquete have some archaic wiring systems, and solar is not very widespread.  The panels that are here have to be angled almost horizontally and covered with mosquito netting to keep the bugs from nesting.  The government is busy putting an extensive hydroelectric system in, much to the chagrin of the local greenies.

Tap water is drinkable and pretty darn tasty everywhere I've been, but I hear that I shouldn't drink the water in Bocas del Toro.  Can recycling seems to be starting up, and of course, most Panamanians do a better job of recycling their food waste, giving it to the chickens and pigs, as well as putting it back into the ground for soil enrichment.  They also do a better job of reusing materials such as metal and wood.  However, there doesn't seem to be bottle or paper recycling that I have seen.  Here in Boquete, and occasionally elsewhere, there are elevated household garbage cages that look like rectangular metal grid barbecues with doors that the garbage collectors can open, but the animals can't.

The northern (Caribbean) and eastern regions are the malarial centers, but Panama only had 1/4 the number of cases reported that Mexico had in 2011, and no reported malarial deaths.  The incidence of yellow fever is also going down.

Once you get out of the Panama City/Colon/Canal Zone, the crime rate goes down substantially, and there's a palpable ease.  The Panamanians seem friendlier once you get out into the country a bit, although I have begun to notice more hard looks and posturing by the Panamanians around Boquete, probably due to such an influx of illegal aliens from the US.  Panamanian law was changed in the last year, making residential visas more easily obtainable, but the process is arduous, costing a couple of thousand dollars usually, because you have to use a lawyer to submit all paperwork, and it takes 5-6 months to complete.

Well, the sun is shining, and I'm running out of facts, so it must be time to go walking.

"To meet the faces that you meet...."

Yesterday was market day for gringos at the Picipi across the bridge from Suenos.  Organic veggies, homemade breads and marmelades, handcrafted coffees from the mountains around Boquete (one of which won a gold medal in Japan a couple of years ago and sold for more than $100/lb.), local books being sold by local authors, water purification systems, handicrafts of all kinds from all over Central and South America.  

I recognized one of the vendors.  He is an indigenous Kuna from the San Blas Archipelago along the eastern coast of Panama.  There are 365 islands in the archipelago, stretching most of the way from the northern end of the Panama Canal to Colombia.  He didn't give me a first name; his apellido or last name is Lopez.  We had met at breakfast a few days prior, the only patrons sitting on the patio of a small family restaurant that I have adopted because I rarely see gringos there.  Senor Lopez told me a bit of his history, having left San Blas some 22 years before to seek a living elsewhere.  He lived in Panama City for a while before moving to David to live with his uncle for 5 years, then on to Boquete where he lives in a little one-bedroom stucco duplex on the river, close to the bridge, that costs him $130/month.  He works 7 days/week as a cook at a local restaurant, sells hand-embroidered molas at the market for his mother and sister back in San Blas, and watches a booth for an Ecuadorean friend from time-to-time during the week.

I met him again this morning and invited him to lunch with me in the same place where we had met. After lunch, I decided that it was time for me to return to write the blogpost.  However, on the way back to the hostel, Senor Lopez asked me to step into his house and write down the translations for various words and phrases that he uses to sell the Kuna molas.  I gave him not only the correctlt written word or phrase, but also the way that you would write it in Spanish to correctly pronounce it in English, like s-i-d for "seed" or b-a-y for "by".

He is a man of good heart, one of those people who has a shy smile that comes from a sincere place.  He is quiet-spoken and neither completely open nor guarded, but available.  I sat with him awhile during the time that he was watching his friend's booth, watching and listening to him both then and when his friend returned. He seems imbued with trustworthiness.

I also met Willie right after breakfast yesterday morning.  Willie is a graying, long-haired, ex-Rainbow Gathering hippie-turned-evangelist from LA who has been living in Mexico and Central America for years.  Within a couple of minutes, he was already inviting me to meet him at noon after the market at the 2-for-1 Tuesday beer gathering at one of the local ex-pat bars named Mike's.  He must have meant Panamanian noon (similar to Ashland noon) because he wasn't around when I showed up.  I lolligagged a bit but didn't buy because I didn't want to drink two beers by myself in the early afternoon, so I wandered down the street to Amigos Restaurant where they had the same type 2-for-1 special going all day.  The ping-pong table next to the patio, though, induced me to believe that I could possibly drink a couple of cervezas if I could find an opponent to sweat some of it out of me....and I did find one:  Willie!  Turns out that he was more than able to kick my butt at ping pong, but we laced our match with liberal doses of conversation that involved equal parts religion, philosophy, humor, and personal history.....ok, maybe it was a bit heavier on the humor than the other parts because every time he went into scripture, I went into puns, put-ons, and parody which sent him into paroxysms of laughter followed by a sportive response.  We kept it up for a couple of hours before I said my goodbyes and went to find dinner.

Two such very different encounters, but I am hopeful to continue the friendships with both for the remaining week that I have in Boquete.

A Non-Hostel Environment

A group of Aussies who had started in Mexico a couple of months ago reserved the hostel next door to Suenos, and Sueno's duena, Itza, made a deal with that hostel's owner  to take the overflow, so I am kicked out for a couple of days.  "Kicked out" might be a wee bit harsh since Itza is offering up a room in her own home up in the hills above Boquete in a little town called Estrella.  Estrella has no internet connectivity, so my connection with the world outside of Panama will be limited for a couple of days.

I arose this morning, Monday, and decided to hike the famous Quetzal Trail, purported to be one of the more spectacular trails in the world, up onto the slopes of Volcan Baru from where one can see both oceans.    I enjoyed one of the funnier bus rides of my trip: first going around the block to return to our starting point just to play a joke on one of the riders, after which we stopped at every little super-mercado (each about the size of a corner convenience store) to yell out the window at the owner to see whether they had any gas (propane) on hand for sale.  The first four only had empty containers, but the 5th had what we needed and we continued on up to the top of the route where they let me out.

I hiked up the paved road awhile until I came to a sign that said "Sendero Culebra" (Snake Trail) above another sign that said "Waterfalls" in English.  Deciding to take a short side hike, I followed the trail down and across a small river.   Once across, I met four Brits on their way back down from the waterfall trail who told me that there was a $5 entrance fee to see the falls, so I decided to double back to a road that veered off to the left and upstream just across the bridge.  I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon exploring the various beautifully clear swimming holes that I encountered the rest of the way up to a little barbed-wire-gated driveway whose sign declared that it belonged to the Cabanas del Bajo Mono.

Undeterred by the barbed wire, I decided to see what the cabanas rented for, walking across a hand-made footbridge that led to a series of buildings surrounded by a well-kept lawn that also encompassed various flower and vegetable gardens.  I approached cautiously, yelling out "Buenas tardes!"  every 20 meters or so to give the owners warning that someone was around, but I needn't have bothered.  No one appeared the entire time that I was there, so I wandered back down the hill and out onto the road, where I happened to catch the same bus with the same bus driver.  This time, he drove down a side road to another small store where he dropped off a man who, I presume, was the store owner, since the bus assistant unloaded cartons of soda, sacks of potatoes and onions, and boxes of dry goods.  Then we stopped at a local warehouse to grab a couple of 100 lb. sacks of potatoes to take to Miguel someone or other and continued on our way back into Boquete.

Itza made dinner for four of us before taking me out to introduce me to her dogs, her husband, and her house.  When I awoke in the morning, there was a beautiful view to the mountains beyond, but the sound of the laughing river had been replaced during the night by dogs barking, so I was more than grateful for my morning cup of coffee.

Which of Us is D'Artagnan?

Friday night I surveyed the guests in the posada for interest in hiring the posada's duena, Itza, to drive us around and act as tour guide for the day.  Itza had agreed to the arrangement prior to leaving to return to her house for the evening, but I needed to fill her SUV with two other riders besides myself.  Both of the men were committed for the next day to the process of applying for residential visas, but the two women, both of them young travellers from Holland, gladly signed up and also enlisted another young woman from a different hostel to join us. Sanne, Adriana,  and I sketched out a loose itinerary for our Saturday excursion.  However, the following morning Itza called to say that she was sick and couldn't make the commitment, so we made a quick change of plans to get together at 10:00, grab a taxi and head to the hot springs, perhaps including a hike to the waterfalls nearby.

After a quick, tasty, inexpensive breakfast a few blocks away, my return to the hostel afforded me the pleasure of meeting Amelie, a young French woman who was joining us for the day.  It rapidly became apparent that perhaps we were joining her.  As we walked out into the street, she began hailing cabs, full or not, leaning down to ask in fluent Spanish how much they would charge to go to the hot springs.  When she found the best price, $15 for the four of us to go on a 25-minute cab ride that ended on a rutted, bouldered 2 km. stretch, we waited for his return from dropping off his current passengers.

While waiting, I discovered that she had left her home in France at the age of 18 and had been traveling for the last 13 years, working all over the world doing food service.  She had recently finished a 3 month stint in Panama at a newly-discovered copper field, working 16-hour days, 7 days/wk, 3 weeks on and 1 week off.  She had just quit her job and was exploring before returning to France to live for the first time since leaving home.  She had met Sanne in Costa Rica, where they had decided to travel together for awhile.  During one of their hikes, Amelie had wandered into a wasp nest, had been bitten 8 times, and suffered such a severe allergic reaction that she nearly died.  She credits Sane and their hiking partner at the time with working in tandem to save her life.  This having happened only a few days before, she still had the bites to prove it.

Sanne graduated 2 years ago with a degree in Clinical Psychology.  Having no luck finding work as a psychologist, she accepted a job in a mental institution as a social worker where she seems to be putting her psychology skillsets to very good use.  She has been on vacation for 3 weeks, and has another week in Panama before returning to her hometown of Arnhem.  It was mere coincidence that she was in the same hostel as Adriana.  They had not met previously, but discovered that their vacations not only overlapped here, Adriana having also just arrived from Costa Rica recently, but also the previous spring when both had traveled to Sumatra and Indonesia, having stayed at many of the same places just a few days apart.

Adriana is a late-20-something travel agent from Rotterdam whose agency specializes in travel to the Middle East.  It seemed then only natural that she would go elsewhere for personal travel.  She speaks very little Spanish but seemed to have no trouble traveling around by herself through Costa Rica and Panama.

Spending the day with these 3 young, beautiful, foreign adventurers was much more the highlight of the day than the hot springs themselves.  After the cab ride and a short walk, we arrived at the hot springs about 11:00 on a warm morning.  The normally crystal clear river that we were hoping to cool off in between sessions in the hot pools was a milk chocolate color with dark chocolate sprinkles of burnt wood and other nasty black components of indiscernible origin.  Nonetheless, we stayed 2 or 3 hours talking, wandering about, and enjoying the day before beginning the return trip.

Here Amelie proved invaluable once again although the presence of three young women in bikinis always considerably helps your prospects when hitchhiking.  They were all adept at discerning which rides were safe, but once we had a ride, Amelie's Spanish fluency also allowed her to direct the conversation in whichever direction she chose, and I marvelled at how easily she deflected hints and entreaties with laughter and honesty.  Our final ride of the return series was with a couple of 60-something rafters from Idaho who took us all the way to our hostel even though it was 15 or 20 miles out of their way.  Go figure.......hmmmmm.

I parted ways with the women then.  They went shopping and cruising; I couldn't wait to get down to the crystal clear water of the river and jump in.  Also, I knew that I was really the fourth musketeer, and it was time to cut them loose to enjoy themselves.

The Sound of Water

A steady rain fell upon my the metal roof of my dreams through the night and into the morning, and continued falling for an hour after I awoke, continued falling until I walked outside to discover that the steady rain was simply the sound of the river dancing through and over the rocks below the posada.  This posada, Suenos del Rio, boasts only 5 bedrooms  (each with a bath), but has 3 kitchens, and 2 living rooms.  The shaded back patio has a grill, 2 hammocks, numerous chairs and couches, some visiting chickens, and an assortment of birds, lizards, and frogs.  It sits a half-block from the main cross-street, 2 blocks from the town square, and is an easy walk to the supermarket, laundromat, coffee shop, yogurt stand, bar/restaurant, and all of the rafting and eco-tourism companies.

My dreams of the river include doing a little volunteer paddle-raft guiding in exchange for some free use of their equipment.  I want to get on the river, but on my budget I'd rather not pay to do that.  So I visited all three of the rafting companies in town to cast my spiel.  Two of the three were cautiously interested, so I gave them my phone number to call me if something comes up.  In the meantime, I'll do some exploring on foot (while I'm waiting for my laundry to be done and my cell phone to charge) to see whether I can scare up a local with a car who is willing to be a tour guide to the waterfalls, the hot springs, and the volcano for a lesser price than the $150 that the local eco-tours places are asking.

Last night was a challenge for me from a different direction than I was expecting.  I had an extended conversation through the day with one of the other travelers in the posada, a conversation that focused heavily on star charts, rolfing, alternative religions, and personal growth.  I was surprised then, when he turned the conversation to his hatred and mistrust of our current president, specifically about how Obama is doing everything in his power to bring America crashing to its economic knees because he truly loathes America.  My fellow traveler firmly believes that Obama is trying to take away all guns from Americans so that he can install a complete police state, comparing Obama to Mussolini and Allende, among others.  He believes that 9/11 was a government-complicit conspiracy and has the word of an ex-Navy SEAL to prove it.  I debated points with him for close to two hours, with neither of us relenting, during which time (I'm embarrassed to say) I began to call him paranoid delusional to his face.

However, towards the end of the debate, I began to realize that he was a gift sent my way.  One of the habits that I have chosen to work on during this adventure is the choice of how I express my anger.  He definitely gave me the opportunity to examine that expression.  In the past, although surely not completely extinguished, I have had a quick trigger that has led to regretful words (such as 'paranoid delusional').  When Don Miguel says:  "Be impeccable with your words", I'm sure that this is what he is referring to.  He also says:  "Don't take anything personally", so I decided to reverse my field and come at this guy from the positive.  I thanked him for the opportunity of allowing me to examine and explain my own beliefs that contrasted with his.  I reiterated that there were many points of agreement that we had come to, and that disagreement is a healthy expression of individual minds.  I ended by smiling, shaking hands, and carrying a clean vision of him that did not seem to include any negative feelings toward him.  I almost felt as though I were not taking "anything personally", although it's a new concept, so I have to trust myself that that is indeed what happened.

Gratefully, my self-trust was corroborated by a deep, restful sleep lulled by the sound of rain on my roof and rivers running beneath my window.

Leaving David Behind

I awoke early in the little house with no air conditioning, no wi-fi (pronounced "wee-fee"), and no number, eager to be on the road and wanting to get to Boquete before dark since I had a long day of bus rides ahead of me.  The bus rides on this day would be totally unlike the first ride up from Panama City in the plush, air-conditioned, smooth-riding liner with TV and reclining seats.  These buses were closer to what you imagine to find in a third-world country:  busted shocks, inoperable windows, people jammed together, but fortunately no chickens, pigs, or snakes.

After changing buses three times, a light rain shower sent me on the way out of David, the last city before arriving in Boquete.  We were climbing into the Cordillera de Talamanca, the northern section of the steep, rugged chain of mountains that separates the Caribbean from the Pacific in Panama. We were climbing to the town at the base of Volcan Baru, home of the Panamanian cloud forest, the howler monkey, and the quetzal bird.  Boquete itself reminds me of Sedona in the 70's:  hip town with incredible scenery and a river running through it...on its way to having its own little vortex.  The road into town is becoming a four-lane divided highway with curbs and gated communities, while stylish, stuccoed perches dot the hillsides above the river.

Soon after the bus deposited me at the town square, I found a small restaurant/bar with wee-fee and began my search for the night's lodging.  Discovering a place called Suenos del Rio (Dreams of the River), I called but got a fax screech for my efforts.  I then asked the off-duty waiters sitting at the table next to me, and they had never heard of it, so I opted for a first night's soft landing at the place next door to the bar, Mamallena's Hostal.  It was filled with young adventurers from all over the world.  After settling in, I went in search of lodging where I might want to spend a week instead of a night, and found it only two blocks away.

Suenos del Rio sits on a bluff above the Caldera River, downstream from the hot springs which give it its name.  Suenos is a small pension on a quiet sidestreet, with only 5 or 6 rooms, each with its own bath, and a shared kitchen.  The two other guys that I met are both around my age, and are long-term renters. Both were sitting outside reading, with the sound of the whitewater in the background.  I negotiated for one of the rooms that opens right onto the river, but reluctantly returned to my international hostal after a relaxing conversation with the duena, a conversation that reminded me of hammocks and howler monkeys and languid tropical nights.

The Fisherman and the Director of Education

The tranquility of this pueblo, specifically of my neighborhood, was disturbed by the prolonged yelling between the couple next door.  They shouted and cried and cursed at one another for more than an hour, until about 11:00.  Even when they stopped, the night was hot and muggy, the bed was hard and polyestered, and by the time that morning came around, I was determined to forego another night there.  I told my host so when she called to inquire about how I was doing.

She had the immediate advantage on me because we were speaking in her language, and she was able to get in about 50 words to my 1. I didn't understand quite a few of them, so I was flipping through my mental dictionary while she had gone through three more thoughts.  She was much more determined than I was in her belief that I was going nowhere but to one of her rooms that night.  So she came to pick me up and to show me the other possibilities.  First, she took me to her 83 year-old father's house and introduced me.  The room she showed me was indeed very tranquil because we were in a town about the size of Greensprings, Oregon, but it had no door, and was directly across the hall from Papa's.  Next she took me to her house, in an even smaller town, at the end of a dirt road, and led me to the pink bedroom with the pink bedspread and the pink curtains and the pink flowers, across the hall from the one she shared with her husband.  Then she took me on a tour of Las Tablas, regaling me with non-stop, high-pitched, laughter-infused monologue after she had made me coffee and breakfast, after she had given me home-made cane honey and home-grown watermelons, after she had dropped off a portable water-cooler, before taking me on the 45 min. drive to the beach at Pedasi where she left me for 4 hrs while she took care of her business as Director of Adult Education.

During my stay at the beach, three things happened that caused me to really appreciate the extent of what she had done.  The first was that I had time to completely read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz which led me into a place of willing suspension of negativity.  The second was the apparition of a young, bikinied woman on an almost totally deserted beach lolling around in shallow water, getting up and crawling away a short distance on all fours before throwing herself full-bodied into the shallows again and rolling around in the water like a porpoise.  She was the embodiment of the wild abandon that Don Miguel had just told me to strive for.  The third was a local guy who had been walking up and down the beach since I got there.  Of indiscriminate age, he was lean, sinewy, and brown.  I found out upon talking with him that he had been taking care of the beach there at Playa Toro for 40 years, picking up trash, gathering flotsam to make palapas, and hosting free camping.  Several fishermen came and went with their heavy-duty rods.  Then the beachkeeper picked up his Clorox bottle with the line wrapped around it, scampered over some partially submerged rocks, and began making cast after cast into the surf at sunset.

Shortly thereafter, my host returned, picked me up for the return drive, and took me back to the little house with no number where I'm sure I'll dream about sea creatures and fishermen.

Where the houses have no numbers

I descended from the $9.00 air-conditioned, music-infused, plush-reclining-seat, 4 1/2 hour bus ride from Panama City to Las Tablas into a street where none of the taxi drivers gave me a second look or a honk if I looked away.  I walked down the street to a local market, grateful to feel the strain of the pack.  My phone rang; my host was calling to make sure that I had arrived in Las Tablas and could find her house which had no number:  turn left at the Banco Nacional, go 3 blocks, turn right.  It was the orange house next door to the house with many chairs.  They, the neighbors, would have the key to let me in since my host was working.  

After settling in, I decided to hit the market three doors down for a few more items.  There I met Gene, who runs the English as a Second Language School across the street from the market.  We joked around before getting down to the serious discussion of ESL methodology, delighting us both in the sharing of arcane knowledge that would bore the average citizen.  He invited me to come by the following morning, and we parted ways.

I watched a sandlot baseball game where the pitcher had a bucket full of bottle caps that he would wing in to the batter who held a semi-smooth stick.  No umpire, no balls, 3 strikes, and lots of catcalls when the batter swung and missed.  I talked with the furniture repairer next door who was hammering brads into leather upholstery.  I talked with the owner of the store and her daughter.  I greeted all who walked past my open door.  I breathed in the fresh air from the ocean that swam across the porch of the orange house with no number next to the house with many chairs.

Calmate, hombre!

No need to hurry getting out of the city, I told myself this morning. You'll sleep in a bed somewhere west of here tonight, so take advantage of what the city has to offer before you leave. Phone service seemed to be my pressing issue, not so much to connect with the states since the internet access was working well for that, but to call around Panama....to call the house manager about a router being down, or to call ahead to my Air B 'n B in Las Tablas to let them know that I'm coming a couple of days early. So I went in search of an alternate phone, or a card I could use on mine, or a way to unlock my phone and put in a local chip. Coffee first, though.

Same place as yesterday, but a different set of beggars, these being quite a bit more aggressive. The first old man, who seemed to have no afflictions other than poverty, came to the opening of the covered patio area, caught the waitress's attention with a hand signal, and stood waiting...presumably for his daily gift. He asked me for money a couple of times before giving up and waiting again for food.

Next came a skinny guy pushing his buddy in a wheelchair on an elevated portion of the sidewalk, lined with the restaurant's potted plants. He spotted a partially-eaten breakfast on a local's table and stepped onto the planter wall, almost onto the man's table, to grab it. They had a short, heated conversation that I couldn't hear after which he wheeled his buddy over to the entrance to the patio so that he could approach the breakfast from close range in a different direction. Another heated exchange, finally being joined in by a waitress who told them to leave. They did so, at their own reluctant pace, leaving the outcome in doubt for a long minute. Then they joined the old man standing beside my table. Fortunately I had only a glass of water and a half-cup of coffee, so they weren't interested. Finally another waitress came out with what appeared to be a burrito and gave it to the guy in the wheelchair, causing the old man to go into a tirade that I didn't stick around to hear.

But Senor Chair with Wheels had given me the reminder: Have patience (Ten paciencia). It served me well, this reminder. I got a new phone at the second store after a 45 minute wait. The phone came with 2 hours of prepaid minutes for a grand total of $26. I am now connected to Panama. And I am on the express bus heading west on my next adventure.

Calmate, hombre! Ten paciencia.

Fighting Fear

My slug-a-bed self said:  "The room is cool, safe, and all that you need.  The city is crowded and full of strangers waiting to .........."  Well, I'll let you fill in the dots with wherever your mind goes.  Mine went to 'take your money, your health, your trust, and your innocence' (however much of that I may still retain at my age).

Another voice chimed in, though not a fearless one.  It is perhaps what Robbin calls the voice of shame:  "Shame on me that I would think about lying here in my room all day.  Next I'll be calling Alaska Airlines, changing my ticket and heading out to the airport."

A third voice spoke through the microphones in the subcutaneous layers of my skin:  "That was a mosquito bite!  There's another!  And another!  The room is full of mosquitoes!  Why can't I see them?  They can't be Anopheles because the literature said that although they possess a tiny chainsaw to hack through the skin, prior to hacking they inject an anaesthetic so that the victim (me!) can't feel the bite."

The fourth voice won out:  "Shuddup and go!  Now!"

So I did.

I walked around the corner, down the street, sat in a cafe, and drank a cup of cafe con leche while watching a beggar's legs flopping back and forth from a vestibule down the street.  I asked a waitress nearby the prices that I should offer to cabbies for various destinations that I was interested in, then flagged one down, haggled him down by walking away twice, before joining him on the ride to the Miraflores Locks.  I had difficulty understanding him due to his rapid-fire speech and heavy local dialect (which I'm finding to be the usual case here in Panama City), but I believe that we made a deal to have him wait an hour for me, then take me to the Amador Causeway for an hour, the Old Town for an hour, then home.

He wasn't there when I came out.

Despite the entreaties of a dozen different cabbies, I walked a quarter mile to a bus stop; then I rode a city bus back into town for free. But its route terminated in a location that brought up the fear factor again.  I didn't want to stand around looking lost, so I headed in the direction that a different bus had taken, hoping for a bus stop and a bus employee that I could quiz about routes.  I found both less than a block away.  But the dialectical impasse arose again.  I could make out the gist of what was being said, but not the details.  I had to buy a ticket around the corner somewhere.  More people, more questions, more partial understandings, but always some helpful person would stop long enough to explain enough to get me to the next point.  The cook at the Hilton around the corner from my house led me off of the final bus and through the last few blocks to my humble home.

And I have no mosquito bites.

First Impressions

Easy, unfilled flight from DFW helped me carry a smile into Immigration and Customs.  Greeting government workers in their own language with a smile on a face worked wonders:  the Immigration woman suggested that she drive me around the country for a month if I would invite her to the states and do the same for her. I politely declined and was through Customs and out the door in less than 25 minutes.

The guy who rented a room to me through Air B 'n B had told me to call him to connect because he would be waiting nearby in his pickup.   However, my phone didn't work, and there was no wifi in the airport to use Skype.  Through the myriad offers of taxis, one of the drivers gave me $.25 to use a pay phone.  Then, when that didn't work, another used his cell phone to start making calls to the numbers I had been given.  Despite the fact that he asked me for a tip as I got into the pickup, I see him as a kind stranger who was helping a traveler in need.  There were so many other possible outcomes, the best of which would have cost me about $30 for a taxi.

My hosts are friendly and eased me into Panama City.  We drove for 20 to 30 minutes from the airport through streets, signs, and traffic that reminded me of Puerto Vallarta.  I'll find out tomorrow what it's like in the daylight.

Mohammed's Ride

My flight connections included a serendipitous alignment:  Kerry's plan to connect with her Portland friend, Holly, for a trip to the coast put her in the seat next to mine on the flight out to Portland on Friday.  After dining at Wild Abandon with Holly & David, I had a short night's sleep before meeting my cab out in front of their house at 4 AM.

My driver was a tall, skinny, 20-something from Somalia named Mohammed.  The gist of his story was that his dad had moved them out of Somalia first to Ethiopia, then through the Sudan to Egypt, then to the US.  He struggled in school, got a girl pregnant, tried to hold down the cabbie job while pursuing his GED, and has given up on that for now in favor of simply earning money to support his girlfriend and child.  Mohammed's is not a remarkable story, per se.  It parallels so many others that I have heard in 20 years of teaching in alternative high schools.

However, I am not looking for the remarkable in my dealings with people on this trip.  Rather, I am looking for the connection.  I am searching for my link to the mundane, to the normal, to the unremarkable piece that lives inside of each of us.  I think that might be the key that unlocks the cell door to one of the many layers of self-criticism that obscures my connection to other people, causing me to believe that I am truly alone.