bats, coconut milk and thatched roof huts

Fans are the only relief from the heavy Caribbean heat. That and the occasional rain shower. We left Boquete this morning with a heavy heart. Even as we sat on the sidewalk at the edge of the town's central park waiting for the yellow school bus to take us to David (American yellow school buses are pimped out and used for public transportation in Panama), Boquetenos were smiling, sincerely wishing us well and safe travels. An old, skinny man in a straw hat and faded blue shirt unbottoned enough to let the mountain breeze cool his aged, sundrenched chest stopped in his tracks, smiled and wished us a good day, "que tengan un muy buen dia." He then asked us if we were going somewhere warm, we told him we were going to Bocas del Toro on the Caribbean coast. He wished us safe and happy travels and went on his way, stopping to greet the next group of people. I can't erase the man's sincere smile and his joyful eyes from the forefront of my memory. He choses to live everyday of his life on the bright side. 

We had to go through David, which is West of Boquete when we were headed East, because there were no bus routes that left for Bocas from the mountain town of Boquete. The little shuttle bus from David to Almirante, the Caribbean town from which we would take a water taxi to Isla Colon, was air conditioned, a true luxury in Central America. We drove four hours through some beautiful windy mountain roads. The lush green landscape of central northern Panama was pretty uninhabited except for the scattered tiny indigenous villages comprised of 3 to 6 thatched roof open ait wood homes. The homes rest on high stilts to escape the flooding that must be common in this part of the world. We witnessed the beginning of the rainy season, and I can only imagine what several more months of constant heavy rain could do to places with lack of irrigation systems. The stilts must have come as a result of nasty ruins years and years ago. 

The indigenous homes are extremely simple, no running water or electricity, no glass windows, just open holes. Clothes hanging to dry from every inch of available space, naked kids running around amongst chickens and roosters, stray dogs begging for scraps. Mothers and young children sitting around, waiting for their husbands to return from work in the fields (the majority earn their keep from farming) or for their school aged children to return from school.  As we drove through sparsely inhabited parts of Chiriqui (the largest province in Panama located in the northwest) and the Cordillera Central , we picked up school children and women to drop them off down the raod, the women to run errands and the kids to get to the very few and overcrowded schools. The bus would often stop in what seemed like the middle of nowhere to drop passengers off. The schoolchildren are dressed in uniform, white buttown down shirts with navy blue ties, and skirts or pants. They travel miles on a bus everyday to go to crowded classrooms , and most probably dont make it past 8th grade, proof being the thousands of teenage kids working in shops, collecting bus fares, in fields, etc...

There was an ad on the radio in Panama for a government sponsored literacy initiative. The ad was a staged conversation between a young man and his mother. He was convincing her that she too could learn how to read and write despite her concerns of having too many household chores to tend to. Government sponsored health projects in rural areas were not much more than one or two small stone buildings . Peering into the bare boned edifices, one could not spot a trace of modern medicine, just a man sitting behind a desk with massive amounts of papers strewn across his work space. 

It seems as though every woman from the age of 17-25 is toting a kid around with her. The bus was long and I finally passed out, mouth gaping and woke up to a toothless black man knocking on the bus window trying to sell me a lottery ticket. We were in the Caribbean, I could taste the salt in the air. Almirante is not much more than a port town, at least not from the little I saw. The lottery ticket guy was convinced I had dreamt of the winning numbers, he made me smile although I knew he was just trying to make a buck off of me. A $4 water taxi took us from Almirante to Isla Colon, the most populated island in the archipelago of Bocas del Toro in less than a half hour. Homes with tin roofs stood tall above the water on stilts and fishermen sat patiently waiting for the fish to bite as dusk slowly and quietly fell over the Caribbean Sea.

Bocas boasts a strong Caribbean vibe, obvious in the taste of cocunut milk infused rice, the sound of patois in the streets and the sight of racial diversity (and beautiful mixing) in its people. The United Fruit Company brought workers from Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti to Bocas to begin the fruit empire. The mixing that ensued left a rich diversity that remains and lights up the islands with a colorful array of different music, skin color, food and traditions. In half a block, you can hear Spanish, patois and English spoken. 

We stayed at Hostel Heike, $10 a bed, nice common room, big kitchen located on the main drag lined with sodas, shops and almacenes. The sister hostel, Mondo Taitu, is right around the corner and hosts crazy costume parties, 80s night and free "suicide shots" to those daring (or stupid) or broke enough. You snort the salt, shoot the tequila and squeeze. Happy to be able to get some sleep in Heike. Well described by Lonely Planet as a "treehouse like hostel", the place had a very relaxed feel to it, with painted murals and the "spaceship", a rooftop hammock haven we fell fast asleep in. We woke up to Hallelujah songs. From the balcony overlooking the central park you could spot the source of the ruckus. A preacher with a karaoke machine was preaching to a group assembled in rows of plastic chairs plopped in the middle of the park. mobile church. Tomorrow we beach it. I look forward to snorkeling, bronzing, island bike cruising, ladies night boozing and surfing. For a few days, we are no longer travelling but vacationing.

Stay tuned for bat caves, island hopping and other fun stuff that happened. we're back. sad story, but a true one. back to reality, oops there goes gravity. so i am writing from memory now, memories that fade with the passing minutes, images effacing from my mind like the writing on the wall dissolves in the rain. 

Pura Vida my ass

hey guys.

i hope that this post finds all in good health and spirits. this post might be a luittle blurry bc i am typung on a keyboard from circa 1992 and all the letters are erased and no, i still dont my keyboarad, i blame the school system in Belgium from back in teh day...
Here we are in panama, in boquete a sweet tranquil mountain town in western centyral panama. a quiet respite from the stressful time we spent in costa rica..if luck be a lady she sure as hell doesnt live in costa rica!

i flew into san jose last weds night to meet carolyn in a pretty boring hostel in the touristy barrio amon. she had already strolled atound all day and i had no desire to see much of san jose, not being a big fan of internatinal cities. so we decided to run the few errands only possible in a big city and get out of town, head west to the tranquility of the coast. the first day im there, the first few blocks i walk, i get pick pocketed. those guys are good. i didnt feel a thing adn i was walking pretty fast. i was gouing to buy a phone card to call my bank in the states and when i went to get my cash, everything was gone. passport, debit and credit card, drivers license...so i freak out and run back to the hostel to cancel my cards, amex tells me the bastards already tried to make a purchase, at the shoe store mind you. i mean if youre going to live a thievin life, go big or stay home, buy a car or a house or something sweeter than some cheap ass shoes. but i suppose those that steal need the basics, or theyre just little shits that know how easy it is and take advantage.

anyway so had to run around town to the american consulate and deal weith the passport thing, which was actually surprusungly easy but had to take the photo make a million calls to get my money wired to me-THANKS BETH!!!!!!!-get travelers checks yada yada yada, the whole ordeal wasted a day and 200 dollars. so not that sweet but we got the hell out of there the next day, no bodily harm done...i met this american kid from georgia who got robbed way far away from san jose and had to come all the way back to the city just to get his passport sorted. bummer.

we took a bus down the interamericana-the main highway in costa rica and the cement vein of central america-down to dominical, a tiny beach town on the pacifuc coast. it was hot and sticky, just what we wanted after a long weinter injackson. this place was so small, probably about 100 residents, many of them rich Americans who built huge monstruous houses along the coast. the town consisted of a dirt road parallel to the beach lined with cabanas and liuttle outdoort bars. there really wasnt muich to it. it was a big surf spot but neither of us wanted to pay the 20 bucks to rent a board for a day, the waves were pretty huge due to recent storms and there is a notorious killer rip tide you could feel when you were in the ocean only up to your knees. it was def getting pretty gringofied, complete with the 15 year old tico trying to sell you ´¨coca?marijuana? sexo?´¨ on the beach, pretty sad. but not nearly as bad as i hear tamarindo is. we met a super nice couple from australia there who had actually been ski instructors in steamboat co so it was fun chatting with them, and they had some crazy stories inclovling scorpions in nicaragua to share with us over some cold beers.

when carolyn went to get cash at an atm in dominical her balance read 6 dollars. she later found out that when she went to make a purchase at a pharmacy in san jose for some 2 dollar shampoo they charged her 80 dollars. it happened to her 2 or 3 times. they must have a network of shady vendors that tell each other who can get suckered...so we were dealing with that for a little bit. we left dominical and headed for san vito, what lonely planet said was a sweet little mountain town in southern central costa rica close to the panamanian border. settled by italian immigrants and in the cordillera, it sounded like a good place to spend a few days hiking and relaxing before we crossed into panama. after a full day of busing, we were excited to get a taste of little italy. not so much. the buses in costa rica are super slow partually due to the fact that the roads are in horrible condition but also bc they stop every 5 minutes to pick and drop people off in what seems like the middle of nowhere. people who live in rural areas have to ride the bus for 45 minutes to get to a grocery store or get things they can only find in bigger towns.

food and drink vendors get on the bus and ride it until the next stop selling juice, empanadas, erc, then hop on the bus in the other direction and make a living that way. on nothing, i got an empanada for 60 cents from a woman who couldnt have been younger than 60....

the bus from neily to san vito was this old decrepit bus that was packed tight and bartely made it uypo the windy mountain road. people were standing, the smell of BO permeated the air-i was def contributing at that point in our travels-kids were screaming, chickens in cardboard boxes were cokcing-or whatver sound they make-and it was pretty tight all in all. makes the grey hound seem like first class. this woman across the way was breast feeding her kid and i swear this boy was close to 3 years old. i guess thats not consodered too old? but the kid was definitely behind developmentally. he was barely talking, screaming and peed all over the seat. the shower i took that night was probably the best in my life. san vito was prettyt lame though , we hadnt planmned properly and so didnt have enough money with us to get the pizza we had been craving all day.

we spent the night at this ladys house who rented one room in her house and ate crackers with peanut butter. the next morning i puked my brains out. not sure what it was, maybe the empanada on the bus, maybe that tap water i had been drinking, which is supposedly safe...but it was no bueno. i usually have a stomach of steel but i giess that everythng is so sterilized in the states that we cant handle much..we were ready to get out of san vito and felt stupid that all we did was sleep there. carolyn had a pay check deposited in her account s o she went to get some bcash and must have waited too long to retrieve her card-shes pretty much ethe slowest persopn ive ever met in my life-and the atm ate it. and of course it was a holiday so the bank wasnt open to get her card back. the holuday was on friday but for some reason the country of costa rica as a whole somehow decided to push it forward rto monday. how does that even happen? who makes these decisions? is there a referendum the week before>? hey would you guysd ratehr party on thursday night or sunday nught? there was a super nice cop that tried to go get the bank manager at his house but he wasnt there so we just decided to skip town. money stuff is all sorted though carolyn got a cash advance on her credut card.

we crossed the border into panama on monday in rio sereno, a small little town surprosingly nice for a aborder town. we spent a few hours getting through and talking to the panamanian border patrol guys about panama, the us, us-panama relations, snow in wyoming...we ate peanuts and shot the shit with border patrol, they were super nice. i knwo we didnt see much of costa rica and didnt have the best of luck there but so far it seems as though the costa rican economy is so dependent on tourism that they see gringos as dollar signs, they only see you as a source of money. whereas in panama, they want to talk to you, they say hello and smile. granted we are faw away from panama city which im sure is a different story but still, its just the feeling that i get. and despite all the negatives about the whole canal ordeal, you talk to a lot of panamanians who are thankful for the infrastucture that the us brought here, roads, potable water etc...but this is also the generation thtat did not see the separation first hand.

today we strolled around boquete, where we have been the past 2 days and went to a coffee plantation. we sat and had coffee-sooooo good-with a panamanian man and his mother. the man was in his 50s and the woman just had her 80th birthday on sunday. she was born after the canal was built but grew up with the separation it imposed. she had somne pretty intereting stories. people are so nice. after we chatted with them for a while they gave us their number in PC and said that they would house and feed us there if wer made it down there.

we are staying in a little hostel across from the central park in town. it is run by this incredibly charasmatic guy, Pancho who lives there with his chilean wife and son. he is always bouncing off the walls and smiling, what a cool place. there is a cute little garden that doubles as the common room. the nights have been really clear here and sitting in the garden in the evening sharing wine and Js with pancho, his father, some italian dreadies and the token dutch girl has been soooo nice. its a super safe hostel we have our own room for 7.50 each a night, its been great.

one of the big attractions for boquete is the volcano Baru. it has been inactive for about 1100 years although there was an aarticle in the paper that said some recent researtch on it suggests it may still be active. it looked pretty inactive to me, but hey, im no mathmetician...(thats a joke mom) it is a steep 13 km uphill. the kmart obnoxious pink Champion tennis shoes i had didnt fare too well, and the trail was horribly maintained, making the 5 dollars we paid to enter the park questionable. loose rocks made up the trail, an ankle sprain waiting to happen..carolyn wasnt feeling well(vomiting out of somewhere else, sorry, graphic but you cant fully grasp the experience without that detail) so it took us a while to get up top-5 to 6 hours-and once we got up there, a spot where on a clear day you can see both the pacific and caeibbean coasts, we were engulfed in a cloud, of course, persuant to the luck weve had on this trip. we waited as long as we could before having to get down the volcano. taxis come to the trailhead, which is about 5 miles up a windy road from the town, until 6 pm. we reached the top around 2 pm so had to pretty much run down the hwole thing with carolyn getting worse by the minute and sprained ankles a real threat every step. all of a sudden it was dark and past 6. i had my headlamp so we got down safe but the park ranger was not in his little sleeping hut so we hit the road and started waliking back to town. it was the most beautifulk night. a cool, sweet smelling breeze caressed our hot sunburnt skin and the moon lit up the road. it was so quiet it was unbelievable. you see a lot of stars in wyoming but there was something so mystical about that night. little farms and homes inhabaited by indigenous people line the mountain road. music and laughter came homes and our legs were going to buckle beneath us. some things were pretty creepy like eery bright eyes comnig out of the darkness along the path, i was cawing at them like they were hyenas, but they were probably mayas cousin, hatmless luttle farm cats or dogs. or the occasional farmer walsking back home, but they are so short we could have taken them for sure and i had my hand on my knife in my pocket. we were so exhausted and the road was so long that we were pretty discoutraged and maybe a little freaked out. hitch hiking was obviously tempting but NOT an option so our bodies kicked into survival mode and we sraeted gunning it back.

we turned a corner and saw a bunch of kids getting on a school bus-local transportatino buses are yellow american school buses, pretty funny-these kids were coming out of some barn like building with keyboards and backopacks, perhaps they were parcticing church music but whatever it was it was our saving grace. the bus went most of the way down the hill and the bus driver and his wife and kid took us the rest of the way. so nice. so incredibly nice. panamanians as a whoile have been the most unbelievable. carolyn and i kept lookng at ewach other with disbelief as to how far we would have had to walk and how incredulby lucky we were to have stumbled upon these pèople at that very moment. i asked the guy if i could give him a few bucks to show how thankful we were and he wouldnt take it. i finally left it weith them. so here we are having had the first non troublesome day so far on our trip and highly enjoying it.

tomorrow we leeave for bocas del toro, a series of islands on the caribbean side which is pretty touristy but were ready for the creature comforts that an american run hostel offers and some spring break action. ill send another update from there. i feel like this has been pretty much rambling but i had to fit a week in and we really havent done anything that sweet, just been on buses or getting robbed or fleabagging it or puking or...you get the picture. i guess everyones gotta have a few bad experiences on the road. that was nothing, it could have been worse, a lot worse. we are safe and healthy and still smiling so i am thankful for that. i just feel bad that this is carolyns first experience abroad. were still having a blast and cant wait for some chillax time on the beach. love you all besos, Lucia

To every end there is a beginning

And the beginning, in this case, is in Jackson Hole. It's still dumping snow outside. April 7th and it feels like mid January. That's dandy for all those Jackson powder hounds out here but I just want to get the F out. The Dirty Bird does not prevail in snowy conditions, so the drive should be interesting.

Going back to Fort Collins for the first time in 4 years. Should be interesting, filled with memories, nostalgia blah blah blah. Spending today on the road-if Carolyn ever gets it together in time-and then tomorrow in the Fort. Wednesday we fly out of Denver and into San Jose. Cannot wait. I've got the itch BAD.

Carolyn, my Philly native friend whom I met here in Jackson, has been having nightmares about getting robbed-mind you, she has never stepped foot on foreign soil-and so came up with the brilliant idea of buying a fake wallet at the thrift store and filling it with a couple pesos-or whatever currency they have down there, although definitely not American dollars like this duchebag on the lift was telling us yesterday, the same tool that said Panama has the best malls-fake credit cards, contestants, get your Crayolas ready, and in the event of a robbery, Carolyn would swiftly remove her fake wallet and get out of the robbery with her bank account and elbows unscathed. Haha. So she is probably standing in front of the Browse (one of our many fabulous thrift stores in town) waiting for the door to open and begin unraveling her master ladron deceiving plan! Gotta love it, this is going to be one hell of a trip!