Tulum

I had two nights left (not counting my last night in Playa del Carmen for the sake of catching my flight home), and I thought about going to an eco lodge, going to the biosphere, staying in Vallodolid longer or going back to Tulum. I really kind of wanted to stay in the interior, but in Late Feburary, when I am waiting for the brown line train on a wind-whipped platform and the most mexican thing about my day will be the lean cuisine chicken enchiladas suizas at 12:07PM, I don´t want to think ¨I really should have spent some more time on that beach in Tulum¨.
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I was worried about not finding a place to stay, this being extremely high season, christmas week and all. I had no reason to worry. I found a place to stay right away. Here is my casita at the Luna Maya:

I had to move next door the next night, but there were places to be found. Tulum is a little pricey, but worth it.

I missed happy hour and had my Drin after 5PM. But I bought it from the grocery store and had it on my porch so it was cheap anyhow, suckas!

I took a walk along the beach and through the woods:

and found a hippie sweat lodge!

I also went to see the famous Mayan ruin, Tulum. I enjoyed Uxmel more because there were less annoying people around, but these ruins were very impressive, despite the Cancun daytrippers with bad cornrows of braids:

When I got back to the beach, I discovered another Mayan ruin. It´s amazing!!

Not much to do in Tulum. It was perfect to be alone there. No nightlife to be found. Actually I´m not going to lie and say the food was good, because it was not. I could have been anywhere. I had above average wood fired pizza for dinner on the beach at a cute place, but it wasn´t like the culinary experiences I had been having in Merida and Valladolid. But really, it´s OK.

The view from my second casita room is below. After the sun went down, I laid on a beach chair and looked at the stars and listened to the waves for a good half hour. It was nice.

Das German youth hostel in Valladolid

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Merida. I could almost live there. Sometimes you just click with a town for no real reason. If you asked me why, I could not rattle off too many reasons. There is a lot of public art and I liked the vibe. It does actually have a small American retirement or ex-pat community. I really liked being ignored and not watched as I walked down the street or beckoned into every shop. People didnt start speaking to me in english as soon as I sat down someplace. I could butcher my bad spanish and nobody minded. For my final night, I went back to the town square to watch more dancing in the closed off street. I am a little bit of a Christmas grump at home but I enjoy Christmas in Latin America. I loved it in Guatemala, Brazil and I love it here in Mexico. People aren´t stressing about shopping or snow, they just eat and dance.
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Alas, it was time to move on. I only had a week to travel and I couldn´t be the village idiot wandering around Merida forever. Valladolid is another sorbet-colored town (pic above). It is famous for the area cenotes, which are wierd caves and underground pools scattered around the yucatan. I took a two hour bus, going through many small towns. They were typical modest little rough-around-the edges towns you would see anywhere in Asia or Latin America, but many of them were very clean. There was no trash. The houses had peeling paint but someone had cared enough to plant some flowers and mend the fence. I like the way the people dressed in the little towns - it was almost like they had a dress code. They wore the traditional clothes I saw for sale in Playa del Carmen and Merida - the men wear the button-down shirt with the two little striped designs down the front (JT bought a white one - it looks cute on him), and the women wear the white dress with the flowers emboridered around the yoke of the neck and on the hem. They have specific names, but I forget what the shirt and dress are called. After many bus rides over the years, I have noticed that all small towns must have the following things:

• skinny brown mutt dogs that look dead when they are sleeping in the sun, or are pregnant and have 25 nipples.
• an auto repair shop with an open garage door that is a complete mess with a fat man smoking inside
• Rosa´s Cocina restaurant, or some variation
• A store with a large display of plastic shoes
• a cinder block school with faded pastel-colored paint
• an inglesia, of course
• the corner bar with one window

and in this area, a store for pinatas and balloons. I saw a disproportionate number of pinatas y globos shops in Merida and Valladolid. They just love balloons. In Merida, there were people selling balloons from huge bundles of maybe 100 balloons at once. If you spontaneously needed a balloon, that would never be a problem here.
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In Valladolid, I checked into the hostel to save some money. Germans and Dutch people love Valladolid, I found. Practically everyone in the hostel was from northen Europe. The guy who checked me in even pronounced my last name the traditional German way - it sounds kind of like Share-ieh-mecccch. Hans and Dieter (well, in my mind that is what their names were) lounged around on the couch and chatted away. It was also the first youth hostel I have ever stayed in where I may have been on the younger end of the average age. I had my own room, and my next door neighbors were maybe in their early 50s. Everyone looked to be between 30 and 60. It was interesting.
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I wandered out to get some lunch. I would hate to see the kitchen, but I had some delicious panuchos here:

Panuchos are just flat, fried tacos with refried beans in between two layers of fried tortillas, with a topping (like chicken and cabbage) on top. Delicious.

I walked over to the closest Ceynote in town:

There is even a special breed of eyeless black fish that live in the ceynotes. People go swimming in here. But nobody else was swimming, and the algae and the the thought of eyeless black fish scared me off. (I mean, wouldnt eyeless fish scare YOU off?) In case you didn´t know you were in a cave, they had the international sign for you are entering a cave:

and the virgin of guadeloupe had a shrine in the cave as well:

Unfortunately, the town square was under construction for renovation. It is going to be lovely when they finish it. Here is the church:

the front of my hostel room:

For dinner I had conchinitas pibil again. These were the best ones yet. They gave me a reasonable portion (not like that pile of pork I showed you the other day), and it was amazingly good. The masa tortillas tasted like they were made 5 minutes ago. There was a beautiful atmosphere in the restaurant, too. A lit up fountain and candles. I tried to stretch my meal as long as I could. I caught myself making faces and looking at my fork a little too suggestively after I was tasting the food and I had to stop that immediately. I would make fun of someone else doing that. Anyhow, conchinita pibil - yeah, very good in Valladolid.

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At night, in the Plaza right outside the hostel was a mysterious talent show going on. The talent was bad. I bought a couple of cans of beer at the convenience store, sat down, watched and tried to figure out what people were saying and singing. Perfect night out!

Estoy LLENA!

After being a little partied-out in Playa del Carmen, I decided to be slothful in Merida. And after climbing up that damn ruin yesterday, I thought I´d just wander around town, eating as much as I wanted for 24 hours and write about it. Aren´t you shocked that I would do such a thing?

OK, I´m not just cramming it all in, I´m learning many things here. I´ve been a big fan of Rick Bayless for years and my dream is to feel like I am filming an episode of "one plate at a time". First of all, I can´t find a chile relleno to save my life. But we are in the Yucatan, and we have PIBIL!!




This is either pork or chicken, cooked in a banana leaf underground with spices. I´m not sure if they really dig a hole in the ground, or if that is an exaggeration. Either way - the pollo pibil I had after the ruin yesterday and my pork pibil for dinner (pictured above and below) - was delicioso! They give you tortillas, to make little tacos, see? And purple pickled onions to sprinkle on top.

Yes, I finished that big pile. And I loved every minute of it. With 2 beers, this came to less than $15 with tip. They aren´t crazy about cheese here. But that´s OK. the food is so tasty that I don´t miss it. No queso tamales to be found.

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The next morning, I ate a tamale, which I forgot to take a picture of. There is some sort of celebration going on, and everyone is selling food in the streets and people really eat spicy meats for breakfast. I thought maybe only a few people did - but nope, after walking around to the market and back, I noticed everyone did. As a person who has been known to have leftover thai food or pizza for breakfast, I had a chicken tamale. And then I had ANOTHER ONE. And what´s that I see? Churros?! well, don´t mind if I do!!!

This was all before 10AM. This is a typical food stand. Believe it or not, I did not have room for the barbacoa...

but don´t think I didn´t consider it....

Here´s a guy roasting some onions to put on those pieces of meat:

They have conchia pibil, the regional specialty and last night´s dinner!

I went thought the entire market, and watched people buy their groceries. As in most countries, people here want to see their meat up close and talk to the butcher first. Nothing is frozen, it´s all just hanging up by hooks.

You would think all that raw meat might kill my appetite. Well, think again. It´s time for CORN ICE CREAM and a MERANGE! woo woo!

The end.

When I get home, I am going on a huge diet.

Colors of Merida

Not really a post, but just wanted to show you some photos of this little town you´ve probably never heard of, where I called home for three nights.. These were taken during the only quiet time, on Sunday morning.

Mayans and hard boiled eggs

Friday morning JT and I bid a sad goodbye at the bus station. I know he would have liked to keep travelling but he had to go back home. I took a 4 hour luxury bus north inland to the capital of the Yucatan, Merida. Merida calls itself the center of culture for the Yucatan, I could see immediately that this could be true. Art museums, bookstores, live musical and dancing perfomances every night! Merida also paints a lot of its buildings a multitude of pastel colors, which are beautiful in the hot, bright sunlight. I was happy to arrive to a bustling real mexican town where people were just going about their business. I walked out of the bus station bracing myself, expecting to be hassled and barraged with questions and offers to get me where I was going - but happily this did not happen. I walked about 20 minutes to a hotel that I had seen on the internet a few weeks ago - Luz en Yucatan. Like fate, they had one room due to a cancellation. I told the owner, Tom, that I was just going to take it one day at a time and I didn´t know how long I´d stay. Tom from Colorado, who was about as chillaxed as all the expat hotel owners I´ve met, said "that´s a good idea. And a good way to go through life in general." I took a walk around town, admiring and soaking it all in. One thing I like about Mexico is how they don´t put signs up as much as carefully paint on the building itself. If the painter had a good eye and nice handwriting, it has a nice aesthetic thing about it. There is also some bizarre drainage system that allows for large, dark random, bottomless holes in the sidewalk at various points in town. For many reasons, but probably this most of all, I am not going to drink much when I am here.
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My room is twice the size of the Playa del Carmen hotel and I have a private balcony and maybe 20 foot ceilings. The floor and bathroom are old marble. Plants, hammocks, palm trees and a twinkling christmas tree with a tray of various tequilas. I didn´t have any of the tequila but I like knowing it is there. I chose a cute old romantic courtyard place for dinner and tried one of the local specialties, papazules. These are hard boiled egg-filled, pumpkin seed sauce-covered enchiladas. OK....haha.. maybe not the best thing I´ve ever had. I strolled through the streets and stopped to watch the locals enjoying themselves. Near my hotel is the funniest place - there is singing all the time and fake smoke on the stage, but it seems to be a wholesome family place. I am too intmidated to go in there just yet but I know if John or my friends were here, we would. Having JT around was nice because he understood everything the local people were saying, and could get the scoop from anyone local. If I kept my mouth shut, we didn´t get ripped off as much. And I got some free spanish lessons along the way. Merida isn´t as touristy though, and I don´t get the sense that people care too much about ripping me off. They may be, but they hide it pretty well. There are more europeans here for sure. And that brings me to my trip today, to the ruins of Uxmal.
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I love these trips that thow a bunch of randoms together on a bus. Out of 21 people, there were three americans, four japanese people, some italians, some austrians and a guy from London. Our guide, Juan, is pictured above in the white shirt. I had a cup of chaya, which is a green plant that helps the stomach or whatever ails you. Also joining us on the tour were an octogenerian and his 30-something wife with the biggest, jaw dropping diamond ring I´ve ever seen in person. Uxmal was interesting. There was a wall where you could clap loudly and a wierd bird sound would echo off the wall. I wish Jeffrey had been there, my friend who can clap louder than anyone in the universe. The ancient mayans also played a game where you try to kick around a ball into a percariously placed ring. Sometimes it would take days to get the ball into the ring (and apparently the whole city had the patience to watch), but when it did, people ate and drank for days until they would fall down. Unless I didn´t understand Juan correctly, those mayans were quite dramatic. There were also plenty of phallic symbols scattered thoughout and many cool symbolic animals in the stone. We also went the ruin Koba, which was extremely spooky. The wind whistled and animals howled in the bushes. Between Uxmel and Koba, our bus was sideswiped by another bus when we were both going about 50 miles per hour in opposite directions. It broke part of the windshield and completely knocked off the rear view mirror. This w0uldn´t have been so bad except that I was right in front behind the driver, with no partition. I heard glass break and I screamed and ducked my head, thinking that glass was all over. Luckily nobody was hurt and we could keep using the bus. It was scary. We just continued on the excusion with a half-cracked windshield. I saw the whole thing and our driver was not at fault. Oh well... I am so grateful that I can be at the internet cafe right now, and not having glass picked out of my head in the hospital. But you can put your minds right at ease, because Lonely planet says the hospital is very good here.

It doesn´t count as the REAL Mexico but....

I didn´t plan on blogging about the first 5 days of my trip. The idea was to go to the beach, get out of the cold, recover from a work project (JT) and as it turns out, eat. Gaining 5 lbs was not our intention, but I think that might be what happened. Planning a beach trip to Mexico was completly frustrating and like stabbing in the dark - all of the places sounded exactly the same to me, and everything was kind of "eh" on the internet... so I picked Playa del Carmen simply because they don´t allow buildings over 4 stories, and the beaches are supposedly some of the best in Mexico. Indeed this was all true. The hotel, La Tortuga, was charming and boutiquey - I loved the design. There was a jungle in the middle with a little lazy-river style pool where you could sit and watch the neon-colored birds, read about Winston Churchhill and Ghandi (JT) and the story of a Somolian refugee (me). The beach we had access too was great - so clean and the water was perfect. Playa del Carmen was pretty tacky, but fun. We made fun of the horrible shirts that said such things as "I´m not a ginecologist.. but I´ll take a look!". Massages were $30 per hour. We drank and danced. We bought white mexican outfits to show off our tans. No really, we did. We put bad songs in the jukebox. John took a lot of naps. We took a side trip to Tulum, which was awesome. Actually some of the restaurants in Playa town were fabulous, particularly John Gray, where JT took me for a belated birthday dinner. We met a nice older couple from Vancouver because we accidentally sat next to them at three different restaurants at three different times. JT looked him up today and he is a world-renouned concert pianist. I had time to explore my love of chiliquiles, a mexican breakfast that I´ve had in Chicago. Meaning I had them every day. Chilaquiles always remind me of John because we had them on our first date, and they remind me of Mexico. Playa del carmen was fun. Neither of us counted it as "travelling" in the sense that we normally do. My travel companion was fun. That´s about all there was to it... JT left yesterday and I went on to Merida. I will try to blog about Merida today if not tomorrow.

Today I saw a Broadbill mot mot, and it was awesome!

The great thing about being in your 30s is that you (well at least I feel this way) can easily slip between the beer-chugging hostel scene and a nice hotel. I woke up on my sweat stained mattress in Carti, fully intending to stay another night (and perhaps get my own island) and I thought... I'M DONE. I have spent over half of this trip in hostels, and it has been fun. The easy company, spending $20 or less a night, it's a great thing. But once in awhile I need to be around a different crowd. I read about this place a week ago in Lonely Planet, thinking I might check it out. Just an hour from Panama City, it's one of the best birdwatching spots in the world. Jimmy Carter, Martha Stewart, Angelina Jolie have all been here. It's been mentioned in National Geographic, Traveller magazine and a bunch of others. Not fancy, but in a fabulous setting in a tower in the forest.

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I hiked up a hill for a mile or so thought the woods and came up to the green tower. Everyone said "you WALKED up the HILL?". Well, I came from the bus. I admired the amazing view from the roof and took a shower. This place has a feel of a scientific station, a hotel and a lounge. All the rooms open up to a big interior balcony and there is a library of nature books and birding magazines. The third floor is a lounge where you can sit on couches, lay in a hammock, eat, drink, read. I took the 3PM tour and was joined by Dianna and Eric, a couple from Bermuda, Rachel from England, Tony, an animal rehabilitation guy and pipers plover enthusiast and Larry, former cardiologist and hummingbird enthusiast. Our guide drove us out to an abandoned road in the forest. "better wear hiking boots and long pants!". When in fact it was just an easy stroll.. for me. Everyone had binoculars and I had to borrow some. Larry had the biggest camera I'd ever seen, he was a genuine bird paparazzi. His photos could be in National Geographic.

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To me, all forest sounds kind of blur into one big soundtrack of random cheeps and chirps. Insects and birds sound similar to me. Not to these people! We heard another random chirp, and Tony or Larry would say "Oh, there's a flatbill over in that tree!" and we would all point our binoculars, and our guide would point a big telescope. Sure enough, a neon colored bird would be hiding in the leaves. Something I NEVER would have seen. Everyone busily jotted down the birds they saw in their own personal log books, and I happened to have my journal with me. This is what I saw:

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Broadbill mot mot

Olivaceous flatbill

bi colored antbird

brown woodcreeper

white whiskered puffbird

flycather atilla

scarlet rumped cacique

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along with a literal RIVER of army ants, a river of leafcutters, termites and frogs. It was also the best smelling rainforest I'd ever been to. It was great to be around people who care so much about birds, their enthusiasm was so contageous. When I got back, I laid in the hammock and checked out "birding" magazine. Did you know that there is a world series of birding? It takes place in May, lasts 24 hours, you stand in a 17 foot circle and have to identify as many birds as you can in 24 hours. Last year it took place in New Jersey. (New Jersey??). Kirtland's warbler made the cover, and there was a whole article of what to do when a preditor comes to eat your baby chickadees. Just like Jimmy Carter, I love this place and it was a great random spur of the moment decision.

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We sat down to a nice dinner of wine, salad, beef, potatoes, etc, etc. It was fabulous. After dinner we looked at Larry's photos on his computer and all clapped when he was done showing us. I have to get up at 6AM to not miss the morning feeding outside the observation deck. It was fun to be a birder for a day! Tomorrow I might finally go to Isla Grande. It won't be as good as the san blas, but at least I won't have to sleep on a sweat stained bare mattress or pee in an outhouse at the end of a dock into the sea!

My night with the Kuna indians

The San Blas islands are some of Central America's most beautiful, but they are hard and expensive to get to. I decided to do it the last minute ghetto way, by taking a 4X4 (instead of flying) from a hostel in Panama City. The San Blas are completely run by Kuna indians, it's called the comarca kuna yala. They all live in villages of thatch huts with dirt floors and sleep in hammocks. A group of us were picked up at 5AM, then drove down three hours of bumpy, washed out roads. My knees were pretty much in my chest, we were squished in the truck. After a ride down a river in a canoe, then a half hour ride out in the ocean, we arrived at the most rustic place I'd ever seen. A cluster of junky bamboo huts - very much like the hilltribe villages in Thailand only much more crowded. There was a super ghetto hostel in the village of Carti, where we stayed upstairs in a dirty, hot bamboo house. The company was fun - three guys from Brooklyn, a girl from Canada, two finnish people and an irish couple. The package included a visit to the islands - we took another hour boat ride out into the ocean to the most picturesque island I've ever seen (pictured above) - isla pellican. And true to it's name, there were pellicans dive-bombing into the water for fish.

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Along with the rustic accomodation was rustic food. Fish and rice (pictured above) - it wasn't too bad. The NYC guys had been there for three days, and ate fish and rice at every meal. We spent the entire day there, snorkeling, reading under the palm trees, swimming (we fed baby sharks our leftover fish - I was too scared to go out into the deep water where the sharks were, so I didn't see them!) After a perfect day, we went back to the hostel. I love camping, and rustic stuff, but this was too ghetto even for me. the mattresses were stained, and for a pillow I had a couch pillow. We were all so grossed out by the pillows that we had to put towels on them so they wouldn't touch our faces!

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After a communal dinner and a couple of beers, we decided to go to the little kuna museum on the island. I learned that Kunas are a matriachal society, and they've battled with the Panamanians quite a bit (but the US helped them during the building of the canal) but they love foreigners. They also sleep in hammocks, get married in hammocks and give birth in hammocks. Really. They have their own religion - sort of like Chrisitanity (heaven and hell) but with a lot of mystcism thrown in, and a lot of hinting toward good and bad karma. It was interesting. Sort of like the hilltribe villages in thailand but a lot more ghetto and uncomfortable to visit.

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I came back to Panama City today with the Brooklyn boys, and now I'm at a nerdy, expensive and super cool bird watching obervation-station hotel place. I had to take a bus and walk a half hour up a sweaty hill through the jungle to get here. I was completely soaked in sweat and everyone was sort of surprised that I walked from the highway. There are bird books everywhere, and the whole hotel is in a tower so there are killer views! I'm going on a tour in about 10 minutes (I think it's a bird tour) and supposedly we can see monkeys and more birds at dinner. It's so scientific and nerdy, my dad would love this place. well, I'm off to be a bird nerd... also check out the sloth pic I uploaded!

This is gonna be a short one...I'm in another panama city hostel and it's been a loooong day!
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I think I've been a pretty good sport about all of this rain. I learned that this is the worst rain period Panama has had in over 30 years. Raining ALL over the country. I really was starting to like Boquete, but I was getting tired of being the gringa wandering around town in the orange plastic emergency poncho. After 2 amazing nights at the panamonte hotel (the place that cut me the great deal), I moved to a normal hostel on the river so that I could see some friendly non retiree faces and save some money. In the lobby, I looked a little glum and desperate so one of the owners (A nice guy from Gary, Indiana..the accent reminded me of home!) told me of a place that would cheer me up, an animal rescue center run by some British retirees on the outskirts of town. I hiked up a hill and out into the misty woods, and 30 minutes later found Paradise Gardens, where they rehabilitate neglected exotic animals in a beautiful setting. You can pet some of the animals, and learn their stories. Like the two scarlet maccaws that were confiscated from some drug dealers. And the two toucans, Bonnie and Clyde, who were found injured at the side of the road. And a wierd cat-otter mix that Ive never seen before. They even had a baby sloth, wrapped up in a blanket, that they would take out for you to pet. Im not the biggest animal lover you've ever met, but even I was amazed by this place and it completely cheered me up. Bonnie and Clyde, the toucans, were amazing. I asked if they ate fruit loops.. haha. Paradise Gardens gave the animals such nice areas to roam around in, way better than the spooky zoo in El Valle!
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Today I flew to Panama City (it was cheap and I was lazy) to arrange a trip to the san blas. I'm going tomorrow at 5am, Im super excited!! look it up on the internet. I'm going to stay in a rustic cabin. rock on! I won't be able to blog for a few days because I'll be kickin it with the Kuna indians!

whitewater mania!

I left the Lost and Found lodge in hopes of getting to Boquete for the western union transfer. Originally I was going to go to Panama City, but the fondue-making Dutch flight attendants at the L&F told me that Boquete was fine, it had opened up again to tourists. I really wanted to see it anyway, so I decided to go. It´s so easy to travel here, I´ve never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus. Andrew from the lodge dropped me off in David, then I got on a yellow schoolbus for $1.45. 45 minutes later, we arrived in Boquete. A pretty little town up in the mountains with a river and pine trees, it reminds me a lot of a colorado town. The western union office was easy to find, and the transfer went though so I treated myself to a nice hotel on the edge of town. They cut me a great deal because the town was basically closed a week ago due to the massive floods. One block from my hotel is a big washed out bridge. Tourists are a stil a little sparse. Unforntately I´m still not going to be able to go to Bocas Del Toro, the devastation there was just too bad. I REALLY had wanted to go to Bocas del Toro. Oh well, sometimes you can´t tell mother nature what to do.
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The restaurants in this town are either uber-panamanian cafeteria type places, or tourist places with english menus. There are a few nice places, but I still miss the Libertad restaurant in El Valle. A place with a menu in spanish, but with ambiance. The town itself is cute, though. I´m not complaining. I arranged for a full day whitewater rafting trip for today, then had dinner at a bistro place, then an atlas at a jazz place.
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The guide, Tini, picked me up bright and early. ¨Tini¨is supposed to be like the nickname ¨Tiny¨. But unlike an ironic mobster name, he actually was sort of tiny. Also in my boat was a Californian family: Herb, Wanda and their son Sam. They were great, very adventurous and well travelled family. We were joined by a kayaker (who picks up paddles and helps with rescues in case something happened to Tiny) and we drove about an hour and a half up to the Costa Rican border to the Chiriqui river. This is the same river that flooded last week, so the water was VERY high. While we were unloading into the river, we saw toucans (my first) and some monkeys. I was really excited about the Toucans. Growing up in Battle Creek, I always pictured Toucans with big smiles like a bowl of Fruit loops. Ive been rafting a good 7 times before (class 5 in West Virginia and a very cold class 2-3 with my dad in Colorado), and never once fallen out of the boat, so rafting does not really scare me, although my chiropractor 5 years ago made me promise that I´d never do it again.. oh well. a good minute after put in, we already had a class 4 rapid. I know what a class 4 rapid feels like, that was a class 5 rapid. We had class 5 rapids for the first hour of the trip, one after another. I sat in front and was actually scared, which was fun (hey, I´m getting my money´s worth!). When you sit in front, you drop into rapids and just see a wall of water coming at you. Everyone was soaked the whole time. I was screaming, but it was really fun. Each rapid is named for something, usually for who falls in it or who´s boat tips in. For example, we approached one and Tiny said ¨Thees rapeed es called Mexian family!¨ meaning that a mexican family fell in not long ago.
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About 45 minutes into the trip, when we were going over a class 3 rapid (which is actually class 4), I was tossed out of the boat. I don´t actually remember falling out, I just remember all of the sudden being UNDER the raft, looking up through the muddy water and seeing yellow, and thinking, holy crap, I actually fell out of the boat and Oh, I hope there are no rocks! When that happens, you are supposed to claw your way over to the side of the boat, and have someone pull you up. Which I did. We were moving so fast, it was actually pretty terrifying. Herb pulled me up, and we were still going over some rapids. I was all disoriented for a minute, I couldn´t tell which end of the boat was in the front.. then after a few minutes I stopped shaking and was all fine. SO much fun! Tiny said now we can call that one ¨Chicago rapid¨. haha. It was truly the most exciting and rough rafting trip I´d ever taken, which to me is a good thing. And the hot shower and hot coffee I had after getting back to my hotel was life-changing!
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Arriving back in Boquete, it started raining again and I had to go to the Lavanderia to wash my clothes. It was a busy laundry day and the lavanderia wouldn´t take me, and the women were really bossy and kinda mean, so I had to find the OTHER lavandaria, on the edge of town. I kept asking people where it was and not understanding the answers. I almost gave up and took my laundry back to my hotel, which I know would have been expensive. One guy took me to the river and pointed at it, and said that I could wash my clothes there. A half hour of walking in the rain later, I found the other lavanderia that was run by the world´s nicest woman. I talked to her for awhile, then another guy who was washing his clothes. Finding the second lavanderia just made my day. That´s what´s fun to me about travel. Sometimes you try so hard to do the simplest thing like find a laundromat. Then, when you do, it´s just so satisfying. You feel like such a winner.
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During the clothes-washing I stopped at a cute mexican reastaurant for a taco and a beer. On the window near me I was horrified to see the biggest wasp I´d ever seen. I backed away from the table and got the waitress and asked if the insecta was a vespa. They killed it for me. I tried to tell them that it was the largest wasp I´d ever seen in my life, then I realized later that I kept telling them that there was a ¨wasp in my life¨, haha. Which sounds kind of metaphoric, doesn´t it?
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Tomorrow I think I´m going to go to David in hopes of catching a bus or plane back to Panama City. The weather forecast for the whole country is BAD. I seriously might fly to Costa Rica and just go to my old town of Montezuma for the beach, where the weather forecast is good. I don´t know. I might not be too tan when I get home but I´m definitely having lots of fun adventures here in Panama.

The Smokeskis/How dare it rain in the rainforest!

In 1988, while I was busy making my hair big and listening to Guns n Roses, the U.S. imposed sanctions against Panama for Noriega's shenannegans. Little did I know that just 20 years later, Panama would impose sanctions against me personally.
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I left El Valle on a rainy morning, and took the bus with some uniformed schoolkids through the woods to the Panamerican Highway, where I caught a bus to what I thought was David, but actually went 2 hours in the other direction to Panama City. I was tipped off by the huge skyline... When I said "necissito voy a David" the person told me that there was no direct bus there, but I had missed that little detail. I got on a giant megabus to David with two stories, and had a great seat in front in the top row. 3 peacefull, blissful hours went by until we stopped at a truck stop for a meal (I had some sketchy pasta), and to pick up more passengers at the halfway point.
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I could hear them before I saw them, two older, overeager americans in their 60s. The woman plopped down next to me and her husband sat across the aisle. I smelled something foul and rotten, and thought maybe it was the bus, but it was them. The smell of stale cigarette smoke, smoke that was coming out of their pores after a good 45 year smoking habit. When the woman asked if she could sit there, her teeth were brown and grey. Everything about them was grey. They were nice enough, and you can't exactly tell someone to move because they smell so bad, so I tried to stare out the window and angle the fan at them, to blow away the smell. Every time they chuckled at the stupid movie, I had to breathe through my mouth. I tried to chew some really strong gum and thought about offering them some. I was angry. Why was I the one chewing gum? Why are some people so naieve - clueless that they STINK??!!!
heh.. hegh hegh.. achachack ack. hech hech.. that's the sound of the smokers cough I heard all the way to David.
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When we disembarked, I was happy to be rid of them, and laughed that they had both lit up a cigarette before we could even get our bags out of the lower compartment. When one of them dies, is the other one going to stop smoking, I wondered? I took a taxi to a hostel I read about, and had booked a private room. When I arrived, who pulls up at the same time. Mr and Mrs Smoky!
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I just resigned myself to the fact that I would have to see them again and again... and went to buy some groceries for dinner. David is a pretty crappy city so there was really no place to hang out at night besides the hostel. So I grabbed an atlas and sat out on the porch with the Smokeskis, the funny hostel owner Greg, his cute Lenny Kravitz lookalike employee Benny, and a random French Canadian. Greg and Benny took turns playing the guitar, The smokeskis smoked, and we all talked about travelling. Greg used to live in chinatown, NYC and we talked about my favorite dumpling shop. I learned one of life's great mysteries - how they make soup dumplings! (they freeze the soup first, then put in the dumplings and steam). The smokeskis were on a long, extended trip through central america, which I thought was cool for people their age. I asked them if they met over a love of cigarettes, and they looked at me funny and said they met because the Mrs was Mr's dispatcher at an old job. We discussed smoking laws, their love of smoking and how they differ in Central America vs North America (CA is cracking down, which is nice!) The Smokeskis even buy special cigarettes by the carton from the Native Americans back home, because they are cheap. I even suspect they moved from Oregon to Nevada for the more liberal smoking laws. Greg and Benny took me across the street to the uber authentic ceviche restaurant, which served three dishes: ceviche, fried fish and some other kind of fish. I had some ceviche and Greg and Benny laughed with the regulars (all older men) and told dirty jokes. It was the type of place that I would have been really intimidated to go on my own, but in their company it was OK. I went back to the hostel, bid the Smokeskis goodnight, and went to sleep to dogs barking.
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The next morning (my designated "banking" day) I went into David to try every cash machine in town (still did not work!) and try to cash my traveller's checks (no bank in town took them). This is the first country I've ever been to where neither worked - sometimes my ATM gives me trouble but I can always get cash from my Am Ex checks. This is just one of those things you have to deal with when travelling - every country has a quirk, but it was still frustrating, and I was beginning to feel like Panama did not want me to take out any money! I called Am Ex in a panic, and they agreed to western union me the money. Whew! The only western Union place in David was offline (of course) so I just went to the lost and found hostel way out in the jungle as planned.
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Andrew, the owner, picked me up and brought me wayyy out into the jungle, where we had to hike up a steep muddy hill. A huge "backpackers resort" was up there, with a huge uptdoor sitting area, a kitchen (you have to make your own dinner), some cabins and a dorm. I had the dorm with Steve the kiwi and Andrew the Aussie. Really, really nice guys. It rained the entire time, but I was happy for the peace, the hammock, the sounds of the tropical birds, the kinkajous that came to eat bananas (they are so cute, look them up!), the hummingbirds, the sound of rain falling on the roof at night. I made some spaghetti with red peppers and chicken. Three dutch people were also at the lodge - three flight attendants, two guys and a girl. They were really funny, kind of demanding and a little flamboyant. I was amazed, though, when they whipped up an impressive dinner of fondue in about 15 minutes flat. They brought in their own cheese and bread. It was amazing! They didn't share (boo!) but I took a photo. I didn't get to do the night hike due to the rain, but I went to bed early and slept better than I have the whole trip.
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More coming tomorrow, and I'm sorry but the internet cafe doesn't read my camera memory card.