as mentioned previously, i noticed an immediate difference in the friendliness (is that a word? lately i´ve been in the habit of making up spanish words based on patterns in the language- perhaps it is extending into my english, as well) of nicaraguans as compared to hondurans and el salvadorans. right as i crossed the border i was approached by many bicycle men who, even when i rejected their rides across the border, continued to talk to me just for kicks. i like that (and yes, am always weary of other intentions). one guy changed some of my money for a ridiculously awful rate, but i forgot to check the exchange before i left for the border. he also hooked me up with some tortilla, rice and beans after hour ten and a half of the thirteen point five hour journey. he then got me on my bus and accepted, without doubt, that i am married and have two kids, and yet still asked for a kiss when he left. no way, buddy.
i was so tired by the end that i lost all inhibitions and fell asleep horizontally on the schoolbus seats with my legs in the air against the windows in a giant V. in the night we passed by scenes that looked like they were from some sort of science fiction movie... black mountains, full moon, glistening rivers, blue-black sky... very beautiful and unreal and mysterious.
i got into leon, an old colonial town, very very late and the hostel wasn´t going to accept me because they were having a staff party, but no one else would take me, so the owner took a deep breath and sighed out an ¨okay come with me hon... but just so you know, we´re all a bit drunk, so the service might not be the usual¨. she was funny. i don´t know how many times she told me she was hammered. the hostel was gorgeous- a huge courtyard in the middle, little candles everywhere, really nicely decorated, BEDS WITH SPRINGS! it was just lovely.
next morn i saw alex AGAIN- i bumped into this girl constantly... by the end we were almost expecting to run into each other at each destination, so it´s kindof funny that we never decided to travel together. this time was an especially crucial bumping because she knew secret places, like the art museum that wasn´t in the guide book, and that you can ask to go atop the church for wicked vistas. the art museum was the most gorgeous museum i have ever been in- it was open air (that must be absolutely terribly for the art), with bright beautiful sunshine streaming in and grass in the courtyards with fountains. phenomenal, it made me so happy. one piece was particuarly interesting for me. it translated to ¨difficult flight¨ and it was wings on a spine painted onto a dress and then strings hanging down with black and white painted photos of people laughing, smiling, hugging, dancing, loving... as if memories of good times were keeping them from holding on- twas a difficult flight. i stared at it for a very long time. very buddhist- needta let go to move on.
alex left and as i walked back from the museum i saw perfect volcanoes in the distance, unobsructed by clouds, so i decided to climb the cathedral. the view from atop was just lovely- you can see about 5 or so perfect cone volcanoes surrounding leon, the whole colourful city, not to mention the top of the cathedral is SO cool looking with many huge bubbly cupulas covering the roof. i love going to the highest point anywhere i am- gives you perspective and orientation. i often wish i could just levitate and see it all from up high, so this was the next best thing.
that night i ate delicious asian food and then i was bored so i went and saw evan almighty after being stood up by two guys from my room. they sure missed out on a fantaaaaastic....ally awful movie. okay, it wasn´t that bad.. and in fact it had its funny moments (though generally only funny if you can understand the english because it was all about the delivery and i was the only english speaker so there were a few moments when i was stifling mad giggles in the front while the rest of the theater was silent), but i could have lived without it. i saw my former dates later and we had a really nice chat til late into the night. they were REALLY funny. one was colombian and he scared me because he, as a fluent spanish speaker, said that he could not understand panamanian spanish. luckily i didn´t have any problems in panama, but it still freaked me out for the week and a half leading up to panama. i was really hyper that night and kept telling the guys ¨picture this¨, and in excited detail as extensive as the blogs i would describe to them scenes from asia and other travels that they asked about. they made fun of me... i was wired.
i ventured to granada the next day, which was an unusually strange experience. i met a man living in managua from montreal, who told me where to go to find my bus. then he told me the guy sitting beside us was going there, so i should follow him. the montreal guy left and i talked to the other guy. we got on the bus together, he made me pay for his ticket for some reason. we took a super long bus ride to the other terminal. he got off at my stop, walked me to the buses. he kept asking me if i minded that he came with me. i thought he was going to granada anyway, so i kept telling him it didn´t matter to me. the last time he said it i finally clicked in and asked if he was going for me or for him. ¨for you, i can be your guide!¨ weeeiirrrddd. no thank you. just... so bizarre. so then he left and this guy helped me find my bus. but oh no, i wanted a minibus and i was apparently at the wrong station, the station was way back, where i started. alright, i´ll take the normal bus. oh wait, there´s a random minibus. then he charged me for helping me find the damn bus. man... i felt so used and confused.
in granada i was walking down the street when i found a lady selling coconut. i had been craving coco so i ran up to her i was so excited. i bought the bag and when i went to eat some while still walking i discovered little homemade packages of cafe-coloured somethingrather. i was still inspecting it when i walked into the hostel. the receptionist exclaimed ¨ick, what is THAT?!¨, which then freaked me out and i yelled ¨i don´t know.. WHAT IS IT?!¨... which is when, upon closer inspection by a local, we discovered it was homemade caramel. really delicious. apparently goes well with coconut slices. i ordered a hammock for a bed.
that night promised to be full of good fun because there was a little celebration in the central, but it rained monkeys and parrots (i dunno, the exotic version of cats and dogs), so i guess no one showed up. a guy from hawaii named hip (teehee) drank with me at the hostel bar, then we headed to a bar that sold 2X1 85 cent nicaraguan flor de cana rum and cokes. i was the only female there so everytime i went for the drinks i got many MANY remarks. luckily i didn´t need any protection because the like 5 foot hawaiian wasn´t going to help much. nevertheless we had really wicked conversations about travelling and being young and the relation, people waiting to do it and having too many strings attached, difference between vacation and travel, how you´re ALWAYS going to be with the tourist crowd because there´s a reason you´re there... and it´s the same reason there´s more than just you. then we went to another bar, lost all conversation, and went back to the hostel. i passed out in my hammock in the main room and was awoken all night long by the drunks returning from the bars and then sitting RIGHT beside me, essentially yelling into my poor, tired ears. funtastic.
next day i decided to climb volcan mombacho. i took the cheaper route, walking up, while EVERYONE else took the giant truck. hilariously we made it up in almost the same time. the only difference is that the truck´s inhabitants still looked presentable while i was absolutely drenched in sweat. i went to the cafeteria at the top (twas a very developed volcano!) and must have looked like an idiot wiping at my face and softly and helplessly saying ¨my god, i can´t stop sweating...¨ i was soooo happy to get exercise though. the views were really amazing from the top- i could see las isletas, laguna de apoyo, granada, plus a few craters of the volcano. a little reminder of the activity of the earth was found in the steam holes that gave you a nice sulfur facial if you stood close enough. on the way back down i got a ride from the trail base all the way to granada by two incredibly nice electricity worker guys.
that night of course alex randomly ended up at my hostel for dinner. the guys she was with had a car, so they also had a blender! so we went to their place and made really nice drinks by their mini pool in the ancient-greece-meets-swiss-chalet atmosphere. lovely time. while making one round of drinks one of the guys told me ¨we need a new pair of lips on the job¨ regarding me trying the drink to see if it was alright. i just looked at the other guy and in perfect unison we both burst out laughing. we went out later and i felt left out and bored so i wandered back to my hostel to deal with drunks in my hammock again. that night i gave everyone a run-down of the seven or so hammocks- which one smells worst, which one is too low, or too tight, or too uncomfortable, since i had tried them all.
next day was action packed because i felt the pressure to get of out central america: adam´s famed words to me ¨spend as little time as you can in central america because you´ll regret spending that time once you get to south america¨ kept ringing out, over and over, time and again. so i went to masaya in the morning because there was supposed to be a huge festival; el dia de san jeronimo. the festival made me laugh because i was so delightfully confused- there were random marching bands everywhere, men dressed as women, grim reapers and skeletons, many drunken men dancing in the streets, this huge jungly platform with the saint on it, thrust energetically and forcefully through the crowd- it was crazy! one man/woman came up to me and silently stood beside me and put his/her delicate flowery umbrella atop me and with body language insinuated i needed protection from the sun. sooo funny. i bought cotton candy because i was feeling the festive fair spirit. i shared it with the man beside me. it was fun but after like 45 minutes i´d had enough and fled the crowds. saw the twelve foot lady on my way out... random, lovin it.
it was sooo hot so i bought a popsicle. normally ¨rockets¨ are red, white and blue, but i bought it and unwrapped to discover that it was skin pink and extremely phallic. i´m not going to lie, i was a little embarrassed to suck it and tried my best to finish it in record time.
after talking to the bus helper for about fourty five minutes we finally went to laguna de apoyo. i didn´t realized how far the walk to the lake was from where the bus stopped, so i started walking. the view from the top made the lake look heavenly- super tranquil and and serene and light and blissful. some random guy who spoke extremely fast, mumbly spanish joined me on his bike. i didn´t understand 90% of what he said to me. i eventually jumped on the back of a truck and left him. me and the truckers tried to find a place to stop, but everywhere was either closed or private. eventually we gave up and it started to rain anyway and i got a bus back from the main road. had the day been more conducive to swimming and chilling (i.e. not cold and grey and me without towel), i would have fought a little harder to find a beach, but as it was, i was fine with leaving. it was unfortunate the universe was conspiring against my swim because i heard from everyone that had been there that it was such a magical lake- people have never felt more peaceful than in its waters... i was so intrigued with it.
last but not least, i ended the day´s events with a two-hour walk to las isletas once i arrived back in granada. i was sooo tired by this point that when i couldn´t find a cheap boat ride through the islands i just gave up and got a taxi back to town. nice driver, but the bastard still scammed me, i found out later.
i left for isla de ometepe the next day. this is the place emily and i attempted to escape to from costa rica two years back on christmas day (and were rejected at the border). not as cheap as i thought it would be, but still stunning. it is a huge island in massive lake nicaragua that was formed by two volcanoes, so when you´re taking the boat over you see water water water then two perfect cones with their mid-sections covered by clouds and connected by an isthmus- - really really stunning. my first stop was charco verde nature reserve. i arrived with permanently stained purple fingers from nicaraguan dragonfruit (not white like asian dragonfruit usually is). i went to the wrong place by bus, so i had to walk to my place along the beach- sinking into the mushy sand with every step due to the extra 50lbs on my back- good workout, but i was not in the mood. fortunately i got amazing views in the meantime, so that made it very, very bearable. volcan concepcion was the coolest looking volcano i´ve seen yet- it actually looked like the sides were dried up lava flow and there was no vegetation on it so you could see every ripple of magma and all the colours and streams. imagine that as the background to a horse eating in a field of grass with two locals farmers chatting on a log beneath a giant willowish tree as the sun begins to set in warm yellows. just lovely!! also, as i walked further and the sun set some more i saw children playing on the beach, their forms and the tree leaves and limbs just black silhouettes to me before the brilliance of the shimmering pinky purple lake, and their mother was washing clothes in the lake, knee-deep. i was so happy.
that eve i chatted with a local volcanologist about sharks and nicaraguans and freshwater and, of course, volcanoes. very interesting chat. no matter what he says, i say that the water of lake nicaragua is absolutely disgusting. i just can´t bring myself to not worry when i´m in water that´s mud brown. i just don´t enjoy myself. grosses me out. call me princesita.
the next morn i went to the reserve at seven in the morn and had an absolutely lovely time. everything was waking up, chirpy and alive and renewed and glittery and magical. the sun was glistening off the lake and through the trees. there were these really elegant and unfearful (making up words again?) birds perched on their dead tree branches in the morning sun, becoming, as the night before, classic silhouettes against the bright, vast, peaceful lake, still as photo as the sun rose higher and the jungle awoke further. there were butterflies that made the sounds of clanging marbles as they fluttered... everytime i heard them i thought they were rattlesnakes for a split second. i stalked monkeys- it was funny because they had their eyes on me as intently as mine on them, as if they see my kind as periodically as i see theirs; just enough interest to sit and have a staring contest.
i left for the bus to merida, which was over an hour late. a group of guys came to the bus stop right before the bus came and they were going to a spring water hole. we had enough time to talk and get to know each other a little, so they told me to join them. the gentlemen that they were, they carried my massive bag (after complaining about its size) to ojo de agua. i didn´t talk to the tourists much, but they were with two locals that i talked to the whole time, and one was in love with me and hilariously cute about it. the water was really nice and clear, and there was a tarzan rope we all tried, but it was grey and rained, so that kinda spoiled the swimming mood. to return to the road to merida i walked through a muddy banana plantation, met a cowboy, then hitched a ride with a truck full of cute old women who didn´t put down their window until we reached the stop. (were they scared of me?) i then got a ride with an italian motorcyclist who drove me three times further than his stop! how kind! when i asked if i could give him $ for gas he said of course not, but pass on the favour. good feelings.
for dinner there was a buffet which mademe happy because i was superlow on money. before it was gone i had one SUPER tiny (like, two inches at its widest part) piece of DELICIOUS pizza. that made my eve. that and the heart-shaped beet slices. i don´t think it was intentional... but heartbeat? get it? it made me laugh.
i walked to some waterfalls the next day. it looked like i had been IN the waterfalls by the time i returned (as usual, drenched in sweat). i did the 5 hour walk in 3 because i was determined to get to balgue that day. the waterfalls were super tall, but otherwise unimpressive (not too much agua).
caught the bus to balgue, met up with the montrealers and we walked from the bus stop to the farmhouse. i really liked these guys because they had great attitudes- hilarious, good-humoured, open and non-judgemental, fun and energetic. the kind of people i thrive off of. i kept reminding them how much i was sweating and they kept reminding me how much baggage i chose to carry. baptu asked a lady at a shop if she had pineapple juice. yes she did. it was a bag of bright red liquid.
¨pineapple?¨
¨yes¨
¨red?¨
¨yes¨
¨red? pineapple??¨
¨ YES IT´S PINEAPPLE BUY IT!¨ she yelled at him. i know he didn´t want it, but i think he was scared of her, so he purchased it. we all partook in its consumption and decided it faintly tasted like coconut, if anything. and that was probably just a byproduct flavour of the food colouring.
at night at the farm, we had a gorgeous view of the other smoking volcano as the sun set in soft night blues. also, the giant flower garden was absolutely magical- randomly and ecstatically lit with loads of sparkly, blinking fireflies. i was mesmerized, i watched it for what seemed like forever. i kindof felt like i was in a movie- it all seemed unreal.
the next morn i awoke to thunder and decided on a unanimous vote for NO climbing of the muddy volcano that morning. for some reason, the island made me really lazy, so honestly the thunder was only an excuse. i spent the morning playing the cardgame shithead with a group, then ran to the bus stop and the ferry then taxi then bus then other bus all the way back to granada to fetch my money belt that i accidentallyleft in the hotel safe. on bus number two, while i was waiting for it to start up i sat in its heated confines. a kid came up and asked about my watch. i told her it answered secret questions. she rounded up all her friends. i had about eight kids standing around me as they asked my watch questions. i translated them as i please. if my watch answered a question blatantly wrong i´d yell out ¨mentiroso!¨ (liar!) to their giggling delight. it was so much fun... really made my day. two ladies selling sweets that stood beside me kept looking at me.. i kindof raised an eyebrow a little to ask what was going on and they told me i had really beautiful eyes. awww.
in granada i met up with august again randomly and he and two canadians joined me for dinner. at eight p.m. all the lights of granada went out, as expected. that was kindof crazy. (they do this to conserve city power). for dinner i had nachos with extremely salty fried cheese. pretty much the healthiest dinner ever. i felt pretty gross.
nicaraguan birth control pills have seven iron pills at the end instead of sugar pills. how smart is that?! i was impressed.
off to san juan del sur the next dia. my hotel owner was a bitch and she told me my room got a breeze at night, but she lied. the electricity went out in s.j.d.s. at eight p.m. also, but she did not warn me of this. without flashlight or candle, i stumbled downstairs and went to read at a bar (the only ones with generators). died of heat and sweat and itchy bed bugs and boredom that night.
next eve i planned on going to see the turtles lay eggs at the beach, so that means i wouldn´t need a hotel room (they only lay at night- less predators, and likely something to do with the tides). i asked the bitch if i could leave my bag at her GIANT hotel. no. i fought it, but didn´t win. it´s just a backpack! it took me about two hours to find a place that would hold my bag. how frustrating. i missed going to the beaches because i was going to take the public bus to the turles, and the beach buses don´t get back in time for me to do so. so i did nothing all day, waiting for my turtle bus. i sat and read my book all day, crying on the sidewalk when the couple that were more in love than anyone else were separated by death, and at the end of my book a guy comes up and starts talking to me. it´s about half an hour before i leave. i tell him where i´m going in half an hour and he tells me going to the beach alone is very dangerous. jesus christ, you can´t do anything alone in these countries. he tells me i need to go get a tour. alright, fine. i go sign up for a $30 tour, i give in. there´s not enough people. i go to sign up for the other tour. it has already left. i figure: fuck it, i´m going alone, i´ll just be really careful and try to stick by the other tours. the bus has already left. so the reason i came to s.j.d.s. and the only thing i´ve been waiting to do for the past two days has COMPLETELY fallen through. i have a free room in a spanish school though (longer story than i care to tell), so i take a shower and decide that my only option is to go for drinks. i meet an old hippy guy who sells jewelry. i talk to him and he says he has a tent and makes this grand plan to find the turtles... but all aspects of the plan also fall through. this evidentally is not meant to happen. he gave me a beer he had in his backpack. mmm warm beer. he got me ice. his old french friend joined and his mumbly french spanish was terribly difficult to understand. we went for pizza and drinks, then bought rum and nicaraguan coke (tastes like vanilla coke) and drank by the beach. they had really nice conversation, and it felt nice to converse with locals that i didn´t feel were trying to hit on me. plus, if i didn´t understand something, with both of their efforts i was generally given either a good spanish description or the english word. the jewelry guy was actually a former theology professor. crazy. with frenchie i generally did a lot of ¨smile and nod¨ding. after that we hit up four other bars and i got a free hot dog bun. i ended the night with two peace corps workers, following an incredibly drunk american stmbling zigzag back to his hostel (it was shamefully hilarious to watch). kiiiiindof a really random night.
had breakfast in the market with another old man who sat at my table. i asked for a passionfruit shake and instead got a giant bright-pink drink that tasted of bubblegum. it was absolutely disgusting- what is up with nicaraguan so-called juices?!?
my ride to playa tamarindo in costa rica was filled with conversation- first with a really sweet albertan who bought me mango nectar, and then a local who worked in tamarindo. i was happy to have company. i was ONLY going to tamarindo because the lonely planet told me they had leatherback (HUUGGEE) turtles that laid their eggs at a beach near there. i was so excited. i found out that eve, after spending an entire day getting there, that the turtles don´t arrive for another few nights. what a big giant exasperated sigh. oh well. i watched ¨knocked up¨ and ¨die hard 4¨ that night and talked to my nice and chatty roommates.
strolled around the nothing-special, cloudy beach the next morn. it started to rain. i ditched tamarindo, fled to san jose. it took allll day and i slept in the bus station because after six hours of delays, i arrived in the city at 12 at night and those in the bus station told me it was safer to sleep there than to leave and try to find a hotel. it was sooo cold that, to the others laughter, i wore half my clothes and bundled myself up in my thin sheet. i awoke at 5 and walked to the other terminal.
what a waste of days.
took the bus to panama- due to those ¨everybody loves a canadian girl¨ shirts, i met a girl whom i formerly thought was a local, who was heading to bocas del toro also. that night on the island we drank in the park, then hit up a few other bars. she left early and i started a dance floor with some random local guy who bought me a drink. (i was scolded earlier that night for not accepting a drink offer- it´s rude apparently). no one was dancing and i wanted to dance so bad, so i told him that the 4 people at the bar were kinda moving, and so were the people to our right... if we all started, that´s 8! that´s totally a dance floor beginning! he bought it and we made everyone start dancing and then when the floor was full we gave each other a high-five. good work, team. i had a really good time. that bar had a shipwreck under it and it was all lit up in the water with blue-green lights... it looked super cool in the night.
went for a boat tour the next morn. while i was waiting for the boat to come to my ¨port¨, i lied down belly-first on the dock with my head peeking over the edge and stared at the plethora of endless exotic fish swim by in the clear, light teal water. so neat.
the first stop of the tour was dolphin watching. he didn´t tell us this though, so we just pull up to a bay full of other boats and then you see it, unexpectedly: about four dolphins at once just popout of the water in graceful half-moon motions. it was WAY cooler than i thought it would be. i loved it. we watched dolphins for a good 45 minutes. we went over to a private beach and i snorkelled but the snorkelling was boring (it´s a shame i started my underwater adventures in thailand because most else pales strongly in comparison), so i just lied in the water, face-down and stared at the aquatic life, moving only with the motion of the sea, clasping my hands together and feeling so so peaceful with no noise except for my own steady breath and the soft munching of fish on coral. i loved when i drifted over to the white sand patches and watched the uniform schools of tiny white fish throw shadows on the ocean floor.
when we stopped for lunch later, a spanish chica jumped into the ocean off the dock and when she came back up, her swimsuit was a little... out of place, bearing her entire breast. we warned her and she just shrugged ¨i only cover out of.. how do you say?.. respect, i don´t care at all¨, and she did a backflip into the water. so european, love it.
we then went and saw the poison red frogs- i held one and it just froze as if it had died. i was so sad because i thought i had killed it, but then someone corrected me. strange and ineffective survival mechanism if you ask me. an israeli guy from the boat kept saying ¨very nice¨ like borat and it made me laugh so hard on the inside, especially because he was 100% serious.
that night it poured so hard that the power went out and the streets were flooded. the canadian and i lied on her bed and listened to her ipod, singing to all the catchy songs, and she taught me the words to shakira songs since i can never actually hear what she´s saying. when the power came back on we walked through the flooded streets to the water taxi so we could hit up the free ladies night at the other island. while there we played the most intense bus game i have played thus far! we got really really in depth and asked really wicked questions and it was so open and great. again, she went home early and i danced the night away. this time, on the party boat- a GIANT three-story cruise ship that costs a dollar. i didn´t really like being stuck on the boat, but i liked that there was lots of wind to keep us cool and the stars were lovely from the top deck. i danced with a salsa teacher- i told him i couldn´t salsa, and he told me he´d teach me... it failed, as always, but he said my normal dancing was very good... that´s nice to hear, coming from a dance instructor!
awoke the next morn reeaalllly feeling the previous day´s sun and decided that i´d had enough of nice beaches and sun (i didn´t want to see a ray of it- i even had sun blisters) and drinking the nights away, i was going to flee to the mountains. while waiting at the dock i was talking to a mob of local men who gathered around me. when they thought i wasn´t listening, the one guy asked the other how they keep warm in canada. the other responded in perfect sincerity ¨sexo¨. i laughed and joined the convo- if that were true we would have a larger population i think. once on the water taxi, i met this great couple and they happened to be going to boquete, as well. in the 5 or so hours that we were together we got to know each other quite well, and they became some of my favourite people i´ve met so far. laura was especially interesting, while her boyfriend was asleep for most of our conversation. we got really deep. it was nice to have intelligent conversation. she has travelled a lot and has been managing extremely popular hostels in bocas for two years. she told me to write to her after my trip ends and tell her 1. if i´m still a vegetarian, especially after argentina, and 2. how old do i feel. she was 25 and felt 35. one of her greatest goals in life was to make others happy and just being around her made me so- she was so positive with amazing energy and she emitted a wonderful radiance. so happy to meet her and her man.
they both knew the owner of a hostel in boquete, so they took me to it and then went off and found a really expensive hotel to treat themselves to. david, the temporary owner, was a really great guy who told me, against what all the tour guides said, that i could in fact do the 12am volcano trek solo. it was SO nice to hear someone tell me i can do something alone! i was getting really sick of all the necessary tours. plus i was really lacking adventure in my life. needed to do something.. stupid. my first day in boquete though, a charming mountain town full of ghost expats (foreign retirees that you rarely see, but can only sense are in all the expensive SUVs- boquete was voted the third best place to retire in the world), i just wandered around. saw a giant garden that wasn´t overly impressive in gardening, but was SO immense that its sheer size was simply astonishing. i then wandered up a mountain road.. and wandered some more.. and then inadvertently got a ride further up.. then kept wandering.. then met a really freindly woman and her son.. and then i got caught in the rain.. and then wandered some more.. got caught in harder rain... then while wandering for my last time i finally got a ride, soaking wet, back to boquete. the views all the way up- of the coffee plantations and the town below and the mountains in the distance- were absolutely gorgeous.
luckily because of all the raining in the day, the night was clear as contacts which made me even more excited for my volcano trek. i got everything prepared- food, water, wore half my clothes, my rain jacket, bought a headlamp, socks for gloves, julio leant me his hat, got my 11pm taxi set up. then i go to look for him at 10:50... wait for 50 minutes and he never shows. not only that, but no other taxi that passes will take me either. i was so upset. the ONE thing i depended on someone else for and it falls through. what a disappointment. i was still so adrenalined (definitely made that word up) and pumped and determined that i decided i didn´t care, i was going to trek the four extra hours (on top of a 12-hr trek) to the trailhead too, even though i didn´t know where the road really started. i would miss the sunrise, but at least i would be wasting less time than if i waited another day. as i was walking to where i thought the road was, i was about to ask two guys whom i thought were locals where the road was: ¨perdone- AH, you´re not locals¨ (they were blatantly american) ¨no we are not... but we´ve lived here a year¨ so i asked them where the road to the volcano was. they asked me why the hell i wanted to know that. i explained the situation. they told me if i gave up, i should come to the bar down the street. i laughed and departed. two minutes later, they´re shouting behind me- do i want a ride?! ¨are you drunk??¨ one guy has had a beer and the driver doesn´t drink. ¨do you know it´s like a half hour away??¨ they say that´s bullshit. ¨do you know it´s like a really rough road??¨ he has a new 4X4 truck. and that´s when they became my two little angels. i was SO happy. how great is that?! it was also cool because i think they were as happy to meet me as i was to meet them- they weren´t part of the travel circuit, so what i was doing was completely foreign and crazy to them. i hope it was a little inspiration. they seemed inspired, but mostly justin, the one-beer guy, so maybe the one beer went to his head. anyway, we had really great conversation all the way up. we turned off his headlights at the top to see how dark it was. it was really, really dark. could see every star in the sky. then group hug, plan to meet for pizza the next eve, and i was off into panamanian darkness. they certainly made my day- i really liked them and appreciated that ride so so much. they were even going to join me but without proper shoes, rain gear, a sweater, flashlight, and sharing the little food that i had brought, i deduced that that would be an absolutely miserable trip for them.
the walk up provided amazing views of little boquete- the stars were as bright as the city lights. walking with a spotlight in front of you and seeing nothing but that little patch of lit ground could make a person go crazy for longer than sixhours- but for less time is actually quite meditative. i think it made me walk faster because i concentrated on just walk walk walking- literally taking just one step at a time. i decided a headlamp-lit midnite trek up a volcano is a serious metaphor. the further i became from the last hour of sunlight, and the higher i became in altitude, the colder the environment, and thus my body if i stopped longer than one single minute. i wore my rainjacket just for warmth, but as you might know, cheap plastic doesn´t breathe, so i was sweating like a maniac under there. i made it to the top in perfect timing (another reason justin and dave´s ride was so lovely) as the sun came up. it was MAGNIFICENT! phenomenal view- i could see both oceans hugging tiny panama, other mountains, all the surrounding cities, plus the sun behind low clouds, peeking from behind the clouds, then hiding behind higher clouds, changing colours at each stage. the mountains looked as though they were tucked in with all the clouds as sheets at their mid-regions. it was all so so lovely. i was queen of the castle; i hadn´t seen one other person since the trailhead. so peaceful, i felt like i was in on a beautiful little secret. unfortunately i was absolutely fucking freezing- stopped walking, drenched in sweat and nothing blocking the rough winds at 3450 metres. also, in my more stagnant stage my muscles cramped and my feet decided they had done enough work for one night, so they mutinied and the walk down was more or less incredibly painful hell.... but i was so blessed on the way up that it felt necessary to go through some sort of initiation in order to be permitted to view the vistas. so i was fine with the torture. i paid on the way out and the ranger asked if it had rained that night. nope, that´s just my sweat... but thanks for noticing.
the day was pretty much a write-off, and that night i waited for the boys for pizza. it was actually the only reason i stayed in boquete- i wanted to leave but i hate failing people. hilariously enough, they´re the ones that didn´t show. so i grabbled a nice bottle of chilean wine and drank some with these two new guys that showed up. they were hilarious and planned on climbing the volcano that eve... drunk. they kept speaking of strange things like riding green forest llamas and it all made me laugh. good times. they took life JUST lightly enough- i really enjoyed their company. mitch, the self-professed ¨bearded wonder¨ (don´t ask me what that means), was an older surfer man who had just ended a job at a secluded surf resort and was finding it really hard to adjust to even the little town of boquete. we had really long talks and he ended up really liking me and calling me cutie and telling me all these nice things and that it was so nice to talk to someone so intelligent and positive. i was glad to help him... he was really, really down.
panama city was the next stop. on the way there i talked to a lady who lives in both david and panama city and she showed me a million bits of boring footage of her newly renovated house on her camcorder. it was so funny. she wore really bright lipstick. nice lady. panama city itself began hours and hours later with the pizza i had been craving for ages and trying to find a taxi in the most obscene hellish taxi situation. once i finally worked out the system it was better, but it took me a good hour to get a ride. i´m not going to lie, i hadn´t been in a big city since mexico, seven countries ago, and it was kindof nice- everything more available and easier, just for a little while. that night there was an adorable little one-year-old in my dorm. the girl on my top bunk was speaking loudly in her sleep and everytime she´d stop, the baby would start giggling and gurgling baby language loudly and getting up onto all fours on her bed and jiggling a bit, all baby-like. it was SO cute and AMAZINGLY entertaining.
first day in the city was a waste. art museum closed, as are all other museums on mondays. went to the parque natural metropolitano and it of course starts raining five minutes into my path. i´m soaked, but continue- finish the one ad half hour trek in thirtyfive minutes. got a hazy view of panama and the canal (which costs $8 to see up close, so i passed on that). i am impressed they have such a large junle area in the middle of the city. when i returned i sat with the park ranger while the rain passed, but i think he was a little lonely, so he kept talking and talking long after the rain had passed. finally i escaped and saw a turtle in a pond. then a mall- which was, again, a refreshing change from markets (as much as i love a good market, i´m just talking CHANGE here). then experienced the most obscene traffic jam of my life. if i had had any idea where i was i would have exited the bus and walked.
next day the museum was open, but the art wasn´t terribly exciting. i got a delicious borojo (or something like that) shake from the street and tried to see a movie. the ONE movie i chose was the ONLY one dubbed in spanish, so i switched theaters. that eve i went out with claudio, my brasilian friend, to ladies night. he took so long to get ready though that we missed my free entry by two minutes and i had to pay six dollars. booo. at least i didn´t miss the hilarious male strip show- great dancers, better bodies. i danced the night away and told claudio he was ¨siempre sonrisas¨ (always smiles), and he said i was the same and we smiled wider and continued dancing gleefully. great music. the night didn´t end so well- claudio disappeared to some girls car, and i was with that girl´s friends. we left the bar, and they ordered food. the one girl asked me for the money for ALL of it. i asked why i was paying when i was getting one stupid empanada. she demanded the money. i asked why. she demanded again. i figured maybe they´d pay me back later. but they didn´t. this made me feel like they were definitely using me and that all night all they saw from me was a rich foreigner. i was pissed and bitter. nevertheless i was happy to have survived a night of speaking only spanish in a club- i was scared with my bad hearing and imperfect spanish tht it would be a huge mistake, but it was a-okay.
next day i was off to colombia- i decided that the stupidest and most adventurous route would be through the darien gap- one of the most dangerous areas in the world. i set off on foot, got raped, robbed and beaten by guerillas hiding in tree tops, but arrived in bogota in relatively good spirits.
i´m just kidding. not about the darien gap being incredibly dangerous, but regarding my passage via said route. i instead took an incredibly relaxing and beautiful sailing trip from portobelo, panama to the san blas islands then to cartagena, colombia. i will leave this part for next time- for now....
random additions!:
- until the san blas islands of panama i had not seen indigenous culture in any country other since guatemala- i quite missed it! i totally took it for granted in mexico and guatemala... i assumed every country would have it, for some reason.
- nicaragua didn´t have any street food, and costa rica and panama´s street food was very limited. another thing i took for granted in the countries before them.
- in granada there was an awkward party bus- but it wasn´t a bus... it was a tractor and haul painted crazy colours, blasting dance music with bored passengers. hilaaarious.
- i keep kinda lifting outta myself and seeing where i am through the eyes of a much younger shayla, or like.. my mom. would they imagine where i am right now? standing atop the only panamanian volcano staring at the entire country possibly more cold than i´ve ever been in canada? strange feeling.
- jungles to me are just forests but with long, skinny, suspended things- epiphytes, mosses, whatever. always makes it look real exotic- a jungle isn´t a jungle without it. big fat bright green leaves don´t hurt either.
- ¨cheyla¨ in nicaragua meant ¨girl¨, so all the guys kept calling for me ¨cheyla, cheyla¨ and it sounded so close to my name (especially because spanish usually pronounce my name that way anyway) that i would ALWAYS look. dammit, they got me.
- since ¨carne¨ doesn´t actually mean meat, but beef, there was no easy way to tell people that i don´t eat meat if they don´t know what vegetariana means. so now i´m saying ¨i don´t eat animals¨ which sounds really awkward.
- lastly, boy who cried cat: cat calls here are not just for girls, they are to get anyone´s attention. so since i ignore them ALL the time, no one can EVER get my attention.
alright folks, i am FINALLY out. needta find colombian market sandals. maybe they will be improved from mexican and guatemalan market runners. i´ll let you know.
much love to all, wish all is well,
shayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
p.s. many more photos up: themillman.com/shayla-g
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