A word is worth a thousand pictures

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Words are all I have now anyway...It´s been quite the time lately so I figure I should try to capture it a bit in words, since my camera was stolen, but we´ll get to that all in time.

I just took this great walk in panama city. I am near the ocean in a hospedaje called Las Tablas (the significance I´ll explain later). I walked towards all the high rises. There they are, these towers piercing the sky. I got three mandarines and two bananas at this nice fruit store amongst the fancy high rises. Also a little carton of milk like we used to drink in school as kids. I was looking for a place to picnic, it was about 5 and I hadn´t had lunch. I had a late start. So I walked down to point pacifico, a point of panama city. Since I didn´t have a camera, I spared myself taking lots of silly pictures of the city. The point was so cool--thousands of seagulls and magnificent gliders (another type of bird, big with scissor tales) soared on the spiralling wind vents that was formed by the point. The wind blew off the city one way, and off the shore the other and took the birds high up. I think they all just rode it for a good time, that´s what they do for fun. I was at the end of a road, where a bunch of new sky scrapers are being constructed. It´s going to be the spot, I can tell you that! I sat on a big cement mound, and all the skyscrapers were behind me. I looked out at the ocean and the birds. It was the spot for a picnic. I threw my banana peals and mandarine rind down onto the concrete, because I figure they´ll need some help if they´re going to have a coral reef there...they´re not planning on it, but I´m always thinking of silly things like that.

Then, I climbed down the concrete to see what I could see. What I saw surprised me...something was lying there in the water, something big and weird. It raised up it´s head--it was a tortoise! A really big one too. I hadn´t seen one yet, and I thought how this one was probably feeling so out of place, maybe full of eggs and didn´t really know where to go...the last turtle. Then I thought how I never went and saw the turtles laying, though it was a big tourist thing to do in central america, and I thought how maybe it´s OK because I dídn´t want to see the little tortuises anyway, and lots of times I don´t like doing stuff really touristy. But here I saw this turtle...it was quite strange. Then I saw some minnows jumping as well, and thought, even with all this construction, there is still life here. That was nice to know. Panama city is after all right on the ocean, which is trippy when you think about it. As I first went out today, I felt the ocean heat and walked down to it, and smelled the dirty sea smell you get sometimes in big cities.

Anyway, I headed back. Didn´t want to walk all the way so I got on the first bus I found. It said, panama viejo. It was the exact opposite way I, but I was curious what panama viejo was, so I decided I´d find out. The sun was setting and the idea was to get back before dark. But sometimes to get somewhere you have to go in exactly the opposite direction. So off I went, reflecting to myself with some chagrin how often I throw myself into strange situations, which is usually stressful, but I figure it´s good experience dealing with these things. I suppose I´m rather used to doing crazy things by this point, which I think will help me out later in life, or even right now!

Out we went to panama viejo, past some ghettoes, and I got to see a little slice of the city life. One part had a park, and all these kids playing soccer. Then there were ruins. It was cool. Women carrying babies, all that good stuff. Finally, we got to a place where everyone got off. I asked someone how I could get back to Via Espana, my street. She said it was easy. I got on the bus, and off we went with the gears roaring and a red light ambience shining on a sign that said, Tarifa unica, 25c. That means, one price. The guy changed the gear stick which was about 3 feet long, and there we were swerving through traffic. This is the best entertainment you can get for 25 cents, I reflected. I watched the sun setting, and the city scenery going by. The outskirts of the city were coming alive.

Finally, we started getting closer to my place, and I recognized where to get off, got off right there and went into this internet place. Whew!

My most recent adventure was carnival in Las Tablas. It was suppossed to be the craziest place in panama, so I wasn´t sure if I should go there...but first...

My last day in boquete, this chill mountain town--there was a hill I wanted to summit that looked down on the town. Walking up there, so many dogs barked at me, it was really annoying. I don´t like when dogs bark at me, and almost every house had one. It was for protection, sure. Finally I did make it up that hill for the sunset, though it was getting dark. I sat up there a bit and could hear the madness of the city...(ok not that mad) but I felt there were too many barking dogs, and people honking horns. IT wasn´t as chill a town as I woulda liked.

But earlier that day, this guy Kevin, who I met a few days before, we ate some lunch. We had the best smoothies with a double cheesburger that was so good. It filled me right up. Then we went to the river, and he had a little kite, and we flew that. It was a good thing to do, chillin flying a kite. Some dark clouds blew up behind us, but only sprinkled a refreshing few drops. His kite had an awesome tale and did all kinds of loops and tricks just normally. Finally we crashed it in the river, and it got wet. But we dried it out. But the wind was getting too crazy, so we stopped.

The next day I just decided to go to Las Tablas. I figured I´d meet someone there and be able to stay with them. I was kinda thinking there would be a lot of gringoes, and I could get some rapport or something and get lucky. Because las tablas is booked months in advance. It´s usually 10,000 people, but for carnival, it´s 100,000 or something like that. I don´t know if that´s exact.

As I neared Las Tablas, I realized I was really stressing myself out by doing something so crazy, and I thought how I´d never find a place, and all these doubts. I was kinda scared. Usually I am brave, but lately I¨ve been timid, I think from being sick so long--I think it was pneumonia. But now I´m feeling better, and I think every day I get better. Anyway, then I was still a bit weak. There was so much uncertainty, what would happen? Worst case, I figured, I would get robbed of all my stuff, but my plan was to find a place at least and store it, and then party all night if I couldn´t find a place.

So I got there. THere were lots of people out, but no gringos like I thought. It was more of a local party it seemed. Oh man, I thought. Good thing I can speak spanish...

I found this one hospedaje, and asked if they have a room. Nope. All full. But the lady was really nice and let me put my stuff in her house down below. Now it was time to party all night!

I walked around, checking out the scene. I saw the parade statues, so I went to check it out. There was this big wizard head, and this guy holding it up. I asked him if I could take a picture, he said sure. So I took it. We started talking, and his name was Christopher, my brothers name. I told him I didn´t have a place to stay. He said it was dangerous to be out late, and I´d get robbed. Well I figured that...but planned to party all night in a dicotech or something. I knew I would get so tired tho, it was kinda a bad idea to stress myself out like that...he offered that I could stay at his place, he lived with his mom and grandma. I said OK, and we planned to meet at 1 AM in front of the church and then we´d go.

We talked a bit, and turned out that he worked on making these things. He told me a bit about how it was done. It was really incredible! Then I went to walk around, on more adventures. There I met another guy, and he said I could stay with him too. We watched some traditional parades march around the park, singing and banging drums. It was cool.

Man this is a long story...I¨ll have to write part two later. But to finish that night.

So, I went off on my own for a while. There were some guys selling stuff on this road, and they were like, hey check it out. I looked at their stuff, it was cool. We started talking. We ended up shooting the breeze for a while. They were from panama, and asked me what I was doing and all. I told them how I was a musician, and did some raps for them. They enjoyed it. After a bit, I went to the grocery store. I wanted to buy us all a watermelon, because I saw tons of them on the ride over. They didn´t have any. But they had a big bag of oranges for 60 cents. I got it. Brought it back, and gave one to everyone, about 7 people. Then I got a good idea. They could try to sell me! So they put it into effect. They would sell me for 100 dollars, then I´d escape and we could do it again. IT was a really funny joke.

Gringo Gringo! La ultima gringo! Gringo que canta!

They were saying, gringo, the last gringo, he sings too! They told a few people, excuse me, one minute, please. ´They´d get them to stop. Then they told about their special offer. People thought it was pretty funny, and we were cracking up. Because there weren´t really any gringoes.

After that, I got some more oranges. Then a few girls drove by in the car, and one blew a kiss at me. There were two girls, they were from columbia. And one guy, driving the car. He bought us all beers. We hung out, and one of the girls told me she was a famous columbian actress and was telling me how it was hard or something. I got in the car with them, figured, why not, I could get out and run if they went somewhere weird. They did go somewhere wierd! They said they were heading to the beach. We started getting out pretty far, a few kilometers, and I was like, shoot, I´ll be stranded out here if they rob me and leave me or something. So I was like, where are we going? I don´t want to go to the beach, the party is in town, the beach sucks. So I got us all to turn around. Well that wasn´t too hard. I wonder where they wouldá taken me, and what they would have done. They took me back to where my friends were and I got out. But they had gone to change for the discoteck.

Then I headed back to catch the parade. It came out after ähorita¨ I found out ahorita in panama can be a few hours. It was pretty spectacular. I got some good pics, maybe, but my camera was lost the next day--I´ll get to that. Anyway, I walked after the parade, crazy dressed girls with all these feathers and crazy big statues, followed by a brass band that rocked. The streets were packed. THere were two different processions, each with two flats pulled by tractor, and a bus full of band. It was the night the queens came out. THere were two queens. They were really cool! I walked behind the procession with a bunch of people, and fireworks exploded over the church!

After all that, I met chrisopher, we grabbed my stuff, got in a van, and were off to san jose, a little town he lived in that he said was about ten minutes. I felt I could trust him. Sometimes you just know, but I was still a bit cautious. The ride was about 15 minutes I think. WE got to his house, he knocked, and from inside I heard a womans voice. A tired eyed woman opened the door and marveled at me. We set up a bed, a really cool bed that opened up, and was just, oh a cot it´s called. It was nice and firm. And they even changed the sheets on it, and moved the wheelchair out of the way, and I slept in the main room. Off I went to slumberland, with my ear plug in my ear, because all these roosters kept crowing. It was only about 2 Am though.

To be continued...

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