The Morgan Freeman Lookalike

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After two nights in Panama City we decided to swap the scorching, busy metropolis for the cool, lush mountains and forests of Boquete. We awoke early and got the 8.15 bus north to Panama´s second city David. After nearly missing the bus due to us queuing in the wrong area entirely we were hustled on as the bus was pulling off. Unfortunately the bus was quite busy and we would have to sit separately. I sat down beside a man who appeared to be asleep and throughout the 7 hour bus ride he did nothing other than breathe.
Clare on the otherhand sat beside an elderly Panamanian man, probably in his sixties. The man´s resemblance to Morgan Freeman was scary, the only difference being that he spoke no English. As Clare sat down the elderly man, polite as he was, started to make conversation. The man rambled on for 7 hours non stop, oblivious to the puzzled look on Clare´s face and to her pleas that she did not speak Spanish. "No Espanol" only served to encourage him to talk some more.
A couple of hours into the journey I asked Clare for the ipod. Clare was busy reading and we had not really spoken for about 30 minutes so I thought I would try out some of the new music I had downloaded. However, by the end of the first song (about 4 minutes long) Clare had interrupted me 3 times. I decided to put the ipod away at this point as Clare was obviously looking for a chat. I put the ipod away and looked at Clare ready for a conversation. Clare returned to her book and we did not speak for the next half an hour.
Once again I put the ipod on and once again Clare interrupted me several times. Her urge to speak only when I had the earphones on began to frustrate me so I decided to put the ipod away for the remainder of the trip.
In the meantime Morgan Freeman had turned to pointing at people and laughing, obviously cracking jokes for Clare´s pleasure, still ignoring the fact that she can´t understand a word he is saying. We finally reached David and we were relieved to see the back of our new friend, as nice as he was. We swapped onto the Boquete bus and made the 1 hour journey uphill to Boquete town.

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