Muchas Cosas

Today I write from Boquete, Panama. I arrived here yesterday after leaving The Yoga Farm at 4.30am. There weren't any howler monkeys to wake me at that time yesterday but I am getting used to being awake by at least 5.30am each day so it wasn't too much of a challenge.

I made it down the hill in plenty of time for the 5am bus but on this day, there was no bus. Usually it is parked down the bottom of the hill overnight and you can just get on. But there was no bus, what do I do? So I walked up to the minisuper and asked Alvaro. He told me that there would be no bus but the man would come soon in a car. So I waited there until indeed, a little while later, the grumpy busdriver pulls up in a 4WD ute. I had been hearing that some of the roads were bad so I guess this confirmed it would not be too easy. Getting all my gear into the ute, the bus driver commented on my muchas cosas, many things, I am carrying. I need to have a purge at some point.

Ticos don't partake in the formality of bus stops so if you happen to be standing on the side of or walking along a road, a bus will generally stop to take you somewhere. This bus usually picks up a dozen or more people just on the way into Pavones. The bus driver and I, sitting in the front cab of the ute, were chatting and he told me that word had got around so fast that the roads were bad that no-one would travel on them. Even Alvaro's son who goes to school in Conte (where I had to change buses) was not going to school. So I was pretty excited that I was the one dunce to brave it. I was reassured in Pavones where we did collect a few people to sit in the back with my backpack.

The road through the mountain really was 4WD territory, sludge and mud and we slipped and slided our way through there but it was no worse than I'd experienced in Kenya a few years ago.

Once in Conte we changed to get on a real bus to Laurel. My pack was in the back of the ute and I couldn't manage to lift it over the side while I was on the ground so, to an audience of about 10 men, I jumped into the back, lifted the pack over one shoulder and then started to climb down. They must have foreseen the comedy that was about to behold them which is why no-one offered to help me. Everything was wet and muddy and slimy and as I started to step over the tailgate the pack dropped down and pulled me off the back onto the muddy ground with dizzying force. I fell straight onto the ground onto my back, smacking my head hard. Only then did a couple of the men offer to help...

After a couple of buses and a taxi I was at Paso Canoas, the border town, la frontera. After stamping out of Costa Rica and into Panama I walked through and found another bus to David. The contrast between the Costa Rican and Panamanian sides of the border is startling. I was imagining Costa Rica to be one of the most developed places in Central America but everywhere I've been, the roads are generally dirt and can deteriorate significantly after rain. The only exception to this is most of the Interamericana, the highway that runs through Central America. Immediately upon entering Panama, I'm on a minibus with airconditioning, music and we're travelling down a paved dual carriageway highway with a grass strip in the middle and guttering on the sides. The bus went so fast that every time we had to stop to pick someone up the driver slammed on the brakes, could not stop in time, then had to reverse to get them.

After one more bus I arrived in Boquete in the mountains where I will spend a couple of days. Everything here is much cheaper than Costa Rica so a bit of a treat. I had a big bowl of soup and a home made lemonade for lunch yesterday and it cost me US$1.50.