Teacher on Two Wheels

Above:  Me with elementary school students from Colegio Jorge Washington

Yesterday I was lucky enough to visit Colegio Jorge Washington here in Cartagena.  I spoke to four different classes (both elementary and high school level) about planning a big idea and seeing it through to fruition, the importance of cultural tolerance, and the inherent goodness in people.  It was inspiring seeing the kids so excited about my ride.  Two of the classes wrote me letters and cards wishing me luck on my trip and thanking me for speaking.  A few of the older students came up to me after one of the classes and told me they were going to try to learn more about bicycle travel.  It was an awesome day.  If I spoke to your class yesterday, thank you!!  

Some of the more interesting questions that the elementary school students asked me: 

Where do you get your food?  Do you hunt mostly?

Has a bear ever ripped open your tent in the middle of the night?

How do you poop?

Above:  Cheese!

Above:  Me talking about the bike

Above:  Sunset over the San Blas Islands, Panama

Wednesday 4/16/08  Cartagena, Colombia

The ship’s first mate, a clunky ogre of a man with beady eyes and a closely cropped gray Mohawk, reached for his pack of tobacco and rolling papers.  In seconds, he rolled his umpteenth cigarette of the night, a smooth white wand that he put to his face and sparked before tossing the lighter back onto the table.  He leaned back in his chair and exhaled.  He watched as the smoke found its way up into the dusty lightshade of the light swinging gently above us.  In the boat’s tiny lounge, one lined with German sailing books and outdated travel guides for Caribbean islands, he sat like a king on his throne.  He spoke with authority.  And in a sense, he had every right to:  He had been with the boat on and off for 15 years, guiding her countless times over the 240 mile stretch of open ocean that separates the city of El Porvenir on Panama’s northern coast with the historic port city of Cartagena in Colombia.  He was in his element, and he knew it.

“I’m so sick of tourists coming on this boat and asking to use the internet.  No one today can go five minutes without checking his damn email.  I’m sick of it,” he said, exhaling a large plume of smoke into the room like some greasy inefficient factory machine.

“But on the boat’s website it says that you have internet access here,” I protested.

“Yes!  Internet access!  That’s not the same as free email!  Not the same at all.  No.  We have satellite internet access.  If you want to pay two dollars to send an email, fine.  Otherwise, don’t go near the computer.”

“I can see how people get confused, though.  Isn’t saying you have internet access kind of like saying passengers can send email?” I asked.

“No, those are different things.  Nowhere on the website do we say you can send emails.  Nowhere.  I’m sure of it.”  He put the cigarette to his lips and pulled on it like a person underwater pulls on a snorkel.  He exhaled and mashed the butt into an ashtray on the table.  Leaning back in his chair, he looked over at the bookshelf and rested his hands on his bulging belly, a gelatinous bubbly mass that was poorly covered by a stained white tank top advertising some long defunct German music label.

I decided to change the subject.  Arguing about email and internet access seemed silly.

“When was this boat built?” I asked.

“In 1903,” he said, offering nothing more, still flustered with memories of email-craving boat passengers.

“And has she been used to shuttle tourists around since then or has—”

“No, of course not,” he cut me off.  “What tourists were around in Panama in 1903, huh?  None, of course.”  He laughed a little to lighten his tone.  “No, she’s been used for lots of different things over the years.  For a while, she was used on a few different anti-petroleum Greenpeace missions.”  He reached for his tobacco again.  Rolled another smoke.

“Really?”

“Yeah, look behind you,” he said, motioning to two pictures hanging on the wall behind me.  In them, a large black boat, one shaped exactly like the one we were on, bobbed in dark seas with bulging Greenpeace flags on her masts.  “Greenpeace had her painted so she’d look nice in the photographs and videos.  Paid for everything, the rich bastards.  We had a good zodiac, you know, the rubber boat with the outboard motor that we have in the back here, and Greenpeace told us they didn’t want to use it.  Wanted to buy two new zodiacs for the mission.  $30,000 each.  They didn’t care.  They said they had one shot and couldn’t afford to have an old motor die out on them.  They have so much money they don’t know what to do with it all, the fools” he said.

“What type of work did you guys do with them?” I asked.

“We took zodiacs to an oil platform in the open ocean and boarded it.”  He took his cigarette to his lips and took a long pull.  He let his sentence sink into the conversation like a bright falling star, watched and waited for it to widen my eyes, for my jaw to fall a bit, for me to start asking a million questions like some kid lured deep and fast into one of his grandfather’s fantastic stories. 

I waited for him to continue. 

“We climbed up the platform.  We had an expert climber there who oversaw the whole thing.  Got up close to the drilling area and rigged up big hammocks.  We just sat there in the hammocks, as close to the drill as possible, and waited for them to shut it down.  For two days we waited there.  No drilling for two days.  The oil company lost five to ten million dollars a day in lost revenue while we were there.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of money.  Man, a lot,” I said.  Pause.  “So would you ever work with Greenpeace again?  Did you think the protest was effective?”

“Of course not!  Never again will we work with those fools.  They’re nothing but a greedy corporation now.  You know, they even have an ex-oil executive working for them?  How can you trust them now, huh?  No, we didn’t solve anything.   Sure we stopped the drilling for two days.  But after two days, we were all arrested, sent to jail, and the drills started up again.  We as a planet use more oil now than we ever did before.  Nothing changed.”  Pause.  “Have you heard of Paul Watson?”

“No,” I said. 

The first mate rolled his eyes.  I didn’t mind.

“He’s one of the original founders of Greenpeace.  He left Greenpeace because they weren’t radical enough, weren’t getting enough done.  So he bought a huge ice-breaker, you know, the kind of boats they use in the arctic to break up the surface ice?  He bought this big monster of a boat and painted her black.  Jet black.  She was a real monster, I tell you.  He used this big black beast to ram oil tankers.  He rammed them and boarded them.  Once onboard, he would dismantle their equipment.  Hell, he even blew up boats in harbors.  He used to give the crew 30 minutes to leave the boat before blowing it to pieces.  That is protest.  That is fixing the problem.  None of this peaceful Greenpeace stuff.”

*****

Later in the trip, as I listened to the ship’s first mate argue with another passenger and try to convince him that people should throw Molotov cocktails into the lobbies of Swiss banks because of the banks’ customer secrecy policies (policies that sometimes protect known corporate criminals by blocking police inquiries), I didn’t have the heart to ask him how much social change he was bringing about by shuttling tourists to and from Colombia trip after trip, by smoking his cigarettes one after the other in the tiny back lounge of a sailboat and preaching anarchy in late night conversations destined to be dismissed the next morning as unchecked rambling, feverish word blabber.  Like his smoke, his complaints floated up into the air and dissipated, smothered by the soft din of waves crashing to their deaths outside.

*****

Above:  Pulling up a sail on the boat…kind of

The Stahlratte, our vessel for the journey, is a 90 ft. slab of boat with faded sails and a rusty nose.  She’s far from dead, but she’s visibly dying.  Her helm is sun-bleached and tired.  Her cabin’s nooks and crannies are filled with half-empty tubes of toothpaste and grease cutter.  Dirty rags used to mop up surprise leaks dot the floors under her beds like forgotten cow pies.  Frayed ropes are still in rotation on her decks.

But she’s strong, and that’s all that counts.  For five days, she safely carried me and 22 other passengers.  She slipped effortlessly through the reef-riddled channels of the San Blas Archipelago.  She pushed on through two and three meter waves on the open ocean, into the wind without the slightest protest.  And when we entered the thick blackness of ocean night, that quiet hue that makes sailors feel alone, she comforted us with her age, with her history that came long before us.

Above:  We passed lots of these types of islands while sailing off the coast of Panama.

For two days, we anchored in a quiet cove amidst the San Blas Islands.  Around 300 islands make up the San Blas Archipelago, almost of all of which are now covered in coconut trees.  The islands weren’t always iconic palm-lined paradises.  Once covered in mangrove forests, the islands were cleared and cultivated by Panama’s largest indigenous group, the Kuna Yala.  The Kuna living among the San Blas have restricted their settlements to only 20 islands so that they can maximize their coconut crop production on the remaining 280 islands.  They produce millions of coconuts a year that are exported to Colombia. 

Above:  View of a shipwreck through the sails of the small sailboat we took out

I snorkeled until I started taking the ocean’s biodiversity for granted.  I sailed on a tiny four-person sailboat until my hands blistered from the boat’s ropes. I ate myself sleepy.  I talked myself quiet.  The trip was the perfect segue for our arrival into Colombia, a place I awaited with nervous anticipation.   

Above:  Leaving the Stahlratte and heading to shore in Colombia

Above:  The Stahlratte, the boat we sailed from Panama to Colombia

In Panama City, I met two Swiss cyclists heading for Argentina.  We talked and laughed for hours before planning to travel to Colombia together.  The Swiss cyclists told me about a boat that had heard of that takes people from Panama to Colombia.  The boat sounded like a good idea; I called the boat captain the next day.

For five days, we sailed a 30 meter boat from the town of El Porvenir, Panama to Cartagena, Colombia.  The boat had 23 passengers.  The boat was built in 1903 and has a long, interesting past. 

On the first day, we sailed six or seven hours to a small group of islands where we stopped.  We stayed there for about two days.  We stayed there because the water was calm and the area was good for snorkeling, watching the sunset, and relaxing on the boat.  I enjoyed my time here because I got to snorkel (one of my favorite things to do in the ocean), sail on a small sailboat, and talk to many of the other passengers.  Most of the passengers were young people who either were still in college or just graduated college.  We talked about politics in the United States, South America, safety in Colombia, sailing, and our home countries, among other things.  I had so much fun talking to so many people because I have gotten used to spending so much time by myself on the bicycle trip. 

One night we had a barbeque and a bonfire on a small island.  We cooked kabobs over an open fire and watched the sunset.  The scene was perfect—the sky was beautiful, there was a gentle breeze, the water was warm, and everyone was in a good mood.  After the sunset, we had a big bonfire.  Some passengers played guitar and sang songs in German and Spanish.  We stayed up late into the night talking and telling stories.

Once we started sailing on the open ocean, however, things changed.  The waves were a little rough.  The boat was moving all around and it made some people feel sick.  For 30 hours, we sailed across the ocean to Cartagena, Colombia.  During this time, most people slept on the boat and felt sick.  We were all very happy to finally see the buildings of Cartagena!  We had made it to Colombia!  For me, this was a special moment because I had made it to a new continent—South America.  Woohoo! 

Sunday 4/13/08 Pacific Ocean, 100 miles outside Cartagena, Colombia

Week 27 Stats

Start city: Penonome, Panama
End city: Pacific Ocean
Total distance traveled: 18.6 miles
Days on the bike: 2
Average miles per day of riding: 9.3 miles
Longest day: 12.4 miles
Shortest day: 6.2 miles

Total money spent: $1,129.75 !!! (Trip high so far)
Average per day: $161.39

Camera ordered off of eBay: 1
Number of shipping containers on one of the boats I watched pass through the Panama Canal: 1,000+
Days and nights spent in Panama City with a CouchSurfing host: 3
Swiss cyclists met and joined up with: 2
Max speed reached on the sailboat to Colombia: 9 knots
Highest wave height on the boat trip: 1.5—2 meters
Number of total passengers on the sailboat: 23
Days spent anchored in a quiet cove amidst the San Blas Islands: 2
Total cost of the boat trip (including food for 4 days): $320
Total cost of new camera, hard drive, and other odds and ends: $750 eeek!
Dolphins spotted surfing the bow of the boat: 12 or 13
Bonfires attended: 1
Snorkeling sessions: 4
Sharks spotted: 2

Above: Time lapse footage of a boat passing through the Panama Canal

Wednesday 4/8/08 Panama City, Panama

The boat sat patiently and waited for the gates to open, for a chance to move into the lock. More than 1,000 containers sat stacked on her deck. All were colored those muted, faded colors that are so well-suited for shipping containers: bloody rust, gun powder blue, old bone yellow.

An alarm sounded. The gates began to separate. They moved just as you’d expect anything built in the early 1900s to move: slow and steady. At last, the ship could advance. She didn’t lurch forward like a corvette with new tires at a fresh green light. No, she was far too big and bloated for that. Instead, she crawled. She rolled out of bed and dragged her feet. When her tail end made it past the opened gates, the gates slid closed behind her. They clicked shut. Sitting deep in a concrete tank now, the ship began to feel new water rush under her belly. Every so slowly, she rose. Inch by inch. Slow. Impossible to watch the movement in a glance or two. Over time, she rose 27 feet and bobbed at the top of her massive holding tank. When she had floated high enough, when her aquatic elevator took her to the top floor, the next set of gates began to open, just like the first. She pushed out of the tank and moved just a bit closer to the Caribbean Sea.

The Panama Canal is a testament to the endurance and collective strength of mankind. For 50 miles, the canal cuts through dense Panamanian jungle. Each inch of each mile was worked for. Thousands of workers died during her construction. Yellow fever. Malaria. Dynamite accidents. Workers were brought to Panama from many parts of the world to help with her construction. They left homes and families behind for the sake of her creation. The rock through which she cuts is a type of shale, soft and prone to landslides. New technology was invented to help remove the mountains of debris she expelled from her innards. Every step of the way was a challenge. Projects failed. Treaties were challenged. Crews of workers buried their peers in the same ground they fought to move and sculpt.

But one day the Caribbean crew stared eye to eye with the Pacific crew. They shook hands. The water flowed and the canal took her first breath, opened her eyes. Decades of work ended in success.

Today the canal is the aortic valve of Panama’s heart. It feeds her with goods from all over the world. It lines her pockets with the tariffs she demands. It has made Panama the most prosperous country in Central America and will continue to do so far into the future. The canal is going to be expanded in the coming years to allow larger ships to make it through her confines. Considering the fact that boats pay canal fees based on the size of their cargo, and that some boats currently pay as much as $240,000 U.S. for a single passage, the canal stands to earn far more money for her mother country in the future than she currently does.

All the money she brings in isn’t funneled straight into Panamanian banks as profit, however. It takes 250 million dollars a year to maintain the canal.

The key to her success is not only the obvious fact that she connects two vast bodies of water and bisects one of the world’s largest land masses. The locks, or sections of the canal that use water to raise and lower boats, are also key to her continued importance. The canal feeds boats into a large man-made lake that sits above sea level in the middle of Panama. To get the boats into the lake, locks are used to raise the boats dozens of feet above sea level. After passing through the lake, more locks are used to lower the boats back down to sea level.

It takes a cargo freighter about 24 hours to make a complete passage through the canal. A single 24 hour passage shaves as much as 30-40 days off of the previous trans-global shipping routes that used to take boats down around the tip of South America. Much of the boats traveling from west to east are carrying Asian factory goods to the east coast of the United States. Boats heading west take goods from South America to Asia. Opening the canal uncorked a multi-directional flow of goods that laid the foundation for the globalization we currently see creeping across the planet today.

I rode out to the Mira Flores Locks, the most popular spot to watch boats pass, with two Swiss cyclists I met in Panama City. The three of us happened to email the same Couchsurfing host at the same time to ask for accommodation. Miguel, our host, graciously agreed to let all of us stay in his apartment at the same time so we could meet and possibly arrange future plans to ride together (the three of us have similar routes: we are headed south to Argentina). When I met Pius and Stefan, the Swiss cyclists, I immediately felt indebted to Miguel; we got along like old friends.

Granted, we’ve only hung out for 24 hours. But, for what it’s worth, descriptions and impressions:

Pius (pronounced Pews, as in church pews) is a 29-year-old mechanical engineer from Zurich. With a smile that he can’t ever seem to wipe off his face and an energetic disposition that leaves him bopping around and rattling jokes off all day, he’s the type of guy a really depressed person would want to punch in the face. When he was 18, he rode a tandem bicycle with his girlfriend from Zurich to Moscow. After the trip was over, despite getting robbed, an ordeal in which Pius pounced on his fleeing attacker to try to recover his stolen stuff, Pius was hooked. He had tapped into the sacredness of the bike touring experience. Tired, though, and with rattled confidence thanks to the robbery, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever go on a big tour again. Two years passed, however, and he started feeling the same itch he felt before he rode to Moscow. Determined to avoid traveling while shrouded in the type of naivety that made his Moscow ride feel reckless, he planned and studied. He saved his money. He searched for the perfect riding partner. He went to Holland to meet with a custom bike manufacturer and get fitted for a recumbent bike. He did all his homework to make his trip the most rewarding trip possible. Ten months ago, he left Alaska. In 10 months, he hopes to be in Argentina. He’s still smiling.

Pius is riding with Stefan. They met five years ago and Stefan didn’t hesitate when Pius asked him if he wanted to go riding for 20 months. Stefan, a tall 24-year-old triathlete and recent college graduate with a wild mop of hair, vibrant blue eyes, and red glasses, is more soft-spoken than Pius but equally as personable. He, like Pius, speaks near-perfect English in addition to his native German and school-learned French and Italian. Contemplative, Stefan visibly thinks sometimes before he speaks and enjoys keeping a thought journal that he updates each night. In it, he records thoughts that he’s had throughout the day while in the saddle, regardless of how trivial they were. He’s a sponge for new-ness. He’s the type of guy you could imagine laughing with curiosity at the cultural idiosyncrasies that other people meet with frustration. Like, for example, I could picture him being intrigued (rather than revolted) by a decaying Cambodian rest stop pit toilet stamped with footprints of wet human waste. He’d just laugh and think out loud, “OK, how can I work with this??”

In the comfort of Miguel’s massive downtown Panama City apartment, Pius, Stefan, and I talked, schemed, sent emails and came up with a plan. It involves a boat, Colombia, and the three of us. More details to come.

Sunday 4/6/08 Penonome, Panama

Week 26 Stats

Start city: Golfito, Costa Rica
End city: Penonome, Panama
Total distance traveled: 266 miles
Days on the bike: 6
Average miles per day of riding: 44.3 miles
Longest day: 68 miles
Shortest day: 19 miles

Total money spent: $55.20
Average per day: $7.89

Border crossings: 1
Time spent crossing into Panama: 15 minutes
Cost to cross from Costa Rica into Panama: $6 U.S.
Nights camped out this week: 7
Average price for a bottle of Coke in Panama: $0.30 U.S.
Nights spent camped out behind police stations: 2
Amount of water I consumed each day while riding in hot and humid Panama: 6 or 7 liters
Amount of sweat I poured on the road each day: About 6 or 7 liters

Thursday 4/3/08 San Juan, Panama

I was all set to blow through the small farming community of San Juan when a few drops of sweat slipped off my upper lip into my open mouth. Soaked to the bone with sweat, I suddenly realized how hot and tired I was. I put on the brakes on the edge of San Juan and pulled into the dirt lot in front of a small tienda covered in soda advertisements.

I bought a bottle of soda for $0.30 and walked over to my bike.

“Sit, please. Sit in the shade,” an older woman said in Spanish, gesturing to a plastic chair beside her. She was sitting in the shade of a large thatched-roof hut next to the tienda.

I took a seat and put the soda to my lips. For a moment, as the ice-cold liquid hit the back of my throat, I was transported away from the heat, the wet shirt on my back, my tired legs. I closed my eyes and reveled in the escape. A few seconds passed. I turned toward the woman.

“Cold enough?” the woman asked.

“Yes, it’s amazing,” I said.

We introduced ourselves and started talking. The woman, Olga was her name, had vibrant brown eyes and a bun of dark hair streaked with gray. She told me about San Juan. About the electricity that always cuts out. About the school on the hill that, despite its rural location, still manages to teach its students English. About the student who was hit and killed by a car on the highway in front of where we were sitting.

Olga explained that she liked to help people. Like some people enjoy playing soccer or baseball, Olga enjoys helping people.

“Wait here a minute,” she said. She walked into her house next to where we were sitting, the one that was connected to the tienda, and came out a few seconds later holding two plastic bags.

“Try this. I make these myself.”

I took a bag. It was filled with some type of frozen juice. I ripped a corner off the bag with my teeth and chewed away at the ice inside. It tasted like frozen pineapple juice mixed with milk.

From the cool shade of Olga’s thatched-roof hut, I let the hottest part of the day slip away. Olga’s husband, Ernesto, the man who sold me my soda earlier, joined us in the hut when the tienda got too hot. Ernesto is lanky and takes small, deliberate steps. He is 73-years-old but looks far younger. His mustache is trimmed and his eyes betray his father’s Chinese ancestry. When Olga went to watch after the tienda, Ernesto and I lounged in hammocks and talked in Spanish about the year-and-a-half he spent living and working in New York City.

“Before I got to New York, I knew how to say only one type of food in English: Ham and egg,” Ernesto said. “But when I first got there, I needed to eat, right? So I went to into a restaurant and I asked for the only thing I knew–ham and egg. For a week or so, all I ate was ham and egg. Every meal, ham and egg. I didn’t mind it. Finally, though, my friend told me I needed to learn other words because I couldn’t spend a year or so in New York eating only ham and eggs! ‘All these great restaurants here and you just keep eating ham and eggs!’ my friend said.”

We laughed.

“So I learned some other stuff. Hamburger. Pasta. Pizza. French fries. Lasagna. You know, all the stuff you guys like. One night, after I spent a few hours studying the English names of different foods, I had worked up an appetite. I was excited to use my new words, so I walked to a restaurant near my apartment. I decided I would order a huge meal just so I could practice saying what I studied! When I walked into the restaurant, though, I suddenly became nervous. The waiter at the counter asked what I wanted, and before I knew it, I blurted out, ‘Ham and egg!’ Can you believe it!? I’ll never forget that.” He smiled and looked at me.

In my eyes, he saw New York City. He saw his ham and eggs, his tiny city apartment, his long hours working each day to save money to bring back to Panama. In his eyes, a little cloudy but wide and focused, I saw San Juan, the quiet farming village refusing to fade away in the dusty hills of rural Panama.

Neither of us meant for it to be that way. It just was. We each reflected things far off and exotic. We were windows. But also mirrors, too. We swung in hammocks in the breeze in the exact same way. Our ankles were boney and identical. When words hid from our tongues, we were content with just looking at each other from time to time. Because in our looking, we each absorbed a little more of the places we knew little about.

After a long silence, Ernesto turned to me.

“If you want to, you can sleep here under the hut tonight. This hut is always open to travelers who need a place to stay,” Ernesto said.

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that.”

After a dinner with Olga and Ernesto by candlelight, as the electricity puttered on and off, sending the street lights out front twinkling at odd intervals, I drifted off to sleep with Ernesto’s guard dog by my head. Just as Olga promised, a cool breeze kept the heat and humidity away the whole night long.

Tuesday 4/1/08 Golfito, Costa Rica

“I swear, the best thing I ever did was pick a team,” Nancy, my Couchsurfing host, said in that heavy, confident voice of hers. She lit up a cigarette like only seasoned smokers do, barely looking at the pack or the lighter. She pulled a short, strong drag and exhaled. “All ticos love soccer. If you pick a team, you can make friends with other fans. You can learn a lot. The ticos will see you’re not just some gringo who doesn’t care about Costa Rican culture.”

I looked around her kitchen. Paraphernalia for her favorite soccer team, Saprissa, the current top-ranking team in Costa Rica’s national league, lined the walls, which, as Nancy pointed out, were painted purple and white—Saprissa’s colors. There was a Saprissa clock. Saprissa flip-flops. Even Saprissa jerseys for her dogs.

“You know ticos don’t celebrate April Fool’s Day on the first day of April like we do in the states?” Nancy asked.

“They don’t?” I asked.

“Nope, they celebrate it some other day. One of my friends got me real good, though, one time on the Costa Rican April Fool’s Day. When I saw him, he ran up to me, all excited. He said, ‘Nancy! Nancy! Did you hear they traded so-and-so and so-and-so from Saprissa to La Liga?! La Liga is Saprissa’s rival, and he named our two best players. He had me goin’ there for a minute, I swear.”

We laughed. Nancy let out a deep hearty laugh that fused into a phlegmy smoker’s cough, leaving her wheezing. I didn’t ask if she was all right because I knew it would pass, just like my grandmother’s coughs used to.

When she caught her breath with the help of a drag from her cigarette, I asked, “So how did you end up in Golfito? It seems like a sleepy little place with not many expats.”

“Yeah, and I like it that way!” Nancy laughed. “I checked out a few other spots in Costa Rica with a friend of mine before I found Golfito. When I came up over that hill and saw the bay and the islands all spread out like that, I was hooked. I knew I had to live here.”

“How long ago did you start living here year-round?” I asked.

“It’s been eleven years now.”

“And has Golfito changed much since you first moved here?”

“Ohhh yeah, of course. I don’t want it to, but it keeps changing. More development with each passing year. They’re talkin’ about puttin’ in a 200 slip marina real close to here. It’s crazy. I just hope this place don’t change like I’ve seen other places change. I watched Key West lose itself to development. I watched Coco Beach in Florida change. Zancudo, a little town on the beach about an hour from here, totally changed in just three years. I’m hopin’ they don’t take Golfito from me, too.”

The type of change Nancy feared would take place in Golfito was almost inconceivable. The town, sandwiched between a small bay and a ridge of mountains, is filled with quaint, antiquated houses succumbing to the area’s humidity, family-run stores where the cashier knows each customer, and old people with weathered hands who look content to keep Golfito just the way it is. The place has a tangible charm, a type of grittiness, that’s rooted in its rusting marinas, storm-battered fishing boats, and neighborhood bars. Imagining a big strip mall or some fancy hotel here would be like picturing a pyramid in the middle of New York City.

I relaxed in Golfito at Nancy’s for two days and nights. She was a gracious host and made me feel right at home. At 60-years-old with a lot of excitement behind her, Nancy tells a mean story and knows how to laugh. Any Couchsurfers heading to southern Costa Rica should definitely seek her out. Thanks Nancy! Until the next time!

I’m in David, Panama now.  I just crossed the border yesterday.  No problems.   The roads are smooth and the money looks familiar.  I’ll post more in the coming days.

 hope everyone is well!

 A

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