Boquete
Mamallena’s Hostel is painted a bright haint blue, like the underhang of so many porches I’d painted in Virginia and Louisiana. It sits right on the quaint gazebo’ed main plaza in the town of Boquete in the north of Panama. I’d landed there after a full day plus a morning of Central American highways, which took me from the cloudforest mountains of the Talamanca range of southern Costa Rica, down into the heat of the lowlands and back up again to the cloudforest mountains of the same range in northern Panama.
I emerged from a much-needed rest in a cozy dorm room in mid-afternoon. The bajareque, what they call the usual gentle misting rain, was lifting, and I thought I’d go out and see something of the surroundings. At the desk the girl suggested a good walk, and showed me a whimsical wall map of the town. Cross the bridge, go right, and walk up to see the whole valley. Keep walking and make a big loop to come back on the northeast side of town. Sounded easy enough.
Obviously the map was not to scale, but I figured it would be roughly representational. Crossed the river and started walking up, past little ranches and proud old fincas, fancy new mansions. This is apparently a prime destination for American retirees. Up and up, through coniferous forest, until on a switchback I could look out to see the town and the green mountains of the Talamanca range surrounding. A lovely place. The clouds were lifting and the sun smiling on the afternoon.
The narrow paved road seemed to only go away from Boquete, and not curve to the left at all. After an hour uphill in increasingly hot sun, I sat in the shade of some tall pines on a little rock wall by the roadside, ate a mandarin, pondered what to do. The way was still climbing, this walk was shaping up to be an ordeal. I’d just wanted a good afternoon walk.
My body felt like worn out old leather, tight and brittle. I didn’t know how to explain it. I’d felt good hiking in San Gerardo. Maybe I was still sore from that, but it seemed like all the hours on the buses were actually hurting me. An older woman walked by with a little girl, the way I’d come, and I asked her if the road really came around back to Boquete. Si, she said. I asked if it was very far, and she said no, about forty-five minutes. Great. With new hope I kept on, up and down the side of hills, but mostly up, through patches of ranchland and forests until I came to an open hillside where I could see all the way to down to the Pacific, and the islands of the Gulfo de Chiriqui, the plains and towns between.
Half an hour later a young man in a soccer jersey running by said it would be minimo dos horas the way I was going, but I hate turning back, so I trudged on. My feet hurt and I could feel the weight of the terrain, and here he was running up mountain roads full speed, with a backpack that looked like it was full of books. Felt old. Came across a cafe restaurant out there in the middle of nowhere, eager for a respit. But even the hot chocolate was three dollars, and though in the states I would have bought it in a second, in Panama three dollars is a lot. I was staying in a bed for ten, and my budget was thirty a day.
Got to the village of Alto Jaramillo, many old ranches and late-model villas for sale, a little white country schoolhouse cleared out for the day. From there the road was definitely now finally turning left and going downhill. Something about the deep shade of pines and the gentle mountains reminded me of the Adirondacks. The boy with the backpack ran back by, heading downhill now. He looked at me like “I thought I told you…” After about three hours walking, having bit off way more than I wanted to chew, I was stopped, sitting on a boulder on the side of the road. My last mandarin was eaten. I was thinking about trying to hitchhike back to town when a mostly grey haired American hippie woman pulled up in a Japanese car and asked if I needed a ride. Amazing. I said “how did you know?” and she said that I looked like it. Turned out I was about four fifths done with the loop, and probably could have made it in less than an hour more, but my feet were happy for the ride.
Raven was from Portland; she and her husband had lived on a café finca there for sixteen years, since 9/11. She told me that she does massage therapy, and a little while later added as an aside that she does ayahuasca ceremonies. A sign that I must be getting close to South America. I couldn’t tell if it was an invitation, but didn’t really feel ready for that anyway. She dropped me off at the bridge, and I thanked her heartily and walked back to my hostel.
That night I made fettuccine with a blue cheese cream sauce, broccoli and bacon. Quite a scene in that hostel kitchen, every burner on the six pit industrial stove put to use, a hectic dance of knives and hot pans. I was the envy of many a backpacker as I ate my dinner. Later on in the lounge I had just turned on a Warriors game on my laptop, when a guy named Daniel came around asking for volunteers to drink rum on the patio. He was a friendly guy I’d met in the kitchen madness, from somewhere down here, spoke very little English. He said it would be two dollars a person.
This seemed like a good enough idea, with the game I was watching promising a blowout, so I decided to be sociable, and made my way out back. The core members of the crew holding court were as follows. Daniel the ringleader was from Bogota, about my age, a rambunctious guy with a good sense of humor; he was just coming off a divorce and voyaging over land up to Mexico. His mission each night was to get a group to go in on a bottle of rum, then persuade them to accompany him to the discoteca. Chris and Ross were Dutch guys traveling around Central America, laid-back and slightly older versions of your typical Euro backpackers. I sat down on the couch next to Pancho, who was to be my favorite.
Pancho Luna had an open, sun-worn face, a dark mustache with a soul patch, and dreads that he kept under a bandana. He was from Cordoba in the north of Argentina, and had left there by bicycle over a year before, heading south, all the way to Tierra del Fuego, and then back up again through Chile. This leg alone was a more than three thousand miles. Next he cycled the Andes all the way through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, and had hitched a ride working on a sailboat from Cartagena to Colon, Panama. This is not the kind of answer you usually get when you ask where someone is coming from. Pancho recounted his journeys in heavily accented but slow Argentinian Spanish, amidst pulls from a little wooden pipe that he passed around. At first I didn’t understand half the words he said, but he was emphatic and expressive, and he didn’t mind that I kept asking questions to to try and understand.
Soon I had gotten the gist of his accent, so that I was understanding two out of three words. His plan was to cycle up to Mexico City, quite a long way still, and then to fly across to France, with bicycle in tow. He’d follow the Tour de France by bike, then through the Pyrenees into Spain. Somehow after a year of traveling he seemed completely relaxed and peaceful, unlike my frayed worn down feeling. We talked about this, and he insisted that it was because he was traveling by bicycle. The buses are bad, he said, the carbon is destroying the world and you are using it. It is destroying you, he said. Before I knew it, he was trying to convert me into a long-distance cyclist, which I kept saying I wasn’t ready for.
The Groups for the World Cup had just come out, and there was much vigorous football analysis and prognostication. It was agreed that England and Colombia had very good routes out of their groups. Rum and cokes were circulated, and good conversation was had all around, almost all of it in Spanish, as Pancho and Daniel spoke worse English than we did their language. This was the first time I felt like I had actually made friends solely in Spanish, and it was encouraging to hang out with people from South America. It made it seem not that far away. It turned out that Daniel had underestimated the cost of the rum, the majority of which he drank, now up to $5 a person, but it was well worth it for the company. When I went to bed, too late, he was still trying to rally people to the discoteca; but when I got up an hour later I saw that his campaign had ended, ungracefully, on the couch in the lounge.
The next morning, after the hostel-provided pancake breakfast, for which they provide the batter and you cook for yourself, I caught a shuttle van filled with country folk out of town for the Parque Nacional Baru. Thirty minutes uphill through green farmlands mixed with cloud forest, and I was at the ranger station marking the trailhead for the Sendero de los Quetzales. The rare bird of the same name, the most sacred of all Central America, was rumored to be here in abundance. I talked to the young ranger, and he told me that indeed there were many quetzales here, currently eight nesting pairs, but they were more likely to be found early in the morning. I paid my $5 entrance fee, and started walking through fields of tall grass, bounded by a lush and dense forest of dark green.
Soon the path ventured into the trees, down a steep hill to a stream valley, the bottom of which was blanketed all in ferns and this charming green and white ground cover. Then it was up and down, through damp forest bottom, sprinkling of sun rays through the thick canopy, birds chattering in the background. Every time I’d hear one close by I’d stop and see if I could sight the elusive bird, but to no avail. I was sitting in a little shelter by a stream when two familiar faces emerged coming down the path. “Ha” I said, and surprised them in the midst of making their way through the jungle. It was Bennie and Cristina, the diminutive, well-tanned blonde German couple I had met and hung out with two weeks prior in Playa Samara, northern Costa Rica.
It was a pleasure to see people I knew — in the strange world of traveling they felt like old friends. We exchanged stories; they had taken an entirely different route to get to Boquete, along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica to the islands of Bocas del Toro in Panama, and then southwest to get here. They only had a couple weeks left to travel, and were now heading to the beaches of the Pacific coast. I told them how I’d got to this spot of earth: Monteverde and San Jose and San Gerardo and David. That I was looking for volunteer spots in Panama, as I didn’t know how I’d get across to Colombia and I was tired of the road.
They warned me that it was a very difficult climb ahead — some 500 steps straight up, but that there was a great view at the end of it. And they hadn’t seen any quetzals, either. I said they should stop by Mamallena’s at night, that we had a good scene there, and we said goodbye. I carried on up into the mountains, winding back and forth among towering old-growth trees that I would have said were live oaks, except that they had long pointy leaves and the long, spidery branches went up instead of down. Later I found out that these were indeed a species of tropical oak endemic to these mountains, locally called roble pacayana. Soon, at what seemed like the top already, I came to the wooden steps, and saw that the slope ahead was almost vertical. Counted my steps, an old trick that helps distract the mind slightly from the difficulties of sheer climbs.
Every fifty I’d stop and catch my breath, and before long I started to catch lovely views through the canopy, of cliffs and mountains opposite. In the end Bennie had underestimated: it was six hundred and fifty four steps straight up. It was a brutal ascent, but I felt much better than I had the day before. At the top was a path, and a bench, where I happily sat and rested my tired bones. Above me were amazingly grand trees, giant’s fingers arching fractally for the blue beyond.
I was lost in the beauty of my surroundings, feeling the high of exertion and mountain air when a voice stole me from my reverie. It was Chris, an earnest young Dutch traveler from the hostel with his spiky-haired boisterous friend Natalia, and they had just made it up the mountain. Natalia was not happy with all the steps, and felt cheated by the lack of exotic birds. I could only laugh. I pointed out the vaulted ceiling above us, and he too was spellbound, but she was anxious to get the whole thing over with. There was one more possible reward to this hike — at the top you were supposed to be able to see two oceans, and Bennie and Cristina had seen them both.
Ten minutes walk brought us to a wooden platform lookout, with valleys opening precipitously below. A gorgeous landscape, pristine and richly green, caves apparent amidst the rocks. But not far down was a thick layer of cloud cover rolling in, and there was not a single ocean to be seen. We all walked down together; they were both eighteen and taking a gap year. Natalia was adamant about informing me that she was not Chris’ girlfriend, and though there was something attractive about her defiant spirit, she was trouble and way too young for me. Despite the fact that in most worlds there was no way we would have hung out, I appreciated their company. In this world we were peers. We made it back up to the fields as the cloud monsters were devouring the landscape, talked to the ranger for awhile, and after a half hour’s wait, caught the last shuttle of the day back to town.
Got back to the hostel after dark, and a tour bus of older South Koreans had taken over the place. There were at least twenty people in the kitchen, cooking shoulder to shoulder, with a scrum right behind them, pans in hand, ready to pounce as soon as there was an opening. I decided to delay my dinner in regard for my personal safety.
When I checked my email I saw that I had received a response from one of the Workaway spots I’d written to a week before. It was an eco-farm on an island on a lake in southern Panama, or at least they said they were building an eco-farm. From the pictures it looked chaotic and rustic to say the least, and there were no indications that farming had begun. I would be staying in a tent, and there was no running water, refrigerator or internet. Apparently you had to bring all the food you needed out to the island. There seemed to be a slow process of messaging a time a week in advance, and they would come pick you up in their boat. The message they sent was very simple. “Hey bro welcome to the lake See you soon”. No names, no punctuation, no answers to the questions I had asked about the place. This was my first acceptance on Workaway. I knew I needed to get off the road, but was skeptical about whether this was the right place.
After an hour I ventured back into the kitchen to find that half the crowd had moved on, and decided to try my luck. I had cut up some onions and peppers and was heating up oil in a pot when a hard-faced older woman just threw her things in and started cooking. Another tiny woman half-pushed me out of the way and started cutting raw steak on the cutting board I’d been using, right on top of my chopped vegetables. Clearly there were some different cultural mores at work here. I realized I’d have to get fierce about this dinner.
I rescued my vegetables, and stood right behind the people at the stove, pan in hand, just like I’d seen twenty people doing previously. As soon as there was an opening, I was all over it, having to screen out a man behind me who tried to jump in. Through sheer determination, I cooked a pot of black beans, and a pan of arepas and plantains. This time the arepas were of fine white corn meal, and were much more like unfilled pupusas.
After dinner I went out to the back patio to find Daniel and Pancho passing a pipe and talking. Pancho immediately wanted to know if I wanted to go in on a bottle of rum, and of course whether I was interested to a trip to the discoteca. I declined on both counts, but I made a counter-offer: if I bought some beer, would they help me drink it? They would be happy to. I walked out to a bodega just off the plaza, and got a couple family-sized bottles of Balboa, a slightly dark beer named after the conquistador, like the mostly-defunct currency. Came back and sat down with them, explained in rough Spanish my dilemma.
I didn’t know what to do. I was at a Panamanian crossroads. I was thinking about going north to Bocas del Toro, islands in the Caribbean; thinking of going to various beaches on the Pacific; thinking of going to Panama City; thinking of volunteering at this “eco-farm” on a big lake in the jungle. But all this was in the context of really just wanting to cross over to Colombia, but not knowing how. Of course I knew how, but I explained my “no planes” rule, and that the sailboats were way too expensive. I also added the part about my travel fatigue and not really having the energy to go anywhere.
Daniel seemed to think that anywhere I went would be good. It didn’t really matter. Go to Bocas, he said. Go to Panama City. Take a plane to Cartagena. Stay here, go to the discoteca. It’s easy. This was not helpful advice. He did not seem to be the kind of traveler who seriously pondered the right path to take, or understand why I wouldn’t take a plane.
Pancho, on the other hand, over a year into the road, who was also on his way to faraway places, understood perfectly. He knew exactly what I should do. Don’t go to this island. Don’t go to Bocas. I had a destination, and I needed to keep moving. Go to Panama City. Stay in this cheap hostel in the old city. On the way, stop in Santa Catalina so the bus ride will not be so long. From Panama City, travel to the port of Colon, and then to the marina in the town of Portobello. Stay there until you find a sailboat that is going across to Cartagena. It might take a week, but you will find someone. They took him, with his bicycle. Then, go to Medellin, and find this guy at a certain bike shop, tell him I know Pancho, and he will build me a bike for five hundred dollars. Ride your bike to Uruguay.
This was incredible. Though I thought it unlikely that I would be ready to cycle the Andes, it was so good after all this time floating to have someone tell me exactly what I should do. I had him repeat many of the details, about the beach in Panama, the hostel in the city, the marina and how he had found a boat. Of course, coming north, he had found his boat in Cartagena. But he was so clear and confident about all of it. The world was a simple place if you knew what you wanted to do and how to do it. In his mind it was decided, and now he just needed to recommend to me a long list of very special places between here and Argentina. I returned the favor and told him my favorites along the road north. Daniel just seemed frustrated and confused as to why no one was going to the disco.
They were both leaving in the morning, Daniel by bus straight to Costa Rica, Pancho on a much slower itinerary the same direction. We said goodnight and the next morning our real goodbyes. As for me, I wasn’t quite ready to leave the mountains yet. An hour south were the lowlands, tropical sun baking the earth. Up here in Boquete it was cloudforest: though the sun was still hot, the elevation and surrounding greenery moderated that heat. The next day at breakfast I got invited to join a party to the Pozos Termales de Caldera, some hot springs outside of town. Chris and Natalia, along with a bunch of other young travelers were going, and it sounded good. We walked a couple blocks to catch a colectivo down to the pozos, and when we got on, Bennie and Cristina were going there too.
Half an hour later we got dropped off at the top of a dirt road, and the colectivo driver said he’d come back for us in five hours. We walked down the hill, maybe eight of us, trading travel stories and backpacker chat. Soon we came to a wide river full of boulders of all sizes, and crossed on a suspension bridge. Another half an hour through cow pastures alongside thick forest brought us to a couple houses, where an expressionless man charged us each two dollars to enter. On the other side of the houses, just above the river, were two wild hot springs ringed by rocks. One of them was full of local folk, the other was steaming hot and even the bravest of us couldn’t last more than a few minutes in there. We asked the people in the first spring if there were any more springs, and they said yes, down at the river. So we took our troop down the rocky slope and looked around but didn’t see anything.
It took a little searching, but we found that there was hot water mixing into the cold at the river’s edge, and that there were a series of pools of varying temperature. By moving some rocks around, we could control how much river water was getting in, and soon had undressed and spread out into our own private wild spa. It was fantastic, with a big blue sky overhead, soaking the miles out of our bones, resting our backs and heads against smooth river stones. As soon as you got too hot, you’d just stumble across a couple boulders and submerge into cold mountain river. If these extremes weren’t enough, we’d walk up to the really hot pool above, sit in that for two minutes, then come back down to the cold river, then the warm pools. Everyone had brought various snacks and fruit, and we shared mangos and spicy peanuts and avocados and chips and and had an idyllic society for a few hours.
We walked back up in the afternoon, and when the colectivo met us at the top of the hill, Robert, a German in his late twenties, began arguing with the driver in terrible Spanish. We’d agreed on a price beforehand, but he was saying it wasn’t a good price, and should be less then the way out because it was a round trip. The bus is only 50 cents, he said. We can walk, he said. I disagreed with this assessment of our capacities, but realizing that I spoke the best Spanish of any of these gringos, tried to mediate the situation. The driver was saying that the price was the price, and Robert was saying that the price should be different. We can take the bus, he said. There is no bus, the driver said. After ten minutes of increasingly heated argument, which almost led to the driver leaving all of us stranded because he said Robert was calling him a liar, it was decided that Robert and the girl he was with would pay a slightly lower price than everyone else.
“I got us all a discount” he said elatedly when he got back in the van, and we didn’t care to argue the point with him. This had put a sour aftertaste on a beautiful day, and no one talked much as we rode back to town. It was a totally different scene at the hostel: the bus of Koreans had moved on, and the kitchen seemed positively spacious with only five people cooking at a time. That night I made a pasta carbonara with blue cheese, and ate on the now-quiet patio. I missed my South American friends. That night I watched the Warriors play basketball in their beautiful way, and wrote in my journal. The next morning I’d be moving south again.
