Making Friends

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” -Tim Cahill

Weekend Excursions

Where has the time gone.  I’ve been in Boquete for the better part of three weeks now. My first week went slowly.  The school didn’t have many other students below the age of 75 so I had a lot of alone time with a bottle of wine and the streets of Boquete to keep me company.

I did get a lot of exploring done early on. But I have to admit, I was also getting a little lonely and ready to meet new people.  My primary human interaction over the first week was 5 hours a day of private lessons talking in a foreign language.  I just wanted a 20 minute conversation with someone without having to look something up in a dictionary.

This is where tour companies and my friendly hostel owner Axel come into play.  For Saturday,  I signed up for a tour of a coffee plantation.  It ended up as a good rainy afternoon activity.  Even better, I met a friendly German couple on tour.  While we didn’t become fast life-long friends, it was nice to meet new people and talk about something other than verb conjugations.

For my Sunday activity, Axel gave me tips on a nearby hike to see some local waterfalls.  He gave me a hand drawn map and explained the route for me and a Canadian couple also staying in the hostel.

 

The Canadians and I decided to share a cab.  Great I thought!  PEOPLE TO TALK TO.  Or so I naively believed.  The Canadians were friendly enough in the cab, but this didn’t last long.  At the start of the hike they asked if they could take a picture of the map ‘in case we get separated’.  Turns out they fully intended to get separated. This was my primary view of those Poutine Lovers on that hike.

The Northerners were nearing the end of a road trip from Vancouver to Panama.  One would think after spending hundreds of hours in a car together they might similarly be in search of additional human interaction.  But no.  They walked briskly ahead of me the entire time.  Jerks.

 

 

No matter.  It was a beautiful day and I got to practice my selfie game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Canadian duo did came in handy later, when I ran into them at the end of the hike waiting for the bus.  Axel gave explicit detail about how to get to the hike, but left out important information about getting home.  Luckily the pale couple had been in the same area a few days prior, and knew the bus route home.  Good enough for me.

Bus travel is always an adventure in foreign countries.  In Boquete, the ‘bus’ is really just a van with a dude that collects money.  While the bus looked full upon arrival,  I quickly learned they don’t turn people away.  The three of us crammed in the back, and through some sort of feat of physics, picked up a half a dozen more people on our way back to Boquete.  It was a cozy ride, but it got me back to town just fine.

Boquete – Party Town

We got back to Boquete relatively early (5ish), and OF COURSE the whole town is in the streets waiting for another festival and a parade to being.  I love a good parade, so while the Canadians lamed out and walked back to the hostel I grabbed some gelato and waited to see what all the fuss was about.  I was not disappointed.

I don’t get what all this was about, but it was some kind of celebration of the town’s anniversary.  Also coffee and horses, which I guess are both big here.  The entire parade basically involved   half of the town’s population circling the town square on a horse.  There were bands playing in the back of pick up trucks.  There were horses with their tales braided doing tricks in the street.  Children on horses.  People drinking beer on horses.  Rum drinking on horses.  There was a strange woman in blackface (for real!) dancing with the horses.  There were hundreds and hundreds of horses.  I’ve never seen so many in one place.

 

 

The parade was followed by an evening of live music and performances at a stage set up in the park a few blocks from my hostel.   I sat down in the back of a section without realizing that the seating was color coded.  Left side blue, right side red.  On stage was a full on variety show.  And I guess all the performers represented one of the teams.  This rapper is for team blue.  This salsa dancer for team red.  They each had their own homecoming queen with a tiara. What did it all mean???  I HAVE NO IDEA but I was sure as shit entertained.

 

New Friends

This brings me to my second week of Spanish classes and the reason why I have not written much in the last few weeks or gotten this blog up and running.

New students.  And they’re youths.

At long last, Reynin and I didn’t have to stare at each other for 4 hours a day.  We had a new student in my class and we were both happy about the change.  Brian is 21, from New York is in my group lesson everyday and is staying in my hostel.  He has a loud and outgoing personality, no filter, likes to go out, and likes to drink.  Because, well he’s 21.  In normal times, given the age difference, its unlikely Brian and I would be immediate friends.  But in Boquete, with not much going on and not many people under 60, we’re both happy to have someone to hang out with.

The last two weeks have been a blur of animated Spanish classes, bars, netflix nights, more bars, new bartender friends, Boquete exploration, and lots of shots.  Amidst all this I also went rock climbing with another new student.  Isaac is living in Cali, and is about to start medical school in the fall.  We convinced him to go out to a bar one night, but outdoor activities are really more his thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Brian’s second week, I convinced him to do an overnight hike of the local volcano.  Volcan Baru is the only active Volcano in Panama and hiking it is one of the main tourist attractions in Boquete.  The tour company picks you up just before midnight.  You hike in the dark on a straight incline for four to six hours so you can see the sunrise at the top.  Brian is more of a gin and tonic drinker than a hiker but it’s a thing to do here.  He agreed to go right away, complained a lot about it a lot, and then ultimately stopped being such a baby.  I doubt he’ll do something like that again in the near future but the views were pretty amazing.  Also he had great fucking company on that hike.

 

 

Brian and I also befriend the sole long-time student at the language school.  Emre is from South Africa, but is currently living in Australia.  He works for Live Nation which sent him to Panama for six months to learn Spanish.  Yep, he’s in Boquete for six months.  He’s 25, and has lived in something like 6 countries and speaks just as many languages.  He’s on month three of six and was similarly happy to have students under retirement age to go out with.  At least I think so.  Emre is a little hard to read sometimes, but I’m pretty sure he had fun.

Boquete doesn’t have a whole lot of bar options.  In two weeks we’ve managed to become regulars at the two or three good ones in town.  The bartenders know us by name.  We get free shots for quickly becoming their best customer.  My 35 year old liver can’t take this forever, but for these two weeks I had a grand time.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s Boquete!  Tomorrow I leave for Panama City and another adventure.  My favorite part of traveling is meeting new people who you would never meet or hang out with in your normal life.  And for a brief few days or weeks, you all become this weird mix of friends.