Although I haven’t taken all that much time to blog since arriving in Nicaragua, I often find myself thinking “yea, I should Blog about that……that would be a GREAT Blog theme” as I’m going about normal life in a foreign country. AND, one of the themes that has consistently been at the top of my mental Blog list over the last few months is “the culture of driving” here in Nicaragua. The lunacy surrounding the driving habits of taxis and buses, the venders that loiter in the lanes, the pedestrians that simply walk or stand wherever they desire, the missing manhole covers (definitely a hazard for the motorcycle), the enormous potholes large enough to swallow a truck, the overuse of horns, the blatant disregard for traffic laws, the unwritten rule of “ignore all traffic lights after sunset”, the “bigger always wins” rule (definitely closely tied with the buses), and the absolute disrepair of the majority of vehicles on the roadway. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

Anyway, although my intent has been to Blog about the actual ADVANTURE of roadway survival, how it’s ALWAYS crazy but can also be kind of fun, after Sunday night I unfortunately have to write from a different angle. Hope you enjoy it.

El Choque

Mary--“Hey Jason, can you help Lori with a flat tire? She’s at Km 14 on the South Highway”.

Jason--“Sure”, I say. “But since it’s raining pretty hard and I only have the motorcycle (my new motorcycle, that is), can I borrow one of your vehicles to drive up there?”

Carey—“Sure, you can use my truck. Since you’re doing Lori a favor, I’ll do YOU a favor”.

Jason—“Funny…..it’s like that “Pay It Forward" movie.

......10 minutes later, I’m driving Carey’s pickup, looking for Lori and her flat tire. It’s dark (about 8:30 PM) and raining a bit.

Jason (thinking to himself)—“Man, it’s REALLY dark out here. I feel like I’m driving into a black hole. I can’t see ANYTHING.”

………7 seconds later……..WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!............screeching tires……..explosion of metal vs. metal………silence in the world.

Jason (to himself again)—“well…..I think I’m OK……..no pain……don’t appear to be bleeding…..seem to be thinking clearly…….better find the hazard lights before this gets worse……..where ARE those things?”

……….another 30 seconds passes.

Jason—“Hang on…..hang on…..I’m looking for the hazard lights…..I know…….I’m sorry……give me just a minute, I need to turn on the emergency lights!

“Well, I’m sorry…..I never saw you guys….you had NO LIGHTS IN THE BACK!!!!!!!

After finally locating the hazard lights, I’m now out of the truck. I’m finding myself in a sea of people with more still climbing down from the truck I just ran into. “Where did all of these people even come from”, I think?

“Is everyone OK??????”

NO response…….only looks of anger and resentment.

“I’m sorry…..I know I just hit you guys, but I just happen to be a paramedic. Is anyone injured?????

Again…….nothing but accusations.

“Well, I suppose everyone’s OK….that’s good”. “Hey look, that’s my friend Lori driving by…….apparently she got her tire fixed………”Hey LORI!!!!!! Lori!!! Hang on a minute!!!!!!!”

…….10 minutes later…..

Other driver—“So what are you going to do for me?

Jason—What?

OD—“Yea, you hit US…….look, the bottom of my truck is damaged…..what are you going to give me?

Jason—“Let’s just wait for the police”.

So that’s pretty much it. I ran into the back of a large cargo truck on the Pan American Highway. The police came, a report was filed, one small white light magically appeared on what was left of the truck bumper, they changed drivers for the police report (I assume the real driver didn’t have a license), stories were changed several times for the official report, I took lots of photos, the police hit on my friend Lori repeatedly, there was looting of debris on the highway, and I finally left the highway after about 4 hours. I also learned that an accident in Nicaragua is very much a “self-service” operation with regard to such things as traffic control, cleaning up (and guarding) debris, towing away your vehicle, etc. etc. etc.

As for what will happen from here, I’m still getting all of that figured out. Over the last couple of days, I’ve hired an attorney, I’ve run around getting documents of EVERYTHING, and I’ve apologized to Carey about 7,649 times for literally destroying her pickup. Tomorrow AM, I’ll be going to the police station for the official ruling on the accident. From there, things could go any number of directions, but it’s a strong possibility that I’ll be buying Carey a new pickup.
I suppose that as always, the most important thing is that everyone was OK. As for the explanation behind that sea of people? Well, after the accident, I learned that I had hit a large cargo truck filled not only with food, but with people. Apparently, sacs of produce act a pretty good insulator. Looking at the pickup, it’s also pretty spectacular that I walked away LITERALLY without a scratch. Call it God, the universe, fate, karma, or just the technology behind the seatbelt………pretty amazing.

I suppose for my first real accident, it was a pretty good one. And you know, maybe I CAN end this Blog entry with my original premise of driving in Nicaragua. It may not be quite as “fun” as it was a week ago, but it’s ALWAYS an adventure.

What The #%$@? Part III.....Recurso Disponible

So one day, I’m over at the Fabretto office (other local non-profit) and this lady asks me the standard “oh, so what do YOU do here in Nicaragua” question. After answering her with my usual “oh, a little of this, a little of that…….I help here, I help there”, she says “Oh, so you’re like an AVAILABLE RESOURCE”. And with that, the name stuck. Of course it sounded much cooler in Spanish………”RECURSO DISPONIBLE”…….but regardless, it became my new title.
What does a “recurso disponible” do when he’s not getting in the way over at the medical clinic or spilling hot oil in the school cafeteria (see previous Blog entries)? Here’s a sample:

Alvaro is probably in his later 20’s, Nicaraguan, and grew up in California. He spent a number of years working on oil rigs in Texas and California before being deported a few years back. Now he’s trying to get to Canada (legally) to get a job in the booming Canadian oil economy. What did I do for him? Well, after researching the job opportunities and Visa requirements online, he asked me if I would help him with his resume. We put together a nice resume and a cover letter that he sent to Shell, BP, Esso, etc. As far as I know, he’s still in Nicaragua, so maybe he needs something more than a RD.

Another non-profit from the US has decided that they want to help Nicaraguan children in a very specific way. That is, they want to sponsor (i.e. give money to) local pre-schools. To get the ball rolling, they want to find the FIVE pre-schools in Managua that have THE MOST need. Enter Recurso Disponible. I basically just provide the “driving ability” on this one, but I, along with a local Nicaraguan teacher, drive around Managua and look at pre-schools. We get a feel for the neighborhood, we inspect the building (or lack thereof), and we chat with the teacher(s). We still have a number of schools to go, but it has been a GREAT way for me to get to know Managua…….and it’s endless amount of poverty.

Occasionally, medical groups in the area pack up a truck and head to the “country” for a day or so. The idea is to provide medical care to those who don’t have access to such a thing (or at least REGULAR access), so they set up a mobile clinic for a day or weekend. I’ve helped out with these on occasion, basically just playing “nurse”. It’s pretty basic stuff, but again, it’s a great way to get to know Nicaragua and some areas outside of Managua.

NicaHope is the organization with which I spend most of my time, and their focus is MOSTLY in education (of various forms). One of the things they do is to provide computer classes to children in the area of Acahualinca and La Chureca. By giving these kids a tool in the form of computer education, the hope is that they will use these skills to have a life OUTSIDE of the trash dump. With this in mind, someone had the idea of setting up a “Sponsorship program” for the kids in these classes (think World Vision for computer classes instead of food). I basically just helped with the initial stages of this program and the associated literature. It should be launched ASAP.

And that’s pretty much it. As a “Recurso Disponible”, I basically just act as your friendly, neighborhood volunteer, helping out wherever I can. I’ve done a bit of painting (walls….not art), I’ve given out medicine, and may even have some bicycle maintenance in my near future. I try to be open to wherever I can be of service, and generally only say NO to the teaching of English classes (a popular request)……..everyone has their boundaries, right?.......or things COMPLETELY outside my scope of knowledge (Blacksmithing, for example…..THAT was an interesting one). The good news is that I have found that I can pretty much be as busy as I want to be. The bad news? Nobody seems to be open to the Fire Dept. schedule.

What the #%$@ AM I doing in Nicaragua? Part II.........Lunch Lady

Let’s say that you are a kid living in La Chureca or Acahualinca (area just outside of the trash dump). The idea is that you would go to school and get some type of education, right? I mean the school is right down the street……and it’s FREE. So why would you NOT go?

Well, let’s start with this. Sure the school is technically free……..except for that a few years ago, there was suddenly this new rule from the government making it mandatory for every kid in Nicaragua to wear a nice little school uniform……a nice uniform that ISN’T free (but quite nice I have to say……blue and white…..really quite lovely). And then there are those other little things that aren’t free…….like any “supplies” you may need for your reading, writing, and arithmetic. And then there is the whole OPPORTUNITY COST of attending school. I like to call this one the “hey, I know that you’re only 7 years old…..but you’re a part of this family and we need EVERYONE to contribute…….so as terrific as going to school would no doubt be, we need you to go spend your day digging through trash or begging in the street……we’ll pool our resources at the end of the day…..who knows, maybe there will be dinner tonight” factor. Oh, and let’s not forget the concept of “School? Why would I want to do THAT? I’m young (like 10). I’m hip…….cool…… tough. I have unlimited freedom and friends in the neighborhood. Nobody’s going to make me go? Uh….yea…I don’t think so.”

Enter El Comedor. The MAIN idea was two-fold. First, since malnutrition is such a problem in the area, they wanted to provide the kids with ONE good meal per day. Second, by providing these kids with this one meal per day, that’s all many of them get. If they come to school, they get fed. Put another way, if they sit through classes each day (hopefully getting some sort of education in the process), they are rewarded with lunch. School=Food, and it’s a great way to bribe kids (or their parents) into getting an education.

So with these ideas in mind, NicaHOPE (in partnership with various other NGO’s) built “El Comedor” (i.e. the dining hall) about a year ago. The dining hall has a large seating area, a small kitchen, an even smaller area to store food, and a little sink out back to wash dishes. The staff consists of a lady named Hazel and….well…..Hazel. There are supposed to be “mother’s from the neighborhood” that show up and volunteer their time with the program. Unfortunately, only one of them comes on a regular basis. That means LOTS of work for a VERY FEW people. As for the food, it is donated collectively by USAID, the government of Nicaragua, and a couple of small NGO’s.

The good news? Well, the good news is that the program IS functioning and 300-600 kids per day receive a plate of relatively nutritious food (no frozen pizza or tater tots for THESE guys). The other good news is that after the implementation of the feeding program, registration at the beginning of the year was UP (i.e. initial success)! We’re hoping it stays that way.

So remember that lady from the school cafeteria? The one who was older, heavier, less than attractive (probably at least one large facial mole…with or without hair…….on the mole that is……the hair on the lady was anyone’s guess), ALWAYS clad in white, and NEVER caught without her crown (that would be the hairnet)? Four days per week, I am she…….she is I…..we are one. Yep, in addition to being the nurse’s aid in La Chureca, I’m the LUNCH LADY (self-titled, of course) at Acahualinca Elementary. Four days per week, I cook, I serve, I visit with the staff and kids, and I wash a LOT of dishes……like a LOT of dishes.

But in reality, one can only stay in the mailroom (or in this case, dish room) for so long without finding opportunity for advancement. At least, that’s what I’m finding with my lunch-lady duty. So despite the fact that I’m perfectly content chopping vegetables, pouring soy beverages, and getting pruny digits in the sink out back. there are often times bigger fish to fry (yes…pun intended). For example, what happens if you have 500 kids in a school with no water? I mean not being able to cook or drink anything is one thing. Even 500 kids doing the old #1 can be manageable on a good day. A few hundred….uh…..#2’s? Now we have a problem. So what do you do? Cancel school! Ah, but wait a minute! Wait a minute! There’s actually NEVER any water during the day (one of the little inconveniences of living in a third world city). The water is only on for a few hours in the night and early morning! So what do you do? Well, you install a large storage tank that can fill each night and then be used during the day. What do you do when the pipes break or the tank doesn’t fill due to lack of water the night before? Like I said before, you cancel school! But wait! Wait! Wait! Before we do that, there may be one other option. Let’s call Jason!

Yea, the water problem has certainly become one of my main projects at the school, and I seem to be finding different solutions on different days. My best one involves “borrowing” water from one of the neighboring storage tanks by running a system of hoses a couple of hundred feet across the road and then directing (at times, quite vigilantly) traffic around the hoses. I’ve also been meeting with contractors to come up with a better solution for the long term. That being said though, I do wear a number of hats around Acahualinca Elementary besides the stylish hairnet (OK, so I don’t ACTUALLY wear a hairnet either….standards are a bit different down here), and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a low profile behind the endless mounds of plastic wear. AND, when I’m not running around the kitchen or solving the daily water crisis, I’m loading a pickup truck with large sacs of beans and rice (I seem to be the only guy around with a drivers license), picking up cleaning supplies from the Ministry of Education, and answering to “Hey Gringo” from all sides.

As for the future? Well, I have a meeting with the official boss tomorrow. I’m learning more about the ordering procedures, the menu planning, and how things magically get done behind the scenes. There are also attendance records to analyze, that whole water problem to solve, the current infestation of flies in the kitchen(think PLAGUE), and the guys who want me to teach them how to watch porn on the school’s only computer. I’m swamped, I tell you……absolutely swamped.

What the #%$@ AM I doing in Nicaragua? ........Part I

I got an email last week from a friend that I haven’t talked with in a while. I told her that I was down here in Nicaragua and planned to be here until the end of the year. Her response?

Hey Jones! What the #%$@ are you doing in Nicaragua?!

“Excellent question”, I thought. “Excellent question”.

The medical clinic in La Chureca (if La Chureca doesn’t ring a bell for you, check out the Blog entry from January) has been in operation for just under five year, and although it was originally constructed and funded by a charitable organization from Belgium, it is now operating through a group of physicians from Austin, Texas. The staff currently consists of two doctors, a nurse, and a pharmacist, with a dentist and an OB on the way (all Nicaraguan). The structure itself is simple but adequate, with a couple of exam rooms, a small office, and a separate small room that functions as a pharmacy. The porch in front acts as the waiting area and is relatively full most every morning from 9 to 11 AM.

Who are the patients and why are they coming? Well, the patients are the people of La Chureca, and the clinic is a “free” resource for the community. As for WHY they are coming, I think it would be comparable to the average Primary Care Physician’s office in the US. Due to the environmental factors associated with living in smoke and garbage, skin conditions and respiratory ailments abound in the community. There is also the occasional “trauma” associated with “machete fighting”, the burns or lacerations that result from walking through smoldering garbage without shoes, and a few AIDS patients that call La Chureca their home. The most common ailment though? La Gripa…the word that seems to refer to your general cold and flu symptoms. So after waiting on the porch for a few minutes and then having a short “consulta” with one of the docs, the average patient gets a shot or nebulization from the nurse (along with vital signs, etc.) and then walks out of the pharmacy with a small bag of antibiotics in hand.
In addition to the daily operation I just described, the clinic also acts as a “base of operations” for numerous other programs in the area. There is a child-sponsorship program, there are weekly health talks, and there are English classes taught several days per week. Want to have a “de-worming-drive” for the area (yea, parasites are quite popular as well)? Care to vaccinate the entire community? Have a medical “brigade” from the US that wants to set up shop for a day or two? Everything flows through this clinic. In fact, the clinic really isn’t even called a “clinic” but rather the “Casa Base De La Salud”……..or Base of Health.

Perhaps the obvious question then is………“what in the world does a gringo paramedic from Denver do in the medical clinic of La Chureca”? Well, the answer to THAT question would depend on the day. The good news is that I’m realizing more and more that the clinic really doesn’t NEED my help. They are functioning quite well on their own, and seem to be on a continual path of improvement. When I AM there though, I basically just fit in where I can. Sometimes I act as a nurse. I administer various medications through injections or nebulized breathing treatments. I clean and treat wounds. Sometimes I act as the “nurses AID” by weighing patients, taking temperatures and vital signs, etc. Sometimes I act as the janitor. I sweep the floor. I clean and organize the exam room. I try to keep the place tidy. And sometimes I help out in the pharmacy with the monumental task of taking pills from the BIG bottle and moving them to the SMALL bottles. Brilliant……I know…..brilliant. Beyond that, I chat with the folks coming through, hang out with the staff, and run the occasional errand.
And that’s pretty much my life at the clinic. In the earlier part of the year, I was spending as many as five days per week over there. I’m currently down to one. And as for the other days of the week? ………………to be continued.

It's Good To Be Back

1993. It was the fall of that year. I was returning to San Diego after spending the previous three months working on a ranch in the mountains of Colorado. I was playing tennis again (this time for the university), my girlfriend of the summer had just broken up with me (for the FIRST time), I had recently discovered this NEW WORLD of outdoor recreation, and I officially declared myself to be an “all of the above” guy. I say “all of the above”, because as I read the logic behind it all…..the environmental degradation, the numerous health concerns, the countless ethical questions, etc. etc. etc., the way of the vegetarian just started to make sense. “OK”, I thought. “I think I’ll really give this thing a shot…..we’ll see how it goes”.

15 years later, I found myself sitting in an open-sided restaurant in Nicaragua. Mangoes were falling from the trees, the heat of the dry-season was at the peak of its intensity, and I had just completed the first week of what was to be my new life for the next year. There were probably 10 of us in the restaurant that day, and we had been brought to a very SPECIFIC place to experience a very SPECIFIC food by our host. The idea of the meal was to honor his guests (i.e…..US). To turn down what had just been placed in front of me would have been a significant insult, something I had always sworn against. So there it was……perhaps the largest plate I had ever seen, containing perhaps the largest slab of beef ever intended for a single individual. And as I stared at the enormous CHURASCO before me, I found myself uttering those familiar words from a decade and a half earlier. “OK”, I said. “I’ll give it a shot…..we’ll see how it goes”.

Another three months has passed, and I’m sitting in a small town in the mountains of Panama. I’m essentially taking a vacation, as I needed to leave Nicaragua to renew my travel visa. The rainy season is now in full swing, and the avocados are the current fruit falling from the trees. A new season…….a new world. So as I sit here on a porch, watching the rain, I’m ending my little hiatus from the Blog. In the next few entries, I’ll be filling in a few gaps as to what the last three months have entailed. I’d like to explain what I’m doing in Mangaua, a bit about why I’m doing it, and some of the high’s and low’s of it all. I do hope you enjoy it. It’s good to be back.

THE FINAL FAREWELL........PART II

“Wow….I’m so sorry to hear that…….that must be very hard for you”.

This is what I told her as we sat in the hostel one day. I mean what else could I say? I certainly couldn’t solve any of these problems. I saw no way to intervene and “fix” things. All I could do was listen, show some compassion, and try to understand. Sometimes though, even the best intentions are met with less than favorable outcomes.

Marta was the lady that worked at “El Refugio del Rio”……the place where I enjoyed living for about 6 weeks in Panama. She lived across the street with her family (husband and son) and spent her days doing “domestic” work around the hostel (cleaning, laundry, etc.) She was Ngobe, which meant that she was of “native Panamanian” decent (i.e. the people who were around BEFORE the Spaniards showed up). It also meant that Spanish was her second language, and that I had a REALLY hard time understanding anything through her thick accent. This was the primary factor that kept the conversations to a minimum for the first few weeks. There were, of course, the daily greetings…….”Hello”…..”How are you”…….etc. etc., but nothing beyond that. But the longer I was around the hostel, the more I began to notice her sadness and regular crying during the work day.
Initially, she would just say “nothing” in response to my questioning. I mean how many times could I walk by someone in apparent misery with only a cheerful “good-day” and a smile? After a while, you have to at least ask “what’s wrong”, right? Well, eventually her “nothing” answer changed to “OK…you really want to know?” “Sure”, I said, and with that we sat down for a chat. The conversation that followed involved primarily a description of her difficult living situation…….how her husband was on his 7th girlfriend (very openly)……how he was regularly abusing her……how she wanted to leave but was very fearful and had no place to go…….how her family lived far away……how she wanted to go live with them but couldn’t see a way to do that…….etc. etc. etc………..unfortunately, an EXTREMELY common story around there. It also seemed apparent to me that she had no real community to speak of…..no friends…..nobody to hang out with......just the husband and the kid (and some random hostel guest named Jason).
As the days went on though, I began to notice a change in her responses to the “what’s wrong….you look really sad today……why are you crying” questions. Rather than the “oh, my husband is hitting me again” or “he’s out with his girlfriend again”, or even the “you’ll never understand”………..there began to be an increasing number of questions for ME. “Hey, where are you going? What time are you going to be back? Got class today? Whacha doin’ now? “ Or “so HOW long are you staying at the hostel? How many more days?”
Hmmmmmm…….was it possible that I was misinterpreting the new vibe in the air around Refugio del Rio? Let me rephrase that…..was there ANY HOPE that I was reading this situation incorrectly? How about this…..Let’s say you “hypothetically” ask someone why they are “down” on a particular day……and let’s say that they “hypothetically” say that they are sad because YOU weren’t around that day. UUUUUHHHHHHh……is there ANY other way to interpret that? Nope….I didn’t think so.
At this point in my life though, my greatest source of frustration suddenly became my greatest ally. Because if you spend enough of your time “not understanding” things, it’s not too much of a stretch to PRETEND you don’t understand things. And at that moment, my level of linguistic ignorance took a dramatic and purposeful turn in an upward direction……….thank you “language barrier”…….my old and faithful friend.

In the end, after a couple of weeks of keeping a very safe distance, playing ignorant, graciously declining the occasional offer for some random social outing, and tip toeing through the hostel, I caught an early bus out of town. The night before, I said a very light-hearted goodbye to the hostel staff, as I gave her kid a video game (we had also become friends), gave my email address to crazy Armando (I’m sure he forgot who’s email address was in his pocket within a 10 minute window), and took a little journey back the fourth grade, as Marta handed me a small scrap of paper folded 2,937 times into something the size of a tic tac. Her instructions were to not open it until I got to “David” (town about an hour away) and were given to me with a look of humiliation and a hasty exit.

That was pretty much it for my time in Panama. I spent the final night hanging out with some friends from town, packed up my room in the hostel, said good bye to Boquete, and caught the 6AM bus out of town. Looking back in hindsight, I’m sure there were things I COULD have or maybe SHOULD have done differently. And YES…….I know…..it’s true……I really DID care (what can I say). As I said before though, I suppose that sometimes, even the best intentions result in some less than favorable outcomes. Lesson learned.

The Final Farewell.....Part 1

Panama was pretty amazing…..OK let me say that again. Panama was REALLY amazing. As I mentioned before (I think), I LOVED living in a small town that required a mere 10 minute walk to reach its farthest border. I loved walking through the “downtown” and seeing someone I knew on nearly EVERY occasion. I loved the hostel by the river. I loved going to Spanish school, I loved the great coffee of the region, I loved the pancakes at Panama Roasters, I loved the climate, I loved the recreation, I loved the food, and I loved the community of people I found in this little spot in the Panamanian mountains. The only problem was that when it came time to leave, it was much easier said than done. “Do I really HAVE to leave?” That became my primary question as I anticipated my Saturday departure. And as much as I wanted to answer that with a resounding NO, I knew that there were other things on the horizon. I knew that there were new adventures to be had and many a Blog entry to be written. So as sad as it was, I left.
BUT I can’t just leave it at THAT!!! I mean, there were LOTS of things that took place between my little gastro-intestinal-adventure (last Blog entry) and my actual departure from Boquete. I thought I would mention a few of them before saying good-bye to the Panama section of the Blog. Here it goes.


Quetzal-rific: One of the things on my list of “to-do’s before leaving the area” was to Hike a very famous trail called the Quetzal Trail. For those of you “non-bird-watcher-types”, the Quetzal is just a bird that lives in this part of the world. In fact, it’s actually a pretty famous bird. I don’t really know anything about this bird, but I’m pretty sure that the word "quetzal" was originally used for just the Resplendent Quetzal, Pharomachrus mocinno, the famous long-tailed quetzal of Central America, which is the national bird of Guatemala. In fact (and don’t quote me on this) I think it still often refers to that bird specifically but now also names all the species of the genera Pharomachrus and Euptilotis………………………….but I digress. The main thing is that it’s big and colorful and hard to find in the woods. In fact, according to all of the guide books AND people in the area, as cool as the name is for the trail, the birds are RARELY seen along the Quetzal Trail. Oh well, at least I would get some exercise, right?
Anyway, one week before heading North, I rounded up a couple of friends and caught the 7AM bus out of town. After transferring to a different bus in the town of David, riding for another couple of hours, and then hiking up a road for 45 minutes or so, we found ourselves at the Southern terminus of the famous trail. The weather was perfect and we were feeling good, so we hit the trail in good spirits. Somewhere between four or five hours later, after passing through a number of different types of forests and temperate zones (i.e. woods that looked kind of different), seeing some incredible views, crossing multiple streams/rivers, swinging on vines, chatting with a film crew working on a TV show, and EVEN SEEING TWO QUETZALS, we caught a ride back into town and called it a day. The trail was spectacular, the company was great, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. All in all, a pretty terrific day.


Hot Springification: Next on the list was something called “Los Pozos Termales”, which translates to “The Thermal Pools”. Or, to generalize things a bit more……Hot Springs. I thought Sunday sounded like the perfect time for this little endeavor, so not unlike the day before, I rounded up a couple of locals (one of which happened to have a car…..which made things MUCH easier) and headed out for yet another highly anticipated excursion. Keep in mind, I’m from Colorado…….so to me, I have a certain image in mind when someone utters those two beautiful words in unison…..HOT SPRINGS. I think of perfect natural pools atop scenic vistas……I think of crystal clear water at optimally warm temperatures…..I think of mountain beauties soaking in the natural ambiance of the……Yea Yea…I know…this one never ACTUALLY happens, but there’s always hope right? Anyway, upon arrival to “Los Pozos Termales”, it dawned on me that the literal Spanish translation may actually be much closer to “hole dug in ground filled with hot dirty water……in the woods” (or something to that effect).
So it didn’t look EXACTLY like the majestic image I had in mind. How bad could it be, right? So with that attitude, I properly treated my milky white skin, stripped down to my stylish beachwear, and faced the murky water with great determination and gusto. Maybe it would have been slightly more enjoyable if I wasn’t thinking about everything BELOW the surface that I couldn’t see……..or maybe it would have been nicer if the outside air temperature was less than 147 degrees (minus humidity, of course)…..who knows, maybe it would have been different if those mountain beauties could have filled in for the VERY LARGE Panamanian men that became my soak-mates. Maybe….maybe not. In the end, I actually had a really great time. And as I drove out of the parking area (always a relative term, of course), I had to smile at my newly acquired layer of filth and pruny digits.

Not the Best, but It Ain’t No Mullet!!!: Another thing on my list of “MUST DO’S” was to Get a haircut before catching the bus out of town. So after taking an exhaustive survey of the best “SALA De Belleza’s” in town, I decided that it was time to make friends with a nice lady named Claudia. Perhaps I’m actually a bit more vain that I would like to admit, because despite the number of times I tell myself “hey, it’s only hair….it ALWAYS grows back”, I consistently find myself feeling a bit of uneasiness upon heading to a new BARBER……OK OK….BEAUTICIAN in this case…..I know……just don’t judge me…..she came highly recommended!!! AND, because I still considered myself as having a limited Spanish vocabulary, I knew it was going to be quite the little adventure trying to describe the perfectly fashionable “DO” for my sweet weave. In anticipation of this fact, I really tried to brush up on some key hair-related words/phrases before stepping into the salon. That’s what I TRIED to do. But no matter how much I practiced, I just couldn’t imagine a scenario like:

He walked into the salon…..ruggedly handsome……mysterious.….dapper…..in need of a trim . The hair? Shaggy……tussled….disheveled in just the right manner. There was an air of confidence about him as he inquired about the necessity of an appointment. “Who WAS this tall drink of Gringo water”, thought Claudia, as she glanced across to the manicurist with a knowing and playful grin. “Just a little off the sides”, he said, while slowly settling into the comfort of the swiveling chair of beauty. “A little off the sides…..careful with the front……maybe introduce a few layers up top……and make sure those sideburns are even”. Claudia got to work…..a maestro….an artist with her craft.

Yea……I just couldn’t imagine that it was going to go like that. Rather, I was anticipatingsomething more along the lines of:

Claudia rolled her eyes as yet another gringo doofus stumbled uncomfortably into her salon. “….uh….horse court……uh…I mean…..Hair CUT”, he stated very loudly while, with great animation, pointing to his head repeatedly with his left index finger. “Have a seat”, Claudia said, while looking at the manicurist with a “I REALLY don’t get paid enough for this” sort of scowl. “HERE……MORE…..LONG…NO!....SHORT!!!....SHORT!!!.........CUT……THANK YOU……PLEASE!!!!” Claudia didn’t bother listening. She had long ago lost her patience with these types of clients. This guy would get whatever type of style she wanted to practice that day. This guy was at the mercy of Claudia’s whims. He had no choice. He had no power. Heck, he didn’t even have any style to begin with. ………”and you know?”, thought Claudia, while casually picking up her blades of choice, “today suddenly feels like a MULLET kind of Thursday”.

Well, the good news was that I ended up getting a pretty decent haircut for my hard earned $4 ($5 with tip….call me crazy). So maybe it wasn’t the BEST haircut I had ever gotten. And maybe there was a LITTLE bit of misunderstanding as to the AMOUNT of hair to be taken off. BUT ”at least it ain’t no mullet”, I thought to myself, as I walked back to the hostel, five dollars poorer and a WHOLE lot lighter.