Hot Springs and Cold Mud

The trek from Bocas del Torro to Boquete took us a good part of the day, beginning with a water taxi through the hissing rain on the bay, continuing with a micro-bus loaded with Panamanians through the highlands on a mountain road the driver of the bus continually tried to throw our vehicle off of with his high-speed cornering all the while being assaulted with the worst assortment of horrific latin music blaring loudly enough to override my headphones, and drawing to a close with a ride on a school-bus painted with bright colors and plastered internally with stickers and signs bearing phrases such as "If you drink to forget, pay before you do".

We disembarked on the main street of Boquete, a small town with a definite european, Alps-ish feel with a latin twist. The air was somewhat crisp, at least to our bodies which had until this point been alternately baked and steamed for weeks on end, and the town was surrounded by large green mountains forming a small valley in which we found ourselves. After some small amount of searching, we located a satisfactory hostel, which was adequately cheap, and run by an amazingly nice but altogether too hyperactive man and his charming and friendly wife.

After setting our things in the rooms, we decided to head out for pizza with a large group of young travellers staying in the hostel with us. The pizza was quite good, very American-style, and the beer was as cheap as one could ask for. After, T and A (as I've taken to calling my two travelling companions) turned in early, while I continued on to the local pool hall with two Canadians, a Danish guy, and a guy from Switzerland with whom I was sharing a room. I found zero room to complain about the prices, as a table was $1.60 for an hour, and the beer was the alcoholic-inducingly low price of $0.50 apiece.

The next day we decided to go for a hike, as apparently hiking is simply what you do in the Boquete area, and caught a cab (with a canadian girl in tow) 6km up the road to the end of the pavement. From there, we hiked about 2km up a dirt road, occasionally slogging through deep mud, to the ranger station marking the beginning of the Volcan Baru national park. From there, we walked another hour of very rutted and rocky road through the occasional sprinkling of rain past a rushing river to the beginning of the trail called "Sendero de los Quetzales".

This name translates to "Trail of the Quetzales", (a quetzal being a tropical bird sporting a very long tail, and being quite rare to see), and was apparently simply a joke because we saw not a one. To be fair, it was raining more or less the entire time, and perhaps quetzales explode when struck by water. That, or they simply weren't out in it like the stupid gringos slogging along through the calf-deep mud on the trail below their hidden nests. For the next hour, we picked our way gingerly along, trying at least partially to keep ourselves somewhat mud-free, through very pretty rainforest which was reminiscent of the Olympic Peninsula.

After the effort, we decided to break for lunch at a covered picnic table thoughtfully located a couple of kilometers along the trail. As we dined on tuna eaten directly from a can, we were overtaken on the trail by three more people from our hostel, including the Swiss guy, and two Canadians who simply would not stop saying "eh" and calling everyone a "hoser" like the guys from Strange Brew.

T n A at this poing decided to turn back, as they had some errands to attend to in town, and I decided to continue on with the others. Our newly formed 5-some (remember the Canadian girl with us, plus the new 3), trekked on through the mud and rain in search of adventure and the ellusive quetzal. After another couple of hours, we met some hikers coming from the other end of the trail in a town called Cerro Punta, and they told us that it was more of the exact same for another few hours, although more muddy if anything. We all made the rational decision to turn back, and began the long slog home. The rain intensified at this point, angered by our cowardice, and began to beat the trail into even more of a muddy river, and we all were soon soaked to the skin and muddy to our crotches (although I found myself the dryest and most comfortable as a result of my purchase of an REI One coat, which is both waterproof and wind resistant, and retails for a modest $199.00. Buy it online at REI.com).

At the ranger station, we found ourselves confronted by the steep and muddy road back to the bottom, and steeling ourselves for the ordeal to come, began to slip and squelch down. Mercifully, after only moments, a farmer in a small 4-wheel-drive truck started down the road behind us, with his truckbed loaded to the gunwales with sacks of dirty potatoes. He stopped, probably because we had a girl with us, and offered us a ride to the bottom. The only condition was that the girl, who spoke 0 Spanish, sit up front with him. We weren't sure if he was simply being chivalrous to her, or if he had odious intentions, but at this point the rest of us were gladly willing to sell our dear friend for the luxury of a ride to the bottom. Despite her protests, we crammed her into the cab and hopped under the tarp at the back for the long bumpy ride to the bottom. We were a bit baffled by the tarp, as the potatoes were quite dirty, and could only assume that the farmer was aghast at the idea that they may actually become slightly more clean by the falling rain. We weren't complaining, however, as it was a dirty but dry (at least no more wet than upon commencement) ride on down.

At the bottom, we were relieved to discover that the drivers intentions had in fact been noble, and he had simply wanted to talk to her the whole way down in a language she did not understand in the slightest, and offer her some pamplets on the local people and culture. She exited the cab somewhat bewildered, and he said a cheery goodbye to us and went about his business.

We then caught a bus into town, the local people staring somewhat at the very wet and absurdly dirty gringos who tromped on and sat steaming next to them. After showering and getting changed, spirits returned to normal, and plans for the evening began in earnest.

A newcomer to the hostel, an Irish fellow named David, was hellbent on visiting the hot springs south of town that very night, and everyone else seemed up for the challenge. I say challenge because in order to get to the hot springs, one had to travel by road 20 minutes to a small town the name of which escapes me, and then somehow find the hot springs which we were told would require a guide. With David (whom I immediately got along with as his humor was similar to my own), we managed to round up everyone who wished to go (7 of us in all), and got in a cab, which was a 4-wheel drive truck with an extended cab and a bed with a roll bar over the cab, somehow not comforting). Most everyone piled into the cab, while David, the Swiss guy (Thomas), and I jumped into the back. This proved to be the best decision, as after a short distance along the road we discovered that standing in the bed holding on to the roll bar was and excellent way to see the surrounding countryside, assuming one wasn't dead set against receiving the occasional bug fired into the back of his throat as a result of an unwarily opened mouth, to induce a coughing and gagging fit as the poor thing tried desperately to escape being swallowed to swim in one's gastric juices. The view was spectacular, and we watched the sun set and dodged low-hanging powerlines, or head-removers as I called them. (Just kidding mom, it was perfectly safe).

Upon arrival in the town, the cab paused while we haggled with some locals and finally agreed on a price for a guide, who turned out to be a young boy who threw his bike in the back and then drove with us in the cab out the road to the springs.

After bumping down a dirt road for a few kilometers until the cabdriver balked and refused to go any further, we all piled out into the pitch black night. Arranging with the driver to return in a few hours to pick us up and the same place (and crossing our fingers that he'd uphold his end of the bargain), we set out following our guide; 7 gringos with 3 shitty flashlights. I had my headlamp, being the awesome outdoor stud that I am, and was as a result required to stare at the ground 4 feet ahead of me for the entire walk, as any time I tried to look around at my surroundings, 3 people who were depending on my light would stub their toes and curse me. Of course, I tended to forget often, and often found myself checking out the stars to my co-trekkers chagrin.

After a short walk on the road, we turned off onto a smaller path, and then down a short gulley to the hot springs. The numerous pools (and cold river) are located on the property of a rancher who quickly realized he had a good thing going with all the hot water bubbling up from the ground, and began to charge a few years back for the privilege. In return for the entry fee, he had built up low rock walls around some of the pools, and dammed others to create larger ones. It being pitch black when we got there with no moon, we couldn't see much, but he led us on a short tour which took us past 4 different pools of varying temperatures. I assume there were more, but then again, I couldn't see past the small circle cast by my headlamp, and the man could very well have been hiding Disneyland just beyond the feeble beam and I would not have known. As he left us in the dark to return to his house and chuckle, I asked if there was anything dangerous to worry about. He assured me that no, there wasn't anything to worry about, just poisonous snakes. "Que?!"

We all piled into a pool large enough to accomodate all of us, and spent the next few hours talking and sharing a few bottles of Port.

After we had sufficiently boiled ourselves in the mildly questionably clean water, we all trouped out and began the trek back, watching where we stepped both for the snakes, and for the large piles of horse droppings littering the area. Luckily for us, the cab driver kept his word, and was waiting for us. Another cab ride ensued, and we again stood in the bed and enjoyed the cool night air running its fingers through our hair.

The next day dawned bright and sunny, but the call of Panama City was simply too urgent to refuse. Packing our bags, we caught a bus into David, and from there the 7 hours to Panama City. There being only 2 seats together on the bus (in the front), T n' A snagged them, while I was relegated to a seat in the very back, right next to the only toilet on the bus. This wasn't a problem at first, but soon became one, as despite the lack of customers to the john, it progressively smelled worse and worse as the ride went on. After a few hours, the attendant on the bus came back (not the driver, thankfully, as he was occupied with the actual steering of the vehicle) and sprayed about 2/3 of a can of Lysol into the bathroom, holding the door open only wide enough to stretch his arm around and inside. This didn't really mitigate the problem, but at least now I had a lungfull of Lysol, and the resulting short high followed by pounding headache at least took my mind off the smell. After another indeterminate amount of time, the attendent decided to try another route, and with a determined look on his face, strode down the aisle to the bathroom armed with a full bottle of bleach. Most of this was poured down the hole while he turned his face away and screwed up his nose in a look of pure disgust, and the rest sort of liberally tossed around the bathroom in a shotgun approach. Again, no real improvement, but at least now I could pretend I was at a really chlorinated swimming pool instead of trapped on the bus.

To take my mind off of more odiferous topics, I turned my attention to the movies they were showing on small tvs bolted to the ceiling. The first was a re-enactment of the life of Christ (not Passion, but something similar). The entire movie consisted of the man being tortured, beaten, and all-around abused, with incredibly bloody scenes. Not the sort of thing an American bus company would touch with a ten foot pole both because of the religious PC thing, and also because frankly the movie was bloodier than Friday the 13th part 3 jodering Braveheart while Caligula watched.

Immediately following this epic masterpiece was the movie Torque, a wonderful film in the tradition of the Fast and the Furious, but without the quality of writing, plot, cinematography, or directing of that most wonderous of Hollywood films. I should say at this point that because of my position in the back of the bus directly over the engine, I couldn't hear a single word of dialogue in either of these films. However, after watching the full 2 hours of Torque, I could give you a remarkably detailed account of the plot, which isn't really saying much about it's originality.

Finally, the bus pulled into Panama City, and we began our adventures there.
- posted by Micah @ 4:50 PM