Feliz Navidad

Location: El Valle, Panama
Hours travelled by bus today: 8
Lunch: Carne Guisada, noodles, and grapefruit Fanta at a bus station ($3.75)
Dinner: Vegetable pizza with feta cheese in El Valle and an Balboa Cerveza ($6.50)

Well I didn´t get to write exactly on Christmas but this is close enough. I spent Christmas in a small town in the mountains called Boquete. Boquete is a wonderful town surrounded by mountains and home to some of the friendliest people in the world. Boquete is easily the safest place in Central America. Its name means both valley of flowers, and valley of rainbows. There was a rainbow everyday that we were here. I´ve never seen such pretty rainbows that stretch across the mountains! This was the only one I caught on camera on a rainy day. I don´t think it does it justice.

I actually had a really fun Christmas week! It all began a few days ago in Bocas Del Toro...

I really wanted to watch the Giants-Panthers game, so I started wandering around town poking my head into bars and restaurants trying to find it. No such luck. Apparently football here means a bunch of white guys kicking a ball. After 45 desparate minutes I made a last ditch effort and asked a 12 year old boy if he knew anywhere that plays American Football. He said to follow him, and I did.

Several blocks later, we reached a bar called ¨Bum Fucks.¨ The boy pointed inside. My eyes lit up as I gazed upon a whole bar full of drunk gringos yelling a sweet caucophony of profanities and sexual references at a television. Even more... Right on the wall in between the Panamanian flag and a Bourbon Street sign was a huge ¨Keep Austin Weird¨sticker. I gave the boy my spare change in my pocket, and in a moment of awe stepped inside.


I only had $3 in my pocket, and I explained the situation to the bartender, but not before drinking at least $8 worth of beer. It turns out he too was from Texas. He gave me a friendly, and all too familiar head-nod as he reached below the counter, cracked open another ice-cold Balboa Cerveza and set it on the soaking-wet coaster in front of me. I knew I was home. I ended up closing the bar down with a couple of guys from the states, and then afterwards we all hung around and listened to music and shared some laughs and a few more cervezas. The good news is that I will be back in the same town the night of the UT-Ohio game!

El Valle is the town I´m in right now. It´s a very sleepy town filled with coffee farms worked by the native indians here. This town is pretty, there is just nothing here. GAP is actually cutting this destination from the trip in 2009 and I´m cool with it. One more night here, then on to Panama City for two nights, and then its back to San Jose to start it all over again! Merry Christmas to everybody! I miss everybody back home!

All my holiday cheer!