Lost and Found - Day 1

It was definitely time to get out of David. David is not known as a destination for much other than transferring buses, shopping and dining. I am not convinced about the dining. A brochure for the Lost and Found Lodge in the cloud forest of Chiriqui sat on the dining room table. A fellow guest at the hostel, a young Austrian named Mario and I discussed going leaving over a spectacularly bad Lebanese restaurant recommended by the owners of Bambu Hostel in David.

We agreed the that the Lost and Found looked very attractive and decided to head out in the morning before it got hot. I woke at 7:00, checked my email, had a coffee and tried to rouse Mario without success. I made another attempt at rousing Mario at 9:00. Giving up I had another coffee and then requested the housekeeper to call me a cab. Mario stepped out of the bathroom and asked if I was leaving immediately, to which I responded that I was willing to wait if he was getting ready to go. The cab showed and I told the driver to return in 10 minutes. Upon his return with no small effort, we loaded my two big suitcases and Mario's back pack and grocery bags into the small taxi with some effort and quickly found ourselves at the bus terminal. People were boarding the bus to Changinola as we pulled up. My bags were left behind the bus with the bag attendant and I boarded the bus, putting my backpack under the seat in front of me. The trip was said to be just over an hour in duration. As we approached the first toll booth I handed the brochure to the bus lackey that was standing in the open door and a couple of minutes later we stopped in front of three large yellow rocks. Lost and Found was up the hill, out of site. The trail was steep with steps improvised from rock, concrete and board risers with earth “treads”. Leaving Mario to watch the bags I climbed up to the resort to summon some help with our bags. The lodge was an impressively solid structure with concrete floors and walls with steel framing and a metal roof. This was a far cry from cute cabinas in the jungle, this had been designed by someone who must have spent most of his time designing bunkers. ???, one of the two owners greeted me and asked if I had a reservation and expressed no minimal consternation over that fact that I did not have one as he was expecting an additional 30 people to arrive for the night. He did state that if we had some hammocks we could see if we could rough it out, but it gets windy, cold and sometimes wet at night in and above the clouds.

A volunteer ??? and I walked down to the road again to get Mario and our bags. Gabriel had returned from an errand to fetch propane and he was going to carry the propane up the hill. Gabriel was a fit middle aged ??? Indian and took my fifty pound bag and ascended as though unburdened. I was still wondering how much to tip them, I figured $10 a bag was fair, when I found that Gabriel had hauled up innumerable 80 pound bags of cement up the hill during construction for sixty cents a bag.

My second trip up the hill my additional burden of two back packs and some grocery bags with unknown content was much more burdensome and I had to sit down and rest on three occasions.

It was finally agreed that the could build an eco-lodge on the property, which was previously used as an organic coffee plantation, but no roads could be cut up the path and minimal tree cutting could occur. There is no doubt why this stop between David and Bocas is frequented by the young and fit. It is not an easy climb.

It turns out that Gabriel carried the concrete up this hill, two bags at a time for sixty cents apiece. One of the owners tried to carry one bag, vomited and abandoned any pretense that he was up to the task. I can't imagine how many bags of cement, gravel and sand were hauled up this long steep hill. The Lodge is in a national park and is one of only two titled lots in the park. The French Canadian owners of the local hydroelectric plant had waged a multi-year plan to get the “Panamanian Squatters” off this piece of titled property. The “Panamanian Squatters” are a couple of guys from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Last night the party ended at 4 or 5 am, nobody was quite sure. What is sleeping here going to be like?

The peace corp arrived, a collection of body piercings and expensive outdoor gear, Under Armor, North Face. Most were stationed on Chiriqui Bay in Bocas working with the Gnobis. Dinner was a long ways off and people queued up at the stove. An English woman who described herself as “Free Range” (not with the Peace Corp) fried up some tomatoes and cabbage into a brown glop that she put on bread. She said “I hope it tastes better than it looks.” To which I replied, don't hold too much hope, I was married to a woman from England once. That evoked cat claw pantomime and then she asked if I was serious. We got into a long conversation. She had flown from England to take a thousand pound, six week course in tree climbing. Weighing nothing probably makes it a lot easier. People continued to trickle in, two or three at a time. Some had walked 30 minutes to a store buy beer and breakfast supplies.

My attempts at cooking dinner, did not fare well. The propane stove seemed incapable of ever bringing the pot of water to a roiling boil. I placed the noodles in and waited. Half an hour later the water was still not boiling and I choked down some seriously “al dent” spaghetti.

I found a spot to hang my hammock, next to the kinkajou enclosure, which was far too big to be considered a cage. The enclosure is just past the lodge on the way to the showers, snapped some shots, chatted with people and ate dinner, an uninspiring combination of rice and beans. Due to the large number of guests the simple dinner was the

I write this at 7:19, the stereo died, the lights went out and the only illumination for half a minute was the screen of my notebook. Flashlights quickly appeared. Six minutes later electricity was restored.

Backpacks with cameras and notebook computers are unattended and ubiquitous. I don't fear someone walking in out of the jungle to steal my stuff and this crowd doesn't seem like thieves disguised as social workers.

9:02 I just finished talking with Gabriel. He walked up the hill with 2 bags of cement at a time (160 pounds), 3 to 4 trips per hour, 8 hours a day, 6 days a week for 3 months. It took three months for twenty five people some working 2 days a week, some working 4 to carry up all the supplies to build the lodge. They carried up the beds, the foosball table, the refrigerators.