Another slapped together unedited stream of words. I have to go camera shopping.All packed up and ready to go. Instead of sticking around to say goodbye the dogs left me a very large dead rat. Thanks.
I popped in to town last night to say goodbye to some people. In but a couple of hours Bocas tales filled the air.
A friend of mine had someone rent her boat for the day. She didn't know his name but has seen him on and off as he lives in Puerto Viejo and escorts tourists to Bocas. Later that evening he was seen stumbling through town. Where's the boat? Abandoned on another island. Her boyfriend sailed a proa to get the boat. The lower unit had been damaged, twelve life jackets and three gas tanks had been stolen. They now had no way to get to town from their anchorage. With his little girl they have a party of three. Every trip to town will now cost them $2 per person each way. The person who destroyed the boat has no intention of paying for repairs.
Two guys who saw me lose my outboard went out and salvaged it the night it was lost. They saw me in town the next day after I had four divers in the water and asked if I had recovered the outboard. I guess they were just checking to see if I had a clue that it was in their possession.
I've been hauling stuff down my stairs, my very large (90 litre) backpack is filled to the point that it is hard to zip up. One final check. Do I have everything? Probably not. Lying on the kitchen counter beside several other plastic bags was a lump of a bag. Oh shit. The guanabana juice, for a very special lady wrapped in five layers of plastic. If that thing leaks in my luggage, it is going to be a hell of a mess.
My final departure, a glimpse back at the house I still own but may never see again and I boated through the breeze over clear, calm waters.
I took the boat to a friend's house where it was pulled up onto shore and the plug pulled and we went to town. I had things to drop off in town for various people, failed to get a going away lunch from a friend who showed up an hour and a half after she said she would and was surprised I wasn't there waiting on her ass.
My good friends Chris and Alejandra and Chris's daughter Noa came by for my
parting hour. Just as I was walking off another woman stepped off a sailboat onto the dock to bid me goodbye, her ample, unfettered bosom caressing me during a surprisingly long hug. She told me that as I had a couple of days in Panama City I should stop by the Vanetto and get a couple of whores. "Is that what you do?" I inquired in jest. "Sometimes, when I am lonely," she replied. I don't think she was kidding. I'll never know.
A water taxi took me to the shithole that is Almirante, on the mainland and I boarded the "private shuttle." Due to Panamanian holidays all flights and buses were fully booked so I took the only remaining option, the private shuttle. This was far smaller than the full sized bus and much more crowded. Despite thousands of words of contemporaneous notes, I will reduce the trip description to acceptably cool and overpacked. My knees were in someone else's back and the person behind me poked me with his. The seats did not recline. The woman next me turned to face the window, sliding her ass past the edge of her seat onto mine. My daypack and computer sat in the aisle, to be hastily placed on my lap on stop after stop for food, bathroom breaks, gas. Up the mountain road, with strobe lights illuminated the tries in the rainforest through which this road was cut and into the cabins and eyes of the drivers of vehicles we passed.
We finally arrived at Albrook terminal in Panama City 11 hours after I boarded the water taxi and I took a taxi to the San Francisco area of Panama City,. arriving at 4:30 The taxi driver wanted $10 for the ride. I showed him a photograph of the taxi's numbers and handed him the correct fare, $5. He left without a word.
My reserved room was occupied and I was shown a bed in a dorm, thankfully air conditioned. I retired, exhausted waking up but three hours later.
I actually had to buy soap and shampoo from the hotel, showered and proceeded to see if I could get my camera. For two days the place had been closed for holidays. The phone was busy all morning. A little after twelve they answered and said they were closed for lunch. I took a taxi back to a familiar neighborhood and had to direct the taxi to the camera repair shop, oh to hell with it, let me out here and I will walk.
No, the camera had not been repaired. No it could not be repaired for less than the cost of the camera. This camera had served me well from the islands of Belize to the Andes in Bolivia. Less than three years in Bocas and it had corroded, inside and out. The main board was shot, the casing screws hopelessly corroded.
In the past three years I have been through five cameras, five tablets, four computers, two GPS all destroyed by the harsh evironment. I won't even begin to try to count the phones, but they were rained upon and dropped into the ocean.
Bocas is a beautiful, but harsh and unforgiving mistress.
She is also a drunken, cokehead slut but that sounds a bit bitter.
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