Boquete tales
Trip Start
Feb 05, 2009
1
6
15
Trip End
Mar 06, 2009
Boquete,, Panama
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The weather here has made a vast improvement. For the last few days, we have had clear skies with white clouds and beautiful sun. There is a lot of breeze and low humidity up here in the highlands so it is very pleasant, not tropical with lots of insects like you might think The winds dissuade the insects, I presume. This is the kind of weather I´d like to have all year; this is, however, the dry season. The river has dropped about 3-4 feet in the last week, so I´m feeling much more at ease with my riverfront room. There are people coming and going from all parts of the world at the hostal and in town. Canadians, Dutch, Australians, Germans, but few Americans. Most of the travelers are staying anywhere from 3 weeks to 4 months, traveling from one place to another in Latin America. They cannot understand how in the U.S., it is normal to only get 2 or 3 weeks of vacation. An Australian I talked to had ¨counted¨ up his time (comp time) and was traveling 4 months.
The school Habla Ya is whipping my butt. I have class from 1:15 to 5:30 daily, home work to do in the mornings, and the last two nights we have had events, a Panameñen dinner in a local family´s home and a movie in Spanish Habana Blues set in Cuba. Rent it on Netflix (Sarah, you work like it.) Great music in it! Because the school has been taking up some much of my time, I haven´t had that much time to write here. Every time I come to this internet shop, it´s a commitment for at least an hour dealing with the service. Lot I just lost about 2 paragraphs when there was just a blip and then GONE! I didn´t loose it all though because I learned to save it regularly because it is so unreliable. Time to save again....
Horns --I´ve been meaning to write about this.
Everyone constantly blows their car horns here when going down the street... In the U.S. if we hear a horn blow, we think, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong, or where´s the potential crash situation. In Panama, just driving down the street, most drivers are blowing or tooting car horns. It can mean: Watch out, I´m coming through, You´re going to get hit, or Hi there, or Hey, we´ve got the same kind of vehicle, or Do you want a cab?, or Isn´t the weather great! As you can imagine, it´s noisier here than you would expect in Panama´s towns.
Ciao!
Comments
hmmm...
I think you should try another internet cafe. I dont remember them being too awful. Yeah, they are normally dial-up, but I didn't have to bad a time of it. (Or maybe I did, and now you feel bad for wanting me to email you everyday so you knew I was alive ;))
Yeah, all the Europeans I met thought I was joking when I told them I only got 2 weeks of vacation. It was like slave labor to them.
Glad to hear things are working out better for you now. Told you, you'd survive.