We made some friends at the campground with residents of the rooms for rent. Scott and Yee from Cleveland walked by astonished to see a van in all respects like their own parked on the grass. “How did you get here?” And I wished I could answer something less prosaic than simply saying we drove.
They cracked us up as She is the driving force to go south in their van while He puts the brakes on expecting Mexico to rise up and swallow them whole. Hands up anyone in the room who is still convinced the PanAmerican is VN lined with banditos and federales ready to skin us alive? Well as you might imagine we fix our best to assure them they will be fine if they didn’t winter in their Promaster in Mexico. I hope we didn’t overdo it.
I failed hopelessly to record Andrea and Carmen’ portraits, they who lived in a roof top tent next door which picture is all I have to remember both of them by. They discovered the joys of cool breezy Boquete, so different from their home in Panana City which is a heat sink on the Pacific Coast. Andrea the Italian harbors a desire to cruise by motorcycle while Carmen the Panamanian is aiming squarely at a traveling van. Guess whose side I would take if asked?
It is a source of wonder to me that I function as normally as I do five years on from the catastrophe and as much as I enjoy looking at bikes I doubt I will ride again. You can only tempt fate so far and I would feel stupid, not unfortunate, were I to find myself on my back once again feeling life slipping away from me.
As it is I am testing my patience waiting for the ABS module to make it’s meandering way to us. Last word on Thursday is that it is somewhere between Miami and Panama City with a possible ETA of next Wednesday. Webb Chiles sent me a useful reminder that standing and waiting is part of the process.
The nightly music fest cranked up yesterday with noise until four in the morning. I gave up trying to sleep and read and emptied our toilet discretely when no one was around and then Rusty sat and stared at me so I ventured outside of GANNET2’s comfortably insulated cabin and took the hound for a stroll.
A car cane barreling down the street hooting its horn as I flashed my light to announce our presence. He gave me the bird as he passed and I asked myself how drunk he was. He stopped down the street though to intimidate me with the prospect of him coming out to fight me. I was mildly surprised but he thought better of it and I suppose Rusty on his leash standing and staring didn’t hurt. Shortly thereafter police car came by so I suppose I would have been saved in any case.
I like Boquete for the climate and the eateries and the parks and the greenery and our resident black squirrel: 
The walks and the restaurants are greatly enjoyable but I don’t much like the touron economy, the displacement of locals by outsiders that seems to produce an anger or resentment, understandable perhaps but misplaced. As much as we try to tread lightly I find it hard not to feel like an interloper in someone else’s drama. The fence that separates us from the street…
…is starting to feel like it’s separating us from life. I stand, I wait, I gird my loins with patience but I don’t know who or what I serve in Panama.
