Thailand?

“More coffee?” I’m trying to prolong the conversation.

“No, really, I have to go,” you say.

“Me too,” I say. “How about we go together? Thailand?”  You give me a very strange look.

“Thailand? Thailand is half-way around the world.”

“Not quite. Halfway would be off the tip of South Africa. In the water. Not much of a vacation, but I’d probably go there with you.”

“That’s insane,” you say.

“Haven’t we covered that? I prefer crazy.”

“You prefer being crazy over being rational, maybe,” you say, almost like that’s a bad thing.

“You get it! I knew we had something in common!”

“We don’t,” you respond quickly, reaching for some clarity.

“We should,” I respond. “Look at all the fun we could have.” I have no intention of letting clarity anywhere near this conversation.

“You can’t ‘should have’ something in common. You do or you don’t,” you say with slight exasperation. That’s just one of the things I like about you, the way you show frustration with me so easily. Some try to hide it.

“It can’t be both?” I’ve got you now, but you don’t see it coming.

“Having something in common and not having something in common? No, that’s inconsistent.” You pride yourself on a consistency I’m about to turn into a hobgoblin.

“We have coffee in common,” I say.

“That has nothing to do with this,” the rising tone of your voice tells me you sense the trap.

“We don’t have lipstick in common,” I continue, as if you had not said a thing.

“Stop it.” You see it clearly, now.

“So, obviously, we have something, coffee, in common and don’t have something, lipstick, in common. Happens all the time. In fact, having and not having something in common is something we all have in common.”

“I’m leaving,” you say.

“We can be in Thailand this time next month if you’ll say ‘yes.’ ”

“Why Thailand?” you ask, closing the door again.

“Beautiful beaches, beautiful sunsets, good food, good times, laughter. Yadda yadda. All that, but more important, adventure!

“What happened to Bocas Del Toro?”

“You didn’t respond to Bocas. I’m upping the offer.”

“The food is better than in Bocas?”

“You ever go out for Bocas, or do you go out for Thai?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“There’s one in there somewhere. I might look for a boat there.”

“Where?”

“Thailand. Isn’t that what we’re talking about?

“I don’t know what we’re talking about any more.”

“Then let’s just sit here and enjoy each other’s silence. I like that, too. More coffee?”

You shake your head, but you’re still sitting here. I take that as a hopeful sign.

“Why a boat?” you ask a minute later, a little bit curious.

“Have to get home somehow.”

“You would take a boat back from Thailand?” you ask, with some incredulity.

“Not without stopping in New Zealand. Want to go?”

“Who are you again?” Now you’re trying to avoid the question.

“The guy you met for coffee. What do you think?”

“I think you’re very different than I expected.”

“In a bad way?”

“Not bad, just… different.”

Bocas

“Would you like to go to Bocas del Toro in March? Let’s stay a month. Get out of winter.  I know a great little place on the water.”

“But I don’t even know you!” you said.

“You would after a month in Bocas.” I say this with a smile, but it’s pretty much true.

“But you don’t even know me!”

“I would after a month in Bocas.” I was being flippant, I admit it.

“That’s just insane.”

“I prefer crazy.”

“You can use either word,” you say. “They’re synonyms.”

“No, I meant, I prefer crazy. Prefer it over the ordinary, or the conventional, or the really truly rational. I’d rather not spend the last of my days being too rational.”

“Why do you say ‘last of your days?’ Are you sick?”

“No. Just crazy. And that’s not a synonym for sick.”

“So why are these the last of your days?”

“Each today is the last of your days. By definition.” I say this with a smile.

“That isn’t how that’s supposed to be used.” You’re getting frustrated.

“But that’s how I prefer to live.”

“What if you don’t like me?” you ask. I don’t blame you for being a little nervous.

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t suggest we go to Bocas together.”

“What if I don’t like you?” you asked.

“I guess you go home. Or go to Belize. No, that’s not a good idea, I may go to Belize after Bocas, and if you don’t like me, there might not be room for both of us. It’a a small country. So how about it?”

“How about what?”

“Bocas del Toro. Or Belize. Thailand? Bali? Fiji? I’ll pay for airfare and the hotels. We’ll split meals unless we fall in love.”

“What happens then?”

“That would be a really great way to spend the last of our todays, no matter how many we have left.”

“May I think about it?”

“Of course, but don’t take too long.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I don’t want to spend the last of my days waiting. That would be insane, and I’m not crazy.”

Shedding

Today I sent home five and a half kilos removed from my pack. Shirts, shorts, hiking boots, my shaving kit, a beach towel. Cost me about $50 and will take at least a week longer to get home than it will take me.

I could offer all sorts of reasons why this was a good idea, but I don’t think it was. Five and a half kilos, 12 pounds, was not breaking my back. The pack has wheels, after all, and could have taken another pound or two if that were rolled tight(ly). I’ve done most of my traveling by bus, with the bag down in the cargo hold.

So, there was little justification. We’ll just accept that. I sent the stuff home because I want to be without it. Instead of what I felt when first packing, that I shouldn’t be without it.

Boquete was the first place I could ship from, after this thought expressed itself. It even has a Mail Boxes Etc., which made it quite easy.

Some things weren’t being used, and wouldn’t be. They offended me every time I had to unpack them to find something I did need and included: Two brown shirts perfect for camping in Oregon. Two pairs of black shorts, perfect for back-to-back nights on the town, if I chose not to wear the long black pants with one of the two black shirts. I’ve not been “on the town” once, and have no need for three just-in-case outfits.

A beach towel I’d used twice, once as a towel and once as a beach mat. It didn’t work really well for either task. I bought a smaller towel, this one absorbent, just right for finishing off a shower. I will buy a beach cloth; smooth and synthetic, light and compressible, a print that doesn’t pick up sand between nubs of terry cloth for deposit in whatever room I stay.

My shaving kit: I have two, one-gallon, Zip Loc freezer bags, one for daily toiletries and the other for first aid. I have two more, empty, as back up. I can see through them for what I need, instead of rooting around in a black kit with smallish pockets for the one thing that’s never in the pocket I’m looking in.

The toughest decision was seeing off my hiking boots. But I’m not going up the side of a volcano — that’s something I do at home in Oregon. The trails here are not exactly roughing it, and though the pavement is often broken, snakes are not streaming from the gutter. Still, these are my feet! What if they need protection?

I had been strapping my rain shell and warm fleece on the outside of my pack; I’ve moved them inside.

I’ve changed plans, too. This actually felt like sending my hiking boots away. I was going to head down to Panama City, catch a ride through the Panama Canal. But it’s an eight-hour bus ride to Panama City. Then I would end up, after eight hours, in Panama City. I’ve spent a day or two there before, and don’t feel like it this trip.

Finally, going eight hours south takes me eight hours farther from where I lift-off, in San Jose to the north. Even though that’s nearly two weeks away, that’s adding 16 hours on the road and back, only to David, with another eight hours from David to San Jose, to go someplace I’m not that excited about.

I’m going to the Caribbean.

I will wander up the coast in Costa Rica, taking as long as I want in any place that’s more fun than I anticipated. Bocas del Toro is quite nice, I hear, and except for maybe 20 minutes, I’ve seen it only from the sea. At the end of the trip, I will have pretty much circled Costa Rica, leaving a couple of pockets for next time.

So, along with unnecessary items from my bag, I’ve removed the weight of doing something because I thought once I would do it, not because it’s something I want to do now.

Boquete has been a great break from the heat. I got a massage, have seen some fantastic flowers in a gorgeous mountain community, met some nice people. Today I actually had to put on a jacket. I didn’t send the jacket back, even though I’d only worn it once. Some things I keep, just to be prepared.

Everything is quite compact, now, light and tossable. It feels good to know it’s not too much, yet everything I need.

No Clue

At the first hotel in Costa Rica, I realized I had no clue of where to head next. But I had a month and could take it a day at a time.  After all, I never expected to to have an interest in butterflies. 

My first exposure to butterflies was decades ago, long before I’d heard anything about the “butterfly effect,” or metamorphosis, or anything to do with the bug, which really didn’t interest me.

It was from Chuang Tzu, a Chinese philosopher, who wrote something to the effect: “I dreamt I was a butterfly, happily flying among the flowers. Then I awoke. But how do I know that I am not a butterfly, dreaming I am Chuang Tzu?”

 More recently, I came across a couple of facts about butterflies that struck me as wonderful and bizarre. The first was that in its metamorphosis, the caterpillar essentially dies, its body turns to soup, and from this soup, a butterfly is assembled.

To me, that’s like making a rooster out of chicken broth.

The second was that in the migration of butterflies north in the spring, the butterfly that arrives is not the one that left the south. It is the fourth generation: It takes three generations of birth, life and death to get north, and the fourth generation of butterfly goes south again to winter in the very same tree as its great, great, grandparent. Four soups ago.

That challenged my notions of  “an individual.”

In the hostel in San Jose going through the Lonely Planet,  I decided my first stop had to be the Monteverde Rainforest. I called up a hostel in Santa Elena recommended primarily for their honest advice, made my reservation and faded early, about 8 p.m.

Admittedly, there are  lows traveling this cheap. But there are  highs, too, that for me outweigh the troubles. I’d walked for miles through the city. I’d taken photos of architecture and guitar players, enjoyed the sights and sounds. I especially liked the rotunda where teens were breakdancing while adults sat on benches along the promenades.

At dinner at the hostel, I had a burger and watched 20 somethings start to get drunk on the upstairs deck. Which I didn’t need to remember in quite that much detail. I was probably asleep by 9.

I woke up at three o’clock to the sound of violent retching.

“Whoa, she’s really sick,” I thought, and rolled over to go back to sleep. I wondered if it was the pot or the vodka the kids were consuming, the sugar in some of the godawful drinks.

“Whoa, he’s really sick too,” I thought a couple of minutes later. I figured I knew which couple it might be.

I was wrong. When I finally got up at 5 a.m., showered and sat in one of the alcoves waiting for coffee to be available at 7 a.m., three girls had taken up residence on the sitting shelf outside stalls of the communal bathroom. Every 10 minutes or so, one of the three would go into one of the stalls and loudly throw up the water she had been drinking. Unless she hadn’t been drinking any, then she’d sing the high notes of dry heaves.

“You are so sick,” I said with sympathy as I walked past. It was sincere, I did feel bad for them.

“Food poisoning,” said the young woman. “The seviche.”

“That’s awful. I’d figured it was the vodka.”

“I don’t think so, we all had the vodka,” she said. After thinking about that, I let it drop. The misery on their faces was something I could still feel, nearly 30 years after last drinking vodka or anything like it. And mostly avoiding seviche in second world kitchens.

I finished the book I was reading, left it behind on the couch and headed out the front door. A book?! I can read on my phone! But leaving things behind is one of the treats of on the street travel. You get lighter the longer you’re out there.

I’d been told to head to the Coca Cola Terminal to catch the bus up north to Santa Elena. A cab driver was at the door. And I jumped in.

We had driven 10 minutes when we came to a park. One of my favorites from my walk the day before. It had the rotunda, and was about a five minute walk from where we started the cab ride 10 minutes before.

“Ah, no,” I said to the cab driver, who spoke no English in that moment. At least I didn’t hear any. But he could tell from my pointing at where we were on the map, and where we started, that our route was far from my favorite. Eventually we were close enough to the bus station I told him to let me out. He didn’t argue.

For 10 minutes I threaded my way through stalls and vendors who had taken up occupancy on already narrow sidewalks, my backpack making me larger sideways than straight ahead, my big bag bumping behind me on the broken pavement. It was hot, the sun was out, the streets busy, cab and lorry drivers seemingly speeding up and on the horn up when I was only half way across an intersection. I was thankful for the miles I’d spent on the river trail at home, the hours in the weight room. It made it pretty easy to haul me and my stuff through the city.

To the wrong bus station.

A cab driver there told me the buses to Santa Elena left from the station in the north. I’d been misinformed. Squinting at the map, and trying to summon enough of my nonexistent Spanish to understand the flea-size print, I decided he was right. He offered to drive me to Santa Elena.

“Three hours,” he said. Three hours was how long it was going to be until the next bus left the station for a five hour ride. But he was saying it would take him three hours to take me to Santa Elena. I told him no, and grabbed the handle of my bag and threaded my way through industrial streets to the bus station for northern destinations. I got there an hour after I left the hotel.

I could have walked there directly in 20 minutes.

I bought my ticket and went to sit in a cafe where I tried unsuccessfully to boot up my computer, had a bit of lunch. Eventually I sat next to a woman from Santa Elena who spoke nearly no English, a younger couple from Poland whose English was quite good, and a young woman with red hair the color of aged and lacquered copper. We watched each other’s bags while we went to the bathroom one last time.

When the bus pulled out of the station I was sitting next to the woman with red hair, 26 years old and from Holland. She was still a university student, and has been traveling for four weeks on a two-month trek through Central America.

She had already been through Asia on a similar adventure, one that took about six months and included riding on the back of a motorcycle for three days through Viet Nam, a trek in Indonesia. Now she’d snorkeled in the Caribbean of Nicaragua, was hassled at the border for not having a specific exit date and nearly denied entry, and like me, is looking for giant butterflies in Costa Rica.

I told them I’d once been on the road for nearly two years in the 70s. The young man from Poland lamented he had gone to work before he started to travel, now he is limited to two week stints. His girlfriend had a dream catcher tattooed on the side of her neck.

We rode for five hours through the low but steep sided hills of Costa Rica. My bus mate told me Holland was quite flat.

“I don’t like having an agenda, an itinerary,” she told me. “If you have an agenda, you don’t see something new, but who you already are. I’d miss so much.” I’d already used that line in a book, or I would have stolen it. She was studying social psychology, would probably teach others. She had been an art student, but could not find enough purpose in that.

When we got to Santa Elena after dark, she went to find a room at one hostel, I trundled off to find my room in another, where I’d called ahead. I’d decided that for the next couple of days, I wanted my own bathroom.

“Oh,” I turned around. “What’s your name?” I thought I’d at least like to know with whom I’d shared the ride and conversation.

“Cheyenne,” she said to me.

“Excuse me?”

“Cheyenne,” she repeated, laughing at the expression on my face.

I turned and walked away, knowing I’d never learn why a young woman from Holland who looked like she’d not seen a day in the sun with hair the color of copper had a Native American name.

After I checked in, I had dinner in Morphos, a restaurant decorated with giant butterflies.

Unforeseen changes

Surprises every turn. Over Christmas, a friend invited me down to Costa Rica. He’s down there at a newish job, had lovely things to say about the area, the country, and I’d always wanted to see it. He’s got a house a minute from the beach where he’s learning to surf, friends, and knowledge of the terrain. But I wasn’t sure if he really meant it or was just being nice, and I had things to do.

Oh yeah.

Then a couple of weeks ago, he reiterated the invite, and asked if I would assist his lovely and fun fiance to get there as well. We talked about logistics, he booked our flights, round trip for me and I’ll be gone for a month.

Oh, yeeaah.

As a result, I have an adventure in front of me, a new old dog waiting when I get back, days full of laughter and great company as she and I pull it all together for her life transition, I try to finish a book and maybe complete a major business transaction with untold but significant impacts on my own life.

Oh, yeeeaaah.