Pedasi

Today was another travel day, albeit an adventure day on smaller and smaller transport.  I lounged out the morning long enough to let the heat build to its normal hammer-like state.  Finally seeing the flaw in this logic, I roused myself from my daydreams and packed up the gear.  Packing is sweaty work here.  Hell, breathing is sweaty work here.  With the faithful Deuter trussed up like a Christmas goose, I rinsed off one more time.  There  is a reason that none of my hotels have hot water.  What maniac would ever choose to use it?

I stowed my bag in the lobby and wandered out for a last coffee before setting out.  Who knew that The Tall Girl had her own cafe' in Chirtre', but there it was.

Coffee and pastry being the basis of any good travel plan, I did my best.  Sticky little bugger it was, but oh so good.  The coffee was, as usual, forgettable, which is much better than most of the coffee here, which IS memorable, but only for its vile nature.  Nescafe' has a hard share of the blame for the pox it has spread across this fair land.  I did manage a decent espresso yesterday.  In the GreyNorWet it would have been below average on a bad day, but here it was divine.  Ah well, I hear that Ecuador has a coffee culture and I am holding out hope for Colombia.

Cool and dry, I opted for the cheap taxi to the Terminal Herrera rather than the very sweaty walk.

As usual, the little buses were queued up with the destination names neatly painted on the front windows.  Traveling in a country that uses the same alphabet does have its advantages.  

So it was off for Las Tablas, the capitol of Los Santos.  I was dealt a window seat over the wheel well, always a bad choice in a full bus.  We headed out with the radio tuned to salsa, as is required.  At one of the first stops the last seats were filled, including the last row, directly behind me.  Now the salsa was mixed with The Posies cranking out "Zombie" followed by Nirvana's "Man Who Sold The World", which created a certain dissonance with the blaring salsa.  Muting of personel music devices is a custom that has not caught on in Panama.  The cachophany was overlaid with the effect of two elder Panamanian gentlemen who were stone deaf.  Their unfortunate infirmity led to a conversation conducted at a volume I did not know oldsters could produce.  The synthesis of all of this was one of an almost psychedelic noise salad. 

We passed through Las Tablas, a busy market town know for the best and most riotous Carnival in Panama.  I passed a little too far through Las Tablas, missing the stop for the onward mini-buses.  It was a minor mistake, only costing me 300 meters in the shimmering heat.   There was more heat as I sat on the mini-bus for Pedasi prior to departure.  It is a finely sharpened two-edged sword that forces one to chose between not having a seat on the vomit van or baking to death while securing that seat; guarding that seat as one's buttocks shrivel in the solar powered oven that a mini-bus becomes under the tropical sun.

Blessed Breeze!! as once more I was underway.  We were rolling across truly rural Panama now.  This is ranch and corn country, undulating hills with their jungle cover stripped away.  There are infant reforestation projects in place, most composed of efforts to convince the ranchers to grow hardwood trees.  These programs hope for a type of sustainable logging in the future.

The mini-bus veered into tiny hamlets, dropping pasengers and their supplies.  The rural folks seem to make regular shopping trips to Las Tablas via the bus system.  

Rattlling into Pedasi, our company reduced to a few locals and four foriegners couting myself, our driver started asking for destinations.  As she chanted the list of lodgings I heard the name of my first choice called out.  "Si!, Dims Hostal!"  Oh Luxury!!  To be dropped at the door instead of left on the curb like an orphan.  Oh Double Luxury!!  To have the first choice be the best choice.  I have a lovely room, a huge garden with hammocks, and a little ex-pat and surfer town.  There is just enough ambience to make food choices interesting without any highrise condos to spoil the view.  I am sure that development is coming, but such is not the fate of Pedasi today.  There are rumors of an operational airport in the near future.  With more than ten good surf beaches scattered up and down this section of the Penninsula Azuerro, change is a-comin'.  But not today Amigos y Amigas, not today.

Happy at the end of the day's travel.  And how about the photo perspective on that cigar, eh?  Only Bob the Claw or Senor Hansen could smoke a monster that size.  

Today is for relaxation and some serious food consumption.  Tomorrow is for bicycle trips to the beaches.  Ciao for now!!