It been a long time in the making and someone finally bitched at me to finish or better continue the blog, so why not!
a hole remains in Bocas del Toro, returning to the normality of life, of David, and the final twists and turns of this magnificent journey.
Lets start from Bocas del Toro, first of all its an island which isn't easy to reach, specially if you're a group of 4 guys and a girl with a van full of stuff you don't trust to leave behind and a tight wallet to boot.
We left the Naughty in a parking lot after much debate on whether we should pay as much as a car and whether we should leave the keys or not.
At the end we settled for leaving the keys and not paying more. A kind of modest sacrifice.
The boat ride is packed with foreigners and isn't gentle. Its akin to a bus ride in Honduras, except I imagine the suspension is even harder here. You bellow at full speed across some pretty amazing crystal blue ocean and weave in an out of small caribean islands. Finally you reach the main island of Bocas with its colourful main street and buzzing life.
We decided to start scouring the area for a place to stay and after being brought to some ridiculously expensive extorsion centres, we settled for a centrally located Hostel called Heike.
Now Heike is a great little place, run by friendly people who seem to be just more tourists passing by who decided to stay a little longer and eventually got a deal whereby they run the place and the boss turns a blind eye to their complete lack of dosh.
The first night we headed out to find some fun and ended up meeting a whole bunch of fun, drunk and interesting people in Heike s sister hotel, Mondo Taitu.
After piling up the drinking buddies we headed over to several other bars which all appear to have been built on the water and designed to help backpackers, balancedly challenged from alcohol, to fall into the glittering abyss...
Short of damage to our livers and much ado about nothing, the first night passed by with only mild casualties and a pretty bad hangover which was made all the worse by one of the worst burgers in history at a massive 4 dollars!
Moreover in the delirious drunkness of the previous night, we seemed to have scored the friendship of a Valentian of dubious sexuality, which apparently had also been invited to join us in the Naughty in our trip to Panama.
Natually when the alcohol wore off and the reality wore in, we found the error of our ways but couldn't for the life of us understand which one had committed the fatal mistake of extending the invitation to the connational of the magic 3.
Natxo seemed to believe I had invited him and seemed pissed by the fact that he was a "pesado", David seemed frustrated at the idea that someone was entering the van without consulting him, and Roque seemed to just get over his hangover.
Biancas as usual was bucholic and didn't seem to care particularly.
We decided to set out for one of the famous beaches, and, one quick taxi drive later, ended up in what is probably the lamest beach in the carribean.
Not only was the beach filthy and the water dirty, it also seemed to contain some kind of animal/chemical/algae that would sting your sking like shit whenever you went into the water.
Fortunately a bloated, round hide of a dead cow came to help and we engaged first in a footie match between us, and eventually attracted the attention of the local youth who promptly organised a footie match.
Now, the team was the 4 of us and Biancas, but due to centuries of inbreeding and basically being ignorant dicks, they decided that a woman was unworthy of their spectacular football field (we were on the beach) and the Biancas couldn't play.
Having been brought up by an Irish mother with whom my dad, my brother and I have a hard time keeping up, and with a dad that was travelling a lot for work, I felt that my female parent would probably kick my ass back to the early 80s if I let it slide.
So for the first time in 2 months I showed the best of my italian polemic side and told Biancas to ignore the generations of inbreeding talking to her and to try to break his ankle at the first chance.
Biancas tho was having none of it so she simply retired to sunbathe whilst I insulted the parents of the sexist fool, who were probably brother and sister anyway...
The game was like an unfair videogame. The first team of kids played and were small, weak and defeated. Then came the late teenagers, who were stronger, faster, better and defeated with more difficulty.
Finally came the beheamoths, those who do nothing all day but play footie on the beach and who are big, strong, fast and more than all, evil muthas...
There was much bone cracking, and eventually we retired to drink, read and play some volleyball.
We decided to head ack to the hostel and prepare for night number 2.
The night was a wierd one indeed. We ended up in a beautiful bar called Barco Undido, the sunken boat.
Its effectively built around the sunken wreck of a boat, and it is a true deathtrap for drunken tourists. That night David managed to convince a 34 year old mother-of two that the way to win my heart over was to grab my crotch repeatedly, and Natxo began his being stalked by a Chilean connational.
Of course it was a night of rhum, fun and blurred memories, which ended up with some looking for private rooms, and others trying to chat up a couple of locals at a burger stand at 5 in the morning in a desperate last attempt to get lucky.
The next day again, there was much toxicity to be gotten rid of, so we headed to the beach once again, and this time we got it right, we hit playa del drago and playa de la Estrella. Here we saw what the Carribean is really like.
Playa de la estrella is so called for its huge number of starfish lying just a few feet beneath the crystal clear water. If that weren't enough they slowly move between corals which resemble flowers and spunges.
The sight was simply too beautiful to ignore, so we rented some scuba diving equipment from a cute 17 year old (whom naturaly we tried to chat up) and hit the water.
Towards the end of the 2 hours I was diving quite far out when I see a kid jumping into the water and swimming as fast as he could towards me.
Naturally the first thing you think is that you're gonna get eaten by sharks, but not this time. As the kid gets closer, I notice that he is swimming towards some dolphins, swimming just a few meters away from where I was.
The water was murky so I never got to see the slender creatures dance in the absence of gravity, but I did get close enought to almost touch them on the surface and to hear them click and sing.
Sitting there, with the sound of the dolphins in my ears, the beauty of the beach in front of me and a clear sky above me I thought this trip would never end.
That night we once again hit the nightlife of Bocas del Toro together with some newly acquired friends. The party this time was across the bay on a bar built on poles above the water.
The night was amazing, with Natxo being pursuited by a Chilean stalker, Roque falling in love with a Brasilian/Portuguese and David and Biancas just being allover ingenious in they demonstration of alcohol consumption.
Half way through the night we moved from the bar to a ship in the harbour and as the ship sailed around in circles, we partied and danced till dawn.
It was ironic to discover that one of the girls we were hitting on was the mother of the 17 year old who has rented us the snorkelling kit, I guess we're starting to get old!
We once again returned to the quietness of our slumbering hostel-room companions to discover that a new girl had joined the room, and that the next day we were bound for an extra dose of Argentina & Carribean.
We decided to hit a miniscule island which is in reality a natural reserve. The island is tiny, it takes about 40 minutes to get there and you have to pay to get onto it.
It takes a full 20 minutes to walk around the coast and most of that is spent evoiding fallen trees. It is basically a pile of sand with trees in the middle. We landed there with a group of 5 argintinean girls and just relaxed under the scorching sun before wading back out to the boat and heading back.
The final night was amazing, whilst the others decided to embrace their Pimp and Gangsta egos I sailed down the well known road of dressing up as a nerd with undoubtable results. Roque subjectes me to the worst possible attack of fits of laughter when upon awaking I found him overlooking Bianca's bed with an open shirt, a disgustedly hungover expression on his face and the remains of a painted beard on his face and cross on his chest. My friend I will never forget that!
So was the adventure over? Almost, we finally left the island and made our way down the country and to Panama City. The trip was long tho and we decided to stop on the city of David. I was driving, the sun was setting and we were looking for the hostel when we arrived at a crossroads.
The sun was blindingly low so I never noticed it approaching. I slammed on the Naughtie's breaks and she stopped firmly but smoothly. The guys in the back hardly noticed. What they did notice was my face turn deadly pale.
You see, as we approached the crossroads a truck was coming in the other direction and it was towing a damaged car. When they saw us arriving the driver panicked and slammed on the break. The car being towed was tied to the truck using a steel pipe, and this made it so that the bonnet, which had only been laid on top of it, fell off with much rattle.
At this point the driver of the truck went to inspect the damage. I had stopped a few meters before our stop line, so in no way was I responsible, although the driver didn t seem to agree. I was wondering what to do (ok I was in total panic, my brain shut down and I was shouting at the others "what do I do? what do I do?"), and I decided to move from the middle of the road. i turned the corner and parked the Naughty. At this point, the driver started walking up to my window with the steel bar in his hands and my bubble just popped. I completely frieked out, at this stage David, Bianca, Natcho and Roque got out to talk to the guy whilst I sat there shaking in terror and smoking a fag.
What followed is one of only two things I regret missing of the trip (Mofletines, the other being Jerry's explanation on the beach on christmas night :P).
David, Natxo, Roque and Bianca started first apologising, then apparently confusing him with technical/legal babble. But this is just hearsay, I'll never know.
Eventually the guy decided not to use our van as a ramming tool, or us as doormats and drove off. I relinquished the wheel and sat in the back whilst we drove out of David as we deemed it would not be too safe to stay.
Over you say? Well no :P See with the Naughty the adventure never ends. We arrived in Panama CIty and decided that the day before I left we would go see the canal around 3-4pm when the ships were passing through. Before that we just chilled and I went to an internet cafe to copy some photos and burn a few cds. As I was there I checked my email and discovered that I could check in for my flight for Rio the following day. I had my passport handy so I decided to check in.
I go through all the process then I get a warning at the end saying "please remember to present a valid picture ID and yellow fever certificate when checking in"
Yellow what?... wtf?... oh crap...
I run out, down to a travel agency which confirms that I need a valid yellow fever cert to travel to Brasil, but no ado they say, it needs to be dated 10 days before travel to be valid... shiiiitttt!!!
I run back to the Hostel, I enter the room when David, Natxo and Roque are and speak the works that before me have come from the space. "Guys, we have a problem!" which translated to "I'm screwed".
So Natxo proposed we go to the airport and speak to someone on the local medical staff.
Three hours later we had picked up two canadian girls we met in Bocas, spoken to half the staff in the airport, discovered the prices for flights to Colombia, yet were still a certificate short.
We did however have the address of the National Vaccine Center for Panama. We decided that worrying was pointless so we met up with an old friend from Mexico I met in Maersk and his lovely wife, had some food, then Natxo, Marie and I hit a rock bar and had a few shots of whisky. In an ironic conclusion to the trip we ended up in this unknown bar, sitting beside one of the first guys we had me on the trip in Guatemala. I left them chatting and hit the sack, although the risk of not getting the plane the next day kept me from getting much sleep.
The next morning I woke up early and Natxo, Roque and I hit the Naughty after bidding Biancas and David goodbye.
We drove up and down the city looking for the bloody centre and finally found it after 2 hours at 9.30 am. My flight was at 11.30 which means we had to be at the airport at 10.30 and it was about 30-40 minutes away so we were running on a thin line.
I had reheased my lines well, shaven to give me more of a baby face. I entered the room of the doctor and started reciting my play
"They stole my bag" - true
"I didn't know I needed the certificate" - true
"You have to help me" - true
"If I miss this plane I'll have to wait 10 days and I'll miss a flight to paris, one to ireland and then one to italy" - true
"I had my cert in the bag" - not very true at all :P
She looked up at me with a stern face and said "I'll help you if you help me..."
An hour later I was eating a sandwitch in the airport with Natxo and Roque, my bag was on the plane, being weighed down by a yellow fever certificate, but my wallet was 40 dolalrs lighter.
I smiled at this and as we gobbled up the last few chips I realised that this trip was over, but another one was about to begin.
This is probably the only thing that kept me smiling as I bid Natxo and Roque farewell and I waved that white beauty of the Naughty rumble into the distance.
A new trip was about to begin in Rio de Janeiro, the city of cities, but I smiled at the knowledge that sometime, somewhere, the Naughty Adventure would continue...
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