estar en las nubes- to daydream...

I come from a line of daydreamers. My father told the story of why he left the Catholic Church when he was in high school like the 9th grade, not paying attention to the lesson looking out the window and just “daydreaming” and the nun had a yard stick, whacked him with it twice on the hands and head. He hit her a shot and walked out of school and never went back.

I was maybe 12 years old when he told me the story in the context of a moral story about how hitting is never the solution to a problem {unless it’s a crazy nun with a stick} it was the first time I thought about the concept of dreaming while your still awake. How cool is that? You just sort of gaze out there and let the mind run with it. I couldn’t get my 12 yo brain arms around it so I just did it. Four years later I began to give it some philosophical thought time and since it was the end of the Beats and the start of the 60’s, daydreaming took on new scope and sometimes our mind would run all the way with it.

I’m doing it again now that I’m in the last quarter of my life cause there is much more time estar en las nubes. The mind doesn’t run with it anymore as it just sort of wanders. You have time as you are running out of time and the most pressing things are basic survival skills and the beach. To dream during the day like little brain naps now and then. Think about it. { or don’t, let me do it for you and you just wander and wonder} it’s not like you are unconscious in the dark where you might dream or not. You probably can’t remember most of them and you can never, never, get right back to it and pick up where you left off. There is no On Demand in your brain at night and that’s OK with me as I’d rather do it during the day when you are right in the middle of the shit. Sitting on the beach at Red Frog with binoculars in my hand not looking through them, just looking off. Daydreaming about when I remembered my first beach. When was it? Where was it? Just wandering and wondering. Now I know what my da mean’t and have given some non daydreaming time to it. We know the mind’s edge can get duller as we age but the daydreaming time still stays sharp I think. I mean how many old people do you see that just seem to daydream with a smile? 

 I try to write in the morning while it’s still cool, the end of the noisy monkey night {why do you think they call them Howlers?} and there seems to be more time available before the sun demands following at the beach. Estar en las nube, to daydream. This took 2 1/2 hours to compose and I counted four wanders. Nice way to spend some time. just sayin, TMyo...

Crossing the line...

When you cross borders down here it can be quite the event ranging from pretty easy if you are in an executive coach company that will take care of the border crossing by getting all the paperwork done when you board, to crossing the line on your own. It also depends on which line you are crossing and which way you are going, seriously it’s different going from Costa Rica to Panama then from Panama to Costa Rica The line between C.R. and Nicaragua is border crossing chaos with people everywhere, policia, transito policia and coyotes { the horde of money changers}. People leaving and coming, coming and going and people not going anywhere. The coyotes  are like fleas with a big wad of notes in one hand and the coyote calculator in the other. One gives them currency from one country and they quickly do their numbers on the calculator and show you the exact sum that they are happy to give you. Except most of the time the cc is fixed so that they are actually giving you 10% less but they show you the all mighty calculator like  electronics don’t lie. Bancos are a pain in the ass but at least you get a valid rate. Be prepared to walk though the coyote crowd ready to throw out a “largate” "piss off" to the most ardent currency rat.
The most important part is being drogas and dinero clean. no drugs, no shitload of money and no false bottom briefcases. The crossing from Panama to C.R. has a lot of scrutiny. Now I’m not stupid so I always make sure when I cross any line that I’m the perfect law abiding citizen whether it’s crossing the line into Northern Ireland or back into Costa Rica on the way from Panama. A dozen passengers on Nature Air’s godawful early morning flight to San Jose from Bocas and I was probably the oldest person on the flight and definitely the one with a shitload of tattoos. We landed at Tobias which is the redheaded {sorry Katy K.} stepsister of the internacional aeroporto. There were the officials waiting for this little plane with 4 policia, 4 customs and a dog and handler. Now I know HST is gone and wasn't on the flight but I has just finished reading Cocaine Nation as I have ranted so was pretty cool about the whole thing and ore concerned how I was going to get to Jaco and confidently innocent. We single filed to immigration while our bags waited for us to bring them through customs. the young handler had the dog all over our luggage and I start looking at all the other passengers trying to figure out who is the big narco smuggler bringing shit back from Bocas? Then the dude brings the dog over to us and he lets the dog go around my legs and then between them. I don't make a move for the dog, no nice little pero pat just ignore the dog. Now I'm a clean line crosser so I'm getting a little pissed that this is silly and is it because of my tattoos? I'm just an old guy traveling on the road and having a ball so don't profile my ass. Through immigration adn the my backpacks and bag through the xray machine and now it's wait a minute let's look in your stuff. They look at my little Buddha which has a hole in it's terra cotta bottom and the dude's trying to figure out if it's a pipe or something but then they strike pay dirt or at least that's what they think. They find my 66 year old guy with medical issues like high BP, arthritis and start questioning me about the meds. Uh oh, pain meds, pain meds that I got over the counter in C.R. from the hospital and Dr Mandosa for legit reasons. OK maybe I had more than he prescribed but they were over the counter so wtf? The world stopped, three more officials showed up and 'm just trying to get to Montezuma which they affectionately call Montefumar so it's sort of like bringing coals to Newcastle or a hooker to a whorehouse. "No,no,no you can't have these senor unless you have a prescription!" So I whip out my Mass General Shoulder center letter from the chairman of the department stating the I'm basically a one armed paperhanger on narcotics so it's OK, si? No I wind up opening my shirt, showing them the scar splaining that you hand the Rx {prescription in pharmacy/medical talk} and they give you the meds and keep the prescription paper. You fucking dolt! But I didn't say that and then finally after the dog had another go around with my stuff they must have thought this poor old gringo is so lame and the head {no pun intended but he had a huge one}custom policia said that he will let it go this time, like there is going to be a repeat of this farce? Off I go to Jaco to party for the night and then the sloppy boat ride to MZ.
Five days later I go into a small plastic carryout bag that i had put my concentrated laundry soap and shaving cream in and in the bottom of the bag is the little plastic envelope that a friend had given me in Bocas with a small bud for Red Frog Beach one day. Holy shit, dumb dog and lucky guy, who didn't know he crossed the line when he crossed the line. Just saying. TmyO...

Lost and found...

Ginny told me that there is a room in heaven waiting for you with all the cool shit you lost during your life. I think there are two rooms for me. Some things are lost and some things evaporate, gone with the wind. Francis Woodman Cleaves my wonderful Buddhist teacher who wasn’t told me the Sanskrit word Nirvana mean’t fwhhhht, with the wind. I spent four hours last night way into the early morning writing a post that has to be written while I'm on the road this winter. Another great night on the road with new people and Rosie the musician/flower girl/storyteller from Bocas showing up and the ink in the blagh pen was rum. It was a long post and there were notes and tears and it was pretty potent stuff. The blogger automatically saves a post every minute so you don't lose everything if the power goes out {it does in fits and spurts daily it seems} or the Internet goes down {constantly}. It seems the only draft not saved was the last one and it hurts. I opened my soul about the purpose of this trip and waxed poetically into the night and early morn. Then the Internet went down and as it went down the post went up to my lost shit rooms. I was a little pissed but then I realized like giving my stuff away before I left, like losing my glasses and hearing aid to a thief in Bocas, it's just stuff. I'll never get those words back and the post was truly the highpoint of anything I throw up here but maybe it was just an exercise, an editing opportunity and when I finally get the post done it will be even better. Or it won't but like stolen shit, when it's gone it's gone and we have to learn to let go. All that happens after the loss is just more messing with your life and losing time on the road by feeling angry, hurt, bad, pissed off. Time away from where you is.
So that's the lost and now the found. It never balances out in life as one seems bigger than the other but this time the found outweighs the lost. While walking down the killer hill to town an ATV went by with a dude and a chica on it and the chica waved and I thought they were stopping to let me hop on so I hoofed it toward them but with a wave off they went like they were screwing with me. The holy shit light bulb went off, it was Rosie the musician/flower girl/storyteller from Bocas. This shit happens all the time on the road whether you know the person or recognize the face, many peeps show up again on the road. Rosie is on her way to Nicaragua to visit her brother and then back here to MZ for the NYE madness. We spent some time listening to some musica and then had dinner catching up on the post Bocas time. She is staying with a friend and she is not singing yet as her throat is still bothering her since Bocas. She still did her thing promoting herself, promoting live music, why places should pay musicians and meeting peeps who may want her to play when she comes back.
Later while waiting for a taxi, watching the night build at Chico’s the center of the Montezuma universe I met Mike and Mimi as I was doing a shot of Cafe Patron. Shared the extra half shot they give me now {bad news, more friendly bartenders} with Mike and he bought the next round. They live halfway up killer hill and have been coming here for years from Oregon. Their house is in one of the most incredible MZ spots with a panoramic view of the ocean high up with no neighbors and just primo. They told me if the red gate is open come on by.
So let me see, I lost an incredible post, found Rosie again and a couple of new peeps in MZ. I guess it’s all OK cause after all it’s just the game of lost and found. Just sayin, TmYo...

Made a list and checking it twice...

Riptide Bar
Red Frog Beach
Cocaine Nation rant
Once and awhile one of those times happens when you are on the road...
The German and the Italian
Breakfast Club
lulas
Canadians, sushi Bars and Rosie the storyteller...
So this is what I said I would get to once I recovered from Bocas Day and here it is Montezuma time and haven't even done Bocas Day yet. So in the interest of being tru dat and hanging out watching the ants go everywhere the rum has been {which if the ants are a GPS, the rum has been in a lot of places, of course my head could tell you pretty much the same thing}.

• Riptide Bar- a stranded old fishing boat that will never leave the dock again and as long as there is electricity to power the bilge pumps which along with the expat customers keeps it afloat. They are the bar with the sign out front that says, "wicked clean Ice $1.00". It's called the old man's bar and it is. A bunch of expats who are living like many others {could be me if I'm not careful} who everyday are there spending the retired time smoozing, drinking and opinionating. Sitting and observing, winding up there pretty much everyday for a pint or a cherry bomb {cherry vodka and RB} ONLY because it was four minutes from Lula's where I was staying but never the last stop at night. These are boat peeps either still or before. Florida and Texas and Saturday college football is a burner. Where I learned that the private kids school in Bocas is the only place where the Christmas Pageant has an open bar and a bunch of the dads can be found sharing a joint. The kid who owns the bar got it from the previous owners who went through a nasty divorce where she owned the land/dock and he the boat. So he took the boat away and it sunk at a dock somewhere in Panama. the judge mediating the divorce apparently was a fan of the boatbar so he ordered the dude to bring the boat back and it wound up with the new owners.
• Red Frog Beach- a 15 minute boat ride from Bocas town on Isla Bastimentos and a beautiful beach with good surf and a great beach bar. Yes and the wonderful little red dart frogs that if you spnd the time on the edge of the bush you will find them sitting on a large leaf with a little safe bit of water in it. If you don't want to spend the time you can give the chiquitos a Balboa {$1} to take a picture of the frog they carry around in a folded up leaf with the little safe spot of water. For three days I paid the boys $3 to let the frogs go in the bush and told them to get another frog so it didn't screw their little cottage business and didn't fuck the frog up too much. Like every other part of this trip there IS a bar involved and they make a $2.50 version of Poon Juice. Mi amigos Miguel and Angelo kept me suitably cool in the Isthmus sun many days and more to come. Came out here with Britta and Serge who were staying at Lula's and became my local traveling buddies. More on them later.
• Cocaine Nation Rant- my #1 Portsmouth homeboi told me to read Cocaine Nation, How the White Trade Took Over the World by Tom Feiling. I would strongly urge at least every thinking adult in the US to read it. One of the most well researched and footnoted tomes I've read and if you read it, no matter where you stand on the issue of drugs, you have to come away with a lot more information than you ever had. You will realize the futility and total waste of money devoted to the hopeless war on drugs. If you think Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq are expensive and frustrating, hang on to your hats. Stunning and informative. That's all the rant time I have now but being here on the road in Central America and having been in Sud America it pisses you off what the United States has fostered and how we throw money in the wrong direction. Just sayin...
• Once and awhile one of those times happens when you are on the road- I will admit right up front that the day was definately alcohol fueled in the sense it started with a bloody at a socially appropriate hour {at least Bocas time} and ended with me falling asleep in the hammock on the veranda at Lula's at midnite watching a lizard lick either orange juice or rum from the lip of my glass. In between however it was one of those times you get once and awhile if you are on the road. A totally Bocas bliss day. Red Frog with good boogie surf and rum punch. Stopping at the edge of the mangrove to watch the sloths in the tree and if I had the fucking internet here in my new temporary place {didn't call it a home} I would at least Wiki the seven deadly sins an tell you which one sloth is. They hang out in the tall trees eating leaves and you can start to look for them if you see pieces of leaves falling out of trees. On the way back in Don Choy's boat we stop and watch the dolphins break, snort and fin back in the water. Had to head to the store to get some water {agua en Panama=probably the shits. I would say Montezuma's revenge but it doesn't happen here in Montey where I write}. Stopped at Riptide for my new friend Bloody Mary and then off to dinner at Raw Tokyo sushi bar which has to have it's own post because of the influence on me coming back to Bocas. Just the best little place and one of the best hang outs I have ever had on the road. Dinner with Brittany and the boys and girl is an evening of botique sushi, Lychee martini's, shots of Seco {rum based grain} Argentinian sax chica and joy. On the walk back to Lula's walking by the handicrafts stalls with the ubiquitos bracelets, anklets and stuff I heard musica and followed it to a stall where a chica was singing and playing acoustic guitar with four older guys sitting making appreciative percussion while she sang. You could have been in Havana if you closed your eyes. Some of the hostel horde gathered and sat on the sidewalk listening as this young woman named Rosie from Barcelona played the shit out of musica de Espana. She then handed her guitar to another guy {Alberto} who just ripped into two tunes and then he handed it to this older dude and I mean older then me who just chilled the night out ala Buena Vista, Afro Cuban Allstars style. Alberto is passing around Seco to the players and as I was recording he gave a shot to me. I met the Barcelonoian, Rosie, then moved on to finish the walk at Mondo Tattou hostel for a car bomb with the bartender which seemed to have become the last stop some nights. As we're doing the car bomb Deadmau5 Strobe comes on. A favorite to say the least. I figure you can't top this day so I take the short walk to Lula's, grab my rum and oj from earlier and settle in the hammock in the quiet of the Bocas night and as I fell asleep there was the lizard.
• The German and the Italian- going back to the people you meet on the road post and how it is always so interesting when you meet peeps who were made to meet, the German and the Italian chef are two prime examples. Britta and Serge were on holiday from their home in Berlin and became such good road friends and companions for some of the previous posts. They wound up going to Riptide on their own then with me to Mondo Tattou and Red Frog beach bar and Raw Tokyo. Serge was a student of Britta's in a German language class and apparently not the best student. They both spoke German and Italian and Britta wonderful English. Serge and I talked through Britta but we both spoke the same language of friendship. He is the chef of an Italian restaurant in Berlin and she facilitates education/training and sheparding Italian dudes through the guttural German language.  If there are two people I could go on about it would be these two. I miss them.
• Breakfast Club and Lulu's- I have to say that the middle group of people at Lulu's were such good travelers on this road. Let me say if you are going to Bocas stay at lulu's. Location {four minutes from Riptide, a short stumble home] and a wonderful breakfast with four to five of us there. Britta, Serge, Clayton, Cheryl and later Brian, Bralee and a great couple who age and deafness and bad note taking has put their names in the blank bank. If you look at the FB pics of the going away party they are the couple in front of the mural. He is the one cupping the breast and she is the breast. We had a great time. I can't leave this without talking briefly about Meghen and Grant who were minding the store for the owners of Lulu's. They are the shits! Perfect hosts to enjoy synergies and smooth awkward moments of anonymous people becoming nonymous {such a word?}. Grant runs the Bocas Surf School and Meghen and their rescue Jack Russell Ozzie ran the world at Lulu's. I look foward to being back there in a couple of months and I would be happy to call them friends. Too much too late to get into much detail but I don't know the owners of Lulu's and as far as I'm concerned these two are Lulu's, B & B's, sustainable ecoculture, surf and compassionate peeps who saw a little dog and cared. 
• Canadiens, sushi bars and Rosie the story teller- Clayton, Cheryl, Brian, Bralee, Kyle, Melissa and Brittany are the Canadians. Raw Tokyo is the sushi bar and believe me they will get their own post and Rosie the storyteller is the Barcelonian guitar musician who made wonderful little colored foam flowers with each color a story of someone on the street she has met while playing around the world.

Apology for the long post. If you made it to the end of this try ibooks.

Just saying...tmYo

For someone who is balance impaired this may not be the best idea...

So I moved into the cabin in the bush in Montezuma {actually manana but went there first when I got here}. The boat from Jaco was the usual rolling ride with some aerials every now and then. I sat forward in the sun and took the first aerial landing with a good wave wash. I was saline soaked walking up from the beach toward where I thought the cabin is but of course did not have directions and was relying on last winter's info from a resident that it was up the hill a little way. That hill goes on forever and the little way is like 3km I think. With 2 packs, boogie board and roughly 80lbs of pack weight I slogged up and up and up and up. Sweating and now dirty i must have looked like Sisyphus, eternally damned or at least damned at the moment.

"As a punishment from the gods for his trickery King Sisyphus was made to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. Before he could reach the top, however, the massive stone would always roll back down, forcing him to begin again.[4] The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus Himself. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration. Thus it came to pass that pointless and/or interminable activities are sometimes described as Sisyphean."

I seriously started to worry that it could end on this hill in heat exhaustion so I did stop halfway and drink the water I had left. Neil Young lyrics popped into mind when I wondered about the image of me collapsed still in my packs.

"Old man sitting

by the side of the road

With the lorries rolling by,

Blue moon sinking

from the weight of the load"

I started up again and was at the point when I was slogging one slow step at a time and a truck stopped and gave me a ride up the hill. The dude said he stopped cause it looked like I was going to die and a man my age should stick his thumb out. they gave me a ride to the top of the hill and left me so on I trudged with no idea now where I was going. I stopped after another half Km I think and decided to thumb back to town and then it started to rain, not hard but rain. Pack covers and poncho but I knew if I tried to walk with the poncho on it would be a quick sauna death. For an hour I thought about how this was such a shit day and where it was in the shit day index in my life. It stopped raining and the same peeps came back up the road and stopped asking what the hell was I doing. They still didn't know the name of the place but when I mentioned the name of some guy someone who spoke no english mentioned he said they would take me there. 

The cabin had just been vacated and Windy wasn't around so I looked at the place, wondered if this was all a good idea and maybe I should just go back to Bocas but figured I'd lie in one of the hammocks for a bit. It didn't take long to hear and see the jungle life right in front of me and listen to the nothing but natural sounds to realize that it would be OK. Smelling like weasel shit I put the packs back on, left the boogie board and case and went back out to the road to hitch a ride, bus or taxi. On the way back to town looking at the road and hill I knew it would get me sooner or later if walking was my mode of transport. Bus is infrequent, taxis could be a cost going into town twice a day and a bicycle was not going to be a much better option with that hill and gravel road. I checked into the same place I stayed in February and after a shower, two chilled shots of Cafe Patron, two coronas at Chico's {so much more on Chico's later} and dinner I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night consumed with the idea of getting a cheap dirt bike to make the daily trips but not the one at night after Chico's. 

Several of my peeps before I left expressed concern about me being on a Puch or a scooter let alone a dirt bike. Rightly so perhaps for someone who has had a couple of concussions, taken flight down stairs with a head injury, getting hit by a car and having a cerebral infarct at some point. Occasionally I lurch and now pretty much am tethered to a boogie board where there isn't too far to fall. Balance impaired is appropriate. 

I bumped into Pia who I surfed with last winter and hung out a little bit with him catching up and mentioned the dirt bike idea and whatdyathink? He's selling his. When I laughed about being balance impaired he said just go faster and it stays straight.

Looking for a cheap 100cc bike. 

"Wild old gringo going straight down the road"

just saying...tommyO

Hand job or pulling strings...

Tried to send a message to a friend today and thought I lost both the message and this post and then the Internet went down and lost it again. The third time that I have written and seen it go away but somehow got it back to both. Now that I'm in Montezuma with roots for a couple of months it's time to get serious about how how this shit works.
 So it's time to come out in the open and let you know that I have been hiding something for a long time but life is free and and reckless now so I don't care if you all know {all six of you}.  I have been a closet puppeteer since 1953 {I think}when I got a Howdy Doody puppet {pulling strings} which I wish I still had $$$$.
"Howdy Doody himself is a freckle-faced boy marionette with 48 freckles, one for each state of the union (up until January 3, 1959 when Alaska was admitted as the 49th state), and was originally voiced by Buffalo Bob Smith.[2] The Howdy Doody show's various marionettes were created and built by puppeteers Velma Wayne Dawson, Scott Brinker (the show's prop man) and Rufus Rose throughout the show's run.[3] The redheaded Howdy marionette on the original show was operated with 11 strings: two heads, one mouth, one eye, two shoulders, one back, two hands and two knees. Three strings were added when the show returned—two elbows and one nose."
I bought two hand/glove puppets {hand job} last winter in Montezuma and anyone who came to the house have met Montey & Zoomy. If I had two more hands we would already have done a threesome but with only two, someone has to watch. Scary shit if it's me! So part of this winter is making it happen. I've spent more time researching {my way in projects and life it seems} than puppetry but it feels right in the groove. Shared the idea with the Lula's legion and the Raw Tokyo team and they dig it.
Have some peeps looking for a space in Bocas Del Toro that can be both a small living space and a performance/gallery space to spend some time over the next couple of years working with puppets cross pollinating with music, spoken word and image both still and moving. There are a number of resident musicians there and seems like others who roll through Bocas or will when my old homebois and grrlz want to go somewhere in the NH winter. I spent a little bit of time with a mask maker in Bocas and he is interested in carving masks for real body puppets as well as trying 4/6 string marionettes. I'm in Montezuma and trying to find the dude that made my two hand/glove puppets and hooking up with a couple of peeps to do something on New Year's Eve. It will be the first performance for Montey & Zoomy's Teatro Titeres and it's called, Titeres Playa or puppet beach. Doing it on the beach with fire dancing, musica and titeres {either glove or masked human puppetry}. I've been working on this idea and this piece and have even applied for membership to Union Internationale de la Marionnette which has huge global network of puppeteers. All you have to do is spend a wee bit of time in the Cloud to see how big puppetry is. My hope in Bocas is that besides with the schools it will catch on and become a puppet/art space for people to come to. Supporting the Puppet Slam Network and maybe even getting some peeps from the Ballard Institute at UConn to come down and participate and perform is part of the dream state. I hope to do a piece before I leave Bocas and move there in October and get rolling. Would you expect anything else out of me? just saying...tmyO

Spinning with Spinoza...

"All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of man that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts toward these very objects; for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit the laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden. He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it."
Baruch Spinoza, Political Treatise, 1677

just sayin...tmyO

It's Bocas and it's gonna be Bocas Day...

Dudes and ladies I have to tell you this and only this right now that this town is sweet and this day is the day. {a lot of this's I know}. Right now it's 0115 and there is a band on the grandstand and another to follow. Already had a lot of drtummers, baton chicas and a whole bunch of Bocas peeps, Bascimente peeps and all the peeps from Bocas Del Dragos, Isla Zapitilla and the rest of the archapeligo. They are all in for Bocas Day and I can only start to tell you until I recover on Thursday. It is tha shits. This is the fourth of July Bocas style and if parades from 1000 until 2000 are not enough, try the serious community party that follows. When I recover from the Day I will update the crazy ass shit that has been tracking this trip. Such as:

• Riptide Bar
• Red Frog Beach
• Cocaine Nation rant
• Once and awhile one of those times happens when you are on the road...
• The German and the Italian
• Breakfast Club
• lulas
• Canadians, sushi Bars and Rosie the storyteller...

At the moment the street is thick with celebratory families, chicas, dudes and policia and it is all so good but not the time to do this as it is a picture taking day tomorrow. So Britta and Sergio will be gone, Rosie is here with flowers, voice and instrument so we will be spinning some "merde de blagh" arpound Thursday. TmO...

¿No oyes ladrar los perros? {don't you hear the dogs barking?}

I've been hearing the dogs barking since I got here. It started the first night in Bocas when I stayed at El Limbo {from the Latin word limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the "edge" of Hell and appropriately named} when the dog next door barked until midnight and started again at 0700 as I have already ranted about. There are a lot of dogs in Bocas as there always are when perros voy a hacer sin proteccion. The little Jack Russell at Lula's will run to the gate and bark his disapproval of one local dog and there always seems to be at least one dog barking. They are lucky they are running in the streets of Bocas and not Korea or they would wind up in "BoShinTang" ( Dog Stew). Even though I could have had that un-Buddhist moment with the dog at El Limbo, unless it's a Tofu Pup, it's not a part of my world.
It reminded me of the barking dogs in Belfast Northern Ireland. In the Nationalist communities like Springhill and Andersontown the neighborhood dogs would bark at the British military patrols when they came through the neighborhood, every time. Never once did a dog bark at me when I walked through both communities. The late Fr. Des Wilson a wonderful PP {parish priest} and a staunch defender of human and civil rights in Northern Ireland told me that it was a signal to the community to be on alert when they heard the dogs bark. When I commented that it was probably the uniforms he ventured that the dogs were good at smelling oppression said with a hint of a smile.
Of course I'm not letting you off that easy without pondering why dogs bark at each other or voice anger opposition to oppression. The second most common reason that dogs are brought to shelters is incessant barking. A big part of canine behaviourist practice is the control of barking. Even the type of bark has been studied by someone on a research grant from somewhere:

• Continuous and fast barking, at a medium pitch: Alert. Problems. Some is entering our territory.
• Continuous and slow barking, at a low pitch: The intruder or danger is close. Prepared to defend itself.
• Fast barking with pauses every 3 or 4: Warning of a problem approaching. Asking you to investigate.
• Long and drawn-out barks at a high pitch, with pauses between each one: I'm alone and need company.
• One or two short high pitched barks: The most normal greeting.
• One bark normal pitch: Curious, alert.
• Short back in a high pitch: Shows surprise. If it's repeated twice it means "Look at this!" If it's longer then it calling. Many dogs use this when they want to go out.  
• Brief bark, at medium pitch: Happiness.
• Faltering bark at medium pitch: Asking to play.
• Howl or short bark at a high pitch: "Ouch!" Response to sudden pain.
• Repeated howls and regular intervals: Suffering from extreme pain or something that scares them. 
• High pitch or urgent barks that sound desperate, without apparent reason: It is a way some dogs use to let out steam.

I obviously look this stuff up and don't have it sitting in some corner of my brain because if you know me, you know that most times I don't even know where my keys are.
The thing that I couldn't find anywhere and leave you to ponder;
Do the dogs in Bocas bark in Spanish? Just wondering, TmO...

Things you might see while lying in a hammock...

• palm trees swaying in the wind
• Frigate birds suspended in the wind
• vultures sitting on a pole
• a coconut falling
• people passing in the street
• hummingbirds fighting for the feeder
• flowers
• a duck crossing the road
• the ubiquitous yellow taxi
• a cat
• children playing
• neighborhood dogs
• clouds passing by
• time passing by
• no reason to get up...

People on the Road-dos

You find people in all sorts of places and some are in that great location. "least likely". Wandering around Bocas looking to eat I find a sushi place Raw Tokyo with a funky menu for a veggiemate. Little place with a Rastafarian Itamae although he would say that he was more a Shokunin, someone just skilled at a profession. Trust me he is an Itamae as I have eaten there three of the last four nights and both taste and presentation qualifies him for the honorific title. The place is owned by a 23 year old chica from Toronto who came to Bocas five years ago and loved it so much she came back and opened her own business. {remember my comment about going somewhere and filing the memory for a later time?} She has been open for six months and I think she is going to do well. Tener cajones for any 23 year old to start a business let alone in a foreign country. My second night there drinking sake and Lychee martinis, she said she had entertainment which turned out to be this wonderful Argentinian chica sax player Julieta {hoo-lee}. We drank Lychee's and talked and she also has been in Bocas foe a bit playing around leaving only to do other Panama gigs and studio work back in S.A.
It made me think about the saxophone and it's inadvertent influence on my life and relevance to this whole on the road thing. The Beat Generation spawned this road and sitting here in Bocas at Raw Tokyo I understand how the sax tuned the Beat Generation and Kerouac even titled a novel Dr Sax although it wasn't the instrument he was referring to;
"The eponymous Doctor Sax, also part of Jackie's fantasy world, is a dark, but ultimately friendly, figure with a shroud black cape, a inky black slouch hat, a haunting laugh, and a "disease of the night" called Visagus Nightsoil that causes his skin to turn mossy green at night. Sax, who also came to Lowell because of the Great World Snake, lives in the forest in the neighboring town of Dracut, where he conducts various alchemical experiments, attempting to concoct a potion to destroy the Snake when it awakens." Yeah, Iknow, heavy shit! Read the book.
Watching her play her alto sax I could see that the sax was an instrument of romance and passion. You hold in in your hands close to your body in almost an embrace using a reed which contours to the lips. So unlike the trumpet that requires tight pursed lips with outstretched elbows {I am generalizing I know as I have seen Miles Davis play and he made love to his trumpet} and is an instrument for war in some hands. No cavalry charge has ever been led my some dude on a horse playing the alto sax!
Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins and Lester "Prez" Young would never had led a charge to battle. The sax, the instrument of passion and poetry has been the background music for more people fucking than dying.
Even though you didn't ask:
the saxophone is a conical bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. It was invented by Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax in 1841 and he showed his first creation, a C-bass {not the Chilean type} to Hector Berlioz {now there is a name to drop}. In 1842 Berlioz published an article in Paris Magazine 'Journal Des Bats' describing the instrument.
I went back last night for more sushi and more entrepreneurial and creative chicas and will listen to sax music and drink Lychee martinis this night as well. And did I mention that I will go back tomorrow night for Raw Tokyo's big event with all the sushi, sake, Lychee Martinis and sax sounds you want? Some great moments and some great people on this road. Just sayin, TmO...

when is it time to travel?...

Anytime is the simple answer but not always the practical one. Before I left NH when all my peeps were so tired of the "Tom's trip" story, some would express envy and wish they could do the same. I would tell them and anyone that you can be on the road even if it's only one week a year. Save dinero and pick a place where you would love to be and go. Stay your time and then file the memories for some future date in time when you have the freedom or space to be on the road to go back to that place. That's how I found Montezuma and that memory brought me back last year for a week and is taking me back this year for 2 1/2 months. Whatever holiday time you get spend it somewhere that stokes your fire and be me for a week.
We have times of responsibilty and times of necessity but never should we have times of waste. Someone said that I retired in my twenties and then went to work in my thirties and now I'm seriously retired in my sixties. In the midst were my times of responsibilty and necessity, even though the same someone would question the responsibilty part.
Young or old which way to go? I say both because they share the same romance but differ in approach. The spirit of the road I have now is the same as I remember it was then except now there is more consideration for the physical part. The old fart on the road syndrome where you try to carry a lighter pack {not the case here with the pack everything cause you never know boy} and tend to be more judicious about your route with that pack on your back. I'm still going to bungee jump in Gracea Costa Rica but I'm going to take a bus to get there instead of hiking up. I have my siesta now that I didn't have the need for then and of course I pee a lot more than I did then so long bus rides have added urgency. I love the fact that the spirit is still the same, same heart, older frame.
It's not so much the timing as it is the execution. Whether you're on the road when you're young or old, the important part is being on the road.
"Salvatore “Sal” Paradise and his new friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his care-free attitude and sense for adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to explore all kicks, and an inspiration and catalyst for Sal’s travels." Find your inspiration like Sal did with Dean in On the Road and find that person in you, who like Dean, is "tremendously excited with life." TmO...

Bocas 1...

You wouldn't think that the sun tan kid would want to be in a place like Bocas with the funky weather it has. On the Caribe coast it has rain everyday and cloud cover a lot. people here will tell you and I confirm it after a couple of days, that if there wasn't the cloud cover it would 95 and humid. You sweat anyway and it is not unusual to have breakfast outdoors with an early morning sheen of sweat. It's ok because all the other gringos do the same so you don't look any different and somehow that makes it ok.
Sitting on the second floor veranda at Lulas watching the rain and the hummingbirds at the feeder and pairs flying thru the balcony it doesn't matter that there is rain because there is plenty of time. It's not like a vacation/holiday of two weeks where you feel that the weather is stealing valuable time when it rains or there is no sun. I have to remind myself that this is a trip. Last winter was a holiday, this winter a trip and next fall a move. So the rain doesn't interfere and the sweat doesn't matter cause this is Bocas and this tri[p is five months long.
Bocas town is the center of the archipelago but the other islands are the charm. The national refuge and places like Red Frog beach are stunning. The mode of transport here to the islands are boatmen who will take you anywhere for low money. They either pull up to the landing or they pick you up and drop you off everywhere on the water. On land it's either walk, bike or one of the madly driven yellow taxu trucks that are everywhere and for a buck you can go anywhere in town. The roads were paved two years ago so now you need to be careful if you are not in the taxi as you may be a target.
Bocas reminds me a lot like Belize was years ago. It has it's own pace and that pace is slow. The people are lovely but the pace IS slow unless it's a yellow taxi. Having dinner will not be a quick experience and you have to learn to slow down. My kids would tell you that Bocas is an unlikely Papa stopo because of the slow service, sweat and bugs. The bugs are everywhere from the no seeums to the mosquitoes which can be brutal. Besides being obnoxious they also can be dangerous as the two types of skitos carry malaria and yellow fever. The Tiger mosquito or the anopheles carries malaria and the the Stegomyia mosquito vector, which is the yellow fever mosquito {now more accurately named Aedes aegypti}carries the Yellow Jack or Yellow Fever. I'm taking anti malarial meds because of the time and places I'll be in Panama. Funny that the name Malaria is spanish for bad air {mal aria} that was so named because tha's where people got it, from the swamps and marshes. Over 22,000 people died from Yelloow Fever during the French attempt to build a canal through Panama I asked me pcp if there was any side effect from the quinine based drug and he said there was only one, pyschosis. That's one of the reasons you start it the week before you leave, to see if you go nuts. Hmmm. Let's see, malaria, yellow fever, Dengue fever and Typhus, ok so now instead of smelling like Ralph Lauren Romance I smell like 100% DEET which only side effect is I might grow a second head. TmO...

people on the road 1...

Bocas-
I often have wondered if there would be a chance to meet the people you meet on the road if you weren't on it? On the road gives you the opportunity to meet others on the path who have either taken a holiday or have taken the time, the one way ticket crowd. People with a plan with confirmations or people with an idea and no confirmation and the only plan is, go ahead. Had breakfast this morning with two peeps from Arizona who were doing the isthmus and Sud America. Lucas and Charlene had been saving for six years, got rid of most of their worldly possessions, took a leave of absence/quit and hit the road. Like me they had a plan for Bocas but no confirmation and wound up here at Lulas. They are one way tik peeps and going to see S.A ending in Rio for Carnival. Planning the sail from San Blas to Cartegena and on the road down to Patagonia and up to Brazil. They also wandered around Bocas looking for a place as I did during a holiday weekend, going from hotel to hotel with no confirmation and no rooms. They got the last room here at Lulas the day before I got here. If I hadn't wanted to play another day in San Jose {was that a song title?} I would not have stayed at the El Limbre in the center of town which was overpriced for what it was and with a dog next door that barked til midnite and started again at 0700. If I had found that dog there would have been a decidedly non Buddhist moment.
Others on the road afford you the ability to find out of the way places and hot travel tips that Fodors and Lonely Planet won't like a cool place in Puerto Viejo Costa Rica that will be my first stop after Montezuma on the way back into Panama. It's a different world today than it was back then bu the vibe and the people vibe is the same. TmO...

On the road

If you know me you know that it doesn't really begin on 03/11/11. It began 42 years ago when Paul and I hit the road to see what was out there. Paul, aka the Rocket man, left this journey 25 years ago, too early and with miles to go.
"And I think it's gonna be a long long time
 til touchdown brings me round again to find
 I'm not the man they think I am at home
 Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man"
So life finds me where I am today on the road again and living it the way it is.
This will not be a journal as I packed eight unfinished ones and know that the gaps between entries can be long.
But boy can I tell stories so that's all I will do because all of the roads we take have stories.
I'll write down the bones with experience not composition being the driver. I'll apologize in advance for the grammar and spelling mistakes but not for my own.
And as the Irish say, if that wasn't the way it was, that's the way it should have been. TmO...