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.
Just saying...tmYo
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