Panama

I have a friend back in the States that worked with me for a while, a very nice guy. We used to eat lunch together all the time and talk about random crap. He is originally from Panama and before I left, he told me his family could help us with the crossing between Panama and Colombian (the infamous Darien Gap, a royal pain in the ass if you ask me!). A week or two before crossing into Panama, I got in contact with his brother, Giovanni, and he told me over the phone that he would give us a hand with the crossing stuff and that we should stop by when we are finally in Panama. After crossing the border (I don't remember now if it was an easy crossing or a hard one) we stopped in the town of David, where they live. I managed to call his house phone and talked to his mom. He was not at home. While we were still deciding whether to continue toward Panama City or stay there for that night and try to contact Giovanni again, we went to a supermarket to get some groceries and things that we needed. Suddenly, a guy approaches me and asks: "You are Mr. Uribe, right?". It was Giovanni, that after coming home and getting the news from her mother that we were already in the city, went ahead and started looking for us. Now, David is a small town, so after driving around for a while, he saw our camper in front of the supermarket (I'm sure there were no other campers in the town) and found us there.
Giovanni and all his family were great and treated us as if we were ourselves part of their family. We called my friend Paul in the US and talked to him for a while and made him jealous because I was in Panama drinking beer with all his friends and family, hehee.

The very first day we arrived to David, Giovanni, Bobby (a really good friend that I actually met a few years ago in the US) and his wife Ana took us to a town called Boquete, where we went to a pub and had a few beers and talked. That town was really pretty and apparently many tourists go there to climb the volcano and also do other activities.
We parked Cubby in front of Giovanni's house (well, his mom's house) and stayed there for the first couple of days, until Bobby invited us to spend a few days in his land, which is about an hour from the the city, going towards the volcano.
We had an amazing time there with Bobby and his family, and had cookouts and tons of fun!

The view from Bobby's land is also amazing! It is at the border of a cliff that falls all the way down to a gorgeous valley that also has a big river running through it!

In total we spent about 3 days there, and Bobby stayed with us the whole time. Among the people I have met in this trip, Bobby is one that  I won't forget. He went above and beyond to be a great host, even when Giovanni had other commitments and couldn't join us every day, and Bobby was also there to help us with anything we needed.
We spent the last night in that area in the house of a friend of Bobby's, knows as Colorete. We had a cookout and the next morning we came back to David and got ready to continue. Unlike what my friend Paul told me months before, they were not able to help us with the shipping, so we were on our own for that.
Giovanni had invited us to a traditional Panamanian party several hours away from their house, towards Panama City, in a town called Las Tablas. As it was kind of on our way towards the big city, we agreed to go. We convinced Bobby and Ana to come with us, so they took their car and we took Pichula and Cubby and left.
After many hours we got to Las Tablas and we found the house where the party was taking place. Giovanni had already talked to a neighbor and asked him to let us park Cubby in his front yard for the night.
The party was in a huge house where the day before they had killed a cow and when we arrived there more than a hundred people were gathered there to celebrate! They had meat hanging out in the sun in long strips to put later on a grill.

Let me tell you my friends, this is by far the HARDEST meat I have ever tried in my whole life!!! A week later my jaws still hurt from trying to chew and eat this meat!!! Even Bobby told me he had the same problem!

Anyway, the party itself was amazing, and we also had stew that we could actually successfully ingest. We heard the traditional "Cantaderas", which are songs led by one singer, where the whole chorus, hopefully more than 5 people, repeat a certain part over an over, as the singer continues with the story of that particular song. It was awesome and after a few hours there I also became part of the chorus, adding a bit of deep bass to it.
I was even officially asked to play the bagpipes for everybody and I was very surprised to see that pretty much everybody left their table to come hear me play. Pretty much all of them said that they had never in their lives seen or heard a bagpipes being played live and in front of them. They were all surprised by how loud it was and pleased with the poor music I could still produce after so many months of not being able to practice during this trip.

At night the party took a new turn and it got more lively for the ones that were still there and planning on staying there until late and party (and drink a lot of course!)
The musicians started playing faster music and people started dancing as well.

 

 

Finally, at around 3 am I was done and went to bed, and Bobby and Ana soon followed as they were staying the camper with us that night. It was a great party and I learned a lot about the traditional music of that area and also about the costumes of the locals.
The next morning we said goodbye to Giovanni and his lovely mother and thanked them for everything they did for us while we stayed in David and Las Tablas. I am thankful to them for making our stay so pleasant and for teaching us so much about Panama. Bobby and Ana continued with us to Panama City because they have a daughter there, also called Ana, and they wanted to visit her, so our story with them is not nover just yet, but that is for the next post.