Day 18
We had meant to leave Portobelo that day, but for a bunch of reasons, complicated and otherwise, we decided to stay another night in Portobelo. The only inconvenience was that we would have to change rooms, as ours was reserved. No big deal though. We didn’t have a huge plan for the day, but I figured we could explore the coast east of Portobelo. I figured we could get a bus to take us basically to the end of the road and we would figure it out from there.
We waited for the bus for an hour before taking a break to walk to town for more of that awesome soup, plus some coffee and a coconut treat. We walked to the edge of town again to wait for the bus, but after another 45 minutes we decided to give up for real this time. Pretty much right after that, as we were walking to town, we saw the bus pass us by. Cool. What losers.
So now we started to wander through town again. There was a large community bingo game happening in the middle of one street. We also walked through one of the old ruins of the San Jeronimo Fort. The decaying cannons poked through gaps in the wall, pointed out toward the bay. It was fun to explore, but kind of swampy. At the far end of it some kids were fishing off the top of the wall. The rain had subsided, but it was hot and so humid. We went back to the museum to cool off a bit, then waited an hour for the bus to take us back to our hotel.
Wandering around Fuerte San Jeronimo, the fort on the eastern side of town.
Some kids fishing off the fort.
We discovered why we had to change rooms. It was Friday, and people were coming out to the coast for the weekend. Our room was now occupied by a corpulent middle-aged man who had Pauly from Goodfellas vibes and his gaudy wife. They were with Iris, the sweet woman in charge of things at the hotel, grilling animals worth of meat on a little portable barbecue on their porch. The man was doing some serious work on his bottle of Chivas Regal as he scarfed down ribs and sausages. It looked like this was kind of their weekend routine. We kind of made our spot close to the beach and ate sad sandwiches and sipped little cups of rum. Later that evening a group of younger people, maybe mid-twenties, arrived with a cooler full of beer and meat, and a barbecue for grilling. As they were cooking their meat one of them came over to us with a plate of tortilla chips and nacho cheese and offered it to us, just saying “snack”. It was pretty cute and we were grateful for the thoughtfulness. They looked like they were in for a long night, but we went to bed soon after. It immediately start to pour rain and I wondered how the rest of their night was.
Day 19
So now we finally had to leave Portobelo. We were trying to make it to Isla Grande, an island just off the coast about 15 miles from Portobelo. We waited next to our hotel for the bus. The first bus that passed us did not stop. The inconsistency of the public transport was getting a bit frustrating. A woman in a car pulled off to the side of the road next to us, asking if this was the Ofiuras Hotel. I confirmed it was. “Where am I supposed to park?!” She griped. I just shrugged, kind of glad I didn’t have to deal with a car, even though we were at the mercy of spotty public transport.
A bus finally approached and we made big gestures to wave it down. It stopped, and we ran to jump on. The bus was pretty full and was blasting reggaeton. In my memory there was some sort of colorful party lights going on, but it could just be my brain adding details that weren’t there because I just remember it seeming like a party on the bus. There were people of all ages and (most) colors on the bus and everyone seemed like they were in a good mood. There was a group of young men (maybe even teenagers) at the back who were openly drinking. In fact they looked like they had been up drinking all night. The whole bus seemed a bit sloppy, but fun. After we sat down, I noticed that they were speaking about us in Spanish, wondering where we were going. Eventually someone told the girl next to us to ask us in English, assuming we couldn’t communicate in Spanish. “Where are you going,” the girl asked. “La Guira,” I responded. A grin crept across her face. I heard titters and whispers around me. “La Guira. La Guira! JaJa.” The girl corrected me “La GuAira.” Eventually the whole bus had heard that I had said “La Guira” and everyone was lauging and repeating it. I felt like I was in a nightmare. What did La Guira mean? If I had to go by everyone’s giggly tone, I would guess it was something kind of dirty, but silly. The young guys at the back couldn’t stop drunkenly repeating “La Guira, La Guira.” I started out feeling like I was kind of laughing with them, but when I felt like I was just the butt of the joke, I started to get pretty annoyed and self-conscious. I tried to find out later what this word might mean, and it was either meaningless or meant just a different, fairly innocuous word. I don’t think I will ever understand why it was so funny. Halfway through the ride, our bus was stopped by a military checkpoint set up at a bridge. Everyone on the bus got quiet and seemed kind of nervous. The driver turned down the music. A soldier boarded, exchanged words and documents with the driver, looked around a bit and then waved us through. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled away. I wondered what was up with this bus. I mean, Other buses in this region of Panama had had party vibes, but this one was a bit extreme. Why was everyone nervous about the military checkpoint?
When we arrived in La Guaira, I asked the girl who had been sitting next to us, how much we owed. She looked a little surprised and spoke to someone else and they said $5 each. I was surprised. I knew it should be less than half that. Then I realized that we weren’t on a normal public bus at all. We were on a bus rented by a group of people to take them to the beach for the day. They had just picked us up like hitchhikers, but had probably never assumed we were going to pay. So when I asked how much we owed, they decided to take a bit of advantage of the situation. I gave them half what they asked and they were fine with it.
We walked down to what looked like it may be the port and asked for a boat to Isla Grande. A very bleary-eyed drunk guy approached us and said he could take us. The island was really close and the price he offered was good, so I didn’t worry much about his um, motor skills. After he dropped us off on a pier, we immediately got lost, which, I still don’t know how we did that. The island has like one path, but we just couldn’t find it for like fifteen minutes. We were just wandering around quiet buildings and the edge of the forest for a while. We dropped our stuff off at our hostel (checkin hadn’t started yet) and went on a walk around the island.
A monument to Black Jesus in the middle of the water.
The main path only went along one side of the island. It was less than 2 km long. There were a lot of empty and seemingly abandoned hotels along the way. It was the low tourist season, so it’s possible some were just closed temporarily, but others looked completely deserted. I wondered if this was a result of Covid or just an abundance of misplaced optimism in the growth of the tourism industry. The path took a steep, slippery turn up to the old, rusty lighthouse and cell phone tower. The path continued downward, past the lighthouse and stopped with some kind of monument at the end of it. I would never know what the monument was, because as I tried to reach it, a dinosaur-sized spider, who built its web across the path, tried to kill me. It pretty much ruined my life for a few minutes. Before that, we had had pretty good views of the surrounding Caribbean though.
Some sort of religious shrine next to the path.
We walked back to the main part of the town and stopped for a beer and a swim at a beachside bar. Then we went back to the hostel to check in. The place was one of these funky hippy hostels that has lots of greenery, hammocks and murals painted on every wall and pillar. It’s the kind of place that I can’t stand for its lack of authenticity and rejection of the real world, and at the same time end up at all the time. This one, however, was a bit different. It was the same as those other Monkey Jungle Rasta Hostels owned by Europeans or Americans in that it cocoons itself in the same colorful decor, cozy floor-based seating, hammocks and animal-themed frescos that makes you feel like you could be anywhere from Thailand to Guatemala to Zanzibar. This one, however, was spotless, quiet and had lots of rules. The woman who showed us around explained in detail all the instructions about not entering with wet clothes on, the quiet hours and shared-kitchen etiquette. It resulted in a very calm and clean atmosphere, but it also made me extremely self-conscious about my general Pigpen vibe and generally uncomfortable.
We went to the main beach and there was a party atmosphere. It was definitely a weekend spot for Panamanians who were looking for a cheap place to hang out with friends. There were a few food stalls and some people had brought speakers. It was a bit dirty, and there were big piles of garbage at the edge of the forest behind the food stalls. While I was swimming in the water I watched as a stray dog walked right over to my towel and bag and peed on them. Cool. Nice. I love traveling.
Back at the hostel we made a dinner of beans eggs and tortillas.
Day 20
We woke to heavy rain. It was nice. It gave us an excuse to have an extremely lazy Sunday morning. I cooked the rest of our eggs and beans and we had a nice little brunch. Then we just spent the rest of the morning reading in hammocks. As much as I cringe at this style of hostel, it was pretty much the perfect place to spend a rainy morning doing nothing. But maybe that’s why I don’t like these kinds of hostels. They put so much effort into making it comfortable and the center of attention that it makes it easy not to leave. I always hated seeing people spending all their time inside the funky hostel instead of in the place that they traveled across the world for.
When the weather cleared up a bit, we went back to the main beach. It was almost empty when we got there. We decided to try and explore the area around the beach. The beach was mostly surrounded by forest, but there were a few little trails that penetrated it. The first path, which hugged the coastline, stopped after a couple hundred meters at a closed gate to a some kind of bougie little guesthouse. It was closed though. It was unclear if this was a seasonal or permanent closure. We walked back and took another trail that went away from the coast and upward toward the interior of the island. The path ended at a small, depressing cemetery. Not depressing because it was a cemetery, but because of how unkempt it was. Many gravestones were damaged or off-kilter. There was a lot of debris strewn about. Not really a place I would like to end up.
Back at the beach, it was kind of a bummer. It was Sunday and people had kind of trickled off the island for the weekend. The weather was gray and drizzly. The atmosphere was gone. We still swam around a bit and tried to enjoy ourselves. A weird thing happened. Other than us, the other last couple on the beach was French. Then a boat arrived and dropped off a whole tourist family. They, too, were French. So suddenly there were no Panamanians on the beach, but exclusively French people. It was kind of a weird way to end the afternoon.
We headed back to town, looking for a change of atmosphere. We found a little bar on a pier with hammocks. So we sipped on beers in hammocks on the edge of the water. Who can complain about that?
Then we went to get some dinner. I had scoped out a local’s eatery with good prices earlier, and had even confirmed that they would still be open at 6. It was like 5:30, but they were closed already. We walked around trying to find any place that wasn’t a fancy restaurant, but everything was closed. Even the shop where we had bought eggs and tortillas was closed. The only food we had left was some bread and hot sauce. We were going to have to do something I really didn’t want to do: Ask Justina, the woman running the hostel, to borrow some of her eggs. She had an entire flat of eggs in the fridge. Justina was nice, but the vibes she gave were a little unapproachable and I felt at times that this was kind of like her house and we were just staying in one of her spare bedrooms. When I asked for a few eggs, promising to replace them the next day, she didn’t seem overly enthusiastic about helping us out of a jam, but agreed anyway. So the rest of the evening was egg sandwiches, mangos and more hammock time.
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