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I’ve Never looked so forward to going down!

// January 1st, 2005 // 3 Comments » // Boquette, Panama

so i made it… I just wrote in my journal and am just going to basically copy that:

New Years Eve Day. I got up around 7 or so. it looked cloudy and rainy and i started to second guess my thoughts of climbing Volcan Baru today. I went to the grocery store and got some bread and peanut butter and some fruit… it still looked shitty out but i decided not to puss out. I hailed a cab to take me there ($5) though i found out there is a bus that only charges $.50 how nice.

The cabbie took me to within a mile or so of the start of the National Park. He of course didnt have correct change so i ended up having to pay an extra dollar… he assured me he would drop the dollar off at my hotel today… RIIIIGGGGHHHHT!

I started my walk up and was already tired by the time i got to the ENTRANCE!!! geesh… i downed half a liter of water (I only had 4 along). The total climb was 13.5 KM (8,5 miles) and the elevation went from around 4,000 ft to 11,600 ft above sea level… not too shabby.

It was honestly the hardest thing i have ever done that i can remember… both physically and mentally. There were so many times i wanted to stop and turn around… somewhere in the middle i was walking about 10 steps and stopping, wondering why the hell i was doing this!

On the way up, i met some kid from cali that had walked from the town… which is another 12 km or so… he thought he was already on the trail to the top… he got to the entrance and realized he hadn’t even started yet! silly…. to top it off, he had no food (besides some crackers) and NO water… what an idiot! i dont think he fully realized what he was doing… so of course i shared my food and water with him.

We walked most of the way together… he was in much better shape than I so at one point i had to rest and he went on ahead…. we met back up about an hour later as he had stopped to read a bit of his book.

The trail was shit. it was basically wide enough for a jeep to drive up… hard core 4×4 action though…i guess people do drive up it.. though they need to use winches and have beefy vehicles… i saw a 4 wheeler going up on my descent. There were a few walkoffs of the trail that offered some pretty nice views… but for the most part, it was just a trail going up and up and up. lots of soft soil, loose rocks, not very nice. my knees were, and still are jello… green flavor.

(more…)

sorry for the delay!

// December 30th, 2004 // 2 Comments » // Boquette, Panama

ok, sorry it has taken me a while to do an actual post… i dont like sitting on the internet when its nice out… its rainy now though and michael has left for panama city.

so we´re out of bocas… the people there are horrible. not nice, don´t smile, not friendly… though its very beautiful. another thing is, to get to a beach it was at least a $5 boat ride… which gets expensive after a couple days… we had a real nice hotel… well it was actually a piece of shit… just a room with about 6 beds or so… a couple rooms like that. we had a dock out over the water which was key though… plus it was a bit cheaper than the hostel…

the dock was facing north so it was in the shade most of the day… provided a nice place to kick it and play cards and drink out of the sun… we could swim right off of it as well. me and michael met back up with a guy from switzerland that we hung out with in san jose and puerto viejo…. small world of travelers down here, i see a lot of the same people in different cities. we also met a kid (Torston) from germany but living in Australia… a kid from washington, a girl from cali, a English guy… yadda yadda… all cool kids at the same hotel… a big reason why we ended up staying so long… that and we got lucky with weather… the other guys were there for five days before we got there and they had rain the whole time… we had one day of rain, and the rest perfect days… it started to rain again the day we left, good timing!

we had to take a boat taxi from bocas del toro to the main land… its sad, so many natives (and probaby some tourists too) litter… everywhere, but especially in the ocean… just shit everywhere… its sad… i cant imagine in 10 years! anyways… from the mainland, we walked about a mile to the bus station… some little kid pointed his cane/stick at us as if it were a gun and acted like he was shooting us… nice folks eh?

we got on the bus, well more like an oversized minivan… held about 15 people, and you can be damn sure they had all of them in there. we were to have about a 4 hour bus ride to David, Panama… well we went about a half hour and had to stop due to road work or a mudslide, i couldnt quite tell… they told us it would be an hour and a half wait… and for one time in central america, they were right on with the time…surprise… so we kept trucking… the ride was awesome, through mountains, then up through the clouds… we were up pretty high, unfortunately i dont know how high… but it was high. the sun was setting off in the distance, and you could see the huge volcano i´m climbing tomorrow (3300 meters tall or so) over 10,000 feet i think.

So we got to boquette which is a nice town… definatley not poor… kids have game cubes, there are nice cars, some big 4×4 trucks as you can drive to the top of the volcano if you have a beefy enough car… but i think they have to be pretty rugged and have a winch…

(more…)

we made it

// December 29th, 2004 // 4 Comments » // Boquette, Panama

i dont have much time, its already 1030 and we want to go for a hike for a few hours… we made it to boquette.. its up at about 4000ft above sea level… its cloudy and if the clouds lift, i think it would be insanely beautiful here. its nestled in the mountains and theres a river running through somewhere, we are about to go explore… the drive over was really pretty, the sunset was nice, there was some lightning and there is a large volcano as well…

my mom had surgery yesterday, so everyone send good vibes at her! it was on her rotator cuff (Cuft?)

well i will write more later…

leaving today

// December 28th, 2004 // 2 Comments » // Bocas Del Toro, Boquette, Panama

ok, we’re leaving bocas del toro today… we were blessed with 5 days of perfect weather and couldnt bring ourselves to leave these islands… the internet is cheaper in Boquette so i will write more there… death toll is up to 44000 already… what a disaster, Casey, any word from Aaron?