no hay olas.

we´re on isla colon, in Bocas. got in to Panama City late Tuesday and caught a plane up here wednesday afternoon - that was quite the ordeal, i´ll have to write a post just about that. there have not been waves, and we are going to hit up breakfast after this internet stop and find a taxi that will take us to the mainland. there we will hop on a bus that will take us to the pacific side, where we hear there will be waves. might be sloppy but we need to get on it. our plan so far is to bus to the water, find a place to rent boards and take it from there.

alexis did a great job pairing the three of us up for this trip. we all get along and we are all on the same wavelength when it comes to figuring out what to do. there are definitely opinions and priorities but nobody seems too hellbent on doing something that the other two aren´t interested in. it´s good.

turns out we chose to visit panama not only when there are pretty much no waves, but also during the one month where they celebrate 7 or 8 holidays. out of those, four are observed during the week we are here. they had halloween and today is the second independence day (one from colombia, one from spain). yesterday was day of the dead which is some sort of religious holiday. we spent a good part of the day on a boat tour going around the islands - only really stopped on cay zapatillas (national park, on isla bastamentos?) where the beaches were a beautiful white sand with an abundance of big-leafed trees hanging over the water. really beautiful, painfully hot. all the water here is green, turquoise and so shimmery. i couldn´t stop looking at it as we were cruising on the boat. stopped a few times for snorkeling which was fun but i couldn´t compare it to the aquarium of fish and life in hawaiian snorkeling. waterproof camera case was a successful buy and i can´t wait to get out on a board with it.

other fun thing we´ve found is the bicicleta rentals. spent a good part of thursday biking around the island, at least until morgan had it with her chain breaking and we were dehydrated. we were planning on biking about 14km up to playa del drago; thankful we didn´t make it there. had to turn around after nearly 4km (i think?) of biking in the moist heat - not to mention we had only half a nalgene of water between the three of us... smart, right? turns out that was a good move because we hopped on a colectivo bus and for $3 each we got a ride up there. it was beautiful and it felt oh so good to be bobbing in the bluegreen water. the road up there was full of hills and cut right through the land so it wasn´t too scenic. beautiful, yes, but not the same as looking out at the water and islands. and we would have been punching ourselves for having to ride bikes back. not the thing you really want to do after relaxing for a few hours and having a beer.

oh, back to day of the dead real quick. so we went on that boat tour, got back and felt like it was a good time to drink. went back to the hotel, showered up and the three of us finished off this bit of vodka we had in our room. so we´re buzzed, right. walking into town we run into alexis/morgan´s friend jeff, who we stayed with on night 1, and he tells us about this holiday. apparently you cannot buy alcohol all day. stumped. all the stores, all the bars, nobody is selling alcohol. we had seen a hostel out of town a bit the day before, so we rent some bikes and start biking out there. the sun is setting and it´s a pretty good time to be riding a bike. nothing beats the heat and humidity like a little cruising.

we get to the hostel and the barkeeper tells us he isn´t religious and doesn´t celebrate this holiday. we order up some panama cerveza (which is pretty damn refreshing, got to find me some back home!) and play some cards. we figure it´s still pretty early and another drink is in line, but our bikes are due back. remembering the broken chain of thursday, we order some bloody marys and a margarita. i don´t know what this girl did to the drinks but they were amazing. she put frank´s red hot in the bloody marys and ...wow. we kept playing cards but had to return the bikes. needless to say, that was a fun ride home. potholes everywhere, it´s pretty much completely dark save for the few street lights. highly recommend riding bikes at night in panama.

we managed to keep ourselves occupìed until midnight, when the drums started. oh!the!drums!!! watched those for 15 or 20 and found our way to what we think was the only bar open. it´s over water, with these planks winding their way around. no fence or way to hold you in, which i found interesting. so did these drunk people a few hours later, when we saw them tossing each other in. people just kept pouring in, i couldn´t believe how the floor didn´t cave in. we danced and got sweaty and came home around 4am. have i mentioned how nice it is to not have a watch?

walking here today we saw probably four parades under way. they are really big on the drums and horns here, i can´t think of when i enjoyed watching and listening to drums so much. snare drums, big big bass drums, drums i am not sure the name of. they have been practicing for these parades all week so we´ve gotten a fair share of seeing and hearing them. today was pretty cool though, all the kids are decked out in their matching outfits. the girls had some boots on that i need to find back home. i wonder if they use zappos.com down here?

gotta run to eat now. probably not interwebbing for another few days but this brings me up to date. chau!