Into the Valley

On the way from Boquete to El Valle, two mountian-bound Panamanian retreats for big spenders from the City or imported from abroad, we spent a day dehydrating in David, charmed for the first time in Panamá by real grit and bustle and knockoff goods, cantinas and the omnipresent odor of piss and drunks hurtling invectives in flailing attempts at English. Truly cheap eats too, platters of rice and beans and that-gristly-carne-that-you-really-have-to-work-to-gnash-into-swallowable-bites for under $2. David, a transportation hub and Panamá's second largest city at some one hundred thousand and a handful inhabitants, has a beatiful, modern parque central centered around a fountain, well-lit at night and with benches aplenty for necking couples. Car dealerships and American food chains dot the city's outskirts, more evidence of the money that surrounds in the nearby highlands.

At the David bus station, Calvin decided just before the ticket counter to make his escape, heading back to Costa Rica for surf or a French girl or, in an ideal world, both. We exchanged quick hugs and professions of brotherly love and then Jackson and I disappeared, via a Panamá City bus, toward a split in the Pan-American highway where we were to be deposited roadside. After too few hours of air-conditioned bliss, we were hailed by the aisle-stalking bus attendant, "¡El Valle!" Off the bus, we ambled across the highway to the paint-peeling concrete shelter where various people awaited transport. A microbus passed but we were denied entry, large bags and all, as as many as possible of the waiting crowd jammed into the already overcrowded microbus, two men hanging entirely out of the bus, hands gripping the luggage rack bars running the length of the roof, feet jostling for position in the two foot doorway. Only twenty something kilometers of mountain road to go, sure to be driven in typical blind-corner-cutting, limits-of-engine-endurance-testing fashion. So Jackson and I stepped back to wait again, rejoining the small crowd of remaining Panamanians who hadn't even stepped toward the speeding death rocket -- a ticket to hell where severe overcrowding makes even the trip toward demise uncomfortable.

Before a microbus with empty seats materialized and, though we'd soon picked up enough people that seats were crammed with four butts each, with up to three men crouching near the exit, we were always able to shut the door. So, by Central American standards, hardly crowded. And then we arrived in El Valle, which is a town situated inside of a volcanic crater. A town surrounded, three hundred sixty degrees around, by forest-covered thousand meter mountains. At sunset, or when clouds and the bright sun casts shadows, it's especially intoxicating. Throw in a few $0.50 Balboa's sipped on any grocery store's front steps -- yes, the cashiers offer to pop the top off your bottle immediately upon purchase, though the police are liable to confront you upon sight and inform you it's illegal to drink in public...confusing, I know -- and, well, it's a slow, easy life. Gazing at gorgeous scenery, running down winding, forested lanes spotted with gated properties every few hundred meters, flowers in full bloom. Bikes are the preferred mode of transportation in town, and there's usually a traffic jam of them pitched on the ground, leaning on kickstands or against a column in front of every grocery store's front doors.

Jackson and I read almost all day long, pausing every few hundred pages to walk to our adopted eatery, a cheap comida a la vista establishment (Cafe Bambú), to run, or grab a Balboa or three, sometimes a pint of Estrella Azul ice cream. We watch NCAA basketball in an out of place sports bar, where, with the exception of an exceptionally flirty and touchy gay millionaire -- he liked to slap hands and squeeze shoulders after his every agonizing attempt at karaoke -- and a motivational speaker -- who name-dropped and quoted his bank account on a by-sentence basis -- we were the only customers for two straight nights.

Yes, life is slow. So slow that this morning, while I waited for Jackson outside of the local panaderia-cum-internet cafe, ignoring the two dogs circling my legs, I suddenly felt a stream of warm liquid splashing down my calf. One of the dogs had taken position behind me, lifted his back leg, and claimed me as his bitch.

This one might offend the parents

Strolling Boquete's streets in the brisk evening chill -- hoodies up, each with one hand stuffed in a pocket, the stiff, exposed five fingers wrapped around another in a series of Ron Abuelo, ginger and Cokes -- our conversation took a sharp mountain turn toward the hypothetical: "Alright, so the first person to put it in her butt gets $20 from the other two." (Take a deep breath. Count to 10. Do you really think we're turning anal-intrusion into a competition?)

After a moment of contemplation I continued, "But no lies. You can't claim butt-breaching if it didn't happen, OK?"

Calvin, midstride, lowered his glass, "Pat, of course. I mean, we're all gentlemen."

A handful of plodding steps reverberated in the lifeless street as we considered the claim before laughter plenty raucous to scatter circling ghosts and lurking mice swallowed the calm.

There. That moment is an accurate encapsulation of how Calvin, Jackson, and I have passed the days since reuniting in San Jose: laughing to the point of tears, enjoying ridiculous circumstances or inventing nonsense -- usually in the form of streetshouted R&B or (predominantly) inappropriate catchphrases coined and then converted to website form, i.e. Justlookinforahole.com, Tryintogetmybeanon.com, etc. -- around bottles of rum.

Another source of amusement: According to a Boquete-dwelling expat who may or may not be on the lam from US law enforcement and, regardless, fulfills every requirement for "dirty old man" (On marriage: "Two twenty-year-old bitches are better than one forty-year-old"; On hobbies: "If you wanna freebase coke once a year, that's no problem. Just don't start smoking crack."), our central park-fronting hostel is a constantly surveilled front for a drug-dealing operation. That Pancho, our hyper-agitated, speedspeaking host, is a surefire crackhead, and that his wife is a listless downer of downers who townspeople call "The Zombie". All of which supports the suspicions Jackson raised immediately after our first encounter, a manic Boquete everything-you-could-possibly-ever-want-to-do-around-here session in which Pancho decimated with pen swoops and swipes and illegible writing, in the excited spazzy manner of a kindergartner fueled by Pixy Sticks (or, hell, just crack cocaine), an initially unmarked map that emerged appearing poorly executed abstract art.

And last night, when a scattered-looking Pancho burst into the kitchen crowded with dining travelers and asked me if I could go ahead and pay for the day. "Por supuesto," I replied, handing him a $10 bill. "Te voy a trear tu cambio en veinte minutos," sputtered Pancho, who summarily scurried out the door and down the street, either seeking change somewhere that didn't include any of the many open businesses within feet of our hostel or going to score $8.50 worth of straight rock.

Observation Station

• Many Central American habitations, constructed with slanted corrugated metal roofing that doesn't contact or close the walls seperating rooms, invite you to share experiences with your neighbors. Like flatulence and sex. It's tempting to press one's perversity onto those victim-of-circumstance (aka construction) neighbors, aiming questions at the walltop gaps between rooms: "Hey, I'm having trouble hearing. Could you be a little louder?" Or, "Hey, can I watch?"
• There are more chickens clucking across Central America than blades of grass bowing, or leaves blowing, in the breeze. As such, it was only a matter of time before I decoded chicken behavior. Have you ever watched chickens walk? The way their heads jab forward and jerk back with every step? Like a bully in your face trying to get you to flinch, over and over and over. Chickens, armless and Napoleon-complexed, might well be walking around spitting serious attitude, each and every bucking headsnap corresponding to harmless threats sparking in their soon-to-be-snapped-off skulls, strings of taunting WHAT!? WHAT!? WHAT!?s, STEP STEP STEPs, or BRING IT BRING IT BRING ITs.

Then there's the post-transcribing realization that all of these cute obersavations are a lot funnier in the moment, under the influence. Ahh, well...

Chronicles of the sandmen

Costa Rican and Panamanian costs have driven Calvin, JL and I into the kitchen, where surplus bags of dry (or Lizano-flavored refried) beans and white rice and whatever fresh flourishes we compile at the market meld into Lizano-heavy gallo pinto, accompanied by requisite bricks of crumbly, salty queso blanco, surfboard-cut lengths of platanos maduros, and tortillas. If you look closely, you might glimpse half a yellow-green beauty of an aguacate tucked between the plate-obscuring piles, puddles of yellowish liquid-fat pooled in the valleys between foods indicating our newfound fondness for frying and liberal interpretation of "splashes" of cooking oil. "Um, dude, how many cups are in a splash?"

For breakfast variation and vitamin-recovery; sometimes you'll catch me halving cantaloupes to hollow with a spoon, or hefting a bag of tree-ripened mangos whose peels have captured the swirl of tropical sunsets.

La Fortuna's Discoteca Volcán Look, two years later, again treated me to some dance floor tongue-twisting, this round courtesy a thirty-one-year-old Tica with a decade-erasing smile. Besides the transmission risk of herpes and mono, all harmless fun. Seeking surf and sweat, we made our way to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, where balmy beachfronts and grimy drug-runners hosted us for three nights, though our superlative hostel, Los Sueños, afforded us all the comforts of home. Palm trees and sea breezes (carrying that potent, ever-wafting Caribbean scent), tumblers sweating concoctions of local firewater and cola. All at ease.

We crossed into Panama at the quiet Caribbean border post, boating to Spring Break 2009! in Bocas del Toro. Bocas is another tourist haven, at the moment brimming with Spring Breaking universitarios from across the US. So we partied, shook off hangovers to watch the first day of NCAA Tournament action, and made our way back to the mainland, where reasonable pricing still hovers far above that of the Central American heartland (Guatemala to Nicaragua) I miss more with every hemorrhaged dollar. But Boquete's ever-cool mountain climate, the verdant coffee- and produce-rich slopes, I prefer to sand and sweating in the shade.

Who's got the juice?

La Fortuna, Costa Rica, what with the nearby lava-spouting Volcàn Arenal and natural hot springs galore, is a tourist orgy. Just like most of Costa Rica, I reckon. Costa Rica´s landscape is as stunningly diverse and verdant as I remember from my 2007, latent-travel-bug-awakening visit, but with my new education from having crossed Central America, Costa Rica feels like an unwalled zoo. Chintzy souvenir shops spot towns' main strips. Scurrying backpackers with rabid tour-hawkers at their heels outnumber locals. Every sign is in English. The bastardizing of Costa Rica, and I'm contributing.

I'm not so conflicted. And if I am, I drink. Jackson, Calvin and I went through a bottle of Ron Abuelo and a 12-pack last night before we met Jugo -- who may actually have been named Hugo, but at that point subtleties in pronunciation were lost. We wandered to a bar, drank some more, all the while babbling and slurring in Spanish, then went back to Juice's apartment for ice-crystally Imperial pint-cans to ensure morning hangovers.

This afternoon we were treated to a stew of platanos, yuca and chicken's feet; claws and all simmered for hours and served over rice. According to Wikipedia, "The majority of the edible meat on the feet consist of skin and tendons, without much muscle." Yep, that's about right. Basically you insert a grayish, wrinkly claw-tipped digit into your mouth and suck and gnaw at anything soft, the edible portions that dislodge from bone with the consistency of that rubbery toplayer that forms over old puddings and jellos.

Calvin on slovenly travelers somehow missing Central America's toilet-side waste-soiled-paper repositories: "Um, that's like airballing a slamdunk."

So, after six months in Wildlife-blessed Central America, of course at my first stop in Costa Rica -- some cheap roadside lunch counter off the highway -- my attention is directed toward a monkey swinging through the trees. This trip's first damn monkey.

Crossing the border from Nicaragua into Costa Rica was something of a hassle for having violated my 90-day tourist visa, having to run between various offices to make photocopies of my passport, another to pay the fine, and then finally back to the actual immigration office. But I made it across to Costa Rica, where police stopped our bus four times to check passengers passports, thus stretching the purported four and one half hour trip from the border to San Jose an extra two hours.

San Jose is decidedly first world. American fast food chains and clean streets, an absence of visible poverty. Stoplights. Stoplights that are obeyed.

The mercado central is filled with lighted, clean-, wooden-tabled comedores missing only the framed placard: "Sanitation Score: 101". This is not the developing world. Where's the grime and bustle, the questionable eateries? The market carnicerias aren't adorned with hanging pigs heads or hacked up cows' hindquarters, flies feverishly abuzz in the heat and stink; but glassfaced, refrigerated display cases, cuts neatly placed in labeled trays.

But Costa Rica is one of the world's most popular destinations for sex tourism. Hookers stalk the corners near our hostel, approaching the cars that creep by, shoppers absorbed in their side view mirrors, deciding whether to speed off or pause on the curb.

After five months, I'm reunited with Jackson, and we're joined by Calvin, who just flew in from Charlotte, NC. Given our propensity for breaking into random harmonized song without the slightest provocation, we're considering presenting ourselves as a renowned American R&B trio in order to land club gigs and impress Ticas. To maintain masculinity in the smooth face of our R&B, we fart and cuss a lot.

Sippin' on some oil

If, as my health-conscious cousin and Nicaragua's Minister of Health maintain, it's catastrophic to one's health to drink cooking oils like water; if my daily frequenting of liberally-greasing fritangas -- purveyors of platters of slick gallo pinto; shiny, slippery meats; and coaster-sized bricks of fried cheese; all contributing to the yellowish puddles pooling on the food-cleared plates that I sop up with bits of tortilla -- is half as bad as I imagine, then I'll suffer seismic cardiac arrest before I ever make it back stateside. Because streetside grills don't advertise nutrition information, how many cups of cooking oil were used to coat that single, perfectly browned platano maduro, I don't obsess over the calorie or fat or vitamin contents like I do when neatly printed labels are available.

Oh, that two-pound mass of banana leaf-wrapped, pork-stuffed Nacatamal that oozed more oil than the Exxon Valdez? Where at the end of the meal it looked like I'd traveled back in time and been forced into some horrid massaging of jheri curl? Yep, delicious.

My sense of nutrition has returned to its most primal. Like caveman. Make me happy. Mmmm...meat. Carbohydrates. Sugar. More meat. I buy a bag of presliced mango or papaya or a mandarin every once in a while to stave off scurvy, a liter of ice cream or milk to keep my bones from disintegrating. Today I even took a break from fritanga, dining lunch and dinner on the Nicaragüense weekend-specialty Baho. Massive banana leaf-lined cauldrons meld flavors while fist-sized hunks of plantain (in the peel), yuca, and beef simmer in a bath of tomato, onion, and spices. Succulent beef emerges with the toughness of pudding.

At night, the fat lady on the trash and trash-juice littered outskirts of the market is the only person for blocks, perched upon steps in a dark corner, two crazed-looking men babbling behind her. In the act of searching for the signal flames of a fritanga I accidentally stumble upon her. "Hay baho todavía?" I ask. She nods as she pulls back the cloth that, during the boiling midday, shields her steaming treasure from the omnipresent flies. Her bare hand disappears to the elbow as she plucks chunks from the steamy depths that she piles upon the two giant banana leaves palmed in her other hand. The pile rises. "De cuarenta peso?" she inquires, her hand momentarily suspended, poised. "Bueno," I nod, excited to see what the five Cord increase from lunch buys me. The pile rises higher. Cabbage salad from another bucket is heaped atop, the banana leaves are folded over, a plastic bag slipped over and we trade: forty Córdobas for warm dinner to walk. My shoulder starts to ache after a few blocks, and the "stew" is so thick I can eat it with my hands at a table in the park. Passing Nicas don't give me a second glance, so I assume I'm following standard eating protocol. Neither time I order Baho am I offered a utensil or a napkin, nor do I see signs of either.

By chicken bus to Costa Rica tomorrow, but not before a cholesterol-coated breakfast of rice, beans, fried cheese, eggs and tortillas at the Granada market comedor El Maná.

The only kind of movie you can walk into late and still enjoy is porn.

Cousin Jamie and I bussed down from León-- connecting in Managua where I enjoyed another grease feast near the Mercado Roberto Huembes at my favorite fritanga -- to Rivas, transferring to the volcano-bookended Isla de Ometepe via a ferry that careened back and forth to the point we could see our terrified expressions reflected, distorted even more grotesquely, in the choppy waters. Sometime between the broken down bus that carried us to Altagracia, the several gigantic fish and plantain feasts near the Finca Magdalena in Balgue, and the twelve-hour ferry debacle that wasted an entire day of our lives before stranding us on the island for another night, Jamie suggested: "If we get bored we should rape people." (OK, so I'm actually the crude creature who twisted the suggestion that we "rate" people into aforementioned perversion. Despite spending two weeks with her corrupting cousin, Jamie remains a thoughtful, tactful, entirely respectable human.) Not much else happens on Ometepe unless one is motivated to climb a volcano. I was content to read and walk off the finca in search of better, cheaper meals. And groan about the beds, tarps spread and secured tautly between planks of wood; Jamie informed me these torture contraptions aren't called the "worst fucking sleeping idea ever", but rather cots.

Jamie departed Granada -- the vibrant and gorgeous city that marries the grittiness and bustle of León with the grand colonial architecture of Antigua, Guatemala, all bathed in buckets of bright paint -- this morning after our two-week co-exploration of Nicaragua. Sharing rooms and sometimes even double beds, I've only been able to touch my private parts in the company of shared toilets and waste baskets overflowing with soiled, unflushable tissue paper. And could one even revive their shriveled and wilted baby carrot -- would you roll it between the thumb and index finger? -- cold showers are just too damn cold for an enjoyable crotch yank.

Suddenly with private time and I've booked myself into another cheap, cold water-spigoted hostel dormitory. What the hell? Distracted by the prospects of being able to watch Duke and UNC square off this afternoon, I suppose.

If Arcangel the musician is Arcangel the X-Man, Professor X has lost control of his mutants. And they've gone really soft.

I'm finding myself slowly seduced by Latin R&B and reggaeton, spinning romantic tunes in my cranium while I amble down the streets, the kind of admission that would normally leave my lips only as a teary confession while I toed the cliff's edge. Because the flight of my self-esteem is eased by an inability to understand the spanish lyrics -- which must be as abysmal as those of every hourly-repeated teen-devoured TRL hit on America's every Kiss FM -- I haven't sunken to smash-the-mirror-and-saw-off-my-head depths.

Yet.

Shit, it isn't even an option in a lot of these budget hostels.

But climbing all these mountains and volcanos presents an awfully easy solution.

¿Que nota, maje?

Too relaxed to take advantage of plentiful free time fit for a seventy-two hour, visa-resetting border hop to Costa Rica, my flirtations have expanded to visa violations. From my directory of (potential girl)friends collected in Estelí, to Marvil and Juan of quesillo-serving fame on the fringe of Masaya's parque central, to the neighborhood kids and couchsurfing.com saints hosting my cousin Jamie and I in Ocotal; from the streetside fritangas feeding my current protein-binge with bicep-building platters of gallo pinto, plantains, cabbage salad, tortillas, and, of course, meat meat meat that cost, at the stomach-and-wallet-elasticity-testing-extreme of $2.50 to cups of arroz con leche for a quarter, a bottle of Flor de Caña and a Pepsi at a discoteca for $6, cantaloupes for US$0.50 to $1, I've managed to lose myself in Nicaragua as fully as I have in this sentence.

With León-based trekking outfit-cum-social aid organization Quetzaltrekkers, Jamie and I passed the last few nights camped on a secluded beach on Nicaragua's most northwestern point, hiking Volcán Cosiguina yesterday in the heavy coastal heat and eating a delicious, bloodbath of ceviche that consisted of diced tomato, onion, and a fresh clam smashed and pried open and then hacked into chunks, all tossed and "cooked" in lime juice, still swimming in beet-colored blood. It was fun. Despite the easy hike I'm exhausted. And stoked for running water and showers and fritangas and beds; and ground littered with shattered liters of Toña and concrete-napping bolos instead of sandal-piercing, nail-length thorns.

And girls.

True, the boasts of northern Nicaragua's male population that it's women are the country's finest are Steph Curry precise -- Estelí, Ocotal, and Matagalpa are places where the karmic-consequence for the minds (uncontrollable) perversions at every passing Nica is heat that leaves you with embarrasing pitstains. But hating on the rest of the wide world of Nica's would be like saying I only date SI Swimsuit models.

Lastly: Usman: Rickey Hendson inducted into 2009 hall of fame

¡Viva Sir Rickey! (If you're confused about the inclusion of this ever important update, don't fret.)