People.

And now it has come down to it: my last day in Costa Rica. Which has had me thinking about all the people I have met since I took off on my own that have made my travels so enjoyable. And I´m thinking about people back home that I will see soon.

I would like to propose a toast, and I hope you will forgive me if it a bit of a long one.

Cheers!:

To Simon, whose couch I will be on tomorrow night, who likes cool music and is so sincere.

To Greg, whose couch I will be on in a few days, who is taking care of business for me, and who is a fantastic human being.

To Brennan, who has been taking care of business for me for a long time, and whose grumpiness I miss.

To Chris, my stepfather, who always has my back and who is always awkward and sincere.

To my mother, whose birthday I forgot, and whose birthday I forget every year until sometime around mother´s day, when I remember that I forgot.

To Diana, who was my first friend in Central America, and who made the way for all the others.

To the Italian, Miguel, who drank red wine with me in the middle of the night.

To the Swiss guy, Nikolai, who stumbled down the very steep hill in the pitch black night with me.

To Marcus, the Australian, who drank and talked with me; who got robbed and fled with me. Who had pretty, calculating eyes and a businessman´s body. I wish you well on the rest of your travels.

To Oliver, the Englishman, who had blue eyes and a golden body and a white ass. Who was a terrible surf instructor and who had a curious British sense of humor (I hate you). May your passport get you into Honduras and-or may your bribes go over well. 

To Mike Gross, who was good fun and an amusing dancer. Grosscoast.

To Peter, the other Australian, who took an interest in my interest in baseball, and loved to play poker.

To AP Steve, who does not like the outdoors and who is as awkward as ever. You are an inspiration and I want your car.

To Webb, who almost made me a pirate. I´m sorry I didn´t go with you. It´s my only regret.

To The Milkman, Cheesecoast, Brent, Rachael, and Kai, who were my posse from Santa Teresa to Bocas del Toro.

To Elizabeth, also known as Frenchie, who was beautiful and kind and who I was always jealous of.

To Zach, who always has a funny comment, and who has done his best to warn me off law school.

To Hunter, who took me surfing for the first time.

To Robyn, the Canadian nurse, who made the second time in Tamarindo as fun as the first.

To the Israeli guys, who nearly died crossing the river with us and who did not laugh at my surfing abilities.

To all those I met so briefly: the New York Greek in Boquete; the English DJ in Panama City; Dan who owned the hostels who I met at Aqualounge; Dan´s pretty, pretty friend; Brian in San Jose, who was so nice to me it made me cry; Brooks, who looks so much like Scott; David in LA, who just got a new apartment; and all the others I admired momentarily and then forgot.

To Fernando, my cab driver; to the old security guard at the David bus station; to the bartender at Iguana; to the guy I took my very first bus ride with; to all the locals who had patience with my Spanish and were good to me.

To all the people back in Portland: I have missed you, I have missed your antics, and I hope to see you soon.

To you all: It was swell. Cheers!

The City and The City.

I arrived in Panama City last night, and I eventually found myself in a seedy part of town at a place called Club Miami in the company of four very drunk and coked out guys I had met at a previous bar. Club Miami is a strip club, of sorts. The doorman looked at me rather oddly as I made my way inside. The dancing itself had nothing on the clubs in Portland: the girls half-heartedly strutted across the stage at random intervals, and there was almost no pole work to speak of. The men were not tipping. At one point, I followed the signs that said ¨banos¨, only to find a men´s room at the end of the hall, but no women´s. A bouncer took pity on my confusion and led me to the stripper´s dressing room, where I peed in a stall-less toilet next to a naked woman talking on a cell phone. It was obvious that women were not expected as customers.

The reason for all this, of course, was that this was not an establishment where one goes to watch naked ladies dance, except to examine the goods before paying $100, picking the girl you like, and taking her to one of the rooms in back. I was in a whorehouse.

Now, I wasn´t surprised to be there as the guys had been pretty explicit about what sort of place we were going to. If anything, I was a little surprised at how ordinary it seemed. Some of the women were good looking; most were average, a little on the chubby side. I didn´t look at their faces very closely- I was shy about making eye contact. I watched a parade of butts and stomachs and tits. They all wore white, an ironic touch. The guys I was with greeted the doorman and DJ with familiarity as the bouncer informed us that the cocaine would be arriving in half an hour. One of the guys said he was writing a guide called ¨The Not So Lonely Planet¨.

I had a few drinks and then took a cab home and went to bed. Not a very exciting story in the end. I was simply curious to see what a Central American brothel was like, and I was a bit disappointed.

In the daylight, however, I find the city utterly charming. I´m staying in the Casco Viejo district- an old neighborhood filled with crumbling colonial buildings. Walking north from here through the market (filled with the requisite vegetables, junk, piles of trash, stray dogs, half-naked children, and delicious delicious bags of sliced mango) you emerge on a main street closed to cars and lined with cheap shops. I bought a new outfit today for $10. Looking across the bay you can see downtown and the financial district, a forest of modern skyscrapers reminiscent, as many have said, of Miami. Fernando, my cabbie from the bus station yesterday, was probably the nicest person I´ve met on this trip. There are $0.50 beers in the bar below my hostel. So all in all, I adore this city. Although I do think I might try to find some classier nightlife tonight.