I’m fighting with WordPress a little. That’s why I haven’t posted in awhile.
Eric’s cousin David was in town from February 8-12. It took us about 2 minutes to get him to the fish market for an afternoon snack of ceviche for Eric, ceviche and patacones for me, and a whole fried fish with yuca for Dave. The boys made me walk through the inside of the fish market for the first time ever, in flip-flops. Ugh. Fishy water – at least I choose to call it water – all over the floor, carcasses strewn across tables and scales, goodness knows what else b/c I just tried to focus on keeping my head down and holding my breath. Yuck. Luckily patacones are pretty good at lifting my spirits and erasing bad thoughts from my memory.
We showed him the Cinta Costera…
Then we headed to Casco Viejo where we had dinner reservations. We walked around the old part of town to show off the excellent architecture and let David soak up a bit of the culture, as well as some of the touristy bits, then I got in touch with Jessie from my capoeira group. She lives in Casco, and she invited us to visit for a few minutes before dinner! It was great to see her and her mom, Tonette, who was visiting from El Valle de Antón, nearish to where we are staying this time around. Tonette and David, both from the Silver Spring, MD area, talked about….terrapins and crabs, I imagine, while I had my first chance to catch up with Jessie since we moved back to Raleigh last April. And of course we had to take advantage of her apartment’s views!
We had dinner at a new place (to us) that was right on the beach. I had made reservations, but you might be able to tell that we were almost the only people there. We then hit the grocery store and headed back to our rental house in Punta Chame.
The next morning, we headed out to the beach for David’s first kiteboarding lesson with Nino! Eric was excited for his cousin to take an interest in his new sport. I enjoyed bonding with Rocco.
I had warned David weeks in advance that he would be in town during the Carolina/Dook game, and I laid out for him exactly what that meant in my house. An excerpt from my email to him on January 19th: “just realized that the UNC/Dook game is Feb. 9th. A couple things: I get hateful on these days. I do NOT tolerate teasing or any pro-Dook talk in my house. I will have a UNC shirt for you to put on and, barring any moral reasons why you cannot wear it (appropriate reason being that you are a hardcore MD fan and you have always hated UNC – which I don’t think is the case), I must insist that you wear it and either A) watch the game quietly with me, B) cheer for UNC and hate on Dook, or C) get out of the house for the evening. I’m fine with any of those.”
For those of you who don’t know David, he’s not exactly the go-with-the-flow, I’ll-do-my-thing-and-you-do-yours kinda guy. He likes to pick at people. He enjoys debating. He’s my worst enemy on game days. Becca, you would kick him out of your house. And folks, that’s not to say anything bad about David or about Becca. David just did not have the privilege to grow up a Tar Heel fan, so he doesn’t know any better. Becca is my college basketball soulmate and, like me, she requires very specific etiquette out of fellow game-watchers. This is why Becca and I generally prefer to watch games together at one of our houses with no one else around. It’s better for everyone this way.
Anyway, David was very respectful considering his complete lack of understanding of the passion I feel for my Heels. Thanks, David. And that’s all I want to say about that game.
When David and Eric are together, they play board games. Prior to David’s arrival, I sent the following Onion article around to the boys, plus Eric’s brother, sister-in-law, and cousin (David’s sister, Kristin): “SCHENECTADY, NY—Repeatedly seeking to ease his friends’ growing skepticism and disinterest, local man Joel Mayhew peppered his explanation of the rules of the board game Pandemic with reassurances that it will be fun, sources confirmed Friday.”
- Eric had been telling me for a few weeks that his new game was going to be fun, and even more important that that, it would be short.
- David brought Pandemic after seeing my email. I instituted mandatory drinking rules promptly after the boys made my participation unnecessary by strategizing together and deciding what my moves should be on my behalf, then getting disappointed when I wasn’t invested in the game. The night got a little better after that.
On Saturday, we drove to El Valle de Antón, where we have taken many visitors. This time, however, we did something new. We hiked up La India Dormida, the Sleeping Indian, a series of mountains that together supposedly look like a woman lying down and sleeping. I’ve never really seen it, but whatever. It was a decent hike with steep slippery hills and giant boulders. I made it about 7 minutes in before I rolled my ankle. Not badly though, just enough to look silly.
We were rewarded at the top with incredible views and REALLY strong wind.
That night, we went out to the beach for David’s last Panamanian sunset.
And as a bonus, we got to see Rocco playing fútbol with some of the folks around Machete. He doesn’t often move fast, but he’s hilarious when he does! They tell me the death rattle-type breathing patterns are normal for a winded bulldog…
The following morning, we set off to take David to the Canal, and then on to the airport. As we drove, we passed a few cars that each flashed their lights at us. Eric slowed down, wondering what kind of hazard we might come across. All of a sudden we turned a corner and saw this!
You know, just a bunch of cows out for a morning jog! Oh Panama! You always deliver when we have guests!
