Alex was unsure about this adventure. We are not mountaineers. The biggest hill we climbed last year was a set of eighty steps to our friends’ home on the islands of Bocas Del Toro. But Villarrica is tall. The Chilean stratovolcano erupts from the plains around the eponymous lake and steeply climbs to 2,860 meters (~7500 feet). The still active, at times smoking, volcano is covered in snow. It does not look well-disposed to interlopers.

But we are fit enough, I say. We routinely hike ten miles on the weekends in the heat. The slopes will be tough on the thighs. Yes. But we have the aerobic engine to push on. We will make it. Alex concedes, and we sign up for the ascent.

Soon, the other eight people are here. We inspect our backpacks: crampons, ice axe, snow pants and jackets, a plastic sled for the ride down, gloves, helmets, sunglasses, gas masks for the caldera. We put on the climbing boots, stiff and heavy, then load into the van.

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At the base of the volcano, the guides break us into groups. Each issues instructions to their small team. We’ll go slowly and steadily, our guide tells us. We’ll take a few breaks to rest, take our packs off, drink, and have a snack. The crampons are for the snow, but don’t worry about it now, he says. After the instructions, we head up.

The pace is high. The first kilometers are on the gentler slopes. It is a steady uphill on a rugged trail through the thinning trees. After half an hour, we stop to shed layers, too warm from the effort. The cold air is a respite. In another half an hour, we begin the climb.

It is steep. The trail switchbacks among rocky outcroppings. The surface is mostly firm, but sections are the soft aggregate of volcanic pebbles that capture the sinking boots and send us a step downslope for every few steps up. I look back. We climbed above the plains and the trees, and can already see the vistas for tens of kilometers into the distance. Seems like good progress. I lift my head up to see how much further I have to go. The top is as far away as when we started.

Villarrica is one of the 65 active volcanoes in Chile. Other accounts claim there are 62, others over 90. The total number of mostly extinct volcanoes in Chile is about 2000. The number of active volcanoes depends on the definition of an active volcano. Some counts include the mountains with recent eruptions, which are still seismically active today. Others, relax the definition to include the volcanoes that erupted within the time of human history, and still have a chance to blow in the future.

Villarrica is from the former group of sixty volcanoes actively monitored today. It is one of the most active volcanoes in Chile. The last eruption occurred in 2015. The spewing lava fountains and ash columns force the evacuation of Pucón and other neighboring villages.

In the years since, the volcano has been quiet. It puffs smoke at times, hence our gas masks, and other times the lava bubbles to the top and pools in the caldera, visible from the rim of the mountain at night as a soft glowing lake of molten rock. The lava lake is almost always there, but it fluctuates: rises with the buildup of gases, then recedes a hundred meters below the mark near the rim in the calmer periods of weeks or months.

An hour and a half into the climb, the pace is relentless. I look at Alex and see her despair. She shakes her head. I don’t think I will make it, she says. Her quads are already dead. I nod. Mine too. No worries, I say, you may catch a second wind after the breakfast stop. She shakes her head with doubt.

But I have been there when I ran mountain ultra races. In each, the trouble came a third into a race. The mind responded to the rebelling muscles and commanded a full stop. You won’t make it, it would say. I’d think about two-thirds of the race still ahead, assess my body, and see no way how I could run another hundred kilometers. But at the next aid station with chicken soup, Gatorade, and smiling people, something would flip, I’d run on feeling well. After the finish line, I’d think with surprise how I could put one foot in front of the other in that miserable stretch one hundred kilometers ago.

This is one of those moments for both of us. There is no way we can make it. But it is the wrong time to stop. So we climb on. One foot in front of the other, sliding back every fifth step.

Alex is in front of me. She rounds the corner on a narrow ledge, then the fifty-kilometer-an-hour wind pushes her sideways, and she teeters on the path. I grab her backpack. But she is fine. I am just nervous. The wind is relentless. Angry.

It is Puelche, our guide tells us. This wind blows from Argentina. It crosses the Andes and descends the steep Cordillera, compressing and warming in obeisance to physics. It is a warm wind. Pleasant when you stop. Brutal when you push against it.

The Puelche will stop above 2400 meters near the top, the guide tells us. The wind detaches from the steep cone of the volcano to rush towards the Pacific on its rampage. I hope so, I say. The wind is loud and terrifying when I am walking on a ledge.

We take another break in a gulch between two outcroppings. The view is stunning, but we hardly glimpse. The people with us add a layer of pants. We put on the helmets. Then we are off again.

Another break. This one is beyond the last black diamond chairlift. Closer to the high snow. I look at Alex. A tear is running down her cheek. I don’t think I can make the summit, she says, sorry. I touch her shoulder.

The guide sees it too. He asks how she feels. Alex is honest. He nods. This is the point where people make a decision to stop and where he expects the group to thin. He asks me if I plan to push on, but I say I am staying here. He says I should come with him. But I shake my head. This is our trip. Alex’s and mine. What is another summit without your person?

A filled checkmark, empty of meaning.

We work together with other guides, our guide says, so you can go with her. He points to a young woman. Her face is tanned, happy, with indigenous features. It will be you and a couple of others, he says. Then he leaves with the fragment of our first group.

“I am sorry you won’t reach the summit,” I tell the new guide.

She smiles, “No need for me to go up there. I am Andréa. It is about you and you and you.” The statement is simple. Honest. I believe she means exactly what she says.

“There is a great view around that ridge on the way to the summit,” she points up where the volcano disappears past the steep slope. “We can slowly climb to see it. At our own pace, when we are ready. She polls our small group, and we all nod. But we rest first.

We sit. We chat. We hoist the backpacks, adjust the balaclavas, and start to trudge up the serpentine slope. Step after short step. It is easier without the pressure of reaching the summit. I look at Alex on a switchback, and she smiles for the first time since the bottom.

The view opens to 270 degrees on the ridge. We see the small, map-like imprint of Pucón on the landscape below. The view beyond stretches for a hundred kilometers. The steep mountains that surrounded the city yesterday are only small hills from our vantage point on the stratovolcano. We laugh, then sit for some time to take in the new perspective.

Andréa walks over, with a booklet of birds, and tells us which ones live on this volcano. Her eyes widen, and she points to a bird from a page hopping on the rocks next to us. It is a rare kind. It is small and white, with a yellow line from the beak to the wing. Andrea is surprised to see it. I am surprised such a small bird can sit on the rock in the howling wind.

We pick up our packs and climb again. A concrete structure is to our right. It is robust, with an arched dome and open front, like a tube half-buried into the mountain. The opening is facing Pucón and away from the caldera above. A shelter. During the eruption, Andréa says, the lava accelerates on the snow, collects the rocks, then rushes down the slope towards Pucón at 60 kilometers per hour. It flows around the shelter.

I see the evidence of the flow, but I can’t make sense of why someone would be up here during the time of eruption. Scientists? Researchers? A few lunatic mountaineers? Or maybe something was lost in translation, and I simply misunderstood?

We are climbing to a ledge one hundred meters above. I see one of our companions ahead without a backpack. The backpack is on Andréa’s back, slung on top of her own. It does not slow her down.

The wind stops in line with the snow, just below the ledge. We climb over and sit on the rocks. It is as high as we go, Andréa says, we will descend from here.

I look up at the summit. It is right there, another few hundred meters. A group is traversing across the snow on their final stretch to the summit. I expect a flood of regret, but it does not come. Equanimity settles instead. When did it happen, when the youthful urge to achieve ceded to the contentment with the journey? Ten years ago, or five. It marked a time when more things became joyful.

Alex pulls empanadas out of my backpack. We bought too many, and they are enormous. We offer them to Andréa and others. They share one. We have one each. Real food is inconvenient on hikes and climbs, but it lifts spirits beyond what a protein bar can do.

Andréa points out volcanoes in front of us. Lonquimay, where we were a week ago. Llaima and Osorno. Calbuco is a bit behind us, at the edge of Puerto Montt. Each is a white colossus rising above the mountains and among the lakes. Their size plays tricks with distance. The symmetrical snow cones are just in front of us, but hours of driving away from each other.

Two people slide on the snow from the summit towards us. They arrest the slide with crampons at the edge of the snow, and repack their flat sleds and crampons into backpacks, then head down. They are a couple who climb as a hobby. They zoomed past us on the ascent. Now they are in a hurry to get down. We pick up our gear and follow.

We take a different route down through the lapilli field. Lapilli or scoria is loose volcanic rock fragments, pea- to walnut-sized. Andrea shows the technique, then I follow. I gently push away from the slope and let the gravity guide my hop. The foot lands, buries in soft lapilli, then slides down a bit more. Then another step in a rhythm of moon hops, long and slow. It is fun! We move five times the speed of our climb. Or faster.

At the bottom, my thighs are burning. Knees wine from the pressure of repeated, albeit soft landings. But I am exhilarated. Alex is smiling too. We walk the last two kilometers through the woods on lighter feet. We did not complete the climb but we did what we set up to accomplish. Something difficult that we have never tried together.

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We leave for the Cochamó Valley at seven in the morning. “They may not let us in,” I tell Alex, “but the drive along may be worth it.” I show her photos and the map. She sips coffee, thinks, then nods. I know she is thinking this trip should have been planned weeks ago.

Cochamó Valley is the Yosemite of Northern Patagonia. Green, steep mountains transition to granite domes forming a narrow valley. But there are no crowds, no tour buses, just metered foot traffic and horse convoys.

The entry into the valley is eighty-seven kilometers from us. It would be an hour drive on a regular highway, but we must take a ferry across a barranca, then a curvy gravel road around the fjord. Maps forecast a two and a half hour trip. We must be on the trail by nine-thirty to get the permit for the backcountry. It will be tight.

The ferry terminal is only seventeen minutes away. When we arrive, the ship is there, and the cars and trucks are driving up the lowered ramp. The dock master waves the pickup in front of us to board, then raises his hand to stop us. We must wait for the next ship, forty-five minutes away.

I want to scream and pound the steering wheel in frustration, but keep it inside. That pickup passed us on the road a minute ago. I laughed at the pointlessness of his move. “He passed one car to be behind four more cars ahead. What a moron!” I said to Alex. Now he is on a ferry, and I am waiting for the next.

This almost certainly kills our plans. Yet, we choose to try. I exhale my tension. The drive itself is worth it, I tell myself. The surrounding mountains are unlike any I have seen.

On the next ferry, we eat empanadas and drink coffee. Alex takes photos of the barranca unfolding around the peninsula. Of the sun, climbing over the snow of volcanoes behind the front range of the fjord. Of the other ferries, carrying fifty cars the other way. 

I fight my tension. The drive itself will be worth it.

The road to Cochamó is gravel. It is one-and-a-half twisty lanes, but switches to one lane on narrow bridges. I learned to drive on roads like this in Siberia. Still a kid sitting on a pillow, I learned to avoid branches and potholes. Then, when older, to catch the car’s drifts in the corners and feel the wheels regain traction on the hills, to left-foot brake through the curves. My dad sat in the next seat, nodding and giving instructions like a rally co-driver.

The road is empty. We zoom around the curves, throwing dust. This is the best morning, I smile. Alex points to a vista ahead and asks to stop. To stop? We hardly have enough time! But I pull over. She takes photos from the edge of the road. Steep mountains rise from the cold water on the opposite side. The fishing boats are laid up on the dirt sea bottom at low tide next to us. A small house at a distance. One boat is working around the aquaculture buoys. Its low rumble is the only soft noise in the steep barranca. A human noise, but it seems to belong.

Two hours later, we are at the park, and we are late. We drive past backpackers and a six-horse convoy into a small grass parking lot. A young couple is the attendants. They are eating lunch, but are not unhappy to see us. Yes, we are late, the woman confirms. We can still go to the park check-in just up the trail, to try for a pass, but the rangers have been strict. I must look like I am about to cry because her face softens, she takes my phone, and returns it with a map on the screen. “Go there. It is a beautiful waterfall.”

We get to it after an hour of climbing. A Chilean family is there watching the cascade. The elder grandfather and grandmother are in swimsuits and jump into the frigid water. They hoot and laugh. The mother and the kids watch and taunt them. 

We talk to them later. They are farmers from the other side of the range. They drive here, sometimes, for the beauty. Grandfather tells us stories. He is soft-spoken and hard to understand. But we try. The young boy’s eyes grow wide with excitement when he learns we are from the United States. To him, it is a land of dreams. He does not follow the news. He peppers us with questions and invites us to join the family for food. But we have volcanoes to see, and a long drive back. We thank them.

“Did you have a good day?” The grandmother asks.

“Wonderful,” we say. 

It is fine not to get what you want. The day will take its own shape and imprint something wonderful on your memory. If you let it.

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The people on the streets are young. Valdivia, Chile, is a university town. Women are in shorts and sweaters. Men are in shorts and sweaters, too. Boots, tennis shoes, no flip-flops. They are walking in groups across the bridge, along Main Street, from the river waterfront to an outdoor concert playing behind Bar 55. The fans are against the stage and all the way back to the entrance of the park. It is too packed for us.

The air is cold, although it is summer. The town sits at the mouth of the Valdivia River and the Pacific Ocean. The ocean keeps the weather comfortable for the locals. But it is too cold for the two of us from the tropics. I zip up my down vest.

We almost skipped it. Valdivia was not on our minds when we thought of the trip to Chile. Nor was it on the main route: Santiago and wine in the North, the Volcanos and Northern Patagonia in the South. But Alex noticed that Valdivia is a microbrew town. Three waves of German immigrants influenced the beer culture here since the 1850s. The detour would add two hundred kilometers to our travels, but we are willing to drive for good IPAs.

We split from the crowd and turn to El Growler. The brewery’s public space is a courtyard. A food truck and a separate trailer for the beer taps are under the tent roof. The post-college crowd fills most of the tables. A few tourists are here too. The tourists fumble through the menus. The locals order what they know without looking. There is a noisy buzz, a rapid chatter of Chilean Spanish. I order a small pour of West Coast IPA. Alex gets a juicy hazy. We see no reason to leave.

The next morning, I know we tried more beer samples than we should have. We want an easy day and drive along the river to the coast, fifteen minutes away. The Valdivia River widens to a large bay and meanders between steep hills, then spills into the cold Pacific Ocean. The road hugs the coastline, the tight curves relax through hamlets. Homes line the hills. Moored fishing boats line the shore. They are reminiscent of the lobster boats we see in the northern hemisphere, but the fishing deck is up front.

I have driven through a similar scene on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Similar curves, hills, homes, and boats. Only the cars are different, and full public buses are part of the traffic. No buses were on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. People are expected to fend for themselves.

We park and descend towards the beach. The locals are in their bathing suits on the sand. I see swimmers in the bay. I am in pants, long-sleeve, and a down vest. It is cold. I convince Alex to climb over the boulders with me, around the bend in the coastline. The sea-otters gather there, on the rocks or on the mats of kelp just meters offshore. But the otters are not there, only rock and the cold Pacific.

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Before we leave Malalchuello, Chile, in the morning, I make coffee, and we watch from our couch as the Volcán Lonquemay splits the flow of morning fog. The stratovolcano sat dormant since 1990. Quiet. Imposing. Foreboding. I try focus on its beauty, but can only see its dangers - an eruption launching pyroclastic flows towards our cabin. Obliterating our plans. I shake my head - maybe bad dreams last night that I already forgot.

.We drive. On the map, the road makes a long loop east and south, then west again to drop us back into the Central Valley some kilometers away. The road is twisty on the map, except for the straight two-kilometer section of an old one-way tunnel through the cordillera. The brush Argentinean border and a long mountain lake before traveling back inside Chile. Looks good. Why not?

The tunnel is narrow. We have to wait for the traffic from the other side to exit the opening in the mountain. Two local Chilean wildlife firefighters are passing a bucket for donations along the lines of cars. They are in full firefighting kit. Another local woman is selling bags of nuts and snacks.

The light turns green, and we enter the narrow arch. The road inside is a single, paved lane. A row of lights is at the top of the arch and is only bright enough to eliminate the curved roof of the ceiling and the wet spot where the water seeps through the concrete. The car lights illuminate the roads

.

I want to think about who built the tunnel, but instead, I think about Chilean earthquakes. I try to think of construction methods, but earthquakes refuse to leave my mind. This country moves. Plates grind along its spine. They raise the Andes and crush what sits above them. The 1960 Valdivia Earthquake was the strongest ever recorded on Earth at 9.5 magnitude. 2010 Maule at 8.8 magnitude, 2014 Iquique earthquake at 8.4. These earthquakes fell buildings and crushed tunnels like this. Caved the roofs onto cars.

I am looking over traffic for the end of this tube, but it goes on for another five minutes.

The pavement ends. The paved spur of R-181 splits East into Argentina. Our Spur, R-81, turns south to follow the valley, then climbs the high slopes. The surface is gravel and was graded this season at least once, but the loathsome washboard bumps are back on the climbs and sharp turns. We stop and wonder if we should continue. Our vehicle is a small SUV built for the city. It can handle this road, just not if it gets any worse

“The dust trails are from other cars. Yes?” I point Alex to the thin clouds rising from the slopes. The trails are across the valley, kilometers ahead. “Moving fast, so the road should be fine. Right?” I say. Alex shrugs. Then we watch a tiny white Suzuki emerge from the nearest cloud and pass us going the other way. Four people are crammed in the car. We drive on.

This valley is away from the easy reach of tourists. It is open, with a savannah feel of open ranges, clumps of trees, creeks, and shallow brown hills. There are homes throughout, but kilometers apart. The homes are simple ranches, with a pickup truck parked by most and barbed wire fences extending away from each home to mark the expansive boundaries of the ranches. Some are empty - only brown hills and clumps of trees. On others are cows and sheep.

The road stops climbing and hugs the long lake. The lake is from a postcard. Only a family or two are swimming and kayaking every few hundred meters. Calm water, sun, gentle breeze. No concession stands, no cabins. Steep mountains are on each side. One mountain has a trail that climbs to the top and crosses into Argentina. We stop to look at it, but the slope is too steep. A Chilean flag is atop the hill. I suppose an Argentinian is next to it on the other side of the slope.

It would be awesome to touch the border in the wilderness, but we do not have time to climb. We still have a long drive to the breweries of Valdivia.

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Valparaiso is chaos. People squeeze past each other on steep stairs. Cars brush mirrors on the narrow streets. Tires slip and scrape against the cobblestones, bump against the tight curbs. 

We are on the third loop around the same neighborhoods, climbing hills and looking for an opening among the tightly parked cars. But we find nothing after twenty minutes of driving. I duck into a side street where I don’t think we have yet gone. Then I recognize a wall painting of a detective mouse talking to a criminal dog, both human-sized, and intent on their conversation.

Maybe this street? I turn, then brake to stop. Many streets in the hills are one-way, but how can you know without clear signs and with the parked cars facing in both directions? But we are already committed, so we drive on and meander among the painted homes. I squeeze onto the curb to let a delivery van pass. It shoots past us down the cobblestones without slowing. My heart rate spikes.

“He still had his mirrors on,” I tell Alex with a forced smile. “The delivery driver. Probably knows how not to crash on these streets.”

We find a spot at the very top and park. The views are focused by three-story ancient buildings on each side of the street, but they open wider as the hill falls away. The container ships with familiar names of Maersk, Cosco, and Hapag-Lloyd are anchored throughout the bay. Tugs or fishing boats traverse the water, their wake contrails paint a road in the sea. The distant homes and high-rises across the bay climb their own hills.

Alex says she wants to walk down to the port. I say I want to find a hat. We agree we both want a gelato. We walk the streets along the shops and restaurants. I don’t see the hats I like. But we find an excellent gelato. The store is on the corner with two uneven stairs. The red awning spells Artisanal Gelato, the wooden door is open and propped with a brick. We try samples, then choose. For once, the clerk does not switch to English.

Valparaiso is too much, but it is perfect for inspiration. The city is built on the spirit of Bohemian creativity. It was the home of Pablo Neruda, he wrote his poems in these hills. The city left a mark on young Roberto Bolaño, before he wrote his books in Mexico and Spain. Manuel Rojas walked these streets. 

I think of them as solitary monuments of culture, but they lived in a community, were one with it, and would have blended with the modern locals, creative, and each a bit unique. The locals’ clothes are just ahead of current trends, or very far behind. Haircuts, shoes, and other subtle clues that hint at an artist. They are around us now.

I could not live here, but I want to be here. A day is enough, or maybe a month. Any longer, and the chaos of the place will disassemble the composure and mental order that I have tried to build. I’ve heard it happens in places like this. The mind lets go in a creative sprint, then sometimes never comes back. What if this is the price of creating something amazing? Would it be worth it then?

We join groups of gawkers snapping photos of the walls. Painting of local history, of the people who made this place, of injustices. We sit on the bright, terraced steps - all tropical colors, one per step, climb the tight space between homes. We make our way down to the sea, where a tourist square is jammed between the gates of the working port. There is a street market under a hundred tents with people showing and selling. And people stealing. Pickpocketing is a big business on these streets. We have been warned to keep our hands in our pockets. I do.

The fishing boats crowding the pier are imposters. They once plied the trade but replaced their working decks for rows of chairs, and replaced their fishing captains for full-throated marketers fishing for people to sail on the tour of the harbor. The tourist trade earns more cash.

The day rushes past. It lurches from noon to six in a blink, at the speed of this city. And it is time to leave. We climb the streets on our way from the port, but away from the standard tourist route. The buildings are still the same, but with more flaking paint and cages over windows. The dogs stick to their side of the street and watch us wearily. The streets are emptier here, but the few locals still greet us with a smile… 

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I am glad he was wrong. Ecstatic. I told him so. “Ryan, you need to revisit Santiago - the food is exquisite. In twenty years, since you have been here, the city has re-invented itself.”

He told me at volleyball, a few days before we left Panama, how much he loved Santiago, just not the food. “Food is bad,” he said.

But something happened in the culinary world. Anthony Bourdain? The parade of celebrity chefs who spread the exquisite cuisine from the elites to the masses? Instagram influencers - a scourge playing good - elevating expectations and pushing cities to up their food game?

So Ryan, I am glad you were wrong. The Completos - the overstuffed Chilean hotdogs, the salmon, the tapas, the beer and wine at Barrio Italia, and Bella Vista are worth the trip.

I loved Santiago. We both did.

We leave the apartment in the early morning and walk the sleepy streets. One coffee shop is open, then another one, but all else is shuttered at 10 am, sleeping off the hangover of the night and resting before the evening’s gaiety. Tens of places on the immediate blocks. Hundreds in the two adjacent barrios. We saw swarms of frugal young and the rich in the night before. All in the social embrace of the city.

But they are gone now. Only the empty streets. Chairs chained or hidden. Workers spraying the green grass against the dry air of central Chile, spraying sidewalks to beat down the dust and detritus of careless revelers. Very few cars on this street. Quiet. Intimate.

The sidewalks are wide. They are built for couples holding hands and passing other couples walking the other way. From restaurant to restaurant, from a photo of food to a photo of drinks, to a photo of smiling faces. Later, but not now. Now it is only the workers washing the street.

I am a bit angry. I want a latte, but coffee shops are closed for another hour, until 11 am. We long passed the two that were open. All closed. What?

Coffee shops open early in the business district a few blocks. The suits need the coffee before the Bohemians. The suits don’t wander into the chaos of these barrios. Not until night, when the humans in them shed the suits and escape the LinkedIn universe of pretenses into the mismatched architecture of bohemian streets, unique and rebelling. Wall art, bursts of color on the concrete.

I want coffee, but I can’t go to Starbucks. It is too close to work. When I work, although without a suit, I am the business person, like the rest, choked by task lists. Going to Starbucks will pull me out of the spirit of the vacation. I will smile through the irritation instead. I hope that Alex won’t notice.

We are at the hill - Cerro de San Cristobal. The one with the Virgin Mary lifting her arms over Santiago and over the tourists. They are milling underneath, some kneeling at her base, others gawking and snapping photos.

“Don’t go there,” Alex says, “you will boil the holy water, you heathen.”

It is mostly a joke…

We ride the funicular. Walk the parapet. Listen to the clean female voice of the gospel singer. I can’t see her, but I know she is singing live. There is a priest at the entrance. He looks German, tall, and pasty. He could be a Chilean, of course. We try the Santiago Zoo on the same hill, but back out for the crowds.

There is an open coffee shop! One Latte, one black. My woman likes it strong. I have a Zoom meeting with a client. Fuck. Can’t escape. The connection was bad, at least, so I cut it short…

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The contrast is jarring. Three minutes ago on the rainforest side of the mountains the bus labored through clouds and mist. Over the crest, it is sun and blue sky. The peaks of the Cordillera Central de Panamá snared the clouds and pushed them back at the Caribbean, sparing the sky of the Pacific side of the country. The crossing felt like the beginning of our trip to Chile. Only five hours away from our home on Isla Colón, but a different energy in the hilly savannas, away from the dense jungle.

We began the day at Taxi 25 dock on our island of Isla Colón, then boarded the bus in Almirante. The flight would have been faster, only forty-five minutes over the reefs and blue waters of the sea, but four hundred dollars more. We opted for the ten hour ride.

We share the bus with indigenous locals and their children, but mostly European and American backpackers. The backpackers pass through in numbers in Bocas, in identical uniforms of hiking boots, tech Patagonia pants, and large Osprey backpacks under the rain covers. This is the closest we have been to them. The backpackers slide past us in town without much friction. They are younger than us and looking for an adventure in what is our normal life.

The bus is new and comfortable. The local children are quiet, no screaming or yelping I expected. Instead, they listen to their mothers. The bus driver is calm by Latin American standards. “No bags in the overhead compartment,” he commands everyone boarding. On the tight curves of the road and only modest braking from him, each bag from above would have found a target on the heads of people below. Instead my bag is underneath the seat and jabs my ankles each time it slides with the curves.

“Bus is ok,” people told us, “cold and too long. Fine to take once, just to see the sights.”

But I love it. I recline the seat and watch the mountains. How could the first people cut their ways through the density of this jungle? Today, with machetes, chainsaws, and bulldozers it is a daunting task. But then? Before the sharpened tools? The dense green wall, impenetrable, yet subdued and suborned to the will of indigenous. But only for a time. Even a season of neglect and the jungle takes back each un-lived house and unworked land.

Once we crossed the ridge, the jungle did not follow. It stayed on the wet Caribbean side. The slopes of the drier Pacific side reminded me of California’s golden hills or postcards of the Mediterranean. Patches of light woods, golden slopes, rare farm homes, and meandering cows. Panamanian cows with a hump at the base of their neck, like malformed camels.

The bus attendant walks the aisle, holding on in the swaying bus. We are stopping at a fonda on the side of the mountain for a bit of food and rest, he tells us. Twenty five minutes, then back on the road. It is enough time for empanadas from a stand, a few minutes to eat them at the outdoor tables with gorgeous views down the valley aiming at the Pacific. Two dollars a plate…

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“What are you working on?” I pointed to the cuts of plywood, stacked by the stairs. 

“Fixing the boat, just stuff,” he shrugged, “gotta get out of here some day.” He laughed and shook his head. 

“Where would you go?” 

“Don’t know, some place I’ve not been.” 

“Many of those out there?”

“Oh, yeah - big world,” he said. 

“Of all the places you have been, which left the most impression, Tom?” I asked. 

He did not take time to think, “Patagonia.”

His boat was Black Dog. Old, once formidable and seaworthy. It was beyond the repairs of a tinkerer. It needed a liftout at a boatyard and a few expert, vigorous hands to return to service. Or it needed two hands of one man and much, much time. 

I walked by Black Dog every morning. The wood of its freeboard was dry; it held its shape without visible cracks. But I could see soft spots when I looked closely. The paint was faded but not peeling. The main mast was taken down and laid along the deck. The rear mizzen mast was sawn off a few feet above the cockpit. The boat floated, but it planned to stay where it was.

“You said Patagonia last time, Tom.” I stopped and chatted with him at his resting bench.

He nodded. “We had a fly fishing camp there. With my brother. Nobody there, just trout and Patagonia. Patagonia is a character. Best time, really. A big change after the corporate world.”

“The corporate world did not agree with you?”

“Agreed with me long enough. Decades? Right? Too long ago.”

“Why did you leave? Patagonia, I mean.”

He shrugged and thought to answer, then let the answer go. “You should go there, Hank.” He smirked. He called me by the wrong name in joking retaliation for the first two weeks of my calling him John. “And the fish camp,” he added. “It is still there. Rustic and beautiful. Should see that.”

Around New Year’s, Tom was out of sight. Peter, my British sailor friend, dropped off his scuba gear for me to clean the bottom before we sailed out on a trip. “Tom died, have you heard? Went to the hospital in Davíd and stopped breathing. Nice guy.”

“No, I didn’t know. He planned on leaving, but on Black Dog.”

“Hope is good to hold on to. Nice guy.”

Tom was an acquaintance, too distant for a friend, short with words, bristling his light sarcasm as a shield against interlopers into his life. I told Alex that Tom had died, and she grew sad. She later said the news affected her deeper than she expected. Me too. Tom was in our community, now smaller.

In a few weeks, men are on Black Dog. They are feeding the anchor chains out of the lockers into a panga - the chains can be reused or resold. They are throwing lines out of the cockpit into a pile on a dock - some ropes will find a second life, most will be discarded. Two anchors are detached and stacked for a pick up by the next owner. Slowly, the boat becomes a shell, a memory. Then, maybe, a local dive shop will strip it clean, tow it to one of the coral restoration projects, and sink it. Black Dog will be an anchor to new life, for fish and corals, and for divers swimming through its cabins and imagining its history.

When life begins, we pursue knowledge. When we begin to work, we pursue possessions and experiences. When life ends, both are dispersed among the living, the possessions among family and landfills, the experiences as bits of memories among those the dead have touched.

Maybe I will dive Blackdog someday, too, but long after my trip to Patagonia. You must go there, Tom said. Insisted in a very quiet way. I thought to go before, but now I will indeed.

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Two very American questions perplexed me when I arrived in the United States in the mid-1990s.  They are the two questions Americans ask immediately, and usually in the same order. At first, they drew my ire, then they lost their meaning through repetition. But since I moved to a new Latin American culture, the irritation at the questions, or rather their follow-up, has returned with force.

Where are you from? What do you do?

A man in a bathroom line begins with the first. He asks me after a brief exchange of greetings. He just came out of the bathroom and is waiting for his kid. He yells through the door, “Don’t touch anything!” It is a fair warning. The bathroom needs a refresh after a busy dinner service. Most bathrooms in Bocas del Toro, Panama do. Especially in the high tourist season. There is no response from the stall.

The man is clearly American. It is the attitude, the look, the clothes - shorts, a t-shirt, and a hat. I know it, because I look much the same. “Where are you from?” He asks.

“We live here now, but I am from Wisconsin. I lived there for thirty years.” I say.

He screws up his face and looks at me with mock suspicion. I know what is coming next, and I breathe in to calm myself. I was already on edge because the waterfront restaurant is crowded, and I had to wait too long for a margarita. I look at his screwed-up face and smile.

“I hear an accent,” he says. “So where are you really from?”

Where am I really from? I think for a bit. 

“I was born in Russia,” I say, “I lived in the Czech Republic until I was 7, then in Kazakhstan until 10, then back in Russia until 16. In the States for the last thirty years.”

“So you are from Russia,” he states. Clear and certain. Nothing I say matters anymore.

I suppose my last thirty years in the States were just a blip, irrelevant as a definition of a place I think of as home, entirely erased by a place I was born and barely know. But that is how it is for Americans. I asked many, ‘Where are you from?’, and they’d say Ohio, or California, or Idaho. Then clarify they lived there only until one year old, or two, then spent the entire life in Washington. ‘So you are from Washington,’ I’d say. ’No, Ohio!’ 

Why are they not from the places that forged them as human beings?

It goes further still. Americans are descendants, most of them, of those who uprooted families and moved across oceans. Then they moved too, for a job or an adventure, never to be from somewhere else, just to live where they are not from. They tell me, ‘From Ohio, but I am German.’ German? Were you born in Germany? No, I am a fourth-generation American, but my family is German. Have you visited Germany? No, but I would like to. Or Italian. Or Irish.

Those are the answers expected of me. 

Once, I tried to argue. I had two margaritas, and the other guy may have had four. No, I am from Wisconsin, I insisted. A few times. Each time, his face only grew more purple with rage. No! Where are you really from? My friend Rafa sent the man back to his table. Rafa is from Texas, Mexico, or Florida. He has not yet told me, and I have not really asked.

But I like this man in a bathroom line. He is happy to be on the island. He is from a spot in California I used to enjoy. He runs a trucking company. He told me all that, unprompted. He is worried about his son touching everything in the overused bathroom. Salt of the earth. Why argue? Sure, I can be from wherever you want me to be. I say that to myself to de-escalate my own ire. I think, I don’t really care. Except, I do. Not about a place, but a choice to tell you what I think of as home, a place that made me, and where I belong. But my choice is pilfered by a narrow view shaped by culture and habit, then imposed on me.

“What do you do?” the man asks, then becomes distracted with commotion on the other side of the bathroom door. He listens for a moment, looks at me again.

This is the second question. It is inevitable, like the next breath. I want to say I run, I read, and I play sports with my friends. But I know what the question means. I am in software, I say instead. He nods and smiles. I sense that to him it is impolite not to ask. It is impolite for me to answer in my own way.

But why is this the question? Many of us shoehorned ourselves into a career in our youth without understanding much about life. Then, we spent the rest of the years finding a way to be what we actually want. Yet, what we want is seldom a question. Even among friends.

What inspires you? What makes your life interesting? What do you like to share with others? These questions are not for a casual conversation. Unwelcome. They are too close. Too personal. We are expected to front politeness in a bathroom line and smile. But never to push too close in a scripted casual exchange.

‘Hey, I just met people from Wisconsin, but really from Russia,’ the man says when he returns to his own table. ‘He is in software.’

These two are good questions. They offer a rope bridge to inch across to a possible friendship down the line of many interesting questions. They are not the problem. I am rallying, instead, against a version of these that force an answer that the other person may not want to give. I don’t want to give. You can ask me, ‘What do you do?’ and ‘Where are you from?’ I will answer. But when you ask me, “Where are you really from?’, I will answer too, but quietly think - “What a dick!”

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First Street hugs the island shore in a gentle curve. Restaurants and hotels jut into the channel with a view of the islands of Solarte, Carenero, and Bastimentos. The tables in the busy season are filled with Europeans, Americans, Canadians, Latinos from the city, or from South America. The fondas of the parallel street are busy too, especially at lunch, but only with the locals who gather to eat hot soup in the heat of the day.

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Why the locals don’t visit the first street is easy to explain. They can’t cross a block into a parallel economy where the prices and sanitized experience are out of their reach. Why the tourists rarely, if ever, visit the fondas on the second street is more perplexing. After all, the tourists I talk to crave authenticity, they insist. But then they revert to the familiar food they can order in English. They sip cocktails and look out onto the views, surrounded by their peers.

I understand. The first week of our stay in Panama, I brimmed with excitement to plunge into the local scene. The first day, we passed a fonda with the smell of grilled chicken, but without a menu, and a local cook chattering with someone in Spanish too fast for me to follow. We moved on and had a Texas sandwich from Tequila Republic instead.

The next day, we passed another fonda with the rich smell of fried plantains drifting in the smoke. We thought to sit down. But the distinct foreignness of indigenous faces ruffled our comfort. Their glances were friendly, welcoming even, but the sense of our own strangeness sharing the small patio shade pushed us on. We ate falafel at Bambuda instead, surrounded by European faces.

I thought about the ludicrous situation for the next three days. A fear of emotional discomfort clashing with a wish to experience life as a local. Silly, of course, but powerful. The same fear that keeps us from taking a step from comfortable to interesting, from rote to exciting, from familiar and into the less known, where the best experience is forged. It is hard to fight it, even with an understanding of its limiting chokehold.

I would have scoffed at my own hesitancy before the travels. Impossible! Of course, I will try new things! But then the idealized expectation of a place crashes against a dirty table. The Western fixation on food safety collides with the bare hands of the local cooks pulling the chicken off the bone. Then, it is easy to swing back to what we know and pay triple for the comforts of familiarity.

The good news is that such nonsense does not last. Most of us make a decision to choose adventure if the option stays in front of us. But it does not come easy. And the door may shut before we build the courage to walk through it.

Today, I like the local fondas! The food tastes great, and the service is honest. The prices are a fraction of those at the restaurants on First Street. In week’s time, we broke through the barrier of our own fear. After, we visited the fondas regularly. Once every other week or so. Why not more often?

Well, the food is only Panamanian. Tasty, but similar from place to place. And we Westerners have grown used to the privilege of choice and variety. Today, we have Panamanian, tomorrow it is Italian or Japanese. It is indulgent, indeed, but the reality I rarely question.

Three weeks ago, on Mother’s Day, a panga full of locals pulled up to Bambuda. Indigenous men and women climbed onto the dock, then sat down around a long table. Twelve of them. Maybe a family, or maybe friends. They ordered colorful drinks and martinis and food. They talked and passed appetizers to try.

We left before they did. On the walk home, I considered that the boundary between the parallel economies is more porous than I suspected. The money flows in both directions. Each time we eat at a local fonda, we contribute to the locals’ ticket to take a trip to the other side. Maybe someday, these parallel economies will no longer just slide past each other, but will mix in an equilibrium of relative prosperity.

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I nod. I don’t feel like dealing with it either. I ask, “What if they are the big ones today?” Alex thinks, shrugs, “Yeah, maybe.”

Esteban’s cayuco is next to our hull, but does not touch. He floats inches from the boat, pushes away with a gentle touch of his hand when his craft drifts into the gravity of ours. He smiles. Greets me. Sweeps his hand to show off the nine lobsters lined up for my view. Then he laughs. It is a good haul.

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The lobsters are between his feet, on the floor of the shallow cayuco. He arranges them in order of size. A large one at the end moves to crawl away from the lineup, but he pushes it back with the heel of his bare foot. Four are large, almost too large for our pot. The rest are regular or on the smaller side.

“Twenty-four dollars for all of them. For nine,” he says. “Normally thirty, but twenty-four for you, my friend,” he flashes his teeth. They are small and white, except for two on a side that betray his age with the signs of slow decay. I don’t know how old Esteban is. I guess older than forty but younger than seventy.

Life carves the lines on locals’ faces without fairness. Some are burned by the sun, which turns them old before half a century. Others are caressed by it, looking youthful into their sixties. Maybe it is not the sun, but a fortune they struck with a choice of a mate, toughness of their chosen profession, or the difficulty of their children. Or maybe it is just dumb luck of a genetic draw.

Many fishermen look older. The lines on their foreheads are deeper. The vertical line of worry carved by furrowed eyebrows is prominent. But, so are the happy laugh lines around the eyes. The competing features of these lines are imprinted on their faces by the changing luck of their trade.

Not many indigenous cayuco fishermen are left. Those who can afford a panga and a motor have shifted to ocean fishing for tuna. They sell to local restaurants and to people on the docks.

I still see the cayuco fishermen in the channels and bays between the islands. The line-fishermen float their cayucos close to mangroves or above the steep drop-offs. They do not use fishing poles. Only a handheld line that they feed into the water. They tug on it with a careful rhythm to fool the fish into believing that the dead bait is alive and worth pursuing. Or, they simply let the swell do the work. The waves lift the shallow canoe and tug the line, then release it in a trough.

Esteban is a different kind of fisherman. He is a diver. His snorkel and mask are behind him in the aft of the boat. They are on top of small fins more fitting for a child. He dives down to corral heads and through channels with rock formations where families of lobsters hide between feedings. Lobsters and crabs, he catches with his hands. Fish, he spears. He dives for hours each day, on his own breath, against the pressures of the depth.

“Alex,” I yell. “They are good ones.”

She pokes her head from the inside, “If you think so. We have cash.”

I find the empty ‘Do-It Center’ white bucket and pass it to Esteban. He loads the lobsters one by one. He is careful. The lobsters here do not have claws, but an angry defensive slap of the tail can hurt. He hands the bucket up to me. The lobsters are trying to climb up the slippery side.

“You have a cold beer, amigo?” Esteban asks. It is a hot day.

I nod. I pass the bucket to Alex down below, and she passes me a beer. Esteban, touches the cold can to his forehead, opens it and sips. His eyes widen. “Strong!” He is used to the light Panamá or Atlas beer. The IPA bites his tongue.

“How long does it take to paddle here?” I ask.

“Two or three hours, depending on the wind and waves.”

It seems far, but I know it is worth it for him. The local workers make between twenty and thirty dollars a day. He just made twenty-four dollars, and he still has fish to sell, plus a few crabs. His maintenance cost is paid for in his time. He has no fuel to buy. And some of the catch is food for his family.

Esteban bales the water from the bottom of his porous canoe. Quick, practiced strokes with a one-gallon plastic vinegar jar, cut in half. He sips the beer one more time, sets it between his legs, and picks up the paddle. It is the traditional hand-made wooden paddle: long, narrow blade with a handle on top in the shape of water buffalo horns. He gently bows his head towards it as a thanks for my business. I wave and nod my head. Then, with strong, silent strokes, he disappears around the mangrove.

He makes no noise. He makes no waves. A quiet human living a quiet life. He takes just enough from the world to keep on living in tranquility. Mostly happy, I imagine, if the deep laugh lines tell a true story. In harmony with the sea. Yet, I suspect I am wrong.

The image is my projection of what I want to run away to from the stress of my Western job. I know, it is a foolish dream. I have it easy. I don’t bob on the swell, caught in an unpredictable torrential downpour in the midst of thunderstorms. I don’t fret that someone discovered my secret fishing spot and emptied it to feed the tourists. I have different worries, but I suspect they look trivial from inside his cayuco.

We did not want lobster today, but I am happy we bought it.

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“When are you planning on leaving?” Our friend asks over a beer. “We planned for early November,” we say, “but projects got in the way - so three to four weeks from now.”

Christmas is in a few days. We are indeed late. “You are not going anywhere,” he laughs kindly and dismisses the idea with a wave. It is a welcome to the club.

It is true for many. People pass through this place on their quest to see the world, then see something they like. They linger for another week, or another short project. They don’t decide to stay, only decide not to leave today. Soon, they plant roots in a community of friends. And why not? If a place resonates and captures you, what is the need to move on?

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We ask ourselves that often after a tough bout of travel. Tired of change, exhausted by sailing weather, and the bureaucracy of customs, we crave the routine of one place. For a bit, until the restlessness of familiarity creeps back in, or an urge to meet a new culture. But in this place, among the islands of Bocas, the urge to move is less acute.

It is an age-old story, beginning at the time of early human tribes. A tribe settles and grows. It forms hierarchies, and soon enough, a restless band of youth picks up their kin and travels to find another home, where the luck is their own to make, unrestricted by the settled order of a prior home. They build a village, survive or thrive, but soon enough, they spawn another party searching for their own luck.

Their move is an act of convenience, or necessity, or rebellion, but always of renewal. Their restlessness is not a flaw but a feature of humanity that seeks to expand the horizon of what it knows and what it can do. This impetus has grown in us through evolutionary imperative.

Yet, breaking the magnetism of a birthplace is a monumental effort. It is easier now, less permanent, with planes, trains, and automobiles to shuffle us back to see the family and friends. Still an effort to go and form new bonds, establish yourself in a network of people often wary of outsiders. Most people I came across never do it. They never leave. Some out of fear. Others, out of faux-wisdom that new places bring nothing new. They say that new places, like all people, are the same.

Others leave and return. In the time away, they gain the deeper wisdom that transformation is possible without leaving—but only with an attention to nuance impossible to gain without departure from the place you know. A paradox, but true.

Our home never urged us to leave. But we are a part of a narrow band of human nomads who want to see what else is there, at the expense of the predictable comfort of an established life. A need to shake assumptions and shed the boredom of agreeable thinking. Travelers we met here share a similar urge. Why had so many stayed?

“I came on a sabbatical eight years ago,” an American woman in a taxi tells us. She cradles a dog too big for her lap. The back seat of the Toyota Hilux is too small for three people and a pet. Her now husband is in the front seat, a local, speaking Guari-Guari with the driver. “This place just makes sense for me. Slower, with less pressure from the clock.”

“You think you will ever go back?” I ask.

“I go back to visit, but it only reminds me to return to the island.” She looks outside at the surf lapping the beach, next to the dirt road, bouncing our pickup on its potholes.

The story is especially common with sailors. Panama is at a unique crossroads for big decisions. From here, a sailor can pass through the Panama Canal into the Pacific and commit to a journey around the world, or at least to a month-long passage to French Polynesian islands. It is a gigantic choice.

The other option is to sail another loop of the Caribbean Sea along the Antilles and the islands north of South America. But the journey requires beating against the elements along the Thorny Passage, named well to reflect the sting of trade winds pushing against the sailors’ will.

It is easier to delay the decision and to stay put. Soon their boats grow oysters on the bottom, barnacles foul their propellers, and jam their rudders. Years pass, and these sailors finally admit that the anchorage or the marina is their end of the road. They shrug and acquiesce to their fate. “I guess I am stuck in paradise,” they could look around and say, but most of them don’t, because they surrendered their option to leave. And the place that does not offer a door out is only a prison with a view.

We are not staying. I feel this place could be a home. I love it. I am learning to treasure what it offers. And that is precisely why we will move on to Colombia, Guatemala, and Roatán. We need the challenge of the sea and a look into the new cultures, to feel the freshness of the familiar place upon return.

“Is it normal for the snow to be gone from the mountain so early in May?” I asked a friend a few years back when I visited him in the mountains. He looked out of the window and shrugged. “I have not noticed,” he said. He moved to the mountains exactly because they were there, then he forgot to see them.

We will sail away to remember what we found, and to notice it again upon return.

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The Bocas del Toro archipelago, in Panama, where we live, is an example. On the one hand, such a scenario preserves cultures. It can be beautiful. Diverse values and perspectives coalesce on an island to teach me the many ways to understand the same idea. On the other hand, it hides an uncomfortable truth of wealth disparity, opportunity, and uneven political and economic influence each group exerts, often disproportionate to its size.

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The Ngöbe-Bugle community are the original inhabitants of the islands. They were here to greet Columbus on his fourth voyage in 1512, and for centuries or millennia before. The indigenous locals live in tightly-knit communities throughout the islands. They rely on strong kin networks and are beginning to make inroads with the state that has long marginalized them.

Afro-Caribbean Bocatoreños arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The colorful buildings and roofs of the Old Bank on Bastimentos Island, across the narrow channel, mark the town where they live in our proximity.

Chinese Panamanians began arriving in the late 19th century as well. They established a diaspora anchored in retail, grocery, and hardware commerce. Most have integrated completely, speaking Spanish in business but Chinese at home, maintaining cultural links and heritage.

Latino Panamanians (mestizo) migrated to the islands later and more so in recent decades. Many have left the busy city, lured by the promise of the ‘tranquilo’ tropical life. They are the most closely aligned with Western culture, movies, and fashions.

The last group is the ex-patriates. Recall a map you may have seen in a coffee shop in a tourist hub somewhere - the world map onto which people place pins of their home locations. On such a map here, the plastic heads of the pins would cover the world. A few clusters from North America and Europe, a blob over South Africa, a solid coverage of the South American continent, then a sprinkle of pins everywhere else. In our volleyball games, you would have two people from the same country per side, at most.

So many groups on a small island, in a small town. The groups have to mix, right?

In daily lives, they do. In the work crews, in the aisles in the grocery stores, in a crowd watching fútbol. People from every group are doing similar things. Then comes the evening or the weekend, and everyone disperses to their own districts, churches, and their preferred beaches. The segregation is, of course, informal, following no law but cultural lines drawn by time, language, and heritage.

And, drawn by the economic opportunities gifted by past preferences, or taken away by past and current injustices. Not the overt Jim Crow segregation, but preferences dolled out by politicians in a patronage system of pay-to-play.

Clientelism is rampant in Latin America - support me, and your land document will pass the review. Or maybe you want a construction contract? The situation is improving, but is more overt and blatant than the shadow clientelism of the Western democracies.

The result is the same the world all over. The rich get richer. The less fortunate groups claw their way out of poverty at a slow pace of generational changes, if at all.

I see the embodiment of these strata around me. The local construction crews of indigenous people build from the architectural plans designed and approved by Latino mestizos, and often paid by Western expatriates, spending their Western incomes at Latin American prices.

I see it in the homes themselves. The indigenous settlements of simple single-wall construction, the one-room shacks on stilts in the swampy, buggy areas of Bocas. Modest homes of mestizos and Afro-Caribbeans throughout the town, and well-windowed homes of expatriates on, or with easy access to the beach.

Despite the disparity, I don’t see outward animosity. Afro-Caribbean boterros joke with the indigenous ones from the neighboring docks. People stand next to each other at the parades and celebrations. They buy each other’s food and dance to each other’s music. There is intermarriage, still uncommon, but present.

Yet, each group harbors prejudices against the other. One hears a story of shoddy work and waves the whole people off, “That’s just how lazy they are.” Another hears of a theft and shrugs with dismissal, “Malientes, they are all like that.” In each group, someone gripes about another.

Like everywhere else. Here, more direct. In my old home, in the States, it is dressed in a polite language of evasive but discernible contempt. You spot it once you know how to read between the lines. Sadly, you no longer need to - the prejudice is now in the open.

Here, the prejudice spans the spectrum of kitchen gripes to debilitating policies packaged into a photoshopped image of progress. Or a blatant denial of opportunity, when a fishing permit is yanked from a fisherman in an act of petty vengeance. And with that, yanking the schoolbooks from the fishermen’s kids.

Maybe it is an inevitable consequence of soft boundaries emplaced by cultural preservation? Such is the choice, some say, integration or division. Yet, another choice is respect and an even playing field.

The Western democracies have been aspiring to this ideal, but the record is dismal. In the democracies, we see the examples of diverse cultures co-existing without continuing violence. We also see the exploitation of cultural diversity by populist politicians, whipping up passion along the easily definable boundaries.

But erasing the cultural uniqueness and blending it into a grey uniform goo will not solve the prejudice. If not cultures, the populist will use geography. If not geography, they will use class. If not class, then the color of your football team’s jersey. They will zero in on how you are special and how others want to take it away from you.

Many will latch on, propelled by our millennia-long impetus to find a clique. The poison of the blind pull to belong by defining differences is the hardest to resist.

This afternoon, we are going to Coquitos and Bibi’s. Two beautiful places on the beach, owned by a successful Afro-Caribbean woman. I’ll ask my German bartender about his week. Sip a drink from the Colombian master of mojitos. Get a hug from a taller-than-usual local friend and a fist-bump from another. Then we will drink and watch people dance. People drink and mix, but at the end of each song, everyone drifts back to their own cliques.

We all co-exist in this bar with quiet acceptance and respect that people afford to another individual human. Yet, we are less charitable towards entire groups. Everyone belongs somewhere here tonight, but tomorrow, we separate again to build the future where not everyone will belong.

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The first sign of trouble appeared three hours into the trip. We descended the serpentine of the well-paved Highway 10 from the cold heights of the mountain pass into the thick humidity of the jungle. The road leveled and cut through small settlements, each a few homes along the road, a fonda with food and a few seats for locals and tourists, a church or two. Ngäbe kids walked to school on the narrow shoulder, and adults with machetes headed to work in another direction. A few turns past one of the settlements, cars and trucks halted in line.

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Road Inspection, I thought. The police, or ATTT - Autoridad del Tránsito y Transporte Terrestre, as the traffic cops are known in Panama, would park on the side of the road and check documents. Everyone stops, some are waved through, others are inspected closely. The tourists are rarely hassled. The locals are a bit more.

We stopped at two checkpoints that morning and passed through without trouble. The police look for human traffickers and drugs, someone told us, but, no worries, they said, you don’t fit the profile.

For five minutes, we did not move. Then for ten. A driver exited the vehicle behind us and walked to the semi-truck ahead. The truck driver climbed down from his cab, and the two men talked, pointed ahead, shrugged, raised their hands in confusion. I joined them. They spoke Spanish in a local dialect, too fast for me to follow. I listened without understanding, smiled when they did, and nodded when they nodded.

Ahead was a barricade. Tree trunks blocked the road, big boulders piled in between. Women in indigenous dress sat on chairs facing the traffic. A few men loitered between the logs, kids ran from the signs set up on the pavement, and a tienda just past the corner. The sign said Law 429 in large font, and more in a font too small to read from the distance of our small group.

What is happening, I asked a man who spoke slower than the other. I understand Spanish, I told him, but not as fast as you speak to each other. Protests, he said. They happen every few years. The government does something to take more money away from the people, and people block traffic on the streets to change politicians’ minds. The last outbreak lasted for weeks in 2022; no way to say how long this one will go on. Yes, they will let us through, but maybe not today. Yes, today, the trucks driver said, around two pm - someone told him they would open the barricade then. He shrugged, but there will be another block five kilometers up the road, and then more. That is how they do it. So don’t plan to get where you are going for a day or two.

I felt excitement at the prospect of witnessing people in another country practicing democracy. I also felt a tinge of worry. My mind replayed the old TV footage of protesters throwing rocks, canisters of tear gas flying the other way, riot police with shields, blood streaking down people faces. But the TV footage was from another part of the world. Panama is more peaceful, I calmed myself.

In two hours, the sun rose over the mountains and baked the cars. We drove off the road into the shade of the tree and parked along with other travelers hiding in the shade. The line of vehicles had grown behind us at first, but no new cars arrived for over an hour.

They blocked the road behind us, too, a Panamanian driver told me in English. No way to go back. Organized, I said. Yes, the banana workers’ union - very organized, too much power. Not too much, I said, if the government can take something away from them. Not enough power to stop the government, no, he shakes his head.

A bus pulled up to the other side of the barricade and disgorged backpackers, a well-dressed group of Panamanian women, and a few families. The group walked around the barricade and trudged the two hundred meters under the shade of our tree. The bus turned around and drove away.

Where are you going, I asked a woman from the group. Back to Panama City. We took a ferry from Bocas Town to Chiriqui Grande, and now we’re hopping buses back to David. Hopping buses? Yes, buses drive from barricade to barricade and people hop between them, slowly moving south. You can leave your car here, hop the buses to Chiriqui Grande, then take the boat home if Bocas is where you are going, she says. It is a rental. I pointed at the truck, we must take it back to Changuinola. No, you won’t make it that far, she said.

How could the buses be organized this fast? The protests only started this morning, I wondered. The protests happen every few years, she said, the system is already in place. They are practiced. It is inconvenient, takes seven hours to get to David instead of the usual four, but I don’t mind. She nods at the people by the barricade, they make the least money in Panama and work the most, so I don’t mind the inconvenience to support their cause.Her speech brightened my mood. The few hours in the heat, without action, without news or expectation had drained the excitement I felt, dulled the worry, and replaced it with annoyance at the inconvenience of compromised plans. I loved the trip around Panama, but now I wanted the comfort of our home and familiar routines. Yet, she reminded me of the stakes, of people fighting for their rights. I did not know enough about the local politics then to take sides, but I had to choose the right to protest on principle. Fine, I tuned down my irritation.

The bus arrived from the David side, and the women, families, and backpackers loaded up and drove off. We sat in the sun for another few hours, walked to the tienda for drinks and a candy bar. The protesters watched us enter and their following eyes settled me with pang of fear. Maybe we were the outsiders, like the politicians, the objects of their anger? Were we even safe? I looked closer and saw no malice in their faces but a mild curiosity. They are used to Europeans and North Americans passing through. I decided that we were fine.

At three in the afternoon, the loitering drivers at the front of the line ran to their cars. We got in and started our pickup. The protesters dragged a log from the roadway to open a small opening. The cars passed one at a time. We sped up on the other side to follow those in front. I felt elated. Then in five kilometers, we were at the next barricade. Stopped. In the same line of cars. Dammmmmmit!

I live in Changuinola, the truck driver tells me. We are talking by his cab. I have three children and a wife, but I’m on the road a lot, driving to Panama City or San Jose, Costa Rica. No, protests are not good for me. How am I supposed to feed my family if I cannot work? No, not good. I understand, he says, we have friends who are teachers and they are protesting too. They have to stand up for themselves. But there must be another way. I have to feed my family.

The darkness fell on the next barricade. The logs and branches lay across the road inside the settlement. People walked the sidewalks. Adults strode serious and determined, kids ran festive, carrying messages amongst themselves. A European man paced along his parked car. Each minute, his steps grew angrier and his face contorted with rage. We are tourists and have nothing to do with your politics, he screamed at the women and men at the barricade. Let us through. His anger wound the general tension. Let us the fuck through, he screamed at a man’s face.

We retreated behind our car. I did not want any part of his rage. I wanted cover from the backlash charged emotions snapping and whipping against us in violence. I understood what the European man felt, but I faulted him for the disrespect of showing it.

Let us the fuck through, the man screamed. The Panamanian stood calm, not amused, but neither intimidated. ‘No puedo,’ he said. I can’t. Then he walked away.

The European man charged across and began to clear the road, pulling the branches away. The Panamanians replaced them behind him. He screamed at them, rushed to his car, revved the engine hurled it against the barricade. He stopped just in time, before he ruined his rental.

You need to calm down, another European tells him. You will get your ass kicked and get us all in trouble. It is their country and you are a guest.

At the next barricade, it was already night, and we slept in the pickup until the rumble of the truck woke us. We drove again. We slept more at the next road closure, then we learnt in the morning that this one will remain closed. It will not open today. It will not open tomorrow. Not this week.

But we are lucky, we were close to the ferry now. We found a secured parking lot and for three dollars a day parked the rental behind razor wire and a heavy gate. Then we walked to the ferry. We will return the car when we can. And no, I will not pay for the extra days of a rental.

During the first week of protests, the tourist flows thinned in Bocas Town, leaving empty streets and empty hostels. People canceled their plans in the face of uncertainty. In the second week, the construction project to repave the Main Street ground to a halt. The barricades blocked the asphalt trucks on the way from Santiago, Panama. The produce shelves went bare on the third week, and our favorite local vendor temporarily shuttered. Gasoline became hard to come by in week four. In the second month, restaurant menus came with entrees crossed out in black marker. Not much got through to the island to replenish the inventories. Except beer. There was always enough beer, somehow.

The empty store shelves were a call from my past, from the time when the Soviet Union, rotted from inside, collapsed, and for four years after, the economy sputtered on a single cylinder barely running on the bad fuel of apathy and despair. The same empty shelves and lines at gas stations. I shuddered inside at the reminder.

In two months, the tensions rose, pressurizing the province. There was no violence still, but the piles of fist-sized rocks grew along the barricade, perfect for hurling. Mercifully, the rocks stayed put.

Then, Chiquita Fruit Company dropped a bombshell. It shuttered its operations in Bocas Del Toro after the loss of the crops on the abandoned plantations, and moved to its Costa Rican base. Six thousand banana workers were now without jobs. They protested against the government law that raided their Social Security into which they paid from their jobs, and now they had no jobs at all. Another twenty thousand people connected to banana production also went without income.

In the end, the politicians, the banana and the teachers’ unions shuttled to talks. Why so long to meet? Optics, they said. Neither side wanted to look weak. Optics at the cost of poverty. Then a compromise and a forced dismantling of the barricades, a return to alleged normalcy. The store shelves refilled, the road construction finished, and the gasoline became abundant again.

The protests slowly become a memory, for some a curious marker on the timeline of existence, for others an existential wound not eager to heal with time.

The protesters did not accomplish all that they wanted, but they moved the needle away from a disaster. The teachers clawed back some of what they lost. The banana workers did too. They lost a year of income, but Chiquita is coming back next year with a better plan for the workers. Take some wins, they say. Yet to many here, they feel Pyrrhic.

Were the protests worth the disruption to the whole province? Everyone has an opinion, none are the same; the thoughtful ones acknowledge both sides.

I was heartened to witness the exercise of democracy without notable violence from the police or protesters, although a few instances took place. The protestors were people who broke from apathy and stood up for something they believed in, at a great personal cost. And whether you agree or disagree with their positions, I hope you respect their right to do so. I have a certainty that some real or proverbial barricade of the past, made your life, whoever you are, better than it could have been. Democracy does not always look like a ballot, sometimes it looks like a barricade.

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The finca - a plot of land - is on San Cristobal, one of the nine large, inhabited islands comprising the Bocas Del Toro archipelago. There are hundreds more, but the small islands, if inhabited at all, may only have a native cabin or an expat house. Each of the larger islands has a couple of native villages of Ngäbe-Buglé (pronounced Nobi-Booglé) people, and hamlets of expats sprinkled throughout. San Cristobal, named after the island, is the largest village on the islands, with about a thousand people, a school, and volleyball, baseball, and futbol teams.

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You will have to pay them for a day of work, Chad says. Of course. They can cut a path through the jungle thickness in a day, which would take me a week on my own. It is an easy decision. Christian and Munique will start in the morning. They are local workers and cousins, from San Cristobal village on the other side of the hills, less than two miles away. I will join them at one in the afternoon, once my real job lets me out.

After my morning online meetings, Alex and I ride our dinghy across the two miles of the bay between the islands from Isla Colon to San Cristobal. October is a calm month in Panama with lower winds and flat seas. Our trip is fast, across the surface that is rarely smooth. We tie up the boat at a friend’s dock and meander the paths to find Christian and Munique. I only have a vague idea where they may be. I listen for the hacking machetes, but the hill is too vast and the jungle swallows all noise, besides the birds in the neighboring trees and the distant howls of the monkeys.

We find them at the top, in the clearing. They are in the shade of a tree, drinking water from a one-gallon plastic bottle. It is hot in the sun, humid, scorching without a breeze. We walk to meet them. I am in the lead, pushing the thigh-high grass apart with my machete, one step at a time. In the clearings between the thick jungle, in the tall grass, is where Fer-de-Lances like to coil, the local killer snakes. Walking slowly is a prudent precaution.

How is it going, I ask. They nod, and Christian wonders if I have a file to sharpen his machete. Not with me, but looks like you are done. He says that they can keep cutting to the other side of the hill. But, I say, you have done enough.

He speaks a slower Spanish and is easy to understand. Maybe it is his way, or maybe he is used to working with the semi-proficient gringos. Alex and I, I say, will walk and measure the distance to the dock along the path you have cut, but will be back in thirty minutes. He nods.

The indigenous people lived on the island before the first European contact in the 1500s. How long exactly is unknown, but the archeological and linguistic evidence suggests they settled the archipelago 800-1000 years ago, using the islands seasonally for fishing, gathering, and small farming. The arrival of banana companies shook their lives over a hundred years ago, then the arrival of tourists and expats delivered another perturbation. Today, the villages are an incongruous amalgam of traditional ways, cellphones, dug-out canoes - cayocos, and Yamaha-powered fiberglass boats - pangas. The old and the new: traditional dresses and Rolling Stones t-shirts, machetes and chainsaws, oral Ngäbe traditions and Starlink satellites.

Christian and Munique are back in the same spot when we return after walking a mile and climbing the steep slopes of the hill. We rest under the tree, all of us turned towards the breathtaking view. Across the expanse of the water are Solarte and Bastimentos. The two hilly islands compress the bay into a mile-wide channel and push it against the smaller Carenero island. Sparse red roofs of homes, shrunken by distance, dot the coastline. A denser settlement of Old Bank is a splash of color against the green. Through the channel is the Caribbean Sea and a wide expanse of warm water extending directly north. On the other side of it are the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Cuba, where we sailed from a few months ago. Eight hundred miles away, or eight days at sea.

I show Christian the survey map on my phone. Can we see these plots as well, I ask him. He is the older of the two, twenty-four, and does all the talking. Munique is not yet twenty. He is quiet. Christian nods and points in the direction slightly off from where I would have gone, then leads us. We cross a fence, and the grass turns short. Why? It is pasture, Christian explains. The cows keep the grass short. He points to large cow pies, taller and denser piles distinct from the flat pancake pies of the American cows. Whose cows? Nobody knows, Christian says, jungle cows. Used to be somebody’s, but the person is gone.

We see the herd across a ravine. Ten or fifteen heads of cattle: heifers, juveniles, and the bull. Christian picks up a large stick and cuts it with his machete to the size he wants, and carries it with him. We cross the shallow ravine, then Christian turns to walk along the top of the hill, parallel to the herd. The bull is nonplussed. He takes the point at the head of the herd and slowly intercepts our path, makes noises. I don’t like his tone. Neither does Christian. He points the stick at the bull and shoos him away. The bull stops the advance and walks parallel to us. The herd follows. Are we fine, Christian? He nods.

The other plots are beautiful, too. Alex prefers the first of the two with its expansive views and the breeze. The breeze is key for a house out here. There is no infrastructure of any kind on San Cristobal; each house must be off-grid. But it is easy to do here: the solar panels are cheap and the lithium batteries are affordable. Each house has a rainwater catchment system that fills up the tanks after a few hours of frequent tropical rains. But it helps to avoid air-conditioning. The air-conditioning is a power hog and destroys the hard-earned acclimatization to the tropical heat and humidity. The open windows with a breeze are enough. Most homes here do not have glass windows, just screens to keep chitras away.

We walk down the hill to check the distance to the mangroves below. A half-mile, I guess, but better be sure. Christian, do you have kids, I ask. Yes, one. It is enough, too many kids as it is, and kids take much time and are becoming expensive. Do most villagers still have many children, I ask. Some, but fewer now. People still have them young, but not as many as ten years ago, he says. Did you build your own house, I ask. Yes, with my brothers and cousins and my parents. We cut the wood from our jungle and shaped it into planks with a chainsaw. I have seen the Ngäbe Indians cut the trees into two-by-six planks with chainsaws, right in the jungle where they have felled them. The precision and straightness of the planks would blow your mind.

We used nespero and almendra trees before, Christian says, but now we can’t cut them without a permit, so we use other wood. Nespero is a beautiful local tree with woven trunks as if braided from smooth ropes. Almendras are the giants of the jungle, with extremely hard wood. It is prized for that - the wood is too hard for the termites.

Christian, are people leaving the village? We are slugging through a creek, and the mud holds our boots then releases them with a sucking sound. He can’t hear me through the steps. Are people leaving the village, I ask again. Yes, but they are not going far, just to the next island. They work construction jobs on Isla Colón. They are building hostels and Inns for the tourists, and homes for the expats. The villagers there build their own homes. Christian, have you traveled to other parts of Panama? He nods.

Two horses trot out of the shade and follow us. The mare is small, the stallion is larger but still small, yet aggressive. He charges us, changes direction after Christian shakes his stick, then circles back to the mare. Are these jungle horses, as well, I joke. Christian nods. Yes, there was a gringo, some Austrian or German, who did horse riding tours in the island jungle, but he left recently after he grew too old. The horses are still here.

At first, I feel sad, but then I see the horses’ healthy coats and fit frames, and I look at the vast pasture they made their own, where they gallop or trot as they please, without obligations to an owner, and I realize the old age of the gringo and his return home was his greatest gift to these two. Only two horses, I ask Christian. No, there are more.

We walk a quarter mile through the pasture, then stop at the cow corral. It is old, disused, but still standing, built of the local hardwood. We lean on the planks to rest and look over the water. Beautiful. Peaceful. Free of the hurry, of naked ambition and greed.

Christian, will you also leave someday? No, it is a good life. Tranquillo. I like my people.

I look at him and feel something uncertain. At first, I feel sad that his entire life will be on this one island. But then I realize I feel a tinge of jealousy. It took me thirty adult years to understand I was chasing the wrong thing, then to come to this stunning place to find peace. Yet, he is only twenty-four, and he is already here. No, not here as in this place, but a state of mind, where peaceful life with the people he likes is the most worthy ambition.

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Turns out, my creativity functions for only a few hours a day, at best. So, as with time or physical effort, I must choose where to direct it and decide what creative projects I must relegate to the future. That is, of course, inconvenient. Seldom can I focus on a single thing and execute it from beginning to end. Life is juggling, shuffling among many projects, shifting the mind between competing tasks and pressing deadlines on the same day.

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The win is the appearance of productivity. The loss is the shallowing of ideas. A glut of things in the head limits the potential quality to 95% of the possible. That is enough for most things. But the book demands more. The excellence is in the remaining five, and brilliance is in the tiny fraction of that.

While finishing writing and editing the final chapters, I had to stop writing essays. I didn’t like the decision. Essays are rewarding. They formalize loose ideas percolating in the mind into a coherent framework. I love sending them into the world. There is an instant adrenaline jolt of completing a work, and then the satisfaction of knowing that someone may appreciate it. They may agree or disagree, but they will think about the same observations in their own way. That is the writer’s bond with the reader.

But alas, life demands tough choices, even if it means giving up connection with the readers for a time.

Now, the good news: the initial drafts of the book are finished, and copies have gone out to beta readers. After their feedback, it will go to agents and then to publishers. In the meantime, I just have to wait, worry, and prepare for the next step.

It also means I can return to writing. Of course, I never stopped, but my writing became invisible, buried in the pages of a long-term project. So, I am excited to return to the past cadence or short-form written essays, in addition to the video episodes we’ve been producing.

Now I’m faced with a difficult choice. The political landscape in my old home, the United States, is fraught with the danger of disassembling from a democracy into an authoritarian chaos. Some days, the world seems to be burning. The compulsion to add to the chorus of voices advocating against the growing mayhem is strong.

Fortunately, the brilliant minds are already speaking, with deep comprehension of politics, and intellectual capacity to translate complexity with clarity. They are making an impact. Thus, we want to contribute elsewhere.

Blue Planet and Travel Banter will stay focused on travel stories—slow travel, in particular, and adventure travel occasionally—with the idea of reminding everyone, including ourselves, that life is not only about politics. It’s about connecting with the world, and taking little bits of knowledge and experience from people willing to share them—then passing them on to others who might incorporate the knowledge into their own lives in ways that improve them.

I believe in nuance, in the idea that subtle changes in perspective can bring monumental shifts in understanding. Dig into details of familiar things, talk to someone from another culture, and you may see what you discounted as no longer worthy of attention in a slightly different shade. That new nuance adds to the gamut of your understanding and pries open the mind. Lets you live a richer life.

So, Blue Planet and Travel Banter will remain about perspectives. Sharing the world through the eyes of other cultures, through the lens of video stories, and through the pages of essays. Thank you for following.

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How can such a tiny, two-foot animal be the second loudest mammal on Earth? It has to do with a unique part of their physiology which we touch on in this episode.

Monkeys and people share space on the islands. People slowly push the edge of the jungle inward and bifurcate the old monkey routes with widening roads and power lines. These cause injuries and deaths.

The community wants to limit the impact and has been working with power companies to insulate and bury the power lines. These efforts delivered a few wins, but also ran into some pushback.

The work continues. The local citizen groups installed monkey rope bridges across roads. The effort is nascent but is making a difference. It is not enough to entirely tip the scale yet, but all big things begin small.

If you are on our island, or elsewhere, and interested to help the monkeys thrive, you can donate to @keepbocaswild on Facebook and Instagram.

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We wanted to see for ourselves and stepped into the dark confined tunnels of the caves on Isla Colón.

Home to bats, spiders, giant crickets, and caymans, the caves are key elements of the jungle ecosystem. The creeks running through them spread the bat guano and fertilize the jungle floor.

Bocas Del Toro archipelago sits on the bed of old coral lifted from the Caribbean Sea. The rainwater, made acidic by plant vegetation, dissolved the limestone over millennia. It formed the caves and sink holes. The old fossils from the sea are still visible in the limestone walls.

I am neither religious, nor particularly ‘spiritual’, but a sense of awe grabbed me in those magical underground spaces, and left an imprint on my mind. Maybe I touched the past?

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Some players were seasoned veterans. Others just came to throw discs at trees, drink beer, and enjoy the view. It was hot, messy, a little chaotic — and absolutely worth it.

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I noticed over the last few months that expat communities are lively and engaged beyond what I saw among their peers in the United States. Maybe the extra effort it takes to make a life in another country and culture winnows the group to those eager for experience?

Such energy is contagious. It encourages saying yes to life in all its forms. Pushes one off a comfortable seat and onto muddy trails. Eases the choice to do something when everyone around embraces opportunities for experience.

I am not a disk golfer, but I loved the day. Disk golfers are a passionate, welcoming community that values fun, nature, and good conversation over scorecards. Plus, we ended the day with a truly proper IPA, brewed right here on the island. That was my first IPA in six months, since I sailed out of Key West. Thank you, Hercules.

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Last weekend, I set out to ride my bike around the jungle of Isla Colón in Bocas del Toro. On the map, the roads follow the coast but end on each side of Mimitimbi wilderness. However, I've heard there is a way to connect. I am going to find it.

My bike is a folding Dahon, with rust in places where rust should not be. It is not the best suited bike for the tough dirt roads and trails of the island. Will it make the tour?

I take care of our bikes, but I still lose the battle to rust. Salt ions, humidity, and galvanic corrosion win overtime. But the bike served me well so far. I am going to trust it. Watch the episode to see if the trust was misplaced.

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You can watch the episode on YouTube: