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August 4th, 2011 9:09am—Goddamn Penises

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 16:09:00 +0000

After Lynn left for Colombia, Gonzales and I went north with Ali G—our tent—and a bottle of Flor de Caña rum. As we were crossing borders and didn't want the bottle confiscated, I ensconced the rum with dirty shirts and socks in my bag. I'd been washing my clothes in the sink with soap, and they didn't smell fantastic. We traveled from Panama City via taxi and bus and found ourselves overnight in San José, Costa Rica.
San José was overrun with American tourists, largely between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. Though it was July, it seemed like spring break (woo-hoo) for college students on coke. We weren't enthralled. As backpackers in our mid-twenties, we clearly had superior traveling status. We were experiencing the world on limited budgets. The American tourists were experiencing inflated Costa Rican prices and the same college scene from the states, albeit in a foreign country.
When we discovered that the showers had hot water and soap, we thought we were in the lap of hostel luxury. When we paid $8US for two beers at Hostel Pangea, our residence for the night, we knew we were in the wrong place. We missed poor backpackers and dollar beers at Luna's Castle. While the crazy Americans in the hostel got drunk on $4 beers, Gonzales and I laid down on orange and red couches and watched t.v.
It would have been nice and relaxing, except that the t.v. shows were in Spanish and the live drunken background screams of college-age tourists were in English. I couldn't understand Spanish as it was, much less interpret foreign language television show plot. We turned it to The Simpsons.

Instead of the tentative tent-on-beach plan we had vaguely discussed, Gonzales wanted to go directly to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, stay at Hostel PachaMama, and fall into the delicious life-encompassing black hole that she described San Juan del Sur as.
"Some people mean to stay for two days in SJDS and they stay two weeks. Others mean to stay for a week and they stay for a month. Some people just never leave. It's like a black hole of heaven," Gonzales told me.
She said there were a fruit market and beaches, backpackers running around barefoot and ladies nights at the bars. She listed off people that she had met in San Juan del Sur when she had been there a few months prior. The names meant nothing to me, but I was excited.
"Sounds good, let's go stay at PachaMama," I said.
I envisioned PachaMama's owner as a kindly older woman who was as wide as she was tall. I thought she must look like a roly poly. I fantasized about her cooking a meal or two for me. Traditional, home cooked Nicaraguan food. I drooled.
Gonzales and I left our air-conditioned room and the hot showers and mindbogglingly expensive cerveza of Hostel Pangea and got to the bus stop at the unholy time of 6am. The first bus out was at 6am. When I realized that my clock had been an hour early and it was actually 5am, I shrugged off my backpacker bag, dropped it on the concrete floor of the bus terminal, smiled a sad smile at Gonzales, and sat on the backpack.
"I'm sorry," I said. "All of these border crossings and one-hour time changes are messing me up."
"It's okay, this way we can eat breakfast!" Gonzales replied.
At that moment, I realized that my vagina was wet. And pools of liquid were issuing forth from my bag onto the concrete. When the sweet, tangy flavor of Flor de Caña rum hit my nostrils, I screamed.
"The rum!"
"Not the rum!" Gonzales shouted.
I had managed to break the thick, seemingly impenetrable glass bottle inside my bag.
"Well, if anything, my clothes probably smell better now," I said as I contemplated laying on the concrete and licking up spiced rum.
Seven hours later, we walked across the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border at Penas Blancas. Luckily, Gonzales had done this desolate, confusing, fuck of a crossing before. The Tica bus let us out and disappeared. Usually the customs offices for border crossings are next to each other. They're typically at least within eyesight. Not that one. We received exit stamps from Costa Rica from the inside of a shack, walked what seemed like a mile through the dust and light rain in tropical humidity, searched for Nicaragua's customs office, and found it solely because Gonzales recognized a yellow building, a blue building, and a near indistinguishable passageway in between some other buildings. At that moment, Gonzales became God, and I, a dutiful worshiper.

We caught a chicken bus to Rivas and then to San Juan del Sur. The owner of PachaMama was not the portly grandmother type. The owner was a man in his late twenties who had blue/green eyes, shoulder-length surfer hair and quasi-rippling muscles. He wore a baseball hat, board shorts, tank tops or tee-shirts and flip flops, and had previously gone to Washington State University.
The PachaMama "home" that Gonzales had referred to was not home in the comforting, motherly way, but rather in the welcoming, accepting, no-judgements-passed backpacker party scene. PachaMama felt like home because it was a haven for the weary, the tired, and the drunk. The front desk receptionists were backpackers from around the world who had decided to stay in San Juan del Sur just a little longer, the owner was from the U.S., and though the pots and pans were falling apart and you were lucky to locate a fork in the kitchen, PachaMama brought people together.
On one of our first nights in San Juan del Sur, a plethora of girls from PachaMama capitalized on Ladies' Night. Ladies' Night meant ladies drink free at one bar from 8pm-11pm, at another from 9pm-10pm, and free at another from 9:30pm-10:30pm. Ladies' Night was awesome. And dangerous. Awesome in that we made friends easily and got intoxicated for free. Dangerous in that if you're not paying for drinks, you find yourself a lot less likely to count beers and pay attention to consumption and levels of intoxication. Especially if dancing is involved.
As Nicaragua wasn't known for being the safest place in the world, every night a handful of girls and I would only take out limited funds. We weren't usually paying for drinks, so our money was typically reserved for late-night hot dog stands and cigarettes.
My second night in San Juan del Sur, three other girls and I had been drinking for hours. It was three in the morning and none of us had any money left. One of the girls, Amy, logically decided that she wanted juice.
"I really want juice, you guys. Do you guys want juice? I really want juice."
I shrugged. I guessed I could use some juice. The bartender wouldn't give Amy any for free (she tried), so we walked out on the bar's back deck and looked at the ocean.
I sat on a slab of concrete next to two of the girls while another sat across from us in a plastic chair. A local guy sat down next to me. He didn't say anything, but he nodded at me.
"Do you like juice?" Amy asked him, leaning across me. "Can we get some juice? Can we share some juice with you?"
Local nodded but didn't get up. One of the other girls said something and I turned to her to respond. That's when the Nicaraguan man touched my arm. I looked over at him to find that he had removed his dick from his pants. Penises are not pretty to look at. This one was disturbingly revolting. It was flaccid and slumped over. It was almost black in color and inexplicably had some hair on it. It was uncircumsized and looked like a giant slug. I screamed, "Put it away, put it away. Oh my God, he has his penis out."
"No, no, it's juice," he said, pointing. "Juice inside. Juice inside."

July 31st, 2011 2:08pm—Cock or Bollocks

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 21:08:00 +0000

I was a month into my Central American trip, and instead of being north in Nicaragua or Honduras, I was precisely where I had started: Panama City. I hadn't even left Panama. However, I was with the Bocas crew for a few more days, so I was happy.
As a transportation hub, Panama City goes everywhere. Within a few days, Kiwi was flying back to New Zealand, Lynn to Colombia, and the Brits were boarding a sailboat from the San Blas Islands to Colombia. Gonzales and I were going north with our tent, which we had named Ali G.
We rocked up to Luna's Castle, my second stay at that hostel, and I confidently approached the desk. Gonzales, Lynn and I didn't have reservations, but everyone else we were with did.
"It's okay, I stayed here last time, we can definitely get beds," I confidently announced.
We couldn't get beds. Luna's Castle didn't even have sleeping room in their movie theater or lounge areas. I tried another approach. I said that we had reserved three beds and we needed the accommodation we had planned for. Oddly enough, there was nothing reserved in our name, and they still didn't have beds.
"Listen to me, there's another hostel a few blocks away," they said.
We didn't listen. Instead, each of us shared a twin-sized mattress in a dorm room bunk bed with those who actually had reservations. Gonzales and her Mexican blanket shared with one of the English guys, I hopped in with Kiwi, and Lynn with one of the girls.
The next night was the fourth of July. The guys all took off. I was in Panama City with Lynn, Gonzales and a British girl, Becks. When we awoke, Gonzales and I (the two Californians) looked at each other with shining eyes.
"Happy fourth of July!" we said.
We hugged.
Lynn added, "May the fourth be with you."
"And also with you."
We went to the bus terminal, which also happened to have a mall in the complex. Becks was on a mission. She bought useful things. She purchased a water-resistant watch and camera to use while diving. Lynn, Gonzales and I bought colorful body crayons. We wanted to decorate our bodies for the 4th. While in the taxi to the mall, at the mall, and in the taxi back, we randomly screamed, "Happy fourth of July!" to unsuspecting Panamanians. They looked confused.
When we followed it up with, "May the fourth be with you," they looked downright baffled.
"And also with you" was said in a quieter tone, sometimes accompanied by a religious gesturing across our chests in a cross motion.
The fourth of July in Panama City had become a religious experience.
When we returned to Luna's Castle, we embarked on a grand American 4th of July tradition: we drank beer. The beer at the hostel was usually cold, frequently restocked, and cost a dollar. I busted out a pack of cards and after a few rounds of Fuck the Dealer, we saw Ray Ray. He had been on the free catamaran, free beer extravaganza with us in Bocas del Toro. Ray Ray was another Brit who had long blond shaggy hair, was a few inches shorter than me, and felt no inhibitions towards indecent exposure.

As we drank, he showed us naked photos of himself taken around the world. Some were at iconic sites, like the Parthenon and Big Ben. Others were in front of canyons or waterfalls. All revealed shocked expressions on the faces of those in the background.
By 8pm, Gonzales had passed out at the table in the middle of the hostel's common area.

"Gonzales OUT!" Lynn and I maturely repeated to each other, screaming.
We covered Gonzales with cerveza-soaked playing cards before escorting her to bed. And then we covered ourselves in red, white and blue body crayons.
Lynn was a contradictory combination. She had "Canadian" written in red down one arm, "Honorary Cali" in blue and black down another arm,"USA" in red near her eyes, and "4 July 2011" in white on her back. I believe we were trying to write "Honorary Californian," but, in our drunken revelry, didn't space the letters appropriately. Thus, "Honorary Cali."
I had "USA" written on every available epidermis location, my cheeks included, and an American flag on my face. I wasn't very creative.
Becks participated in the color spectacle by writing "To the empire" in blue down one of her arms. Damn Brits. In retrospect, I should have written "We beat the empire" somewhere on my body.

In true exhibitionist fashion, Ray Ray was naked before 9pm. We were still at the banquet table in the hostel's common room. Everyone in the hostel frequented the main room, because there were bathrooms, access to the kitchen and some rooms, a yellow and red 5-gallon water jug, the reception area, and, most importantly, beer. At one point, small children came out to get water. They stared at Ray Ray, who had his cock in one hand and his bollocks in the other.
Lynn and I continued to scream "Happy 4th of July," "May the fourth be with you," "And also with you" to passersby who didn't immediately comprehend the astounding significance of the day. Becks shouted, "To the empire!" with regular frequency.
Ray Ray introduced us to a game called Cock or Bollocks, revolving specifically on his cock and bollocks. Lynn and I were fascinated by the concept. Becks affirmed the popularity of the game by saying that she'd seen it played countless times: at house parties, at bars, in the woods. It's something of an English vocation. You really can't blame them. It always raining in that country.
I'm still not entirely sure what the game consists of, but as I understood it, cock or bollocks comprises a naked man grabbing his penis in one hand, balls in another, and lightly pinching the skin near either his cock or his balls. The participants in the game had to guess whether he was pinching his penis or his balls. This resulted in us sitting around the table, alternately screaming "cock" or "bollocks." Whoever guessed wrong had to drink.
We drank. A lot. Lynn had to leave the next morning for a boat to Colombia. Even though we woke up late, it was still at some ungodly hour that Gonzales and I staggered outside with Lynn to see her off. I wore one sandal, as I had lost the matching one the night before.
Waving good-bye to Lynn, I almost cried. I may have still been intoxicated. Then Gonzales and I gathered the explosion of our belongings from the hostel and prepared to journey north. I never found my other sandal.

July 27th, 2011 3:03pm—July 2011 Quote of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:03:00 +0000

Random Backpacker: "If you smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish, I'll be your friend."

July 23rd, 2011 9:03am—From Playa Venao to Panama City

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 16:03:00 +0000

I've never understood the impulse some males have to quasi-choke a female while in the midst of naked intimate time. I don't particularly appreciate being choked. I like breathing.
I had noticed a 6'4" man strutting around Playa Venao with shoulder-length, wavy blonde hair, straight, white teeth and blue eyes. He looked like he worked out. He surpassed my estimation of a Grecian god. If I hadn't jumped into the ocean every four minutes to cool off, I imagine I would have noticed my underwear get wet upon eye contact with him. He knew his superior physical specimen status. I could tell by the way he walked. And how he looked at girls. I did what any smart girl would do: I ignored him. I did check him out all day, though. That night, he sat next to me by the bonfire in front of our tent. It was a good thing that I had ignored him. We couldn't have spoken anyway. He was German but grew up in Argentina. I certainly didn't know any German. After months in Central America, my language capacity exhausted itself at half sentences of Spanish. He did know a few English words and phrases: "butt fucking," "fuck," and "my house." I'd ask him a question and he'd respond with some variation of these words. He was a sweet-talker. I gave in to the inevitable: I left with him. He wasn't pleased when I refused him anal sex. He feigned ignorance and still tried to stick it in my butt. I knew he understood the word no. It's the same in Spanish.
The next morning, I walked back along the beach in the general direction of the tent. I passed gypsies displaying boards of jewelry, vendors selling shirts and hats, and people handing out advertisements for different parties. For the first time, there were crowds. I didn't know how far into the competition we were, or how many days we'd been camping on the beach. I didn't even have a concept of time. I just knew that every time I saw someone sporting apparel from the U.S., I'd chant, "Team USA. Team USA. Team USA!"
I had just decided that German was alright regardless of the choking and anal penetration attempts when I saw two of the Bocas girls playing beach volleyball. The Aussie and Austrian girls were dressed accordingly in bathing suit tops and midget shorts. The rest of the Bocas crew was in Playa Venao.

It wasn't difficult to locate everyone. There were a total of three bar/restaurants on the beach. They were at the second one. Gonzales had passed out on one of the white couches while everyone else sat around drinking beer and catching up.
"Gonzales...OUT!" I yelled as a welcome to the Kiwi, Aussie, and Brits. We shared hugs all around. For days, I had been using the ocean in place of a shower, but I had brushed my teeth the day before, so I felt confident that my friends wouldn't notice any stench.

I was just sad that the Canadian girls weren't with them. I missed watching them share one cigarette between the two of them. They were under the impression that by sharing, they were actually smoking less. Instead, they just smoked twice as much. I missed staring at the honed muscles of the marathon runner. Not that I have any lesbian tendencies. I just fully appreciate when women have something that I don't, like marathon muscles, or breasts.
There had been some drama in Panama City when seeing the Canadian girls off. The Kiwi had previously hooked up with one of the other girls in the group. He told her one night in Panama City that he was going to go with a Kiwi backpacker that he had hit it off with. He thought he was being a gentleman. In defense of the girl, the Aussie threw a bucket of water on the Kiwi while he was sleeping in the hostel. The Kiwi put his fist through a door. He got kicked out of the hostel. Something like that. Regardless, the vibe wasn't entirely harmonious when we all met up.

The Austrian and Aussie regularly disappeared to cavort with the surfers. Lynn, Gonzales and I regularly hitched rides to Pedasi, the town where everyone else from Bocas was staying.
One day, we hitchhiked and joined some gypsies in the back of a truck for the ride to Playa Venao. They were selling handmade jewelry. The guy had dark dreadlocks down his back and the woman was covered in tattoos. When it started pouring down rain, they busted out plastic sheets that we held above our heads to keep from getting soaked. They shared with us. Years ago, I was skeptical about anyone with dreadlocks. As it turns out, people with dreadlocks are awesome.
The man who was driving pulled under a store's roof. The walls of the building were painted lime green. We listened to the rain pinging off of the corrugated iron roof and watched the water collect in swirling masses on the road.
One night, we sat in one of the rooms in Pedasi passing around a joint and laughing when the Aussie and Austrian girls fell through the door. They were soaking wet.
"What in bloody hell happened to you lot?" one of the British guys asked.
They boomeranged off every possible object in the room.
"We were with hot surfers!" The Austrian announced. "We went in a pool, and I don't know where my bottoms went. They're gone. We were drinking and dancing and my bottoms are gone and we were drinking and dancing. People were having sex!"
"Standard," the Aussie bellowed.
"What?!"
"Sex and surfers and drinking and no bottoms. No bottoms."
"Standard," repeated the Aussie.
"What?"
Through this incredibly detailed approach to questioning, we didn't learn anything else. But we laughed and giggled in the haze of being high. The Austrian showered with her shorts and bathing suit top on and the Aussie repeated, "Standard" after every statement of the evening's antics.

We passed the days drinking on the beach with the surfers in the background. When we'd run out of booze, Lynn, Gonzales and I would buy red wine at the one convenient store on the beach. After trying to open the bottle with our teeth, Gonzales's Mexican blanket, and a knife, we finally gave in and bought a proper bottle opener from the store.

By the end of the week, everything that I owned reeked of the ocean and booze and cigarettes. I had a length of purple cloth that I got in India in 2009 which I wrapped around my body to wear as a dress. I was delusional. It didn't look like a dress, it looked like a cloth. It kept falling down. I continually flashed people. I traveled from Playa Venao to Pedasi to Panama City in that purple Indian cloth. The next day I realized that in the sun, the cloth was see-through. The sun had been shining for the past two days.

July 20th, 2011 12:42pm—Prefiero la Playa

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:42:00 +0000

Two nights before the rest of the Bocas crew showed up in Playa Venao, Lynn, Gonzales and I made friends with some natives. More people pitched tents on the beach, and the tent next to ours housed a few Panamanian guys. They had fancy commodities, like air mattresses and sleeping bags. They even had a truck. The most extravagant thing we had was Gonzales's Mexican blanket. We were still peeing in the ocean and eating whatever scraps of food we found in our tent.

At night, we built bonfires. By we, I mean primarily the Panamanians. I watched. I learned all kinds of things. I learned that lighter fluid exists in developing countries, "Que tal?" means "What's up?" and that there were cops everywhere. The cops weren't looking to arrest us or anything, they just stopped by the bonfire to say hi. They also looked for elicit acts. They just wanted free, live porn.
Lynn liked her men foreign and exotic. I liked my boys white. Lynn was hooking up with a Chilean man on the beach when she noticed ten flashlights shining on her and the man. There was nakedness. They were surrounded by cops. When the cops told them that they needed to move their amorous actions to the bushes, she responded, "Prefiero la playa." When the cops continued standing over her with their flashlights, she announced, "Prefiero la playa." When she walked away from the cops, she screamed "Prefiero la playa!" shaking a fist in the air. She didn't want to move to the bushes, she preferred the beach.

A few nights later, the Kiwi and I were hooking up on the beach when we were similarly surrounded by cops with flashlights. There was nakedness. Though I was tempted to yell "Prefiero la playa," I settled with taking a picture on their ATV instead.
That night, Lynn, the Kiwi and I slept in the tent. The Kiwi molested Lynn's breasts. I was just sad that I didn't have a pillow.

July 17th, 2011 9:20am—A Kiteboard Roll and a Flash

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:20:00 +0000

Lynn, Gonzales and I got to the weeklong competition so early that aside from the surfing competitors and those working the event, we were pretty much the only women. We were definitely the only gringas.
The tent's fabric walls weren't exactly sun resistant. We woke up with the sun, bathed in the ocean, brushed our teeth with a bottle of water on the sand, and then started drinking. Typically all before 7am.
It didn't matter that my hair turned into a rat's nest of half-developed dreadlocks, or that my bottom lip got sunburnt and looked like a hive of bees had attacked it. As the only 20-something female gringas, we were hot stuff.
The three of us frequently made the trek along the beach from our tent to the bars. There weren't public restrooms, so we'd urinate in the ocean and sneak into a bar/restaurant's bathroom for anything else. I looked in a mirror a total of three times over the course of the week. The first time I looked a bit deranged, the second, homeless, and the third time, instead of crying, I shrugged and continued drinking.
When we walked along the beach the announcers temporarily suspended their commentary of the surfers and yelled insightful things like, "Gringas!" and "Bonitas chicas!" Those were the only words I understood, at least. Lynn walked up to the reporters and had entire conversations with them. They even laughed. I can tell if someone actually understands the language by whether the person nervously laughs and shortly walks away, or stands and talks with natives, engaging in laughing on both sides. I nervously laughed and walked away. Sometimes I ran. During this time my Spanish knowledge slightly increased. Not on a daily basis, but every week I'd pick up another word or two and feel like a language superstar.
On one of these early days of the event, Lynn, Gonzales and I walked back to our tent for lunch. Along the way, a guy stood on the beach alone, holding an American flag. As proud drunken Americans, we repeatedly chanted "Team USA!" as we got closer. We took a picture with that professional surfer. No big deal.

If we remembered to eat, lunch comprised whatever we could find. That day, we had a can of tuna, cans of beans and corn, some tortillas, hot sauce, and Cheetos that appeared to be on steroids. We combined it together, tried to consume as little sand as possible, and called it a success.
As we sat in front of the tent, slightly swaying in happy drunken revelries, we noticed a kiteboarder struggling in the waves. I couldn't tell if he was drowning, but the kite was disconnected from the board. The man wrestled with the kite while the board appeared and then disappeared in the ocean. I pointed and turned around to tell the girls we should help him. Lynn had already taken off. As previously mentioned, she had massive gazongas. She ran down the beach in her bathing suit, oblivious to the stares. Nobody watched the kiteboarder, the attention was on the bouncing titties. I thought about getting up, but decided being a spectator would not only be more fun, it would be easier.
Without a word to the man, Lynn sprinted into the ocean after the board. And then she disappeared. The waves knocked her down. She reappeared in a flying leap onto the board and clutched it in her arms. The waves came, she stood up, and then fell down. All I saw were her feet in the air. She did an entire rotation in the water before emerging, dragging the board behind her. It was the first kiteboard roll I have ever had the privilege of witnessing.
Lynn talked to the guy for a few minutes and then walked back to the tent.
"That guy was kind of weird," she said. "He thanked me but didn't make eye contact."
"That's because one of your boobs has been hanging out since you got out of the water."

July 13th, 2011 5:56pm—Gonzales OUT

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:56:00 +0000

From Bocas del Toro, Panama, I had planned on taking a chicken bus north to the border of Costa Rica.
From there, I'd continue north to more crime-ridden countries, like Nicaragua and Honduras. I don't give in easily to peer pressure, and though various people staying at Aqua Lounge revealed a myriad of reasons I should return south with them, if I want to do something, I typically do it. Gonzales (a Cali girl with Mexican parents), and Lynn, a Canadian with five siblings, sat me down one night.
"You should come back through Panama with us," Gonzales said.
"Na, I need to go north. I want to get to the Bay Islands and get my scuba diving certification."
"Do that after Panama. We're going to an international surfing competition."
"If you come south with us, we'll watch surfers for a week, spend the 4th of July in Panama City and then I'll go north with you," Gonzales reasoned.
"Surfers," Lynn smiled.
"I'm in!" I yelled.

The ninth beer I was on told me this was a good idea.
The rest of the Aqua Lounge crew went to Panama City to see off the Canadian girls, and then planned to meet up with me, Gonzales, and Lynn in Playa Venao.
We took a water taxi from Bocas del Toro to Almirante, and a 4.5 hour bus ride from Almirante to David. Gonzales awoke Lynn and I the next morning by sitting up in bed and screaming "Tent!"
"Tent?" I asked, blinking my contacts into place.
"Tent!" she repeated.
"Camping?"
"Camping!" Gonzales yelled.
Backpacking around Central America was clearly improving our vocabulary and use of multiple-word sentences.
We split a three-person tent for twenty-two dollars, caught a bus to Las Tablas, a taxi to Pedasi, and we were almost to Playa Venao.
At this point, I knew maybe ten Spanish words, three of which were mas cerveza and baño. Those words go nicely together, so I was content. Though both Gonzales and I grew up in California and Gonzales grew up with Spanish-speaking parents with English as a second language, combined we still knew less than Lynn. A Canadian had better Spanish than we did. She was basically fluent and a goddess. Her foreign language skills were the primary reason we got to Playa Venao. I couldn't have negotiated two bus rides and a taxi. I barely knew the name of the place we were going. I just knew that there were surfers, and we had a tent.
I do have skills in locating English-speaking people. When we arrived in Pedasí, the girls sat at the bus stop while I went on an adventure to find out how to get to the beach. We didn't want to pitch our tent in the middle of the street in the town of Pedasí. We had fantasies of sleeping in our tent on the sand, poking our heads out of the tent, and watching surfers. When I say surfers, I mean professional surfing. And surfers.

I wandered around the streets and found a woman. She told me that most of the surfers stayed in Pedasí and took the half hour ride to Playa Venao in team vans. Gonzales, Lynn and I caught a cab. We rocked up onto the beach with our tent. It wasn't until we pitched it that we realized it was a three person tent for tiny little Central Americans. In North American terms, it was a one or two person tent.
We had stocked up on bottles of rum in Pedasí, so we were still happy. When you're drunk enough, it doesn't matter where you sleep. We figured we'd pass out on each other. Gonzales and Lynn both have massive boobs, so I knew I'd at least have a pillow.

Our first night at Playa Venao, we drank. One would think that because I'd been drinking heavily for the better part of a decade, I'd know my alcoholic limits. One would think the same of Gonzales. At 8pm, Gonzales announced that she was going to the tent to pass out. We were a quarter of a mile down the beach at one of the three beachside restaurant bars. When Lynn and I checked on her at 10pm, we found her halfway in the tent.
"Well, at least her head's inside," Lynn pointed out.
"She couldn't quite make it all the way in? What'd she do, bend over to crawl inside and then collapse?"
"Gonzales is OUT!" yelled Lynn.
"Gonzales OUT," I agreed.

July 11th, 2011 5:44pm—July 2011 Photo of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:44:00 +0000

Wizard Beach, Bocas del Toro

Panama

July 9th, 2011 5:18pm—Free Catamaran, Free Beer

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:18:00 +0000

I awoke a few mornings later to screaming.
"Free catamaran! Free beer! Get your asses up!"
I heard cheering. I walked out to a mass of people shouting the glorious news. One of the British guys cried in a hammock.
"It's the best day ever," he sobbed.
I was as elated as on my seventh birthday, when my wildly intoxicated uncle gave me a hamster. He hadn't previously cleared it with my parents.
I was still drunk from the night before (in Panama, not when I was seven), and the extent of my thought process was, free beer on a catamaran for a day in the Caribbean? Yes, please!
I'd venture to say that of the twenty of us backpackers, one person knew passable Spanish. She was a goddess. She ordered things for me. She held conversations for me. She told me that some people were trying to start a catamaran tour that looped from Bocas down to San Blas and eventually to Colombia. They had recently acquired the catamaran and needed promo shots. We had to sit on the catamaran all day and drink free beer in exchange for some guy taking photos of us. It was as awesome as it sounds.
A few of the backpackers were skeptical, but they got tossed into the boat by those of us who were looking forward to continuing the boozehound that had become our lives.
I can't tell you the catamaran's name, nor can I thank the company that enabled our alcoholic tendencies, because I don't remember. I do know that the name of the catamaran had something to do with San Francisco, CA. It may have been named San Francisco, CA. I had lived in the city for five years, and thus felt superior to everyone else on the catamaran.
"This is my boat!" I proudly announced to everyone, sipping my eighth Balboa.
"It's not a boat, Kara. It's a catamaran. And they own it." Someone pointed to a man and a woman.
"Well, it's my city," I replied.
A guy threw me overboard. Luckily, the catamaran was anchored. I still almost drowned. I got thrown off the front, and the ladder to board was in the back. It was a big catamaran, and the only physical activity I had accomplished in the past few months was moving my arm from my drink to my mouth. Sadly, that doesn't build up much muscle. Or endurance.
Some of the girls in our group posed. Not for promotional shots, just for our own amusement. One of the Canadians did the "I'm the Queen of the World" pose. We tried a woman pyramid. I drank excessively while the Kiwi did backflips off the side. I could barely swim, so I was very impressed with Kiwi. He only landed on his head once.
Kiwi got shown up by a small uni-sex child with curly blonde luscious locks. I say uni-sex because the three-year-old wasn't wearing a shirt, and was clearly too young for breasts to come in yet. It was either going to be a gorgeous woman or a smoking hot man. We weren't child molesters, so we weren't going to strip the daring little sexy baby.
Instead we asked it determining questions like, "What's your favorite color, baby?"
"Green."
"Well, that doesn't bloody help. Do you like dolls or G.I. Joes?"
"Both."
"Hmmm. Do you want to be a mommy or a daddy someday?"
"I love my mommy and daddy!"
Clearly, we didn't get anywhere.
The kid was incredible. It did acrobatics in the air. It started out on the side of the catamaran in a hand stand, summersaulted in the air, completed what looked like a flying squirrel, summersaulted again, and dove without a splash.
Granted, the tiny little body structure allowed for more air time to complete insane tumbling stunts, but I knew I was looking at a future Olympian diver. With my child obsession, you'd think through my drunken, happy haze that I would have at least gotten the kid's phone number.

July 6th, 2011 10:30am—Pepper Sprayed in Bocas

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:30:00 +0000

Back to coke. It wasn't unusual to emerge from my dorm room in the morning to see someone of our orgy and drug cartel doing lines off one of the long wooden tables usually meant for more civilized things, like breakfast, dinner, or drinking games. However, it was more common to cram seven people into a one-person bathroom and take turns doing lines off of the toilet. Three people would wait in the shower, and when the time came to alternate position, it was like being a part of a mentally disabled circus act. At one point, a guy was on a girl's shoulders while someone cried in the fetal position on the floor.

During the day, we'd snorkel, take a water taxi over to Red Frog Beach or Wizard Beach, play card games, and drink or do illegal substances. During the night, we'd drink and do illegal substances.
One night, most of the group headed over to La Iguana again, while I decided to stay with Dat, Seanog, Ed, the giant leprechaun, and a few others to get more debilitated at Aqua Lounge off the card game Fuck the Dealer before going across the water. I almost fell into the Caribbean three times. Once when getting into the boat, once when exiting, and once while sitting down. The ocean wasn't rough. There weren't waves. I'd been drinking heavily for four hours and the dribbling and slobbering was setting in more quickly than if a horse tranquilizer had been shot directly into my blood stream.
As I walked gingerly into the bar, I told myself to hold it together and try not to fall over. The year before, I had lost half of my front tooth by falling over in New Zealand under similar circumstances. I counted my steps and internally chanted encouragement and praise to myself. I just needed to get inside the bar where I could sit down.
And then someone knocked me over. A crazy girl came tearing out of the bar, crying hysterically, screaming, and holding her face in her hands. One second I was concentrating on the ground and my feet, congratulating myself on walking with the grace of a celestial being. The next second the girl bumped into and ricocheted off of me. I crashed into the ground while she continued on, holding her face, yelling, and crying.
It was Stacey, one of the Canadian girls. This girl ran marathons. She had been drunk, haggling with a drug dealer in the bar. Sober people bargain over drugs in somewhat discreet places, like sidewalks or the corners of rooms. Stacey had been negotiating in the exact middle of the bar. Normal people agree over the price in a civilized manner. She had yelled at him that he was overcharging and she would never pay that much. Cops entered and pepper-sprayed both the drug dealer and the Canadian. They threw the dealer in jail overnight, and Stacey sprinted from the bar like a crazy person.

A half hour later she returned.
"You know it's a good night when you get pepper-sprayed by a cop while bargaining with a drug dealer in Panama, eh?"
"Standard. But we're going to have to teach you how not to yell for drugs in the middle of a public place," the Aussie told Stacey.
The next night was a cocktail of coke, dancing, drinking, and midnight swimming. By midnight swimming, I mean being shoved off of Aqua Lounge's deck thirteen times, sometimes by people we didn't know. And by midnight swimming, I mean closer to four in the morning. I put myself to bed at 6am by falling asleep in a hammock. I woke up at 7am to hear the Aussie screaming for more coke.
I rolled out of the hammock and onto the deck, smacking my forehead into the wood. The sun was coming up, I was squinting, and, lying there, all I saw were empty plastic cups and beer cans strewn in a wake of destructive awesomeness everywhere I looked. Playing cards were scattered around. A few shirts, a hat, and a pair of shorts, all wet from the ocean, lay in piles on the deck. A man sat at one of the tables, head in his hands. I assumed he was asleep and not dead.
I rolled over again and sat up. My mouth tasted like a rat had died in it. I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand. I wore a bathing suit top, underwear, and a wet shirt. Gonzales slept in another hammock. And all I heard was the Aussie.
"I need more coke! Where are you goddamn drug dealers? I need coke. This is Central America. Where's the coke? Drug dealers, unite. Now!"
I followed her voice. She, Seanog, and a Brit named John sat in a circle on Aqua Lounge's deck. Nobody else was up. They chain-smoked cigarettes and sipped on alcohol, watching the sun come up in the hazy pink sky. Music played softly on a set of portable speakers. The Aussie's screaming drowned it out entirely. I walked over to them, sat down, then laid on my back. I looked at Seanog.
"How long's she been screaming?"
"Ah, the bloody cunt's been screaming for like sixteen fucking minutes now."
"Coke! A mountain of it! Will somebody be a good man and get me some goddamn coke?" she continued.
"We haven't even been out of coke that bloody long," John said, "It's probably not the best move screaming it out in bloody public."
"A mountain of it! Drug dealers! Now! I have money, I know someone can hear me."
After yelling for twenty-seven minutes, a dealer turned up with coke. He walked across Aqua Lounge's deck towards us.
"There is a God!" the Aussie screamed while he was still ten feet away.
The Aussie, Seanog, and John were awake for the next forty-eight hours. Their speech capabilities got more incoherent and creative. At one point, seven of us sat at a table playing cards. The Aussie was in the circle, but she stared unblinking at the table, her eyes glossed over. Her make-up from three days before was smudged all over her face. She looked like the goth girl at my elementary school who painted black circles around her eyes. When I told the Aussie that she looked like hell and should go to bed, she pointed to her face, and said, "What, me? Standard!"

July 4th, 2011 11:46am — Oh, the Sex!

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:46:00 +0000

While traveling, pious girls sleep around, and girls that have had sex a few times in their lives become raging whores. Men typically jump on anything that has a vagina, and intercourse is conducted everywhere. Usually backpackers sleep in dorm rooms, and it's not a fantastic experience to try to fall asleep hearing people having sex in five out of the eight twin-sized bunk beds.

At Aqua Lounge, I met a lovely, fun bunch of girls, all of whom were traveling alone, with the exception of two Canadians. There were the two Canadians, an Austrian, a Brit, another Canadian, a Californian, and an Aussie. While the Aussie had attended college and I assume must have been capable of a more extensive vocabulary, eighty percent of the time she spoke one word: "Standard."
When I presented Seanog to her, I did so by introducing his raging, infected ear.
"Dat pierced it a few nights ago with a needle. It took about fifteen minutes and four holes in his ear. The giant leprechaun on steroids filmed the event. Seanog cleaned it with Vodka and figured that the salt water is good for it, despite the fact that some guy's constantly pissing in it and there are beer cans floating around everywhere."

"Standard," she said, as she shook Seanog's hand.
Add a Kiwi and a couple of British guys into the mix, and we had ourselves an attractive, enchantingly incestuous group. Wonderful people, no sarcasm. It was like a traveling sex ring reality show on HBO. When my male friends had parties in high school, they'd play porn on the living room television. A nice sound and visual for the background, clearly. In a week in Bocas, I saw more penises and sex than I did throughout all of those high school parties combined.
One night, a few people and I went out on the pier to catch a boat from Aqua Lounge across to La Iguana bar. I saw people having sex on the pier. I knew both of them. Another time, I got lost and ended up in some random-ass rancid Panamanian alley in Bocas Town. More people having sex, the girl with her back up against a brick wall. I knew them too.
Fornication happened in the ocean, in other people's beds, up against trees, on buses... I saw a couple escorted out of a bar for almost having sex on the dance floor. I hadn't thought anything of it when I saw his penis flapping around. I lived in San Francisco for five years and thought this guy was putting on a show. I'd seen such things many times in downtown SF. My favorite naked man experience was watching seven men on small podiums on Market Street doing penis windmills. Turns out, this guy in Bocas was simply drunk. He wasn't trying to draw attention to himself, he was just trying to stab it into a chick. Even after he was thrown out of the bar, he still hadn't tucked the old schlong away. A few of the elderly walking past the bar were horrified, but I was just impressed with the guy's persistence.

July 3rd, 2011 8:27am - Bocas and Ear Piercing

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 15:27:00 +0000

Coke is as rampant in Central America as Spanish speakers are at the Miami, Florida airport. A few years ago, on my way home from Lima, Peru, the swine flu broke out. I had no money because my wallet had been stolen in Nazca, and after three days of whoring myself out to the airlines for housing and food, I found myself on a plane to Florida. Never mind that I needed to get home to California, I was going back to the states. I exited the plane ecstatic to be in my country. I walked into the airport with a smile as large as a vagina during childbirth. Three minutes later, I cried. Everybody at MIA spoke Spanish. Those that did speak English did so with a Spanish accent. I wasn't home, and God was fucking with me.
Drug dealers were everywhere in Bocas del Toro. I was still with the giant leprechaun on steroids, Seanog, Dat, and Ed. The dealer that sold to Seanog our first night then disappeared. Luckily, there was no shortage, and in his place seventeen others approached the Irish guy. I thought Seanog must just look like he wanted Coke, but one of the dealers told me that they could tell he was wired.
"But I've traveled with him for weeks now, and he generally has crazy eyes. It's not that he's on drugs, he's just Irish," I tried to explain. In response, I received raised eyebrows.
Our third night in Bocas, Seanog ran into his dealer from a few nights before.
"Oy, ya cunt bag, where the fuck have you been?"
Seanog displayed wonderfully elevated diction in his everyday speaking tendencies.
"I got in jail," the man replied, looking depressed.

As I later learned, this was a common occurrence. Cops picked up the dealers and threw them in jail, the dealers paid them off the next day, and then reappeared on the streets to sell more drugs, make more money, and continue unsuccessful attempts to avoid the police.
Needless to say, it was the epitome of a backpacker destination. Located on the Caribbean, Bocas del Toro comprised a group of islands with tropical jungle and water taxis to different beaches and islands. Activities included but were not limited to: snorkeling, diving, surfing, partying, and recreational drug usage.
We stayed at a kick-ass hostel and bar called Aqua Lounge. For the extravagant fee of one balboa (aka one US dollar), a water taxi drove us from the mainland of Bocas del Toro to the Isla Carenero. To get from the mainland to the island took probably thirty seconds, maybe one minute. You couldn't really say that Aqua Lounge was necessarily on the island, because it was built entirely over the ocean. We had checked out the website, which boasted "over three hundred movies," "Bocas' only legit movie theater," "custom made professional" beer pong tables, and a trampoline over the water. The website hadn't been updated in about twenty years, because the movie selection had plummeted to about one hundred, of which thirty were scratched or unreadable. The movie theater was one dilapidated couch and an old-school television that I had to squint to see ten feet away. Granted, I'm almost legally blind, but still. The beer pong tables and trampoline were nonexistent. Rumors said this was because drunkards had thrown the tables in the ocean, and the trampoline had collapsed when fifteen backpackers thought it was a good decision to see how many could fit. There were allegedly some injuries. That being said, Aqua Lounge, as Seanog eloquently put it, "rocked my balls." There were hammocks, swings that you could fall off of and end in the water, large holes in the wooden deck that equated swimming pools, and a restaurant that produced good food, and, to my delight, amazing smoothies. Most importantly, Ladies Night was at least twice a week, and we could party and then walk ten feet to our beds. Ladies Night equaled free drinks for a few hours. Free drinks, coupled with the alcohol we continuously bought from Bocas Town, always made for staggeringly good days and nights.
One of our first nights in Bocas, Seanog may have been a wee bit under the influence of alcohol and/or other substances, and decided he wanted his ear pierced. Immediately. A party was in full swing on Aqua Lounge's deck and bar. Instead of trying to find a sober person among the hundred heavily intoxicated, we inspected each other. Dat was deemed the most capable (he was getting his diving certification and thus was slightly more sober than the rest of us). We were on Aqua Lounge's deck, and I ran back to the dorm room to get Dat a needle from a hotel sewing kit.
"I found it in the bottom of my bag, in between my tennis shoes and tampons. You might want to sterilize it or something first," I said as Dat took the needle, shrugged, and shoved it in the top of Seanog's right ear. I finished the sentence as Dat removed his hand to look at the needle still in the ear.
Seanog had been carrying around an earring he found, and gave it to Dat to put in his newly pierced ear. Piercing his ear should have been simple. But the earring he had was four times the width of the needle hole, and was supposed to loop around the top of the ear. Trying to jam the earring in the hole was like watching a black giant trying to have sex with a midget. It just wasn't going to work.
Ten minutes later, Dat had pierced another hole in Seanog's ear, Seanog downed Vodka to drown the pain, and the earring still wouldn't fit. Seanog opened his eyes and sighed.
"Kara, get me a bloody earring, will ya?" he asked.
"Sure. But all of mine have either been lost or stolen in the last month. They're all scattered around Panama."
"Oh for fuck's sake!" Seanog screamed and got up.

He returned twelve seconds later.
"Look, I got this dangly one off some chick. I just showed her my penis."
A few minutes later, and Seanog had a four-inch-long earring hanging from the top of his ear.
"Jesus, man, I don't even wear earrings that heavy. There's all kinds of shit on it weighing it down," I said, after feeling the earring.
"It's alright," Seanog said and poured Vodka all over his ear to clean it.
"It is NOT alright," he yelled and pointed to his bloody ear an hour later. "The fuckin thing is tearing my ear off. I can't even fuckin drink enough, I still feel this cunt of an earring." His finger shook as he pointed. He had crazy eyes.
With a pair of tweezers, I removed all of the heavy, dangly bits and left just the ear wire. When I came onto the deck the next morning, Seanog was climbing up the ladder from the ocean.
"I just jumped in, figured the salt water would keep me ear clean. I got stung by a fucking jellyfish," he shouted.

July 1st, 2011 5:38pm - San Blas=Drunken Paradise

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:38:00 +0000

Throughout our stay on Tony's Island, Jack Sparrow blasted music powered by his generator. I enjoy music as much as I do food. I was ecstatic that we didn't have to try and rig up some speakers with our supplies. Between us, we had a battery, a paperclip, and twelve bottles of rum. I delighted in the luxury of constant music. The other backpackers regarded the music with crushing devastation. For them, it was on the same disappointment level as their parents eating all of their Halloween candy.
Jack Sparrow only played his three favorite songs. On repeat. The first day, he played the same song thirteen times in a row.
"This song is a cunt bag! I can't take it anymore," Seanog yelled and skipped to the next song.
Jack Sparrow noticed and swerved towards us, a bottle of rum in one hand and the baby in the other. He started the song over and lectured us not to touch his music. For the next three days, we listened to the same three songs. It was a good run if we'd get three different songs in a row. That happened once.

Day one, Jack Sparrow stumbled around the island screaming obscenities, smoking joints, and wobbling between Israeli supermodel breasts and drunken backpackers.
Day two, Jack Sparrow was awesome, and the leprechaun on steroids had burnt the shit out of his body. It looked like his giant leprechaun body had been dipped in red paint.
We awoke in our bamboo tents, washed off in the ocean, and congregated in the feeding area at 9am. Jack Sparrow immediately distributed beer, and we began playing drinking games. After three rounds of Fuck the Dealer, Jack Sparrow introduced us to his game. He piled a pack of cards on the top of a beer bottle. The first person held the beer, removed the top card, and passed the bottle to the next person in the circle without knocking off any cards. Whenever a card fell off, whoever had failed at life shotgunned a beer.

After a few rounds, drunken logic and invented rules prevailed. Blowing on the cards and smashing the table with fists were allowed. Chants were involved. A pink laundry clip was introduced. Whoever had the clip attached it to someone else, waited a few minutes, and then screamed, "where's the clip?!" Everyone frantically searched their backs, heads, and shoulders. You could only search yourself. If the clip wasn't located within six seconds, whoever lost chugged a beer.

Whenever someone was responsible for a card falling off, they shotgunned a beer and then everyone else agreed on another activity they had to do. Jack Sparrow climbed a palm tree, I pole danced, and one of the Canadians went under the table until we decided it was time for someone else to be the troll.

Jack Sparrow told us that the baby's parents had died in the Kuna wars, and he adopted him. Jack Sparrow then erected a bottle of rum and chugged five sips.

That night, we sat in a circle in the sand, listened to the same three songs on repeat, and played drinking games. Drinking games are a more effective bonding method than being born siblings. As I sat on the sand, I realized how much I adore skinny dipping, especially in developing countries. As long as the locals aren't sitting on your clothes when you emerge out of the water, skinny-dipping is a sick-ass thing to do.

I walked around the island in six minutes. Israelis were everywhere, and I preferred not to display my tiny little breasts and naked body in front of the people I'd been traveling with for a week.

I stripped and dove into the water in the only spot without people sitting on the beach. I landed in coral. It was in my hands and stomach. I internally debated with the rum talking in my head. The rum won, and I swam out farther. I floated on my back away from the shore for five minutes before trying to step down. I smashed my foot in coral. Coral was everywhere. And I was naked. I floated on my back again to return to shore. When I crawled onto the sand, coral was in my arms, legs, feet, hands, stomach, and ass. A minuscule amount had imbedded itself in my face. Four days later, my ass still hurt.
One of the Canadians, we'll call him Crazy, went a little nuts on the rum. He dominated as the troll under the table, he guzzled rum like an alcoholic, he passed out on his bed with one foot on the floor, and he felt like death during the Jeep ride back to Panama City.

June 30th, 2011 12:40pm - San Blas=Paradise

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:40:00 +0000

On my last night in Thailand in 2008, I lost a sandal. The lost sandal resulted from a cocktail of alcohol, drinking games, and bad decisions. Walking through the streets of Bangkok, I realized how observant people are. Eight people told me, "you're only wearing one sandal," and, "do you know you're only wearing one sandal?" Others pointed to my naked foot and smiled. Yes, I was aware of the situation. I had feeling in my foot. I did know that I was stepping on concrete, trash, and dirt instead of rubber.
The same situation occurred in Panama City. We stumbled out of Luna's Castle at four-thirty in the morning to catch the Jeep. I wore one sandal, a result of alcohol, drinking games, and bad decisions. One of the guys crawled to the vehicle. The Jeep stopped off at a grocery store so we could buy supplies for the three-day trip.

"You should buy food, water, and any extra alcohol you might want," the driver said. "The money you paid for the island includes three meals, but you might want more food to snack on. You'll need to get water, because you can't drink the stuff on the island. They sell beer there, but you might want to take a bottle of alcohol between a couple of you."
When we tumbled out of the Jeep and walked towards the grocery store, the driver pointed at my feet and informed me, "you have one shoe." As if I didn't know.
We loaded up three shopping carts with alcohol and mixers. Everyone was entirely delirious on a half hour of sleep with more booze running through our veins than an anorexic alcoholic on New Years Eve. Seanog put on a Panama hat and pushed the cart around like he was a five-year-old in a bumper car. He ricocheted into shelves and displays. Bags of cookies flew onto the floor and an old woman screamed as he barreled around the corner and almost hit her.
The giant leprechaun surveyed the shit-hill of awesomeness. Bottles of rum, vodka and tequila, cans and cans of beer, Coke, Sprite, and juice completed the alcoholic jackpot.
"Ey, mate, you think we need that much?" Giant Leprechaun asked.
"Ya, we fucking need that much alcohol, ya cunt bag!" Seanog yelled.
"Ya, but, should we get water or something?"
We spent over two hundred and fifty dollars on one two-gallon container of water, three bags of chips, and alcohol. Two hundred and fifty dollars in Panama equates twenty nights accommodation. We were prepared for our three-night trip. Ed saw the cart and said, "maaaaaaaaaatte!"
I was bouncing around on a half hour of sleep and passed out as soon as we got back into the Jeep.
I woke up four and a half hours later, when we stopped near Carti Island to catch the boat transport to Tony's Island. It was magical. I had slept the deep and wondrous sleep of the rum overdosed, and emerged exhilarated and ecstatic. Everyone else hated their lives.
"How the fuck were you able to sleep through that cunt bag of a ride?" Seanog asked me.
"What are you talking about? It was wonderful! I slept like an overdosed baby."
"You were in a five-inch space, and we almost died."

"Huh?" I'm quite articulate when I'm still half-drunk.
"Mate, the roads were horrible. There were more potholes in them than smooth parts. It felt like the roads were intentionally shaking around our brain bits and trying to get us to vomit," Ed added.
"I got none of that, I'm telling you, the ride was a blanket of bliss."
"What the hell are you on about? You're one crazy cunt," Seanog said, and walked away, shaking his head.

We caught the boat and pulled up to paradise. Think bathtub-warm water, white sand beaches, coral reef, palm trees, and swarms of gorgeous Israeli women. The droves of Israeli men were alright. They weren't pretty, but they were hairy.
The most lesbian experience I've had was in high school when I made out with one of my friends for thirty seconds for a Cuban cigar. She was forceful with her tongue, and since that night I've been scarred. No more lesbian experiences. However, these Israeli women were supermodels. And they didn't wear bras to support their monstrous bazoombas. They were in the ocean or tanning in bathing suits, or they wore shirts and their nice brown nipples stuck out of their nicely outlined ta-tas. I found myself wishing I had a boob job. A CCCC cup size might compete with these goddesses.

Us newcomers gathered around Tony (Tony's Island), and he laid down the rules. No littering, and don't drown. Tony was actually Jack Sparrow. Jack Sparrow (Tony) told us these rules while he stood in front of the bamboo huts with a bottle of rum in his hand and a toddler holding on to his legs.
"No running water, we have a generator for electricity. No internet. But we have music!" Jack Sparrow said, sipping his rum.
"My grandfather, he bought this island many years ago. How much you think he bought it for?"
We guessed. Five thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand, one hundred thousand dollars.
"He bought this island for sixty coconuts!"
Jack Sparrow wasn't kidding.

June 28th, 2011 10:45am - Luna's Castle and Decisions

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 17:45:00 +0000

Luna's Castle was full of your classic mixed-nut variety of backpackers. Among them, we had an Irish guy who looked like a giant leprechaun on steroids, his friend Seanog, who threw around "cunt bag" like it was a standard phrase in the English language, two Canadian doctors, a guy from Arizona with a great smile, a good-looking black guy from London named Dat, and his skinny white friend who said "mate" every fourth word. Someone would say, "Oy, let's get lunch," or, "Hey, you want me to grab you a beer?" Ed would reply, "mate... maaaaate," and smile.
After hanging out with him for a few weeks, I was able to distinguish a few of the many uses for the word mate. "Mate" is an appropriate response to relay agreement, excitement and incredulity. It is a term of affection, and can be used in addressing anyone, including a dad, girlfriend's sister, a friend, or the bag lady on the street. "Mate" can be used to get the attention of large groups of people, and for doling out a single beer in a drinking game. It's not as versatile as the word fuck, but "mate" has its uses.
When Dat said he was thinking of going to the San Blas islands off the Caribbean coast of eastern Panama, Ed responded, "mate!" When the Irish lads, Canadians, and Americans (myself included) said we might as well come along, Ed said, "mate! mate! mate!" I don't know if he was addressing individuals, or expressing his excitement in the form of a chant, but at any rate, we went to San Blas.
The day before we left, we sat at the table sipping on beer while Dat flipped through a Lonely Planet Guide and told us useful things about the three-day trip.
Dat: "There are almost four hundred islands in San Blas, and most are inhabited by the indigenous Kuna people. The islands are autonomous, so the Kuna self-rule."
Ed: "Mate!"
Dat: "The islands are actually also known as Kuna Yala, after the people that inhabit them."
Ed: "Mate!"
Dat: "It's supposed to be like Caribbean paradise. White sand beaches, warm water, coral reef, and you can walk around most of the islands in five or six minutes. There are a number of islands we can choose from. There are the Carti Islands, Robinson Island, Frank Island... I've heard Tony's Island is a party."
Ed: "Maaaaatttte!"
We went to Tony's Island. We had to be downstairs in Luna's Castle at 4:30am to catch the Jeep, and Seanog thought the most logical course of action would not be to pack and go to bed around midnight after some drinks. The more intelligent decision would be to stay awake. Around the table, we toasted to drinking heavily and not sleeping.
We played fuck the dealer upstairs in Luna's, and when we relocated to the bar downstairs, the bartender wouldn't serve me because I wasn't wearing shoes.
"But we're in Central America. I haven't worn shoes in days!" I tried to reason with the man.
He didn't accept my rationality.
"You cannot be inside the bar without shoes," he said. He was German.

My sandals were three flights of stairs away, and I wanted an alcoholic beverage in my throat immediately. Or at least in my hand. I tried flirting with him. I put my elbow on the bar and my cheek on my hand. I batted my eyelashes. Well, the bar was wet. My elbow slipped off the counter, my chin hit the bar, and in the process of blinking, I lost a contact. The bartender shook his head, and I went upstairs to get my sandals.
I know that we drank until four in the morning. I know that I woke up in the hostel's staff sleeping quarters at four-thirty. We made the Jeep! It's still a mystery to me why I woke up wearing only one sandal.

June 26th, 2011 6:01pm - June 2011 Quote of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Polly: "Golden Bear, that fish is you. It's extremely long, very large, and looks a bit fucked up."

June 23rd, 2011 4:04pm - Panama City: Round 1

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:04:00 +0000

Panama City is at the intersection of two continents and two oceans. This is excellent for various reasons. 1: You can see the ocean from almost anywhere in the city, and 2: Panama is in close proximity to Columbia.
I wanted to travel again, and decided upon Central America, for logical reasons. Flights were cheaper than elsewhere, and I didn't know Spanish.
I'd been looking at flights for a few days and refused to pay the seven hundred dollars roundtrip that appeared to be standard pricing at the time. One night, I had taken a few hits off of Pakistan's joint, and was feeling happy and high. Everything was a little blurry around the edges, and I felt like my tongue was the size of a mammoth's. I found a roundtrip flight for four hundred and thirty dollars, San Francisco to Panama City. Amid overwhelming feelings of joy, I booked the flight. The next morning, I awoke with the realization that there is a Panama City in Florida. Five minutes later, I was ecstatic to find that I had in fact booked a flight to Panama City, Panama. This was a good start.
At the Panama City airport, I wandered in circles like a dog chasing its tail looking for a currency exchange. I never found one, but I did find a bank. When I handed over four US hundred dollar bills, the bank teller pushed them back towards me. I thrust them back at her and insisted, "dinero!" I said the word with such authority that the teller then handed me twenty US twenty dollar bills. I pushed the money towards her again with the confidence of a moron. This shoving of bills across the counter continued until someone with a grasp of the English language explained to me that Panamanian currency is US dollars. My suggestion to anyone traveling anywhere: if you do no other research, figure out what money the country uses, and if there's some historical necessity you should see, like Machu Picchu or the Panama Canal. I am proud to say that upon arriving in Panama, I did know of the existence of the canal. This was largely because I was lugging around a 698 page book that my mom's boyfriend had given me called The Path Between the Seas. In the subsequent months throughout my trip, other backpackers found it amusing to heave the Path up to eye level and read the back cover aloud. Generally, the reader would get three sentences in before two or three people would feign sleep and the rest would scream that they were already bored and to stop torturing them immediately. A few times, one of the guys would walk over to a wall and repeatedly bang his dome into the wood until the reading ceased. For the record, I found it a fascinating book about politics, economy, the French, and the creation of the country of Panama. Plus, if I ever had trouble sleeping on a bus or on a sidewalk, I'd read a third of a page and then swiftly lapse into unconsciousness.
I grabbed my bags and waited at the bus stop outside the airport holding a piece of paper with the name of a hostel that a friend of mine had told me to stay at. Buses came by, I shouted, "Luna's Castle? Casco Viejo! Old Town or something!" at them, and they drove off. Many of the passengers laughed at me as I jogged alongside the bus (not all of the buses actually stop, they just slow down enough to briskly load and unload passengers) with my bag on my back, shouting and waving a piece of paper in my hand. Panama City is so humid that after eleven bus drivers spurned me, I looked like I had just emerged from an Olympic-sized pool of man sweat. I flagged down a taxi driver, who proceeded to drive in circles through the one-way streets of the city looking for the hostel. We circled the same four-block radius in Casco Viejo for forty minutes before I got out, asked directions, and walked.

I marveled at Panama City's skyline, wine bars, upscale cafes, and the ability that resides through all major cities: certain areas smell like the excrement that would result from two thousand eggs shoved up an elephant's ass.
Luna's Castle was housed in an awesome dilapidated colonial mansion. It had everything that I deem important in my traveling life: balconies, hammocks, free internet and water, and $1 beer.

Within two hours of arriving at the hostel, I had met some Americans, Canadians, Brits, and two Irish lads. I introduced them all to the beauty of the card game Fuck the Dealer. A half hour in, we had twenty people playing around a long table in the central area of Luna's Castle. We invented new rules to the game, the receptionist required we sling booze around our heads every time there was a social, and a twelve-year-old boy traveling with his family looked on in fascination at our progressive levels of intoxication.
A cool chick from Oregon who was working on a boat from Panama City to Columbia was in town for the night and motivated us to go out downtown. On the ride there, she gave the cabbie drug money and he promised that he'd return.

"Really?" Ireland said. "You just gave money to a cab driver. A cabbie in Central America. At least have some sense and give him half now and half later."
The cabbie did return with the drugs, and we relocated to a club. Our group of caucasians was a bit out of place. I was as comfortable as I imagine I would be watching a stripper bathe her child in a vat of sperm. I just didn't know what to do with myself. I can't really dance. All of the locals upstaged me with their swinging hips and their rampant sexiness. If there was a disorder that involved semi-mentally capable adults dancing with autistic capabilities, I would have it. I bumbled along until someone took mercy on me and led me outside.
The next day, we saw the Panama Canal. For anyone who hasn't seen it, don't get too excited. Remember, I was reading The Path Between the Seas and becoming thoroughly educated on the thirty-four years it took to build the canal and all of the intricacies surrounding the construction. I spewed off facts like an encyclopedia. Granted, I was only three pages into the book, so I had gained these facts from looking up the canal on my phone. I proudly announced little golden nuggets of information like, "some guy swam through the canal in 1928 and had to pay thirty-six cents," and "the canal is forty-eight miles long!"

While I was largely ignored, I was impressed with my own regurgitated knowledge. I do know that when you get to the Miraflores Locks in the Panama Canal, you walk out in excited anticipation of seeing the canal. You look upon a waterway with a ship in it, and go, huh. I didn't know the answers to the few questions the guys asked me.

To this day, I have no idea how many kilometers are in forty-eight miles, and for the love of God, I do not know what locks are.

June 15th, 2011 8:15am - Crazy Bitch vs Psycho Bitch

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:15:00 +0000

When a relationship ends, a crazy bitch will develop an eating disorder. A psycho bitch will fake a pregnancy.

When a guy breaks up with a chick and text messages her a few weeks later saying he's horny, a crazy bitch will text back, your loss. A psycho bitch will sob hysterically for two hours and demand her friend leave the guy she's hooking up with to come over and comfort her.

When a guy a girl's interested in visits and has to work while there, a crazy bitch will be mad. A psycho bitch will ignore the dude for hours each day. She'll pretend he doesn't exist and give him the silent treatment. She'll drop him off at her house and leave him there without a word.

When a male breaks up with a crazy bitch, she'll post photos of her molesting other men on Facebook. A psycho bitch will set up a fake profile to be her "boyfriend." She will change her status as in a relationship with the phony profile. She will create a boyfriend to make the ex jealous. She may photoshop pictures.

When a guy doesn't meet up at a bar he says he might go to, a crazy bitch will be upset. A psycho bitch will cry. In public.

When a boyfriend cheats on a crazy bitch, she'll break up with him. A psycho bitch will dye her hair and buy a gun.

After a week of dating, a crazy bitch will tell a man that she loves him. A psycho bitch will tell the dude after two days that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. She will then break up with the guy.

When a crazy bitch is mad, she will call her boyfriend forty-three times in a row. When a psycho bitch is upset, she will threaten the boyfriend that she will hire an assassin to brutally murder him. She will use that exact phrase.

When a crazy bitch gets cheated on, she will put the guy's truck for sale on Craigslist. A psycho bitch will key his car. She may slash his tires.

When a guy tries anal sex, a crazy bitch will walk out. A psycho bitch will try to stab the dude with a kitchen knife. She'll justify it by saying that she had two abortions when she was sixteen.

June 6th, 2011 8:08pm - June 2011 Photo of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Panama City, Panama

June 5th, 2011 7:50pm - Communicate Instead of Pulling a Crazy Bitch Move... or Not

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 02:50:00 +0000

I loved my college boyfriend, who we'll call Aidan.
Some things you should know:

On our first date we went to an Asian place that served singular dishes large enough to eat dinner and have leftovers for six other meals. I finished my entire meal and the rest of his. He had the good sense to tell me that he was impressed, but the look on his face told me he was disturbed.

We did really cool things together, like going to a public execution and accidentally burning holes in the living room carpet by knocking over the hookah.

He did awesome things with his wardrobe and appearance, like shaving his head into a mohawk, or wearing a gas station attendant uniform he picked up at Goodwill, and penny loafers with actual pennies in them.

He was handy at things, like helping me duct tape cardboard over my car window when it got smashed in, and getting my bike stolen out of his friend's garage.

Every year at USF, the seniors threw a pub crawl. Our senior year, Aidan and I were talking to a girl that we both knew. She said she hadn't known that we knew each other, and he replied that we had dated on and off since sophomore year. This was entirely true. At the time, we weren't even officially together. However, I was stumbling drunk and wanted him to say that we had been together since sophomore year. That would have been a lie, but that's what I had wanted to hear. Because that makes sense. When she walked away, I asked him why he said that.

"What?" he asked.

"Why'd you say that we dated on and off?"

"Because it's true?"

I grunted like an overweight big rig driver and pushed my way back to the bar. And then I did the sensible thing and ordered a triple shot of whiskey. I loathe whiskey. Smelling it makes me gag. I would rather inhale the aroma of my dog's fart. She ate possums on a regular basis. The bartender put the shot on the bar and I snatched at it as if there were sanity in the glass. I downed half the shot and immediately threw up all over the bar. The bartender looked at the vomit leaking over the countertop and pooling around his workstation. He glared at me. I recognized regurgitated sushi. I shrugged, wiped the puke off my mouth, and staggered out into the wet air of San Francisco.

Aidan followed me. He rationally, calmly, asked why I was upset. Instead of explaining my unreasonable thought process like a normal person, I told him that I didn't want to be with him anymore. He stopped walking and said that it really hurt him to hear that. I repeat: we weren't technically together. However, I was insanely in love with him and wanted to be with him. Thus, I proceeded to inform him for the remaining eighteen blocks home that I didn't want to be with him. Shockingly, when we got to the front of my apartment, he took his hat off and threw it on the ground. He took his sweatshirt off and threw that on the ground. I fantasized that he was going to strip naked and yell, What do you want from me? as the rain started to fall. But he didn't, and there was no rain. He said that he didn't think he was going to come up. I maturely replied that I didn't want him to come up, and he walked off.

Of course I wanted him to come up. I wanted him to come up and ravage me. Which, weirdly enough, he did the following night. We videotaped for the first time. Communication might just possibly be the important thing here. But more importantly: women are crazy. And men are nuts.

May 27, 2011 7:21pm - May 2011 Quote of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Fri, 27 May 2011 15:31:00 +0000

Maldy: "Going to Central America and not doing coke is like going to Starbucks and not getting coffee."

May 22nd, 2011 5:50pm - Feeling like Death

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sun, 22 May 2011 16:40:00 +0000

Last Thursday night, my friends and I went to a gig. I've never said that before, and I feel unbelievably cool in referring to it as a gig. It makes me feel worldly and artistically cultured. The lead singer in the band was another realtor in my office. Granted, 99% of the people in my office are well on their way to knitting, birdwatching, and geezerville, but this man was the sprightly young age of thirty-eight. I bribed some friends to come on promises of booze and interaction with AARP members.

Think Sebastopol (northern California). Warehouse + vintage clothing store + indoor stage + bar + restaurant + outdoor patio with large naked women = the Aubergine. If I'd previously known about the large naked women, I would have used that as leverage.

Instead of behaving myself and sipping on beer, I chugged coke and rums and threw back shots like a college student. I dirty danced with our receptionist and kissed my mom on the mouth. At one point I dumped an entire coke and rum on a forty-year career realtor in our office.

When we got back to our place, I was drunk, tired, and wanted nothing more than to get into bed, pass out, and snore my way into oblivion.

Instead, my friend Traitor insisted we continue the irresponsible debauchery of our lives and go to a bar.

"Absolutely not," I replied.

Traitor: "Let's go to Belve!"

Pakistan: "Absolutely not."

We went to Belve.

The next morning, I woke up at 9:30am, stumbled to the bathroom, and vomited. I could hear Pakistan puking in the other bathroom.

A few months prior, my mom had called and told me that she had a surprise waiting for me at my house. I hoped that it would be a car. It was a breathalyzer. I breathalyzed myself and blew a .16.

I straggled into the office at 10:30am, puked twice, and looked at myself in the mirror. I had put on a shirt thinking it was a dress and looked like a hungover hooker. I glanced at the time and ran out of the office, puked, and went to show a house.

When I breathalyzed myself (while driving) at 2pm, I blew a .1. I was slightly concerned, but texted the feat to Traitor and Pakistan.

By 3pm, I was feeling faint from not having consumed anything by alcoholic calories in the last twenty hours, and bought a vanilla milkshake. It was fantastic going down and fantastic coming up.

I felt mentally handicapped all day. At 5:30pm, when I went to go home, I realized I had locked my keys in the car.

May 21st 2011 - May 2011 Photo of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sat, 21 May 2011 17:27:00 +0000

View from Gunsight Rock

Sonoma County, Northern California

May 10th, 2011 10:16am - Shiny Things

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Wed, 11 May 2011 01:24:00 +0000

When I was little, I liked shiny things.

My mom would take me, my brother and sister to the mall, and we would run around like the little terrors we were. My mom would attempt to take us winter shopping, and we'd be playing hide-and-seek among the clothing racks. She'd want me to try on a pair of jeans, and I'd be laying amongst dirt and dead skin on the floor underneath a shirt rack.

We would inevitably scream that we were hungry, and my saint of a mother would take us to the food court to feed us. When I was six years old, we were standing in line to order when I saw something incredibly round, shiny, and silver. I touched it. My hand lay on the silver circle for ten seconds before I felt a burning sensation. My reflexes weren't fantastic, and it took another minute before I realized that I had burnt the shit out of my hand.

The reasonable thing would have been to cry at my mom and expect her to fix my hurts. She continues to be one of the most loving, caring, understanding women in the world. Instead, I didn't tell her that my hand felt like it had been crippled in a fire. I had recently learned the child definition of retarded and thought she would be mad at me for being so retardedly stupid. Instead, I tried not to cry. Because that's logical. When she asked what I wanted to eat for lunch, I screamed, "Water!"

"Okay, okay," my mom replied.

When two seconds passed and I wasn't immediately given a glass of water, I screamed at her that I wanted water NOW.

"Calm down hunny," she said.

A full two minutes passed by before she bestowed me with a glass of water. I didn't even thank her, I just plunged my hand directly into it.

"What are you doing?" she asked, eyeing my hand inside a plastic foam cup.

"Just trying to get out an ice cube," I responded.

When we sat down, my mom's focus was on my little sister throwing food and my brother poking her. I cradled an ice cube in my hand like it was a diamond. I liked diamonds a lot - they were shiny too.

After lunch, we were in store #3 looking at cowboy boots when my mom noticed that I was shaking my right hand back and forth violently. I had thought that shaking my hand would get some air into it and make the burning stop. Because that makes sense.

We later discovered that the fast food place had been technologically advanced in the early nineties and had circular coffee warmers placed into their countertop. I had third degree burns because of a shiny coffee pot warmer.

May 8th, 2011 2:05pm - Mother's Day 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sun, 08 May 2011 20:07:00 +0000

When I returned from Australia this past December, I didn't know what I'd be doing. My life plan had as much direction and ambition as a blind sloth. When my mom insisted that I get a phone so I could live like a real human being, I considered it. When she offered to pay for it, I deliberated my options.

After three minutes of Internet research, I was flustered and perplexed. I hadn't searched for anything online in months and the myriad of pop-ups I encountered distracted me to no end. Within thirty seconds, I had accidentally clicked a pop-up and was reading about Viagra. Upon reading that Viagra doesn't cause an erection when there is no sexual desire, I realized what I was reading, screamed "for the love of God!" and settled on the first phone that appeared on my screen: a Prepaid cell phone through AT&T. When it arrived in the mail, I tore open the package giddy to join the twenty-first century again. The phone was large, blue and silver, and elliptical. It looked like it belonged on a space shuttle in the 1970's.

After two weeks, I became disenchanted with my space shuttle phone. It didn't look anything like a real phone, and I became a subject of mockery for all of the technologically advanced six-year-olds running around with iPhones. My primary frustration, however, was that my space shuttle phone didn't work. I was living in Santa Rosa, in northern California, and I barely got service. I would sit in my office discussing the economy and the number of distressed properties with a potential client and my phone would cut out.

When I called AT&T to politely inquire why my phone calls disconnected thirty-eight times a day (I was a Realtor, I talked on the phone a lot, okay), they reviewed the coverage area.

"If you're within one and a half miles of the 101 freeway, you should have good coverage. The rest of the area doesn't look so good," I was told.

"I'm looking at the goddamn freeway out my window right now!" I insisted. "It's probably a fifth of a mile away, and I'm talking to you on the office phone because my cell phone won't make calls." I knew it wasn't the representative's fault that AT&T had shitty coverage. "Just reposition the goddamn satellites or something!" I said passionately. I didn't scream. She still hung up on me.

By April, my mom had had it with AT&T. We disconnected her AT&T iPhone and my AT&T space shuttle phone, and my mom bought us both Verizon iPhones. I was ecstatic over my iPhone. It didn't drop calls and it even took pictures (space shuttle phone didn't). My mom was not so enthused. Somehow her new Verizon iPhone magically uploaded her contact list from five years before. When she tried to rectify the situation, her AT&T iPhone erased her current address book contents and uploaded her contacts from five years before. She owned two iPhones with outdated address books. This was not ideal for a Realtor. After hours on the phone with Verizon, and directing profanity at her new phone on a daily basis for two weeks, it was too much for her. She couldn't take it. My mom went to Bora Bora and Tahiti on vacation for three weeks. For reasons that are beyond me, she left her new Verizon iPhone in a bathroom drawer and took her inactive AT&T iPhone with her. Two hours later, I received a frantic voicemail from an unknown number. It was my mom calling from the airport to say that she'd left her phone on the bus. I sighed and a few days later I picked up the phone from the bus station office and placed it in her car's glove compartment.

My mom returned three weeks later, arriving the day before Mother's Day. It was the first Mother's Day in three years that I had been in the same country as my mom. It was also the first Mother's Day in eight years that I wasn't hung over and feeling like death.

She called me on Mother's Day from my sister's phone to tell me that her phone didn't have service.

"Call Verizon," I told her.

"I don't want to go through this again, where I don't have contacts or text messages or my voicemails or notes," she cried.

My mom, brother and sister were supposed to pick me up at 11:30am. By 1:30pm, Mom was still on the phone with Verizon and Apple. I was still at the place I rented. I decided to drive to her house anyway. When I walked in, mom had her head in her hands and was staring at the kitchen counter, dejected and beyond comfort.

"Look, someone tried to break into the iPhone case," she told me wearily, pointing at the case.

"That doesn't make any sense. Why would someone break into the case? It takes two seconds to remove it," I replied and looked at the phone.

"Wait, Mom, that's your old phone. That's why the case is all scratched up. That's your AT&T phone. It's not going to have service because we cancelled that service last month."

She had been on the phone on Mother's Day for four hours trying to get Verizon service on an AT&T phone.