Feliz Cumpleaños Lauren

Last Monday was Lauren's birthday. Lauren loves birthdays. Not just her own birthday, but anyone's birthday. She loves to plan the parties, decorations, cakes, gifts-everything, so there was a lot to live up to and a lot to be done to give her a proper birthday party in Panama. Luckily I had some help from Molly and Jess (the other girls that work at the hostels with us) and some guests. Two guys who had been staying here for a while went to Panama City for the weekend and called to see if they could pick up anything in the big city that we couldn't get on the little island here. Well of course no Latin America fiesta is complete without the likes of a piñata, so I told Eric and Dusty to pick up one, preferably in the shape of a dog because as we have all come to know, Lauren hates dogs (cats, dogs, household pets, and most any other animal for that matter. But she loves children, so she does have a soul!) and the sheer joy she would get from beating the crap out of a dog piñata would probably be birthay present enough for her. Plus Lauren LOVES candy, even the crap candy-I think it was because she was deprived of it as a child- so that's like two birthday presents in one. So the boys went all out on a birthay shopping frenzy and bought a piñata, pin the tail on the donkey game, birthday hats, birthday masks (eye masks with clown like noses that in the end nobody put on because they were too scary), balloons, candles, and a pink Tinkerbell "Feliz Cumpleaños" banner that I had to confirm for Eric right before he put up did in fact mean Happy Birthday in Spanish.
While Dusty and Eric set up the decorations, I had to finish carrying out my "brilliant" idea of making alfajores, an Argentine dessert that consists of two cookies with dulce de leche (a caramel like substance) squished in the middle. I considered it brilliant when I first thought of it because Lauren and I both studied abroad in Buenos Aires and would often get nostalgic for all things Argentine while traveling. I found a recipe for making dulce de leche from scratch, which didn't seem too hard. All you needed was a gallon of milk, four cups of sugar, some baking soda and a little vanilla. Easy enough right? Well, not when you're using a Latin American stove that has no proper heat gauge and something that should take an hour to make ends up taking four. I started boiling the milk and mixing in the ingredients at around 10 a.m., but then I wanted to take Lauren to lunch and go with her to the beach for her birthday, so Molly graciously offered to take over. Molly did not know what she was getting herself into, though, (nor did I) and 4 hours later when we came back from the beach, the dulche de leche had just barely formed the right consistency and was ready to be taken off the stove. Molly had slaved away that entire time standing in front of the hot stove in 90 degree heat stirring the milk and sugar mixture until it hardened into a thick brownish goo (stirring constantly the whole time, as the recipe called for, or else it would burn). I got back and apologized profusely when I saw Molly sweating bullets and looking just a bit pissed off, but she must have been on too much of a sugar high from sampling all of the dulce de leche because she merely said "I haven't left this kitchen or this vat of sugary milk for four hours and I'm covered in sweat. I'm going to shower. Lauren better damn like dulce de leche." I truly was grateful to her.

But the dessert was still not done. I had to make the cookie part for the alfajores. I also had to do this in one hour and with 10 other guests who decided to all cook dinner together at the same time in the hostel's confined kitchen space. I cannot convey how much I sweat that day, well I sweat everyday honestly, but this day in particular, what with the stress of getting everything right for Lauren's birthay, the cooking, the crowdedness, etc., I had to mop up my brow with a rag every five minutes. Anyways, some minor alterations had to be made to the recipe (we didn't have baking powder, we only had half of the cornmeal it called for because I noticed halfway through pouring the cornmeal into the batter that maggots had eaten through the bag, oh well, plus 350 degrees F on an oven in Panama is not something easily guestimated even if I could read what the knob in Celcius). But after some minor pan burning and smoke coming out of the oven, the cookies turned out not only edible, but actually pretty tasty.

The celebration turned out great, and I think it exceeded Lauren's expectations. We had fish and salad for dinner, homemade white sangria to drink, alfajores and brownies for dessert, followed by a game of pin the tail on the donkey and some piñata bashing that Lauren managed to take down in well under 5 minutes. It was quite best one of the funniest nights we've had here in Bocas. Lauren said it was the best birthday ever, but I think it might have been the sangria talking.

Current location: Bocas del Toro, Panama. Me and Lauren got here to this archipelago that is off of Panama on the Carribean near the Costa Rica border 2 and a half weeks ago. Lauren knew one of the guys that owns a couple of hostels here from college and he offered us a job here for a couple months if we wanted to stop by while passing through. I don't think I'll ever be given a job description quite like the one I got here ever again: basically we were told that during the day we check people in and answer any questions at the hostel and then at night we're not necessarily forced to drink at the hostel's bar-for free-but we should spend at least a couple hours there every night and mingle with the guests. So basically, I sit in a hammock most of the day reading a book, do the daily word jumble in the Miami Herald, talk with the other people that work here about local island gossip, eat, and then at night I eat some more before I go to the bar and start off with one drink because, hey I am in a bar and it's free, which then may or may not turn into another drink, then another, then perhaps a tasty shot created by any of the girls that work here at the hostel and bar. To stay healthy and try to detox my system, I attempt to work out by going for a run when it's not so hot after the sun sets but still just as humid. Spending any more than two minutes out in the sun immediately puts my sweat glands into overdrive, so it's a challenge to muster the motivation to lace up my sneakers.

But it's been a great two and a half weeks so far. I thought I would get bored of it, especially since in DC and my job this past summer in Costa Rica I found I thrive on stress and multi-tasking, but I've come to accept the relaxation and tranquility as a sort of graduation present to myself. There are six of us working at the 2 hostels that are owned by 3 American guys that are only a couple of years older than me. Everyone is really cool and meeting the travelers and backpackers coming from all over the world with different experiences and travels is one of the best parts. I love asking people where they're coming from and where they're going, adding to the already overwhelmingly long list I have of places to visit.

I've managed to visit only some of the beaches so far. Technically I have to work about 4 hours a day at the hostel, but everyone is really flexible and there's no set schedule so if someone wants to take a couple hours to go to a beach, there's always someone willing to cover. The beaches here are beautiful, white sand and crystal clear, blue water. I've done some snorkeling as well, but I'd like to do more. There's an area where you can go when you do a boat tour that is supposed to have all of these tropical fish and you can also see dolphins.

A couple of days ago some guys staying here rented some mopeds to go to a beach and invited me along. The drive there took about 30 minutes and it was really nice. The road wound through the jungle and it was like seeing another part of the island which wasn't so touristy. Along the way we had some complications, which in retrospect were minor compared to the way back. It all went wrong when while observing the beautiful scenery, one of the guys drove off into a ditch. It took him a good five minutes to get himself out of there and we were on our way. But then Andy, the guy I was riding with, asked me if there would be anywhere to get gas along the way. Obviously being in a remote area of the island I told him no, highly doubtful. Apparently, the guy who he rented the bike from told him he should fill up the tank because with half a tank he wasn't going to make it back. Andy, thinking the guy was just trying to get some more money out of him, brushed him off and went on his way. By the time we got to the beach the gauge was reading empty. Right, well we decided we would handle it later. For now, let's enjoy the time on the beach. This proved to be a bit difficult when upon dismounting from our bikes, we were assaulted by sand flies. I don't know if you've experienced sand flies, but they're horrible. They're like little gnats that crawl all over you and you can't always see them but you feel itchy everywhere and it's so uncomfortable. So everyone immediately raced into the water to escape them, and we ended up staying in the water for the next couple of hours. We saw some cool starfish at the beach, big red and yellow ones, unlike any I had ever seen. Eventually it started raining so we decided to leave. Before we got on the bike though, Andy remember we had no fuel. Using their poor Spanish, him and his two friends tried to ask around the area if anyone had any gas (this wasn't a remote beach, but there was no town either. The area consisted of one restaurant and a thatched hut that could have bee someone's house...?). Obviously no one had any gas so the next step was to siphon gas from one of the other mopeds into Andy's empty tank. I thought it would be near impossible to find a hose to do this, but it turned out pretty easy and so we set about trying to figure out how to reach the gas tank and then who was going to have to suck on the tube and siphon the gas. We managed alright, though when Andy turned on his bike his tank was 3/4 of the way full while his friend's, Jason's, was now down to 1/4. Well we weren't about to siphon the gas again, so we set off. Not 5 minutes into the journey we lose site of Jay who is lagging behind us. We find him walking his bike up a hill and then hopping on going 10 km/hr, the highest speed his bike would allow him to go. It just would not go any faster. Great we thought, this is going to take us hours. The moped was going so slow I could have run faster. After about 10 minutes of that, the moped just all of the sudden started working like normal again yay! But all of the sudden I see sparks coming out of the back of it and it starts sputtering and backfiring. It kept going fine, though, but in an effort to avoid Jay, Andy and I managed to hit some big pieces of loose gravel and they knocked our kickstand down. It kept dragging on the ground and it was obvious that a piece got knocked off. So I walked back 50 feet or so and found a spring which looked like it belonged to the bike. But it wouldn't fit back on so I had to use my hairtie to just temporarily tie it back in place. The culmination of the experience was when maybe just 1/4 mile from the gas station, Jay's bike runs out of gas (this is the one that had started the journey back with only 1/4 of a tank after we stole most of his gas). So in the pouring rain we run gas back over to his bike and after 10 minutes, we finally safely make it back to the bike rental place and throw the keys at the guy and run away. One of the funniest/most ridiculous afternoon outings I've had here.