Puerto Veijo Continues

We were having such a great time at Rockin J's that we ended up staying for 5 nights. It's hard to go wrong with a beach-front hostel on the Caribbean coast for less than $6 per night! We reconnected with a fair bit of travelers there that we had met previously in places like Granada. Everyone was collectively contributing to a great time so no one really wanted to leave.

One day we were wondering around in a group of seven...a guy from Montreal showed us a really cool lookout that he had found and it was a great day for it. The waves were crashing in hard against the rocks and the view along the coast was fantastic. Afterwords we walked along the beach for a while and eventually decided on a good spot to jump in the ocean. The waves this day were the biggest they had been yet.

I was really enjoying the waves and felt like I was getting a good workout just keeping myself afloat...then a couple waves carried me pretty far and I started looking around at other people to get a feel for how intense the situation was getting. Suddenly I saw that one of the French girls was asking for help from the American guy nearby and the other French girl was out deeper and being helped by the German guy. I saw Tara managing to swim through the rip tide - one of many advantages to growing up on the island! Then I looked back at the German guy and saw he was asking for help with the French girl because he was able to keep her afloat but couldn't get her in past the rip tide. So I grabbed her other arm and we all made it to shore safely. Tara cheered us all for the human chain of life.

That night we celebrated life by partying the night away at Rockin J's. Celebrating life with good people and good times is the basis of how we spent the next couple days. I went out on the town a couple times and met some pretty interesting ex-pats. Tara did some cool tile art and I did some tiling of my own on the other side of the pillar. Obviously it's clear who the artist is...but most people I asked were at least able to figure out what my drawing was so that was enough to make me happy with it! I'll post a picture when I get a chance so you can try to figure out what it is as well.

Our gang of friends started dispersing from Rockin J's and we eventually decided it was our time to move on as well. This experience was a strong reminder of how traveling is as much about the people as it is the places. It's a definitely a bizarre feeling at times because people who we never even knew a couple weeks ago suddenly feel like our best friends and then just as quickly as we met it's time to say goodbye. Now it's on to new people and new places - as the song I've been singing goes - PAAANNNAMA! PAAANNNHAMA HA HA HA HAHA. PANAMA!