David

There was some debate about whether Suzie was going to spend the night in the van or inside with the rest of us. The problem was that Andrea also had a dog, an ugly mutt named Fluffy, complete with a purple dot in its forehead (you cannot make this stuff up!), and she was afraid that it might get territorial with it knew Suzie was around. So we had to sneak her in when Fluffy was distracted, so there were really eight of us in that room that night. Danne took a great picture of the purple room, with the purple walls, purple sheets, purple drapes, and of course, our Suzie drinking a gin and tonic out of a purple cup – priceless! By the time we got settled we were starving, so Andrea gave us directions to a good and affordable Chinese restaurant, and we took the short trip towards it. We took Suzie along with us for the walk, and every single dog on that street was barking at us as we passed by, and it seemed every house had at least one guard dog.

We reached the main street as Brendan made the joke about wanting to eat at a ‘top place’, pointing towards the restaurant aptly named ‘The Top Place’ since it was on the second floor of the building. We decided to keep on walking to Mr. Cheng’s, an appropriate name for a Panamanian Chinese restaurant. We all went through the menu, and ordered way too much food that we could have possibly consumed. After we placed our orders we saw the waitress delivering someone else’s half portion, which was bigger than most plates we have seen in the last months. Right away we knew most of that stuff will have to be taken to go, and placed in the fridge at the purple house. I did manage to eat half a portion of noodles, taking away a full order of shrimp rice that became my sustenance for the next day. It took as much longer to walk back to the hostel, stomachs full and all, making frequent stops at the stores and the payphones. Eventually we got back, hoping to watch a movie (we saw No Country for Old Men on the list of DVDs), but another group of people at the hostel were already in the midst of a movie, so we ended up hanging out in the backyard for a while. Though right at 11pm, the security night guard gave us the lights out signal, which we didn’t want to obey, so in protest we moved across the street, hanging out in the van for the next few hours, listening to music and having good ‘guy talk’ with Aaron and Brendan. It was late in the night by the time we decided to wrap things up and we went to sleep.

The following morning, we woke with some unsettling news from Andrea – apparently someone tried to break in to the security guard’s car the night before, and he managed to scare them off in time. Brendan checked the van to make an even worse discovery; the same person had broken into the van as well, though there wasn’t much to take since most of our stuff was inside the hostel. They did manage to steal his toiletries set, and a sweatshirt, so he was not too pleased about the whole ordeal – either way at least him and Audrey were not in the van when this took place. Later on in the morning, Dana, Paula and Danne made the decision to head back to Costa Rica, since they were winding down their time in the country before having to leave to various destinations. Brendan, Aaron and I stayed behind since Audrey’s passport had not come in yet from Panama City. So it came time to say goodbye to half of our group, though knowing that we will get together again on the western coast of Costa Rica. Before they left, Angela was nice enough to take group pictures of us, the group of seven in front of the purple house.

The three of them left, not before Danne got a picture of myself and Aaron being ‘trapped’ in the Purple House, and then they were gone. The four of us settled in for a day of relaxation; after using the computer and the internet connection for a while, I asked Andrea if she had a skype headset, to which she replied that it is a personal item that should would not share; luckily another tourist staying at the hotel overhead the conversation and lent me his set, so I could make a few phone calls. Later on in the afternoon, I took a walk with Aaron through the city, which only reinforced my perception of David being a big and dusty city. We stopped along the way at a few battery shops, since we needed to do something with the van. We returned having gathered information, and Brendan decided to get a new battery for the van, since the old one was about clunked out. Him and Aaron returned with the guys from the shop in their truck, and they got the battery installed in about half an hour. Most of my day was split between reading my book and writing in the blog, though I got a healthy dose of both. There was a funny moment when Suzie and Fluffy met, smelled each other, then they got along, at least for a while – even Andrea was impressed (a tough thing to accomplish). Since we had changed to a four person room after the others left, we were ‘allowed’ to stay out past our 11pm bedtime, so the four of us (then three as Audrey went to sleep) stayed up and played YouTube videos for hours on end. It must have been past 3:30 in the morning by the time we turned in – even the security guard was asleep in front of the TV.