The hostel I had chosen from Lonely Planet for my overnight in Cerro Punta (to ensure an early rise for the Quetzales trail hike the following morning) had the cheery name of La Primavera (the Springtime). It sounded like a nice respite from the wintry weather, and so I headed to the place, only to find a run-down looking ramshackle little place with a shabby looking garden. Since the only other option closeby was a 50 dollar a night hotel, I ventured in to ring the bell.
Inside was worse than outside. The place was dim and dingy, with toilets that gurgled and erupted periodically, much like Old Faithful, and upon closer inspection I could see moss growing out of the lamp fixtures. It is easily the worst place I have thought to spend the night. After staying about a half hour, and feeling quite miserable, I got the feeling that this wasn’t where I was supposed to end up. So I got my money back and headed onto the next little village of Guadalupe, at the end of the road a little farther on. Not entirely sure if I would find lodging there or not, I figured it was worth the gamble.
And I found the most incredible little forest lodge with cheap dormitory rooms, where the young friendly staff let me use internet and breakfast was included. On the way into the town I had seen some stables with red roofs that stood out to me and I had this vague feeling I would be returning to them again, because I had this feeling they had something to do with where Rochelle grew up. And sure enough, after checking on the Internet for the name of the place, that was it. Since Guadalupe is really just a collection of buildings around a T-junction, with little excitement on a rainy Saturday evening, I headed back up to the stables to see if I could have a snoop around. And upon mentioning my contacts, the large metal gate swung open and I was in. The grounds are quite spectacular, and were kind of mystical with the rising mist after the rain, horses out grazing in the pasture. Some of the stable hands showed me around, while others sat in the centre of the stables playing dominoes. I saw a small collection of racehorses and one massive Percherón, the largest horse I’ve ever seen.
As I was about to leave, I noticed a figure upstairs in a huge portrait window in the estate house motioning to me to come up. So I entered this small door downstairs and walked on up, which felt quite odd being that I didn’t know these people at all. Upstairs in the elegant living and dining room sat Don Francisco, the stable’s owner, and his wife Dona Graciela. We had a nice chat, interspersed by watching some of their horses race at a track in Panama city, over satellite TV. Then, as several of their family members and friends began to spill in after a day in Boquete, they insisted that I join them for dinner.
I figured I was able to forego my hectic social schedule of pondering my navel back at the near-empty hostel to join them for the evening, and so I gladly accepted, and stayed on for an entertaining few hours of stories and a power outage, during which a dozen of us had a delicious meal by candlelight and then caught a baseball game on shortwave radio from Panama, during which I got a rundown on the local team by the vet and a stablehand.
After a very nice evening, I drove back to my hostel with the vet, and retired to get some rest before my long hike the following morning. It was only later that I found out that the house on the ranch in Guadalupe where I ate (or more precisely the downstairs part where I entered through the door) was the childhood home of my friend Rochelle. So the odd feeling I had about the place turned out to be true.
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