Michael: Thursday, April 2, 2015

The abandoned nest
Was left intact after the
Squirrel’s robbery.

Wednesday it was the small natural wonders, yesterday it was the confusion of the modern monsters; the local bus system and cell phones.

On Wednesday mornings on our way to the Los Posos hot springs, I run to the trail head which is about a 40 minute uphill jaunt for me, while Kimme waits for the bus. That way she’s almost guaranteed a substantial head start and she’s in front of me which means less worry and wait. And the last several weeks she’s had as much of a head start as she could get. It seems as soon as we hit the road, the bus was there to pick her up. But I knew sooner or later, her luck would run out. Thankfully, strangely, it happened yesterday.

I’ve been nursing a strained calf muscle the last week and wasn’t sure how far down the trail I wanted to go, but if she got a big head start, I’d have to fight my way through it to meet her. If the bus came late, I’d at least have a chance to catch her earlier and let her know I was going to shorten my run.
So when I didn’t see a bus pass me at all by the time I got to the trail head, I was relieved because my calf just wasn’t up to running the ups and downs of the rocky trail and I was going to suggest to Kimme that she go ahead and run and I’d just walk a short out and back.

So I waited and the first bus blew by without stopping. Maybe Kimme or the driver was distracted and after she realized she missed her stop she’d ask the bus driver to let her off and she’d wait for a bus going the other way to bring her back. But when that bus stopped it was only for the assistant to check the cargo bin and no passenger got off.

Okay, maybe she missed the first bus for some reason and she’d be on the next one. Time to go to the cell phone which I recently began to carry on our runs and text to see what’ up. But there wasn’t any reception. So I decided to walk around a little to search for a spot where I might be able to get a message off and I did manage to send, but no response.

The next bus came by without a departing passenger. I thought I’d better stay put for a while longer, and in the worse case scenario I could hobble downhill and be home in less than half an hour and man the phones and computer from there.

But a few minutes later she came jogging up the hill. The first bus had blown by without picking her up or several other people waiting at the stop. We still don’t know why that happens. We’ve been on the bus when there have been seats available and they haven’t stopped. We’ve been on buses packed to the brim that will still stop and squeeze more people in. Is it scheduling? The driver’s mood? It’s confusing.

And the cell phone reception problem is also one of my pet peeves. I do see the benefits, but we didn’t develop a back up plan, which isn’t the phone’s fault but it does become easy to neglect that when you’re carrying electronics. But we did the right thing in my staying put and her running up the hill. Next time if she gets to the trail head before me she’ll leave a very clear mark near the Los Posos sign so that I know she departed the bus and was heading down the trail and if I get there first I’ll wait for the bus she’s hopefully on.

Let that be a lesson to all you kids out there; anywhere, but particularly those relying on the Panamanian bus system.