I thought I would sit down to write this edition once I finally found a peaceful place where I could slow down, where I could have minimal distractions, and where I could truly focus on the Focus. Two weeks into the nomad lifestyle, I’ve come to realize this is pure fantasy. So instead, here are a few scatterbrained thoughts/stories written amidst the chaos of Latin American bus rides and beside equally chaotic hostel kitchens.

Land of the Long Layover

Since every flight towards South America generally passed through Panama City, Panama, I thought I’d be clever and break my flight in half with a self-imposed “long layover”. As it turns out, this isn’t at all a novel idea. In fact, I failed to meet a single fellow traveler who had chosen Panamá as their destination. This city, a funnel for all flights to the Americas, appears to be the land of the long layover. I was shocked by how many times I heard loosely the exact version of the phrase, “We’re just stopping through here because it was the easiest way to get to [insert more desirable destination]” amongst my hostel mates. While I found Panamá more interesting each day I stayed longer, I was well ready to move on from my own layover here after being conned with the oldest trick in the book by a fish market salesman, feeling underwhelmed by the Panama Canal (as I imagine most are), and cycling through my wardrobe twice in four days in the 120% humidity. After all, one can only wash their clothes in a hostel sink so many times a week.

The Panama (Chocolate) Crisis of 2022

Solo travel is unique in countless ways, including the re-defining of the term adventure. Outside of your home cultural context, completely mundane tasks are made entertaining and downright more difficult. Godfather of Long-Term Travel Rolf Potts once wrote, "Having an adventure is sometimes just a matter of going out and allowing things to happen in a strange and amazing new environment.” I found this true during my first few days in Panamá when searching for a chocolate bar—so I wrote a story about it. Hopefully the first of many. Check it out below.

The Art of Getting Lost

When traveling without a return flight home or cell data, one of the greatest advantages comes in the form of embracing the idea of getting lost. On a trip with highly limited time, not only do you try to cram as much itinerary in as possible, but the slightest inconvenience like a bus delay, a wrong turn, or a 2.7-star Uber driver can drive you up a wall (perhaps literally in the case of the Uber driver). On the flip, when you have no particular place to be, and better yet, no time to be there, you can use the “Art of Getting Lost” to enrich your experiences rather than diminish them.

It's for this exact reason that I try to reserve my movement within and between cities strictly for public transport. That and because I can save a buck over taking a taxi (35¢ vs. $5). My favorite is the bus. While I fancy myself better than average at deciphering and committing a map to memory, I never did figure out the Panamá bus system. At times when my bus was to show up, it wouldn’t. Of course, if I needed to take bus 497, bus 479 would stop a couple of times at my stop before I grew impatient. At the risk of melting in the humidity, and further risk of believing I'm numbers-dyslexic, I resolved the majority of the time to just get on a bus heading in the preferable direction (left or right) of some neighborhood I had no real commitment to other than having found it on Google 20 minutes ago.

To my surprise, I actually ended up more or less in the proper area of the city I was headed for the majority of the rides I took. Others would seem favorable en route, that is until the driver would hang a right when I needed him to hang a left and, all of a sudden, I’m on a side of Panamá that I didn’t plan to be in. It’s those rides that dumped me in neighborhoods where I ended up doing pull-ups (?) with a competitive Panamanian airplane mechanic or stumbled across a food truck park that whipped out a peculiar, yet exceptional, dinner of “sushi burger”. These aren’t exciting outcomes per se. But they sure were personally memorable and shaped how I experienced Panamá—mostly because I wasn’t “supposed to be there.” As if I was really meant to be anywhere recommended by the “Panama Por Todos!” blog.

Shivering in Santiago

Santiago de Chile brings a mixed bag of opinions from most travelers. Some are just stopping through (similar to Panamá), others staying for weeks. Some will tell you about how much they’ve enjoyed the various museums and attractions around the Centro, others will just turn their nose up in disgust at the mention of the Chilean capital citing totally graffitied storefronts and increased violence as of late in the face of its social revolution(s). Truth be told, I rather enjoyed it. Perhaps not for any reasons quintessential to Santiago, but just by what I ended up doing over my three days there.

I needed a damn jacket. My travelers’ hubris had duped me into believing every corner of South America was just like the Caribbean destinations I’d visited in the past—hot, humid, and sunny. Waking up the first morning to Santiago’s grey, chilly skies and my knuckles split in a couple of spots from the dry climate, I swallowed my pride and set out to buy something heavier than my single, Dri-Fit long-sleeve. South American centros probably deserve a breakdown of their own, but it was there I navigated over the next two days to find a jacket in my budget (closer to the price of a loaf of bread than a North Face). For extra difficulty, the SIM card I bought in the metro station convenience store turned out to have 0GB of cell data on it (imagine that), so I decided to search for secondhand stores by word of mouth rather than word of Google Maps. Inefficient? Perhaps. Did I shiver for an extra day? Surely. I didn’t care too much. It was a better lens to explore the city.

My hostel was brilliant too on behalf of its other visitors that overlapped my time there. These were the travelers I quickly befriended and explored the outskirts of the city, went salsa dancing at dark, and simply enjoyed hearing their insights on life and travel built from experiences outside my own in the States. Of course, there were fewer philosophical moments too. Fondly, I recall an evening in the common area playing a word game (fueled by a couple of bottles of Chile’s $3 wine). As is the norm when you wrangle a group of people that all speak different languages, the first words anyone learns of your language are explicative ones. Among others unfit for mention in print, I can now confidently exclaim “shit!”  in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chilean (a complete departure from Castilian Spanish), and French.

I eventually did find my jacket, a faded Asics pullover with loose stitching on the sleeves. The search ended up leading me through a good portion of the city’s main tourist sites, up and over a couple of breathtaking viewpoints of the Santiago skyline against the Cordilleras de Los Andes, and into an old-school lunch counter where I ignorantly ordered a “grande” sandwich the size of a volleyball. Yet, despite it all, my short stint in Santiago was made by my fellow hostel-ers. I hope to catch some of them further down the road.

If you enjoyed this edition, be sure to share it with someone. My goal is to have this newsletter reach those interested in traveling in an unconventional way. And if not that, be an entertaining narrative of times on the road in South America. Either works for me.

Until next time,

-Ferg