Bocas del Toro kinda sucks

[amw]

Ah, hostels. I remember why i dislike hostels. It's not so much the setup of shared room and shower, although obviously i would prefer privacy. It's the clientele. I think Paul Theroux described it well when he said that backpackers annoyed him because they invariably come from wealthy countries and travel poor countries, but somehow every

Comments

[opakele]

I think i think too much. Why can't i just enjoy what it is?

I think you are seeing what is and it doesn't work for you. You also found some good stuff, too.

I've noticed the last 18 months have really forced me to see the world much more critically. It's like pealing an onion, I've gone into the onion a few more layers. It is a lot of information. It's hard to view the world realistically.

This weekend I go visit my friend, Gypsy, in Port Townsend. It is a small Victorian! tourist town in Jefferson county Washington. She moved there after she retired and bought a double-wide in an interesting little park. She loves it there and always wants to go shopping in town. I go, but only see what I call Hard-Eyed Vendors. There is nothing friendly about them and it is clear they just need to make bank. One actually said to us, 'Isn't it time to stop talking and spend money?' Gypsy reached for her credit card, but I was done. I did smile sweetly and tell the vendor her shop was beautiful.

The beaches sound lovely. I'm glad you checked this area out.

Safe travels!

[amw]

Hard-eyed vendors is an excellent description. I do understand it, that if this is someone's livelihood, and they're really living on a shoestring, then of course they want to make those sales. But i'm not sure that's a very good long game. Like, if you want people to have positive memories of your stall, or even the market as a whole, so that they will tell their friends and/or come back themselves... you do need to be nice. But i guess in real touristy areas people just assume the tourists will be out the door anyway so why not go for the quick buck?

Thing is, something this happened to my dad and me in Istanbul, where we got screwed at lunch and charged a much higher bill than the locals, and a big bruiser stood at the door basically forcing us to pay... well now basically fuck Istanbul. It's a super interesting and cool city, and a part of me would love to visit it again, but it's now much lower on the list for me than anywhere else, and i've never recommended it to friends either. So just one bad experience can end up having a negative effect. But... again... for desperate people, they don't have the luxury of thinking that far ahead. I hope they're actually desperate and not just greedy.