Traveling will change you like little else can. It will put you in places that will force you to care for issues that are bigger than you. You will begin to understand that the world is both very large and very small. You will have a newfound respect for pain and suffering, having seen that two-thirds of humanity struggle to simply get a meal each day. - Tommas Coldrick

Over the next several days there is a Nica invasion of friends that we’ve met in San Juan, and the growing energy of excitement for seeing one another again leads us to Wizard beach for the day. Our squad of 8 peeps includes; Krista, Chloe, Philip, Alex, Monica, Kendall, & the Swedish girls, that I can’t remember their names. Jumping through the turquoise surf it’s great to be among wonderful friends again and no matter how long it’s been backpacking reunions are unique in their own way. Now that we have our tight crew back together both the days and nights are full of activities. Aqua Lounge swinging into the ocean, hostel crashing just to be around these friends in spite of sharing Coco and Cat’s apartment for free, and just sitting around laughing all day. While I’ve grown accustomed to year round warm weather I realize that the Summer months are beginning to gear up in the States and miss the small things from Colorado Summers–Rockies games at Coors Field, Saturday night sushi with Andrea, the downtown rooftops and pool parties, but then I pause and look out at the Caribbean and those feelings soon dissipate. I know I can be cruel, haha.
On this particular day, May the fourth be with you, as the 4th day in May has also brought a week long outdoor church service, the AfroCaribbean Festival, in the streets of Bocas town. At the beginning I am enjoying some of the music and dancing, even some of the speakers with their passionate messages, but when they continue to crank up the speaker volume to a deafening level I have to escape the pounding headache that I am sure is slowly causing permanent hearing loss.