Hey everybody! I want to start by thanking all the readers for reading and for the nice comments. I have never been much of a journal keeper, I have tried, but after writing on a consistent basis for a while it always begins to seem like a chore. However, knowing that other people might want to know how we're doing doesn't make writing so bad. We decided to start a blog mainly to keep our family and friends informed and so they would know we’re still alive. Angie suggested also inviting our friends on facebook and we were really surprised by the number of acceptance responses we received. So if you are taking time out of your day to read this I just wanted to say thanks for caring.
It’s the final leg of our journey and we’re enjoying every minute. We are in Monteverde, Costa Rica at the moment; it’s weird to think we’ve been to Panama and back. Monteverde is a small town high up in the cloud rain forest. In Monteverde, when you wake up in the morning to a room full of smoke your first thought is that your building is on fire. After the initial shock wears off you start to wonder why you don’t smell anything burning. It isn’t until a few moments later that you realize the windows are left open, there is no smoke, and that those are clouds passing through your room. Most of the business done here has something to do with coffee, cheese, or tourism. Businesses here compete in things like having the best zippline canopy tour, longest bungee jump, or creepiest collection on insects on display. We went zipplining today and it was a mind-blowing experience; one of the best forty bucks I’ve ever spent! Flying down those lines at crazy speeds I kept thinking how “this is what birds must feel like gliding around, through, and above the forest”. Some of the lines were over a kilometer long! This was one of our first destinations being back in Costa Rica and we have a bit more to do before coming home, but we already miss Panama.
Getting back to Panama, our main goal there was getting to Panama City, however we took our time getting there. After recovering from our climb at Volcan Baru, we headed to the tropical Islands of Bocas Del Toro on the Caribbean coast. You need to travel by motorboat to get around in Bocas, and being on the water is still pretty new for me, so I really enjoyed it. The ocean water there is the clearest I’ve seen it, and every island has differently unique stunning beaches. I snorkeled for the first time in Bocas and I can’t image how coral reef can be much more incredible than it is there. From Bocas Del Toro we headed over to the Pacific Coast to see the tranquil beaches of Las Lajas. That beach went on for miles, and most of the time we seemed to have it all to ourselves. It was very pretty and peaceful there. In the nighttime we would watch the sky get splashed with color by the lightning of distant storms over the ocean. Next, we journeyed back inland to El Valle, a town in the crater of an extinct volcano that blew it’s top. El Valle was more of a pit stop on the way to Panama City, but there was one memorable moment there; Angie’s dream of holding a monkey finally came true. We met a guy that had a trained monkey in front of a souvenir shop. He could see the longing in Angie’s eyes as she looked at the monkey and eventually asked her if she wanted to hold him. Angie was so excited; the smile on her face with that monkey on her shoulders was priceless. Two more hours in a bus and we were in Panama City!
Panama City is a pretty happening place, bustling and full of life. The Public transportation system is great, and the busses are even more decorative than the chicken busses of Guatemala. It seems as if the busses are competing for your business through their artwork and adornments; they really are fantastic. Albrook Mall behind their bus terminal is the biggest mall I have ever seen in my life. Conflicts, conquest, invasions, and looting from pirates to conquistadors of the past have destroyed much of the city. So it has been and is being rebuilt; there is construction being done all over the place. Which also means no need for an alarm clock, the drilling, hammering, sawing, banging, clanging, and yelling start at about six in the morning; I guess we were able to enjoy more of the day. Because of the newness that comes with rebuilding, the architectures in one part is completely different in the next; it is also strange to see so many towering buildings so barren and incomplete. There is one ruined building right on the shore of Panama bay that has been claimed by the skateboarders. They get in through holes in the foundation, grind down it’s old hand rails, ollie across crumbled stairway, and kickflip through the vacant hallways; the policemen don’t mind the old place getting some use.
We also received our first real taste of what the rainy season is like on our last day in Panama City. There is monsoon rain there; I attempted to go out for lunch in the rain and was forced to retreat. There was two/three inches and rising of water on the ground and all of the streets and alleyways were transformed into rushing rapid rivers. The entire city was forced to stand still. It rained for a few hours and then it was dry and sunny again; madness.
After just concluding our Presidential Election, we have walked right into to the final days of the Panama’s Presidential Election. We were thrown right back into a world of negative television advertisements, political party flags, people being divided, rallies, debates, and posters of the candidates faces being posted everywhere from the flanks of horses to the tops of canopies. It was Balbina versus Martinelli, and the battle was heated. Balbina is a woman, and only the second woman to get that far in the Presidential race. Their election took place on the third and still no female President of Panama.
We visited the Panama Canal and were amazed at what an engineering marvel it is. We went to the Miraflores locks and watched the ships go through for a few hours. Each chamber of the locks is over a hundred feet wide and about a thousand feet long, and yet the massive ships just barely fit inside. It was obvious that every ship passing through the canal was designed with that purpose. Panama is in the process of expanding the canal to a third lane with better technology, also the new lane would be able to accommodate much bigger ships. There is a wonderful museum about the canal there that really showed just how important and beneficial the canal is to world transport. Leaving the museum you understand why ship pass through the canal around the clock with toll charges averaging over one hundred thousand (US) dollars one-way. I really didn’t know much about Panama when we started this trip beyond the fact that the Panama Canal is in Panama City. We really enjoyed discovering what a beautiful country it is.
The simple task of taking a bus back to Costa Rica some how went wrong; it turned into a crisis that we now refer to as the nickel incident. The bus trip from Panama City to San Jose Costa Rica is eighteen hours long. We decided to take the night bus and sleep through most of it. We arrived at the bus station around ten p.m. and found it to be completely packed. There were long lines of people stretched all across the giant bus terminal. Having arrived fairly close to our departure time we had to work our way to the front of the lines. We finally got to the coin toll machine after bumping into everybody as we stumble through the crowd carrying our bags and wearing our giant backpacks. We had to squeeze through the narrow passage of the toll machine only to find out that it only accepted nickels! We had dollars, fives, tens, twenties, quarters, dimes, and pennies, but neither of us had a nickel. Angie is in front of me stuck in the toll machine, one of the female workers is yelling at her, the masses behind us are pushing us forward, the officials are trying to push her back, nobody has change for a dime, I am rummaging through all my pockets, Angie is laughing in bewilderment, I find one nickel! I gave her the nickel, she went through and then I was stuck. I tossed Angie a dime and yelled “FIND ME A NICKEL!!” It was hysterical! Angie eventually found change for me and we laughed about it for a long while afterwards. I apologize for the length; I think I got a little carried away. Under a month left! We’ll see you soon!
