Edmonton, Alberta

Another one for the list:

• Rode in first class for the first time

I decided to upgrade my San Jose - Phoenix flight to first class. It was a nice experience, dampened only slightly be the man beside me's flatulence problem.

A few hours now till I get home. Right now I am just waiting.

San Jose, Costa Rica

I forgot one from yesterdays list.

• Saw two oceans at the same time

While flying into Panama City from Bocas del Toro, we could look out the left side of the plane and see the Atlantic Ocean, and look out the right and see the Pacific Ocean.

Done Day One of the Three Day Travelling to Get Home. It was a 9 hour bus ride. Gross. Terry thinks he picked up a STD from the bus seat (or something like that). Tomorrow I get up at 4am to catch my airport shuttle.

Rafting! (Boquete, Panama)

Rafting was AWESOME. Such a great time. There were 91 rapids in all on our route (normal white water routes have 10) and we had two great guides and three other great rafters. The guides were Freddy and Ivan (Who had a tatoo of the Star of David on his chest. I had no idea there were indigineous Panamanians who were Jewish. Learn somethin new everyday!) and the other three rafters were Lara and Stella from New York and Elaine from London.

We started off with the manager driving us WAY up into the mountains and giving us a talk to scare the hell out of us (If you get trapped between rocks in white water, you will probably die. If you panic when ejected from the raft, you will probably die. On average, one person gets tossed out of the raft every 6 trips. This is trip 8 with no ejections. Etc.) before going off with the guides. Oh, and as it turned out, the only one to be tossed from the raft was one of the guides, Ivan. He was trying to fix his paddle and we hit a rock and he went flying. Good times. I´m glad I didn´t tell him about the rock we were about to hit.

The first part of the trip was the most dangerous. It contained mostly Class 2 and Class 3 white water, but had a few Class 4 parts. I was in the back, beside all the bags of supplies and food and thank God. There were quite a few times that if I didn´t have the strap that was holding down the bags to grab on to, I would have been thrown off. We jetted down these rapids, people tossed all over the place, it was insane.

We stopped for a surprisingly big lunch, and then the guides switched positions. Originally Freddie was in the Safety Kayak (to rescue any of us who may be tossed out) and Ivan was in the raft with us. The second part of the route was less challenging, both because the rapids weren´t as bad (fun) and because by then we had a better handle of how to do it. So then during the calm water periods inbetween rapids, Freddie made it his mission to sneak up on every person in the raft and throw them out, to liven things up. Over the next hour he managed to get all of us except for Elaine, the girl from London. Elaine was way up in the front, and a hard target. Especially since she was VERY paranoid, knowing she was the only one left, and was keeping a constant eye on Freddie.

Well, I saw what a nervous state this girl was in and took it upon myself to alleviate it. At one point Stella half-heartedly kicked Terry, who were sitting beside each other in front of me, and I saw my chance and went on a kamikaze dive between them and grabbed Elaine and dunked us both into the water. Success! After that she was much more relaxed.

So that was definetly an excellent way to end my trip. From here on out it´s just travel, travel, travel until I get to YK on the 15th. Tomorrow morning we leave Boquete and grab the bus to David. From David we catch a 8:30am bus to San Jose, Costa Rica. Overnight in San Jose, get to the airport for my 7:30am flight to Phoenix, spend 8 hours in Phoenix (groan), fly to Edmonton, overnight there, and then catch the 8pm flight to YK.

Oh, Barry, will you be home on the 15th between 10:30 pm and 11pm.... I do not have my keys.

I hear it´s around -30 in YK right now. I am FULLY acclimatized for 30+. This will not be fun. But let´s see... this trip I have:

• Climbed two volcanoes
• Ziplined over the jungle
• Walked through the rainforest
• Spent many days lazing on the Pacific tropical coast
• Been high enough to walk through clouds
• Kayaked on the ocean
• Bogeyboarded in some big ass waves
• Been to Tourist Town, Granada!
• Taken the scariest ferry ride of my life
• Swam in shark-infested water
• Learned to surf
• Snorkeled in the Carribean Sea
• Rode a mechanical bull
• Seen actual Nicaraguan markets
• Experienced Central American buses (trust me, it is an experience)
• Seen the Panama Canal
• Seen monkeys, sloths, crocodiles, turtles, iguanas, toucans, tropical fish and many more
• White water rafted!

So all in all, I can´t be too sad. :)

Boquete, Panama

Still alive!

Panama City after that first night got better. It is a city with some definite cool points. The city buses for one, and Via Argentina, the street with all the university pubs. And I got to see a movie in English for the first time in a month and a half! That is always a big deal for me when I go travelling.

I accomplished my two main goals of the Panama part of my trip as well. I got a Panama hat, and saw the Panama canal. Check and check. Unfortunately the ass in the bunk above me in our dorm room decided to drop his bag right on top of my brand new hat and crushed it. So it is a little deformed, but still cool. And Panama canal was also very cool. I think this is the one part of the trip where Terry got bored by something WAY before I did.

In all Panama City was alright for me. Terry liked it a lot more (he was excited to be in ANY city again), so if you want more glowing reviews you can go to his blog.

Now we are in Boquete, a small mountain by the Costa Rica/Panama border. The population is either 3,000 or 15,500, depending on who you listen to. My guide book says 15,500, Terrys says 3,000. I think that the main town is 3,000, but if you count all the people in the expansive countryside, then it is more like 15,000. It is a good compromise at least.

We just got back from a hike back up into the mountains. It was a stunning piece of nature. I have some good pictures. One hundred and twenty of them, in fact. For a three and a half hour hike. Perhaps I went overboard. On our way back down it started to POUR rain. We eventually made it to the bus shelter, and hid there for a while. Eventually a local came by and told us (I think, my Spanish sucks) that this is the first time he remembers it raining since November. So good timing us, on the hike....

After waiting for a bus for half an hour we were getting very cold, and a local came by and hailed us in to his truck. So Terry and I had our first ever hitch hiking experience! In small places like this in Central America hitching is almost the defacto way of travel, but we never actually worked up the nerve to do it ourselves. Since I leave in a few days, I am glad to say I got that experience in there.

Tomorrow is white water rafting!

PS - And on our way to the hike we ran into two Dutch girls and a Aussie we had originally met in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. I love the small-worldness of backpackers.

Panama City, Panama

So we are now in Panama City, Panama. And we are not off to the best of starts....

A couple days ago we booked our flight from Bocas del Toro (whose airport runway shares space with the local baseball diamond - Terry has pictures) and booked our hostel in Panama. So yesterday we got on our flight, got into Panama around 5:30, got our luggage and grabbed a cab from the airport (who over charged us) to our hostel to find out that our reservation was not going to be honoured. Apparently the front desk clerk had made some mistake and overbooked the hostel, and some people he thought were going to leave didn't. So it's about 6:30 at night, we just want to unload our bags, and we find out we have nowhere to stay. The clerk had called around and got us room at another place, and since you can't get last minute space in Panama, we had to go where ever he put us. He got us a cab and told the driver where to go. As soon as we took off quoted us an overcharged price. Terry began to say that that's not the price the clerk said, but right away he pulled over and told us to get out. Us with our bags in a foreign city, not knowing where we're going had to just choke down the price and keep on going. We got to our new hostel, with the driver swearing at us while we walked up the steps.

This place isn't bad, actually. Two people we met in Mal Pais, Irish Katherince and Aussie Scott, are here, there's a very nice back garden and free internet. But the problem is that it's about 20 minutes further from the center of town than we would have been at the other place, and that place was already a little out of the way, and whereas the other hostel is known for being fun and youthful, this place is decidely quiet and it looks like we're the youngest people here. In nine days (nine!) I'll be back in Yellowknife, so was looking forward to socializing and having some fun....

But regardless, today we are going to go check out the old parts of Panama, and catch a movie later on, before checking out the Panamanian nightlife.

Cheers!

Panama City, Panama

Bocas del Toro, Panama

I take it back, THIS is the slowest computer known to man.

We are in Bocas del Toro, a chain of islands on the western edge of Panama. It is gorgeous here. Yesterday we hired a water taxi to take us around the islands snorkleing, it was great.

Okay, this computer is so slow that I canh type faster than the characters hows up on the screen. So I am just typing and hoping that later it will all show up. So this is probably horribly spelled. I apologize. I am running blind here.

About the water taxi guy... it is dangerous when you are talking to someone with an accent, and SEVENTY sounds a lot like SEVENTEEN. Not as good a deal as we thjought. But still worth it.

Tomorrow we head off to Panama City!

Cahuita, Costa Rica

About 50 clicks north of the Panama border, on the Pacific coast.

I´m really just wasting time while Terry emails.

We were in Tortugeuro this morning. I think it is likely I did not spell that right, but that is okay because I don´t think I ever pronounced it correctly either. It was a Village with a capital "Hoooooly sh*t this place is isolated and there is nothing to do". I still liked it though. We went on a jungle boat safari this morning with the highly recommended Darryl and saw a whole mess of animals, including, but not limited to:

• three toed sloths
• howler monkeys
• white faced monkeys (same ones from Friends and Ace Ventura)
• a turtle

And then on the water taxi from there to here abouts we also got to see a crocodile baby and a full adult crocodile. Also, you can´t say Ticos won´t build restaurants out in the middle of nowhere for no damn good reason. Actually, the reason this restaurant the water taxi stopped at existed at all was because this was where ALL the water taxis stopped to drop off their tourists for lunch. I imagine the captains get a nice little cut. In 45 minutes, two other taxis stopped at this restaurant in the middle of the unpopulated Tico bayou.

I am using the slowest computer known to man...

Now we´re here in Cahuita, a more populous and less isolated Carribean-flava town and Terry wants to get drunk.

Cheers!

Laguna Apoyo, Nicaragua

The last nights in Granada were a blast, I loved the people we were with. Note to self - I need to make a special trip to Vancouver to find May and marry that girl.

From there we went with some of our Granada peeps, Tad and Lolly from Seattle, to Ometepe. Ometepe is the island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua and is mostly made up of two volcanoes. On the ferry over, we picked up two Canadians from Toronto, Pete and Matt, and a girl they were travelling with, Melissa from Ohio. By the way, that was the most harrowing ferry experience of my life. I have pictures and videos. Words can express the death-defying-ness of it.

The seven of us went to this place called Finca Playa Venecia on the southern coast, that was recommended by Eduardo, a tour guide we met while waiting for the ferry. A SUPER nice place. Great view, great bungalows, right on the lake. We lazed around at the hotel restaurant that first night, got some good quotes from Lolly.

The next day we hiked up Maderas, the smaller, inactive volcanoe. It was a rather brutal hike up. It took four and a half hours to get to the top, cold and muddy most of the way.

This morning we left our travelling companions, except for Pete and Matt who left yesterday for Granada, and now Terry and I are at Laguna Apoyo, a giant crater lake outside of Managua. The view is gorgeous, the staff are fantastic.

Dinner time!

Granada, Nicaragua

This is the first real city I´ve been in this trip. It´s nice, I like it.

Today we went to Mayasa, a town very close to Granada, for the market. There´s not really anything in Mayasa but markets. A few notes about buses in Nicaragua:

- You find out which bus you want by listening for the drivers loudly yelling out their destinations as they stand beside their vehicle. They also yell out where they´re going while driving, to groups of people on the road.

- They seem to be decorated with whatever stickers and stencils are laying around. Today our middle aged bus driver had Hello Kitty and Tweety Bird on the roof of his bus.

- There aren´t really bus stops. You can just flag down a bus anywhere you are and get on.

- If you catch a bus in a bus station, while you´re waiting for the bus to leave you have a lot of people coming into the bus, offering you food and drink. It´s convenient!

- Apparently we are the only tourists in Nicaragua who take the local buses.

So we get to Mayasa. We don´t really know where the Old Market is, so we just head off in the direction everyone else on our bus was going. Everyone else on our bus was local, so we end up in the New Market. Which is to say, the local Nica market, and not the tourist market. That was a very interesting comparison to do once we found the Old Market. I have some pictures that illustrate the differences much better than I can explain. Suffice it to say, Nicaragua is poor. Really, really poor.

The tourist market was cool, it had a lot of local crafts and such. I would have bought more, in not for the logistics of getting it home unbroken. As it was, I bought a $3 t-shirt (which was probably over-priced, but I feel bad haggling when I probably make more in a year than most Nicas will in their entire lives) and shirts for the niece and nephew. Now my niece will have clothes from Granada, Spain and Granada, Nicaragua.

Now I´m tired and smell bad. Time for a nap and a shower, then off to see what this town has to offer for Mardi Gras.

¨You´re an interesting person, but you could be nicer¨

- Old lady to Terry at the bar last night

Apparently of the two of us, Terry is the asshole. Also, we can rip apart cement benches without meaning to.

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua (2)

Today we spent the day at one of the beaches near San Juan. We rented a bogey board, played in the waves.

To get there we drove in the back of this open air trailer, that was fitted with two long couches, back to back so you´re facing out the side. The trip took about half an hour, passing through the rural areas of the coast on a dirt road, the first dirt road I´ve taken in Nicaragua.

This was the first time I really saw the countryside of Nicaragua. We´ve taken a lot of tico buses in Costa Rica, gone through a lot of towns, seen the houses and stores and workplaces of the people there. Nicaragua life is a completely different story.

Most homes and no more than shacks, made of scrap wood and tin. The shacks were small, no more than three rooms. There were gaps in all of the walls, dirt floors on the inside. There was typically a outhouse behind the house, made of tin, with holes in the side. There was garbage all across the road, littering the ditches. The yards were packed with small bits of junk and wood, anything that might be useful at some point, I suppose.

We complained in Costa Rica that it was too touristy, everything was so highly priced and gringo-fied in the hot spots. People are saying that Nicaragua is what Costa Rica was 20 years ago, so I guess it follows then that Nicaragua will hopefully be what Costa Rica is like in 20 years. The living standards in Costa Rica are clearly behind our own, but it´s nothing worse than what I´ve seen in some parts of Canada. So even if we tourists complain that it won´t stay this forever, I gotta say that that´s not really a bad thing.

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

This keyboard is really hard to type with. You have to pound on some of the keys.

There is a lizard on the wall behind my computer. There are lizards EVERYWHERE here.

So Terry and I decided to catch the 9am bus to Liberia instead of a 11am or 1pm bus, which meant we were able to get to Nicaragua in one day. Our bus across the border was playing a clearly bootlegged DVD of 80s music videos. To get through this border you have to push a button, and then a street light signal thing behind the official turns either red or green. It´s like a game! If you win, you get to pass through the border, if you lose you get the rubber glove treatment*. Terry and I both won. Horray! Then we drove into San Juan with a guy with a old Toyota and a love of Celine Dion.

So we´re in another beach town San Juan del Sur. It´s very nice, and a good break from the over-touristed Tamarindo. There are still a lot of tourists here, but it doesn´t feel like it´s completely overwhelmed by them. And holy is Nicaragua cheap. Apparently this is one of the more expensive places in Nicaragua, and it´s not that expensive. Our hostel is $6 a night. Breakfast this morning was $2.25. A beer is $1.

Next is Granada, a colonial city on the shore of Lac de Nicaragua. I´m excited for it! We´re into about our second week of just beach towns. There nice and all, but it gets old for me after a while.

OH, and SUPER UPDATE! The morning we left Tamarindo I had a dream that my camera was working. I had kinda stopped checking it, assuming it was toast. But because of the dream I dug it out.... AND IT WORKS NOW! Craaaaaazy.


*Not really

Shipwrecked! OR The story of why Terry will never go kayaking again

So what did you do for Valentines day? Me? Oh, I got shipwrecked.

So today was Kayaking Day for Terry and I. We were both excited. I had kayaked before in Victoria, and have lots of canoe experience, so was not worried.

We rented our kayak from Iguana Surf. First off, this was not a proper kayak. It was cheap, plastic affair. But I figured, whatever, it is inexpensive and the bay looks pretty calm. The guy renting the kayak asked if we wanted lifejackets. Uh... yeah? I could not believe that was even an option.

We went out, went to an island that was on the lefthand side of the bay. It was full of shells and crabs and bright yellow fish. Neat. The guy at the rental store talked about a island somewhere around here, but this island was rather small so I was not sure if this was what he was talking about. I spied some land further along, but could not determine if it was part of the coast or perhaps THAT was the island he was mentioning.

We made our way out towards the "island". Unfortunately, that meant passing by one rather rough beach, with large waves and rocky outcroppings. We had been good up to that point at making sure our erstwhile kayak was always orientated into the waves so we would not capsize. But it only takes one lapse of attention.... and then we were in the water. I know how to flip capsized canoes and get back in, so was not too worried about this little kayak. I flipped it, got back in and instructed Terry to get in from the nose. He had some troubles doing so, and it took about three tries of him to get into the kayak.

Once we are both back in and seated, I notice that the kayak is sitting substatially lower in the water and has lost a lot of its stability. We flip again. I flip over the kayak again, get back in and get Terry to do the same. Flipped over again. At this point I realize something is not going right, so we have to make it for shore.

SIDENOTE: Terry has his sandles with him, I have a t-shirt I have taken off. Throughout all of this we had MIRACIOUSLY managed to lose none of our stuff.

We are both holding onto the kayak, weakly swimming for shore. It is very slow going and awkward so I tell Terry I can probably flip the canoe over and paddle it to shore myself, so he can just worry about getting himself to shore. I flip the kayak over, get in and paddle most of the way to shore. I periodically hear Terry yelling and swearing behind me. I stop and look back, and consider going back to get him. Back it seems he is actually doing okay, just being Terry.

I get to shore, and Terry follows shortly afterwards. I inspect the kayak and discover that the reason it was sitting so low as because THERE IS A HOLE IN THE KAYAK. Not in the bottom, but it looked there was a plug on the nose of the kayak that was unplugged. So everytime Terry was trying to get back into the kayak he was holding the nose underwater and it was filling up, making it unusable. I prop up the kayak and wait for all the water to drain out. It takes about 15 minutes.

Once we are both on shore, I laugh and kid around, saying what a great story this is. Our best story so far! We got shipwrecked on a deserted beach! Terry does not share my enthusiasm, since we now have to carry the kayak down this beach to another beach inside the bay to get back into stable water and then kayak the couple kilometers back to the beach we rented the kayak from. Whatever. Weirdo.

So we make it back into the main bay, Terry terrified into immobility everytime a wave hits us. I decide that this is not a good time to mention that we seem to be taking on water again, and will probably be half sunk and the kayak will be unusable again in about half an hour. I figured we had another 15 minutes to get back to the beach, so no worries. Terry was on a need-to-know basis at this point, and I decided he did not need to know.

We make it back to the shore, amid catcalls from passing yahting enthusiasts. We capsize from a wave once more, for good measure. It was in waist high water, and seemed to amuse the fishermen beside us. We take it back to Iguana Surf completely tired and drenched and get the deposit back.

So that was my Valentines day.

Tomorrow we are off to a night in Liberia, before heading to Nicaragua!

Tamarindo, Costa Rica

We are now in Tamarindo, another Pacific coast beach town. It is actually slightly better than I expected. That being said, it is still a huge construction zone/gringo town. And the weird thing is, it actually has the worst beach of the three we have been too. Proving middle-aged tourists just have no taste, I guess :P. Despite the gringo-ness of Tamarindo, Terry has been in a surprisingly good mood! I think that is helped along by three things.

1) Everyone told us before we came that it was awful here, so we had VERY low expectations.
2) We booked a kayak for tomorrow, and Terry gets to prove he is not totally mechanically inept
3) We are three days away from being in Nicaragua, the land of 5 buck lobster.

More from Nicaragua!

Playa Samara, Costa Rica

We made it out of Mal Pais. Samara is lovely. A great string of beach bars and a beautiful, unsurfable beach.

We did end up taking a surf lesson in Mal Pais. And yeah, it is fun. But I really can´t imagine it being the ONLY thing that I find interesting and am capable of talking about. Anyhow.

We grabbed a shuttle from Mal Pais up to Samara. We used a shuttle ($$) because the only other option involved backtracking quite a bit, and it would have taken probably more than one day. And using the shuttle we got to enjoy Costa Rica´s coastal "highway". And by "highway", I mean a near damn impassable dirt road. We had to ford 8 rivers with the old Toyota Protestant shuttle van. We lost 1 oxen and 200 pounds of food.

Samara is a really pretty place. We did some bar hopping last night, ran into some Brits that were on our shuttle to Samara. Terry retired early, and I hung around talking to an economist.

Today was just another day of lazing on the beach. Terry and I are constantly butting heads about the beach situation. My idea of a good beach day is to walk around, go in the water for a bit, get a snack, see about some snorkeling or kayaking. Terry´s is to do absolutely nothing. So that´s an issue. Today I just bought a mask and snorkel and went off on my own. There are TONNES of tropical fish here. Makes sense, being the ocean and being tropical. There were two I saw, about a foot long each, one bright blue and the other bright red. Very cool. But I didn´t go too far out, since I was afraid of being eaten by sharks. Don´t know if that´s a valid fear or not.

Tomorrow we´re off to Tamarindo, and Terry has agreed to try out kayaking. He tried out my mask and snorkel and almost managed to drown. So we´ll see how that goes.

Oh, and I HAVE to mention where we´re staying. It´s a beach front bar called Las Olas, that has huts and shacks to rent. At night the bar is quite a lot like the Gold Range. Lots of Shady Characters, who love to Mill Around. Our shack has walls of sticks, and the door locks by pulling a chain across it and padlocking it. The floor is concrete and the ceiling fan is rusty. THIS is what we were expecting of Central America. Way to come through, CA!

Mal Pais, Costa Rica (2)

We've been in Mal Pais for three days now and done NOTHING. This town is kinda dull, unless you're a hardcore surfer. I went to write in my paper journal yesterday because I hadn't written in it for a few days and usuaully a day will take 2 pages to summarize. I wrote 3/4 of a page. Most of that was describing how hard it is to get to Mal Pais.

Everyone here is a surfer, and incapable of talking about anything but surfing. It grates after a while. The only respite has been one Irish girl, who doesn't surf and is lovely (when are Irish girls NOT lovely?). This afternoon Terry and I are taking a surfing lesson, so hopefully we'll gain some insight about what is so fascinating that you have to either be doing it, talking about it constantly or watching video's about it. And even if we don't, tomorrow we're off to Samara, a town where we here surfing is impossbile! I look forward to snorkeling in the Pacific :).

I've also lost Terry. He was supposed to be in the internet cafe I'm in right now, but clearly he's wandered off somewhere else. Need a leash for that boy.

Mal Pais, Costa Rica

Firstly, Lauren - There's a difference between voluntarily not speaking to people, and not being comfortable enough to speak to people. And a Week-Long Vow of Silence is something I would encourage everyone to try once :).

So we finished off our time in Monteverde with a morning hike around the Cloud Forest and in the afternoon we took a canopy tour. First the hike.

It was actually through the Santa Elena entrance to the Monteverde Cloud Forest, since that one was less used and slightly cheaper. The Cloud Forest certainly did live up to it's name; it's a forest in the clouds. So it was kinda cool. However it was also not that interesting. We didn't see any wildlife. We did get some pictures of me surveying the land though.

HOWEVER, the canopy tour through the mountains in the afternoon was freakin awesome!! We went with our German friend Steph and there were also two other young Canadians on our tour from Victoria, Glen and Shirley. It was definetly a fun, solid group. And our two guides, Freddy and Alberto, were also supberb.

So basically what a canopy tour is, is a adrenaline-filled loop through the forest and across valleys in a 'what the hell am I doing?!' manner. We started with taking zip lines that criss-crossed the mountain valley, giving us beautiful views as we zipped along these wires suspended 100 meters off the ground, some of which were over half a kilometer long (the longest was the last, at 750 meters).

After an hour of ziping between tree tops, we made it to the repelling station. When I hear "repelling" I think a slow walk down the side of a cliff. This repelling was a free rope, attached to a tree branch, reaching about 60 feet to the ground. Somehow I was first in line for this. Freddie is on the ground below us, and Alberto tells me that I don't have to do anything once I'm harnessed in, Freddie will control my speed. So I step off the platform - AND FALL. For about 25 feet at least. Turns out Freddie is a bit of a joker and wanted me to get a good adrenaline rush. Oh, that Freddie. I thought something had gone wrong and I was going to die. Har har hard :P.

Next was what is called a "Tarzan Swing". It's a rope that you're attached to, and you step off the platform and swing out about 60 feet, swing back, swing out again, etc. all while watching the ground 40 feet below whizzing by. Again I'm the first to try it. So I get all harnessed in and get REALLY freaked out by this, the repelling was scary, but this just seems loco (and don't worry parents and people of a more conservative-persuasion, this was all done with harnesses and extra safety lines and Freddie and Alberto seemed to be very comptent. One thing I do have to mention though, is on the waiver you sign at the beginning they waive all "moral responsibility" if you have an accident by not following the guides instructions. I had no idea you could sign a piece of paper and people won't feel bad anymore!).

So I step off the platform - AND FALL. AGAIN. I don't know how I didn't see this coming. It was only for about 6 feet though, until the roap catches and swing out, almost but not quite, directly into a very large tree branch, yelling and whooping all the way. As soon as that was over, I wanted to do it all over again. And the way they stop you is to throw this huge rubber seatbelt over you. Terry went next, and of course, being Terry, they managed not to catch him on the three times he swung within range and ended up stranded on this rope, dangling over the slope of the mountain. We were a little worried that they didn't have a plan B here, but after consulting for a little while they threw Terry a rope that he clipped to his harness and they dragged him back. He has a rope burn from the affair that he's very proud of. Increasing his TGMOTW credentials, of course.

That evening we went to dinner with the German girls, and it was pleasant as always. They were our favourite people so far this trip, it was sad to leave them.

We left to get to Mal Pais at 6am the next day. That sounds early, but Terry and I have had problems sleeping in this entire trip, usuaully waking up between 5am and 7am everyday. Today was the first day we managed to sleep in all the way to 9! Horrah! So anyway, we leave at 6am, take a bus, a ferry and another bus and get here at 4pm. 10 hours to get less than 100km. Welcome to Central America :).

We're staying at a Surf Camp, since it was close to the bus stop and we had no reservations anywhere. We were told by a Canadian couple from Kelowna who are motorbiking around Cental America that every other budget place in town is booked up, so it's just as well that we stopped there. We're actually in a open air dorm, a shack with fencing for walls, a roof and 6 beds. Thank goodness they have a security lock up for our stuff.

Actually, tonight is "party night" at the surf camp, so they moved us to what I think must be the best room in the place for no extra charge. Apparently things get a little crazy around our dorm-area on party night, so it's not the best place to sleep.

We spent today on the beach, swimming and reading and generally being lazy. My sunblock is apparently not water-proof as it claims, since I now have a rather noticable burn on my chest and stomach. Tomorrow I'm trying to cajole Terry into taking surfing lessons or to go snorkeling. I'll let ya know how that goes.

Cheers!

Santa Elena, Costa Rica

So, where did I leave off... ah, with Cerro Chato. So that afternoon we went with a tour group and hiked to the opposite side of Arenal that we were on, the side that had the lava flows and all the expensive hotels and resorts. Our group was made up of rather dull people, and the hike itself was nothing special. However the view was spectacular, on top of black volcanic rock and Arenal behind us and Lake Arenal and mountains in front of us. Lake Arenal is a man-made lake and provides 60% of Costa Rica´s hydro-electric power. It is MASSIVE.

After the hike we went to Baldi hot springs and ran into Jake and May again. We hung out and walked around the springs. There were lots of different pools and a swim-up bar. I really have to get back into my backpacker social level. There were plenty of interesting (hot) people (girls) there, and we didn´t really talk to any of them except for one English girl, to ask where the sauna was. But even without stimulating conversation, it was a very good time.

The next morning we packed up and took a Jeep-Boat-Jeep to Monteverde. While my socialability isn´t what it once was, I can say my cleanliness standards have dropped back down to where they used to be. I´ve already started classifying clothes without any too obvious stains and an acceptable odour level as "clean".

Jake and May were also on our trip to Monteverde, and we just saw them walk by as we were having lunch here. Anyhow, the boat was across Lake Arenal and was a great boat trip. The lake was about 13 km long and is a very relaxing ride, although docking the boat seemed to be an overly complicated maneouver. After the boat was the shuttle to Santa Elena, a town by Monteverde that is a less costly place to stay. The roads were pretty frightening at times, but in the end I realized it was no worse than the Ingraham Trail, so I relaxed. Travelling by road here is kinda ridiculous. A 100 km trip will take about 4 hours. You can´t reach any kind of speed on these bumpy dirt roads.

So now were in Santa Elena. It is a town created exclusively for tourists. That is apparently the ONLY industry here. We´re only spending one more night here before going to Mal Pais, on the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula on the Pacific coast. We were going to go to Tamarindo, but then ran into two German girls, Kersten and Stephanie, at our casita who said it was just a English/American, over-priced, party town, so we figured we´d try Mal Pais first, and pass through Tamarindo later if we feel up to it.

This morning we hiked through the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve (a less crowded version of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve). We didn´t manage to see any wildlife, but did get to confirm that it is entirely feasible that those jungle vines could hold a person´s body weight. In about an hour we´re going off on a canopy tour, which is basically taking zip lines from tree-top to tree-top, and then we´ll probably go back to our casita, grab dinner with the German girls and hit the hay for the 6am bus we have to catch to get to Mal Pais tomorrow.

PS - Camera Update: it´s drier here, so hopefully will dry out soon. It can turn on and off now, but can´t switch modes or take pictures, but it´s something.

La Fortuna, Costa Rica (Part 2)

Another day in the shadow of volcanoes...

Yesterday Terry and I visited a nearby waterfall and climbed up Cerro Chato, a inactive volcanoe with a lake in the crater. We walked to the waterfall from our eco-lodge, Miguel pointing us in the right direction. It was quite the hike up the road. Once we got there we had to spend the rest of the day sans-shirts due to the sweat streaming off of both of us. We hiked the last bit to the waterfall, and I went for a little swim beside the waterfall, a towering drop of water, I would guess it was about 100 meters high. Terry refused to go in since the water was a little chilly and he claimed "Greeks don´t swim in cold water".

Next was Cerro Chato. The Cerro Chato was - by far - the hardest hike either of us have either done. It only took two hours to get up there, but most of the time it seemed like it was two hours STRAIGHT UP, through rainforest and mud. The first hour wasn´t too bad, it was through grasslands (with cows!), and was tiring, but not too bad. The second hour, however, was a completely different story. That´s when we entered the rainforest portion of the hike (Terry insists on calling it "jungle" to enhance his tough-guy, man of the world credentials). That consisted of pulling ourselves up through mud and vines, over tricky roots that enjoy tripping the unawares.

Even though it was probably one of the physically hardest things I´ve ever done, it was SO worth it. We felt very manly afterwards (hiking through the jungle without shirts and all), and you feel a lot of satisfaction once you get down to the lake itself. Oh, right, DOWN. I forgot to mention the last section of the hike is a hundred and twenty meter drop into the crater, that is more of a semi-controlled fall than a hike. I slid most of the way down on the mud, with the sounds of Terry´s occasional swearing behind me.

We met up with two other hikers from the US down at the lake, Jake and May. It turns out that Jake and May are actually staying at the same lodge as us. There were also some other hikers who were coming down while we were going up, and today we saw them at our lodge as well. We´re planning on seeing Jake and May again tonight at the hot springs.

So we climbed back out of the crater (not as hard as I imagined) and made it back down the volcanoe in an hour and twenty minutes. We walked back to our lodge and told Miguel that we had climbed the entire thing. He said that we were very strong men, that not everyone can do it and we should be proud. We were. He also told us that he has climbed it 67 times. Miguel is now my hero.

An unfortunate side effect to the hike is that my camera now seems to be broken. I think it was probably the humidity of the climb, or possibly the shaking around of going up. I´m hoping it´s just the humidity, because that will dry eventually and it might start working again. Although it´ll be a while to find that out since things just DON´T dry here. I´ve gotten used to being constantly slightly moist from the humidity, but Í´ve had a pair of pants hanging outside my cabin now for over a day and they still feel as damp as when I put them out.

Today Terry and I just lazing around, recovering from yesterday, although Terry says he feels fine. I´m fine except for - and I apologize that I don´t know the technical term here - my ass muscles. Those are as sore as hell. It´s just as well we´re not doing anything this morning/early afternoon since it´s been cloudy and raining all day. Although just as I´m typing this it seems to be clearing up a bit.

I hope it clears up a little, since at 3pm we´re going on a combination package, a tour of Arenal volcanoe to (hopefully) see the lava flows, and then dinner and a trip to the Baldi hot springs.

Seeing as how this post is reaching Terry-esque proportions, I´ll sign off here!

La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Well, I made it!

I got into Allajuela from Edmonton/Phoenix last night. My flight was delayed and then customs was a pain, so while Terry was supposed to get in half an hour later than me, he ended up waiting for me for an hour and a half.

We made it to our hostel, even though I wasn´t entirely sure the cabbie wasn´t planning to rob us. Terry says the absolute chaos of the Costa Rica cab system is nothing compared to Havana´s, and I have no desire to test that claim. So we got to the hostel, had a few beers and went to bed. We got up this morning, had breakfast at the hostel (my first -of many- tastes of gallo pinto! It was good!) and then checked out and finally met the operator/owner of the hostel, Isabel. She is GORGEOUS. Married and with a kid too, but still a very attractive woman. It seems that there are a lot of beautiful, short, dark skinned, well endowed women here. Horray! Anyhow, she was nice.

Next, we hopped on a bus for La Fortuna. Or rather, San Carlos, where we could catch a connection to La Fortuna. Except we got off early and got to take a stroll through San Carlos for half an hour with all of our bags. It wasn´t too bad. We had to repeatedly ask for directions, and I must say people are very kind and accomodating here.

So now we´re in La Fortuna, at a SUPERB lodge. I really had no idea it would be this nice. I´m used to dingy hostel affairs, but here we have our own private cabin with bath, and the grounds are immaculate. Cerro Eco Lodge, I recommend it. We have a lot of options open to us for the next few days.... my votes are for a hike to a nearby waterfall tomorrow, and then continuing onto a lake that´s on top of a inactive volcanoe, then going to see the lava flows on Arenal the next day, and a stop by the hot springs, and then who knows! I can see La Fortuna is going to be a fun place.

Done Work!

I'm done work for seven weeks! Woo!! If Yellowknife had a spare field of yellow, sun-drenched daisies, I'd be running through it right now.

And I also have some new malaria medication to pick up. While the old ones didn't give me crazy dreams, there were side-effects that I really don't want to take on vacation with me. And the new stuff has a warning with it, saying that this medication increases the effects of "blood-thinning" drugs. So as an added bonus I'll be saving a few bucks at the cantina! There's also a warning saying that it may cause increased sun-sensitivity and propensity to burn. Not as fun. I guess I'll know what it's like to be ash white for a few weeks. It'll be like that book "Black Like Me", but white and not socially relevant.

I feel like I have so much still to do before I leave in four days.....

Yesterday was the first day...

Yesterday was the first day I took my malarial pills (more accurately, my ANTI-malarial pills). The particular brand of pill I'm taking is known for giving you vivid dreams. EXTREME vivid dreams in some cases. I had been hearing some horror stories to the effect. Stories about people quitting them halfway through in malaria stricken areas because people would rather have malaria than take these pills.

So I take the pills, go to sleep and... not much happens. I'm entirely under-whelmed. I suppose my dreams were a bit more realistic, but nothing to really Knock my socks off.

So much for selling my surplus pills for a profit.

Paranoia

I'm getting so close...

It's my last week of work, and then just a few days after that I take off. It's getting so close now that I'm starting to think that there must be something critical that I'm forgetting, and couldn't possibly get in time before I go. I'm sure I will forget SOMETHING by the time I'm down there, always do, but hopefully it won't be something too bad.

"What, you mean you didn't get anti-baboon pills before you left? Yeah, without them you're pretty much certain to be attacked by baboons."

"$#%^!"

It's ridiculous I know. Who could ever forget their anti-baboon pills??

New trip... new layout?

Not sure if I like it....

So close..

Bought some new travelling equipment on Saturday.

1) a mummy sack (sleeping bag liner) for those places that require it
2) a small ditty bag, a little mesh bag for holding my watch and glasses while I sleep
3) SmartWool socks for hiking
4) a compression bag for clothes

I'm getting very eager to get going.... it's hard everyday to hold back from starting to pack. I have all my travelling gear out, with my backpack, just sitting there..... AHHHH

If you dislike witty and concise posts, you can also reference my traveling partner Terry's blog for rambling forests of pretension and the occasional pond of lucidity.

First Week Planned + Vague Inclinations

Day 1: Get into Alajuela around 9pm, a little city outside of San Jose (the capital of Costa Rica). Just staying for the night before going to...

Day 2-4: La Fortuna, the town outside of Arenal volcanoe, waterfall, hotsprings, etc.

Day 5-6: Taking a jeep/water taxi/jeep to Monteverde, home to the Cloud Forest reserve with ziplines and canopy tours.

Day 7: Off to Liberia, a gateway town to the Pacific coast beach communities. Don't know if we're staying there, might go straight to Tamarindo, a town recommended by the sis and bro in-law.

Week 2: Up and Down the Costa Rica Pacific coast.

Week 3-4ish: Nicaragua. Granada, that big lake in the middle, etc

Week 4-5: Atlantic Coast of Costa Rica and a southern Costa Rica forest preserve.

Week 5-6: Panama. Some cool islands. Try not to get robbed. From what I've read, that's tricky.