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!