I have paired down the hundreds of pictures that came from our trip to Costa Rica and Panama to a bold 256 included in my set: Costa Rica Trip 2008. There were lots of pictures taken from the vantage point of an airplane window (and also inside the planes).
Some of the highlights from out trip include:
There is interesting news about Clinton’s seemingly desparate “kitchen sink” negative attacks on the Obama campaign in today’s NYTimes. Also, I find excitement in the potential to break a record in political campaigning of all sorts: One Million People donating dollars to Obama’s campaign. As I am writing this post, the graphic displays that 988,199 have donated (2/26 @ 14:36).
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Comments below if you see it differently… I’ve been watching the number grow by leaps and bounds since last Thursday (2/21). Will you donate to become OneoftheMillion? Consider it.
Videos from our trip to Costa Rica and Panama are now online (thanks to the good vibes from Google Video). You can search for videos from the search bar using the video: tag in the search bar at the top of every page.
For example, to see one of the fifteen videos shot near or in planes, enter video:plane and click Search.
Also, there are sixteen videos from our tour of the Cafe Ruiz coffee plantation (search for video:Ruiz) in Boquette, Panama, which show almost every step in the most excellent process of bringing coffee from the ground into your daily cup.
For all videos, just search for video: and it will display the 20 or so most recent. You can also check out the search capabilities of Google Video’s page, too.
A little teaser of the vids is this one below that I took while we were in a hot spring with some fellow road warriors. We were all having a great time when a snake decided to pop out and see what all the fun was about… we think he was poisonous, but also a baby — enjoy.
We have made it into Mal Pais, Costa Rica and are enjoying the drier weather. We have been walking on the beach and lying in the hammocks. Initially, we had tried to reserve a room south of the crossroads in Mal Pais proper, but wound up in Cabinas Calocita in Santa Theresa. Our place is just up the street from the grocery and beach entrance and it very tranquilo. There was just a bit of rain last night and into this morning, but the sun has popped out and the weather is nice.
On my way to the Internet Cafe at Franks Place, I walked along the beach and passed four sets of group surf lessons. The surf is awesome here and the white sandy beaches go way out into the shallow sandy bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The waves vary throughout the day between experts only and gentle beginner waves. I think that this place is a haven for surfers and beach bums because of its long waves… they are not over powering, but rather ride WAY in from far out giving a long lasting ride.
Santa Theresa seems to be very international (both tourists and business owners) and the place we are staying seems to be full of friends of the German owner. It is time to get back to the beach… Pura Vida.
Our time in Bocas is winding down. We have had some short lived, but heavy rains in the last 2 days… but they did not ruin our time in paradise. We stayed 2 nights at las Olas, the last had an incident with a low battery in our smoke alarm. Olas had a distinctly family atmosphere and we left the kiddies to head closer into town. We moved to Hostal de Hansi just one block south of Parque Central and are in love with the accommodations. It’s run by a friendly German woman and is impeccably clean. We have an awesome room with a balcony for $22/night. On Sunday, we took a water taxi to Bastimentos and checked out Wizard Beach. After walking the length of the beach, we headed to roots where a Panamanian family was singing and dancing into happy hour. We boated back and had dinner at Claudio’s for the house pizza. Afterwards, we checked out Mondo Taitu, which was steeping with some chilled out travelers. After a bar clearing fight right outside, we decided that Mondo Taitu was a nice place to visit.
On Monday, we slept off the rain and moved from Olas to Hansi. After the rain, we took a boat over to Red Frog Beach to relax and check out the (mildly) poisonous red frogs. This is one of the few beaches where swimming is safe and we took advantage of the ocean. We also chilled with an awesome Chilean couple - Ben and Nicole - and shared the boat and a bottle of flor de caña. We showered and ate at el Pecado, arguably Bocas best restaurant. We tried to meet up at the sunken ship bar with our new friends, but figured that the rain kept them away.
This morning, we packed some sandwiches from Panaderìa Aleman and hit up an all day snorkeling tour. We saw dolphins at Bahìa Delfines and snorkled at Cayo Crawl which abounded with coral and iridescent fish. While we were walking on the beach at Cayos Zapatillas, my camera must have fallen into the ocean. I’m less upset about the hardware than I wish I had a copy of my pictures and videos. But, as per her plan, Mary has an excellent log of our trip thus far on her camera, too. We ate a picnic lunch and took a siesta in the hammocks before boating into Hospital Point for another snorkel expedition with our Spanish boatmates. Afterwards, we did laundry, packed and ate dinner at an awesome local restaurant — el Chitrè. Before hitting the internet cafè, I picked up one last souvenir — a hammock that proudly displays its origins.
Tomorrow, we fly out of Bocas headed into David, Panama and will bus up to Boquette.
We woke up in Bocas del Toro for our first full day in paradise. Over coffee, we planned our tour of the island and a plan to leave Casa Max, our hotel on the north end of town. Mondu Taitu’s Friday night party was right across the street, but the casa was full up on Saturday night. We mosied around to the other end and found room at Hotel las Olas. After some desayuno, we moved over to las Olas and set-up shop. They have a restaurant, patios, internet (hello) and nice rooms. The entire structure is built out over the water, which makes it very peaceful with a slight breeze.
After settling down, we hit the town to bargain for a moped rental. We scootered out to Bocas del Drago down the only road on the island. It was bumpy and slow at times, but we really enjoyed zipping up and down the windy roads. The ocean was awesome on the other side and we may head back over to the bat cave/shrine in the center of the island — la gruta. On our way back, the moped sprung a flat about 2 miles out of town. I pushed it for a while and we had to leave her in front of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. From the reaction at the moped shop, we were not the first gringos to encounter technical difficulties with their equipo.
We had an awesome dinner last night of chili mango shrimp (mary) and cocnut mahi mahi (patrick). Afterwards, a water taxi buzzed us across the bay to an open bar, reggae party that filled up fast with folks from the mainland. We took off back to the sunken ship bar (barco hundido) for a more relaxed atmosphere. Necesitamos street-meat to finish off the late night… Marney F. would have been proud.
This morning, there was a brief, but heavy shower and we’re relaxing by the water watching it drizzle out, now.
Mary and I made it a considerable mental distance over the last 36 hours. We left DC at 7AM on Thursday and sailed smoothly into Purto Viejo, Costa Rica that evening. It amazed us both to know that on any given day, you can wake up to your normal daily grind and fall asleep in paradise. We caught the last bus from San Jose’s Coca Cola bus terminal and arrived in a nearly full Puerto Viejo. Our new amigo Mike, showed us a modest, but available, room that got us through for the night. Comida typica and Imperials beat the dust back and separated us from the thoughts of our poor coworkers back home. After a short rain, we hunkered down to wake up early on Friday… Pura Vida!
We walked on the beach, ate beans and ice, got tickets for the border and made buddies with another couple. Crossing the border was bizzarre, but easy. I took some sweet video of the water taxi from the mainland of Panama out to Bocas del Toro… coming soon. Since then, we’ve been exploring and embracing the Caribbean culture… muy tranquillo! I am already impressed by the diversity in both nationalities and ages in Bocas. Young, old, Swees, Isreali… in 6 hours and we’ve only just begun.
We’re all packed up and getting ready for our last night of sleeping in the US for a while. The lists have been checked and double-checked, bags have been packed and re-packed. Mary’s pack is weighing in at a scant 16 lbs. and I weighed in this morning at 17.5 lbs. Since either of our bags could get caught up in Miami’s baggage handling system, we’ve got the essentials in carry-ons (toothbrush, camera, passport, journal, Colones and US Dollars). As I learned on my last trip, everything else that you need can be purchased in Costa.
Now, I’m doing some last minute online/computer related activities: emails, itineraries, cleaning up various memory and laying out clothes for the morning. To pack, I used the philosophy of not bringing anything that I’d be heartbroken to loose. While I will maintain vigilance over my gear, I’m not bringing anything that isn’t replaceable. After reflect for a while, I decided that the iPod should stay stateside, but that the camera must come along. Also, instead of getting a new pack, I’m reusing the green monster that lost his way during the last flight to San Jose. Roughly speaking, we’re flying into San Jose (SJO) tomorrow and busing to Puerto Viejo. Friday through Tuesday, we’ll stay in Bocas del Toro — an archipelago just across the border in Panama. On Wednesday, we’ll fly to David, Panama, and spend Wednesday to Friday in Boquette — a mountain town known for coffee growing and sightings of the elusive quetzal. From there, we’ll fly back to San Jose and spend some time with Mary’s Tico Family. Our plan is to bus out to Mal Pais and spend Saturday through Tuesday in the Pacific coastal paradise. On Tuesday, we’ll fly from Tambor into San Jose, Pavas in preparation of our 7AM return flight to the USofA. We’ll get back into DC at around 5PM EST — gorked out and wondering which way is up.
After only 8 days in Costa Rica last time, I found it challenging to switch off what tiny command of espanol I’d mustered. With that precedence, I would imagine that heading into the officina on Thursday could be pretty challenging.
During January, I managed to bike to work on 20 of 31 days in the month.
Of the 31 days during the month, I worked 22 days. One day, I walked to work and I drove on the other.
At the end of the month, I biked to work a total of 20 days.
I have been taking an assessment of the political landscape as we enter the last weekend before Super Tuesday. With Edwards and Guilianni out of the race, it seems to be a race to the White House by Hillary vs. Barack for the Dems and McCain and Romney for the Reps. I think that McCain is the more dangerous of their candidates. I base that opinion on my perceptions that swing voters have decided the last several elections and McCain appeals to swing voters more than Romney. While Romney appeals to the Red Base, these aren’t the people that will cast overwhelming votes or even unpredictable votes. The Right-Tighties will vote for their candidate — whether it’s Romney, who can be beaten by either Hillary or Barack, or it’s McCain, who could give Hillary a serious run for her money.
As such, I think it’s high time to throw the blog and homepage into the fray and support the voice of change:
Barack Obama | Change We Can Believe In
Please drop a few pennies towards the campaign when you cruise on in…
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