Going north

I have to admit, when we left Panama City to begin driving north, I shed a tear. Or five. I thought since we had reached our furthest stop, our trip would be over. And it came so suddenly too. We just woke up one morning, said we had enough to Panama City so let’s go. But I wasn’t ready for our travels to be over and neither was Hani. The adventure didn’t FEEL finished.

Panama

Going north now, we have a bit more of a plan. We know what is waiting for us is each country so we are now doing a “best of” re-visiting our favorites. We are trying to stay in one place for longer periods of time since we get a better feel for the people and day to day life that way. There is no rush “to see what’s ahead” but instead the excitement of what a new day will bring. So we’ll continue our slow crawl north for a few more months at least. And we are definitely aiming for cooler-weather towns. After 4 months of sweating, we are over the heat.

Our Best of Tour North brought us back to San Juan del Sur and Lake Apoyo Nicaragua.

 

laundry day at Lake Apoyo

And now to Antigua, Guatemala where we are staying through the end of the month.

Random thoughts/ month 17

To the end and now back! This month we:

+ explored the Panamanian beaches of Las Lajas, Albino Grande, Santa Catalina and surf haven Playa Venao. In Las Lajas, we had stretches of sand and surf and palapas to ourselves…until some jackass parked THISCLOSE to Skyhorse, blasted their horrible music and walked away. Fab. In Santa Catalina, beach front parking was limited and it was too hot not to park on the water so we parked here (next to the public garbage cans)

with a view of this:

And some local kids fell in love with our dogs (and our chairs)

+ kayaked in Santa Catalina out to an uninhabited wild jungle island and down an estuary rumored to be home to crocodiles.

 

+ found hoards of hermit crabs and this guy wearing a toothpaste cap. Fashion at its finest.

+ bought lobster and conch from fishermen as they were pulling their boats up to the town. $10 for 2 massive conch and 4 lobster, which became a raw conch app and a heavenly garlic-butter lobster pasta dinner.

+ visited the small mountain town of El Valle.

We relaxed in the hot springs with mud masks twice, saw multiple sloths booking it down trees in a rainstorm, visited the zoo/rescue center, and bought a ton of local produce at the market. The zoo was something else. It’s set in a botanical garden with immense mountains as the backdrop. The diverse range of animals in the zoo was pretty awesome– monkeys, parrots, golden frogs, and sheep with all different pitched voices (see our Facebook page for a hilarious video).

 

 

+ ate the most delicious meal at Casa de Lourdes. If you find yourself in El Valle, you must go! People drive the four hours round trip from Panama City just to eat there. The restaurant is inside a mansion decorated like a home. We dined on the patio overlooking the pool and gardens. I had the most spectacular salmon (it’s so hard to find in Central America and I’ve been missing it) and Hani had a perfect bacon wrapped fat steak. Martinis and dessert… Ahhhh!

+ really enjoyed Panama City. It’s one of the only major cities that was clean and easy to navigate, probably because we relied on taxis. We parked with all the other travelers on the street outside the Balboa Yacht Club and took $3 taxies around the city. Our first night in town, we connected with Hani’s friend Corina who gave us a driving tour of the major neighborhoods. We then walked around Casco Viejo, a cool cobblestone neighborhood with lots of restaurants and bars. Even on a Sunday night, the city was all lit up and lively. It’s been a long time since we’ve experienced real nightlife.

+ watched a massive cargo ship cross the Miraflores locks and enter the Panama Canal. From the beginning of our trip, I was most looking forward to visiting the Canal and seeing the locks in play. Panama City is situated on the Pacific Ocean, so huge tankers anchor at the entrance of the canal, waiting for their turn to go through. The ships are guided into the locks by “mules,” tiny trains on tracks that have cables running out to the ship. Once inside the lock, the gates are closed and water fills from underneath, lifting the ship up to the level of the next lock. The same thing happens in the second lock until the ship is at the same level as Canal. It doesn’t sound as impressive at it actually is but watching the ships pass truly was amazing, especially because all this technology has been unchanged and still efficient for the past 100 years.

   

+ toured Panama Viejo ruins. You can climb up all the ruins, which are right on the water, for spectacular views of the new city. The contrast between the old demolished city and new gleaming high rises was my favorite.

+ met up with my godmother and her husband in Panama City for a wonderful dinner. It was so nice to see family and catch up with them for a few hours. It’s funny, they live in south Florida and we finally get together miles and miles away from home in a city where both of us are vacationing.

+ had the leaf springs recurved and a reinforced shelf made for the battery bank at a mechanic outside of Panama City. The leaf springs were pretty much straight and needed curving for a more comfortable ride. And the bottom of the battery bank shelf was basically falling out. So a fix on both fronts was necessary.

+ celebrated our mechanic Fernando’s 35th birthday with him. His shop was behind his house so we parked in his driveway. At sunset, with half the job complete, a tire off and the truck on jacks, he announces that it’s his birthday and the party is at his house. Awkward. Guess we are invited. No but the family was super nice and dragged us out of the truck to join in the festivities. They kept pouring drinks, pushing overflowing plates of delicious food and included us in conversations, speaking slowly which became more and more difficult as everyone drank more. We walked the few steps back to the truck later that night with full bellies and a few new friends.

+ took the dogs to the vet. Shae was sick, of course on a Sunday, when everything is closed. We hung out in David where we found a vet with good online reviews. We camped in their driveway and both dogs were seen first thing Monday morning. Shae had a parasite, probably from something she sniffed or licked off the street. Nothing a bunch of medicines wouldn’t fix and was back to her old self several days later. We brought Olivia in to the vet to have a growth near her eye removed. As the vet did the blood test to make sure she was fine for the surgery, he found that her platelets were very low. After another test, he determined that she had a worm. Ultimately, Olivia was fine to proceed with the surgery, was a cone head for a few days, and had to take a round of deworming meds.

+ spent a total of 29 out of a possible 30 days in Panama.

+ arrived back in Costa Rica with 10 days left on our vehicle permit and ended up using 7 of them. But instead of heading toward the Nicaragua border, we back tracked around the Golfo Dulce across from the Osa peninsula, hugging the Panamanian border. We found the cool surfing village of Playa Pavones and parked our happy butts on a sweet spot at a point on the water.

+ continued down that peninsula instead of going north and hit the official end of Costa Rican road at Punta Banca.

We saw monkeys playing in the trees. The water was clear blue. The breeze was scrumptious. And we “borrowed” a wifi signal from the only thing out there, a small eco lodge. That night, I walked up and down the beach with a team out to rescue turtles. Apparently robbing turtles nests is a big problem in that area because the money is good and there is no police presence. There are a group of locals who rescue and a group who rob and each team paces up and down the beach all night hoping to be the first to lay claim to a turtle coming on land. Though we didn’t see any turtles coming to nest, it was a great experience and felt awesome showing the turtle robbing locals that the good guys are growing.

+ have been waking up at 6…and going to bed at 8. We are so lame.

+ bottle fed a 3 month old sloth. Other overlanding friends have been raving about Finca Canas Castillo, a working farm right at the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border that has cabinas and allows travelers to camp on their property. We spent our last night in Costa Rica there, admiring the jungley grounds, listening to howler monkeys and praying the baby sloth they rescued would wake up. It had fallen out of its tree and now the owners were caring for it to eventually release it back into the wild. In the mean time, this ridiculous creature sleeps and feeds on goat milk. She (they think it’s a she) is super light, feels like a muppet and kept falling asleep as I fed her. Hani barely touched her. He was afraid she was going to claw his face off. Seriously.

+ crossed back into Nicaragua on September 22.

And even thought we have done this particular border before and knew where we needed to go and what we needed to do, it was STILL unnecessarily long and annoying, sending us running around in circles.

+ beelined for San Juan del Sur. This town was a food Mecca for us so we had our list of “must hit” restaurants, pretty much the same places we ate at 4 months ago when we were there. All checked off, in case you were wondering, with a .40 chocolate covered frozen banana daily.

+spent much of our 4 days in San Juan del Sur doing this

and this

and this

+ celebrated Hani’s birthday early by buying a ukulele. Nica Tiki Ukulele in San Juan sells gorgeous handmade wooden ukes. Hani picked out a rosewood uke, his new pride and joy. We also bought a local handmade bag for our Hani’s new buddy. Now the only thing left is to learn to play it!

 

Random (belated) thoughts/ month 16

At the beginning of our trip, if you’d ask me where we would be in one year, I would have said Panama. If you’d ask Hani, he would have said already home. Crazy to think that it took us SIXTEEN MONTHS to crawl our way to Panama. This month we:

+ reluctantly left the house in Potrero, air conditioning, pool, friends, bakery with the good brownies and all. That was a sad day.

+ made our way to the towns in southern Nicoya: Montezuma, Mal Pais and Santa Teresa. When we came to Costa Rica 5 years ago, we LOVED Mal Pais/Santa Teresa and were lukewarm about Montezuma. We were so obsessed with this community, I thought this time around, we would buy some business and settle there. The town of Santa Teresa was just ok this time around. Too many people. And much more touristy now. We parked on the public beach and explored other beaches, restaurants and the crappy coastal road (if you can even call it a road) on the motorcycle for a few days. We loved Montezuma! We found a sweet spot in the center of town right on the water and again took the bike down to check out the surrounding town and beach of Cabayu. But as far as settling there long term, meh. Our feelings on the area have definitely changed.

+ learned yet again there’s a different mentality when you travel on vacation versus travel via camper long term. And what worked well on a vacation once doesn’t really do the trick the second time around. BUT finding the same cabana you rented 5 years earlier for a fraction of today’s price is still pretty satisfying.

+ ferried from the Nicoya Peninsula to mainland Costa Rica. It’s been a while since Skyhorse has boarded a boat.

+ caught up with our So Fla friends Huda and Jason in Jaco. They, along with a group of friends, rented condos in Jaco and we were lucky enough to get included in their activities. Huda and Jason put us up in their plush rental (thank you guys again!!) and we enjoyed meals and down time with them and their gang. It was nice to be reminded of home after being away for so long.

+ arrived in Manuel Antonio National Park on a crowded Sunday. We didn’t feel like battling all the people so we planned to go Monday bright and early. Monday morning we packed a bag and lunch, walk the sweaty 10 minutes to the entrance only to find out the park is closed on Mondays. Whaaaat?! So we spent the day with all the other idiots who also probably tried to go the the park and found it closed–at the beach.

+ explored Manuel Antonio National Park. We had been to this park before but were eager to do it again, since the wildlife is spectacular. As we hiked through the steaming park, we saw loads of birds, monkeys and raccoons. Yes, nasty, greedy raccoons that were trying to steal food right out of peoples’ hands. So gross.

 

+ fixed the thermostat on our small fridge. It kept freezing on the lowest setting and ran constantly, draining the truck’s battery. After Hani took it apart, we searched for a repairman in Quepos and then in San Jose. Through a series of fortunate encounters (including running into a mobile refrigerator repair guy) and conversations of not taking no for an answer, we bought what we believed to be the right part, found a repair guy and waited the 3 days near the shop to test and retest the fridge to make sure it was REALLY fixed. It eventually was.

+ parked in a cul de sac in San Jose for those 3 days while the fridge was being repaired. The weather was cool. We were around the corner from the fridge repair shop. The cul de sac was peaceful and neighbors super sweet.

+ were gifted a bag of limes, then gallo pinto, and then invited to breakfast by Miriam who lived in the cul de sac. We were so grateful to be welcomed into their home and in their little neighborhood.

+ arrived at the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. A-MAY-ZING!! Definitely our favorite area of Costa Rica. While there, we camped on the beaches at Cajuita, Playa Negra, Puerto Viejo, and Punta Uva. The beaches were immaculate. The towns of Cajuita and Puerto Viejo had a Key West-y chill caribe vibe with delicious food and friendly people. Punta Uva beach was filled with coconut palms and the water had some cool areas to snorkel. Only a sandy tree covered track lead out to this remote beach. And there were many days we were the ones out there.

+ dined (twice) in Cajuita on the most scrumptious spicy garlic mussels…with a sleeping sloth above us.

+ met John and Jeanine from California who have been living in Cahuita and are now selling their home. We spent a great afternoon with them checking out their house, having a beer on their deck, going to their favorite restaurant and walking the town with ice cream.

+ toured the Jaguar Rescue Center in Punta Uva. Though no jaguars, we saw rescued monkeys, toucans, sloths, monitors, big cats, colorful snakes, baby ant eater, and owls. The monkey playroom was the best–these little guys swing and jump and wanted to be cuddled. We weren’t allowed to bring cameras in because they would destroy them so there’s no picture of the baby monkey jumping on my head and nesting in my hair.

+ got soaked daily. It was a pleasant reprieve from the heat.

+ spent 81 days in Costa Rica and crossed into Panama on August 19th. Our southernmost country!! We made it!!

+ left Skyhorse parked in Almirante (because it would have cost $200 one way on the vehicle ferry) and boarded a small lancha with the dogs to Bocas del Toro. It was a pricey 2 days of staying in a hotel and eating out for every meal but TOTALLY WORTH IT! We would have stayed on Bocas longer had it not been so expensive for us.

 

+ mingled with locals and took water taxis to a few of the surrounding Bocas islands. After eavesdropping at breakfast, we learned that Emma had a restaurant/bar on a mangrove island 10 minutes off Bocas with a reef around it. We snorkeled for hours and ate and drank on this remote little restaurant island, Blue Coconut. Robin was kind enough to give us a ride back in and showed us the ex-pat nightlife. Very Key West and very fun!

+ saw the real Bocas. Way outside the tourist center that’s basically Key West circa 1974 live the local locals. Their homes are shacks tucked into the mangroves. To access the homes, a series of practically rotten planks are set up above the mucky trash-ridden waters. You need pretty good balance to navigate this path, especially when someone is coming in the other direction. We followed the plank path a while and it just got too depressing. Garbage was everywhere and no one was doing anything about it. Tons of tourists pour money into Bocas and it’s doubtful that this community ever sees a cent of it.

+ found the Cangilones de Gualaca, a canyon hidden in a nondescript part of Panama. The river below begins as rapids, gets super deep and narrow through the canyon, then widens into a lazy river kinda thing. The jump in was pretty high and scary, though it doesn’t look it from these pictures. We had the place all to ourselves to jump, float and splash for several hours before a bus load of students arrived.

+ are impressed with how well stocked the grocery stores are in Panama. I can pretty much find anything I would ever need in ONE store! That hasn’t happened since leaving the states.

+ landed in the cool mountains of Boquete. There we explored the city on foot, drove high up into the mountains, hiked a trail, ate some delicious German sausage, and explored the local farmer market.

+ have yet to escape the rain. Oh well.

+ hate Claro, the cell service we choose when we entered Panama. Sure it was cheap, but we’ve had an “extended” signal everywhere in the country. Thus, few postings and this belated blog entry. Forgive me.