Panama jungle zip wire 2013

12 cables between tree top platforms totaling 3.5 kilometers through jungle canopy.  Boquete, Panama. November 2013.
Video of one of the lines.....

Panama jungle zip wire 2013 from sprinch on Vimeo.

.....
youtube link also https://youtu.be/a9DObkTzx9Y

look down!

 http://www.boquetetreetrek.com/canopy03.php

cycling around the world

World Cycle Tour! photos from left to right:
Hoi Ann, Vietnam
Boquete, Panama
Bali, Indonesia
The Gambia,
Hoi Ann, Vietnam
Bali, Indonesia
Kenya
Annecy, France
Pokhara, Nepal
Nha Trang, Vietnam
Lake District, england
Nha trang, Vietnam
Bocas del Toro, Panama

Making hammock irie

Fixing up a hammock we brought back from Panama in the back garden is possibly/probably/definitely one of the best things I've ever done in my life ever.  I'm lying here now enjoying the sunshine, swaying in the hammock with some old skool rasta reggae pumping out.  I'm enjoying myself so much that I've even got my cobra out! See photo below.....

Costa Rica and Panama

A memorable journey through Costa Rica and Panama was certainly a highlight of 2013.  The daily blog posts I made along the way have now been pieced together in one continuous post on my travel diaries blog http://traveltalesfromanywhere.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/costa-rica-panama.html

Old town and onward

Off we fly home today but we have half a day free so no point kicking around the hotel all morning.  We set off early to walk along the waterfront to old town Panama, yes we've been there already but we felt like we didn't see everything properly and now we have our new toy to use with the GPS guide map.  It was worth doing because we visited a load of stuff we missed the other day apart from one little area that the police wouldn't let us get to because the president of Panama and/or Robert de Niro was there (?).
We also found a great little cafe called café René which kind of slightly made up for my poor attempt of a last night meal last night.  3 course lunch for $8.50, really fresh and tasty, fast friendly service, best meal of the trip and way better than one of those tacky themed tourist restaurants were the waiters are made to wear silly hats.
It's been a great trip, we've seen some beautiful places along the way- an active volcano, rainforests, desert islands, tropical corals, crashing rivers, waterfalls and pristine natural beaches.  We've also done some brilliantly fun activities- white water rafting, water skiing, a forest canopy zip line, snorkelling, surfing, cycling and bathing in volcanic hot springs.  I've also made lots of new friends and although everyone always says this and most likely don't follow it up I do intend to keep in touch and meet up again with many of them, I never knew Germans could be such good fun!
Goodbye!
Auf Wiedersehen!
Adiós!

Goodbye friends, goodbye Panama

Up before 6am today to wave goodbye to Maria, Yasmin, Andi and Georgia. Got an hour or two of sleep and then up again to say goodbye to Carina and Silvi. Have made some good friends on this trip and it feels sad to say goodbye after 2 weeks of getting know new friends. Bec and me had breakfast and then said our goodbyes to Phil and Heyli too as they will leave in the afternoon while we are out in the city, all feels a bit strange, I've said maybe we should do a tour of Germany next year to meet up with all our new German friends! We set off to explore the city a bit more trying to hide a slight lump in my throat from all the goodbyes, don't tell anyone I said that, especially Phil! Usually Bec and me like to find a walking tour in one of our travel guide books to navigate ourselves around all the points of interest. Today though we've upgraded to a GPS tour map and are walking around holding a tablet. This has pros and cons, yes it's easier to find everything with a sat nav style guide but part of the fun is taken away because it's harder to get lost! For instance being unable to decipher poorly written directions with a not to scale map in Ho Chi Minh City, in Kathmandu and in Delhi got us into all kinds of trouble and often leads to some strange and unexpected experiences. Anyway we trekked from one skyscraper to the next, there's lots of shiny new modern buildings here and many more under construction, business seems to be thriving in Panama.  So unfortunately we didn't get lost but we did get soaked in heavy rain, it's really hot again today but occasionally without warning it will suddenly start tipping down. 
After a good 7 hours of walking we got back to the hotel and much to Bec's annoyance and frustration I felt exhausted and a bit sick and instead of going out for a meal on our last night in Panama I crashed out on the bed.  Last day tomorrow, we fly home late afternoon.

Hangovers, canals, cigars and skyscrapers

PANAMA CITY 17.11.2013
Got down into the city at about 11pm last night, the bar we were in started getting busy after midnight, they definitely don't like an early start here.  If ordering drinks in Spanish in a noisy club isn't difficult enough they like to confuse us a bit more by fluctuating the drink prices.  When we arrived a local beer was $2.50 and by the time we left it had inflated to $4 having briefly hit a high of $5.  We discussed a business idea of coming out again the next night and speculating on the market value of the drinks, buy low and maybe set up a mini bar ready to sell when stocks rise. 
This morning we went out to one of the locks on the Panama Canal and watched the enormous cargo ships pass through.  Its interesting to see the scale of it all but as is usual with the tourist spots when we reach the viewing platform over the museum there's a gaggle of noisy tourists spoiling each others photos, but not mine though because I'm tall enough and have lanky probing arms to get a good shot.  We went off then to a wooded hilltop nearby to get a birds eye view over the canal on one side and a skyline of sky scraping buildings on the other.  Its really really hot today so I was glad to make a stop at a nicely air conditioned duty free shop on a little off shore island and buy some rum and some fat cigars the size of baguettes while we were there.  Next we went over to the old colonial city, first we stopped for food at a 'traditional authentic Panamanian' restaurant which actually wasn't that at all, it was a Panamanian themed tourist restaurant but that's just me being cynical again.  It gets a mention anyway because the only vegetarian option they could offer me was cheese ravioli in banana sauce which I decided to try out just because it was an odd sickly sounding combo but actually it didn't make me puke, it was somehow reasonably tasty in a curious way.   We walked about around the old buildings which is all nice and scenic but personally I preferred the dilapidated run down buildings that were covered in graffiti, I like how they look and they take a good photo.  We could hear lots of load drumming and wandered towards it to find a big marching carnival procession, everyone around was dressed up in smart colourful clothes and the sound of the bands which mainly consisted of drumming was deafeningly brilliant.
Walking back along the waterfront there's great skyline views of the city giving enough distraction for us to get a bit lost in some dodgy neighbourhoods walking back to the hotel. 
Most of our friends leave for the airport tomorrow morning so it's our last meal out together and everyone's feeling a bit tired/hung over/sad to be leaving.  We've got another full day in the city though......

 

Wwwwipe out!

Up for breakfast at 8am, wolfed it down, got my board, ran to the sea.
The waves are big today so I thought great we're in for an awesome days surfing dude!  But I soon realised it's so much more hard work.  I caught 2 waves in the morning but the rest of the time I got completely wiped out, the sea taught me some tough lessons after yesterday's honeymoon!  Bec joined us and came back out 20 minutes later with blood all over her face after her board smashed her nose.  By the afternoon I had decided to announce my retirement from the international surf scene.  I've had a good career, with many highs and lows but right now I feel like I need a rest and a beer.  We'll see how it goes, maybe I'll feel the waves calling again one day......  tomorrow morning perhaps.......

Surf's up!

SANTA CATALINA 14.11.2013
I wasn't great at water skiing BUT..... I am great at surfing! (well, relatively anyway).  I didn't bother with the surfing lessons.  Some of the others had lessons and while I was waiting for the surfer teacher dude to show up Phil gave me his board because he had injured himself.  So I jumped on, got a few tips from Andi and after a bit of practice I felt like I'd been doing it every day for my whole life.  By the afternoon I was even giving lessons myself, but for free because I'm such a cool, free spirited surfer dude now.  Feels so good catching a big wave and riding it all the way in.  Actually, the address I gave yesterday, just put that down as my permanent address and maybe send me some money because I think I'm gonna set up home here!  I understand now, Mr Foster...... You were right!  Surfing IS cool

Oasis Surf Camp

SANTA CATALINA 13.11.2013
My new address is number 1 Oasis Surf Camp, Santa Catalina, Veraguas, Panama.  Please forward all future correspondence to this address, I will be here for the next 3 days.
The nearest town is a 20 minute walk and there's not a whole lot there anyway.  We have reached the Pacific coast and the bay where we are staying has very little civilisation, just a few little huts and homes, a little beach restaurant and bar, a surf shack and then the rest is sea, surf, palm trees, black sand, rocks and forest.  It was blazing hot sun when we arrived with a nice breeze and felt good for a run to either side of the beach.  It's now raining with occasional cracks of thunder and lightning, apparently it does this pretty much every evening.
Tomorrow we are going to get surf lessons and surf all day and surf probably all day the next day too.  Some nice big waves by the look of it so should be good. 
Having travelled through Costa Rica and Panama with a group that includes 6 Germans and 1 (German speaking) Swiss I feel more inspired than ever before to learn more language, namely Spanish and German.  I feel pretty dumb sometimes relying on everyone speaking English to me.  I was learning some German words from Maria on the bus journey today, it was in a casual jokey way but I do have a genuine interest now, which is the complete opposite of my attitude 15-20 years ago.

Boquete

Yesterday we arrived in the sleepy hilltop town of Boquete.  Its quiet, small, surrounded by forest amongst the hills, 1000m above sea level.  we've got activities planned for the next day so I just wanted to chill out but Becci says "you can chill out when you're dead" so off we go to hire cycles out.   I was not keen at all seeing how steep the hills are but Bec is right I suppose.  It took about about an hour to cycle up, up, up higher into the hills in the pouring rain.  We stopped along the way to watch Phil, Jason and Maria who had gone climbing on a rock face, checked out some of the amazing scenery and then the most fun part....... The route that took an hour to ride up then took ten minutes to bomb down...... Woooooohoooooo!!!
In the evening we did some communal cooking in the hostel's kitchen.   We all cooked different food to share and eat together along with, well, plenty of alcohol.  I would say probably the best meal we had together so far..

Water ski Sunday

BOCAS DEL TORO
Woke up to rain again, only a bit of a hangover today and a guest in our room.  Nicky from the group and myself were the last stragglers out in the Sinking Ship nightclub last night and after throwing some crazy shapes on the dancefloor we sat down for a minute before we were about to leave at which point somebody ran past and swiped her bag.  As well as money and credit card her key for the guesthouse was in the bag so I had to wake Becci up (as Bec had left the club earlier) and say "do you mind if I let Nicky sleep in our room?"  funny situation in that respect but quite horrible when the bag got stolen and we went and confronted the gang that did it.
So today we had planned to go surfing but when we got to the surf shop they said there's no waves anywhere so there's no point and so we decided to book a boat to go water skiing.  Bec and me went cycling for a couple of hours to explore the island first and then met up with Yasmin, Andreas, Phil and Jason in the afternoon.  I volunteered to go first which didn't go too well for me, followed by Phil who looked like a pro on his very first run.  Everyone managed to get a decent effort in sooner or later except me and Bec really, I only managed to stand up for about 10 seconds at best and Bec struggled to get going.  Frustratingly I think my lanky legs were not designed to have skis put on them and be dragged by a speeding boat.  It was a really fun thing to do though and we all had a great laugh together.
Got a boat over to one of the islands late afternoon with Bec and had a walk about and a cocktail. Think I've decided that this area is the most beautiful place in the world, and apart from thieves in nightclubs there's a really great feel add vibe to the place.

Castaway

As you can see from the photos today has been pretty tough going!  Well actually it felt that way at 7am this morning when I woke up to the noise of a huge rain storm complimented by an extremely fuzzy head due to last night's partying.  We took a boat ride out to go snorkeling over the best coral seabed I've ever seen anywhere, it was teeming with life across a huge area and full of colour and activity. We got our lunch on a little island that is inhabited only by the family from the restaurant, which stands on stilts over the water. Our boat then takes us to a little desert island, I get out to explore the island with some of the group and Bec goes off to do some more snorkeling with the rest of the group. On the island I wandered off by myself for an hour and had a bit of a Robinson Crusoe moment, the island was uninhabited, nothing there except sea, sand and forest. I walked around to the other side of the island where there was not another person in sight and sat in the shade of a tree that was overhanging the beach with the waves of the sea gently licking my toes. Being isolated like this I used all of my life learned survival skills and found that breaking open a fresh coconut is not so easy after all. When the others came back from snorkeling they did not recognise me, I looked a bit skeletal due to my failure to forage for food and had grown a beard. Once I'd had been rescued and rehabilitated we drank beer, listened to a bit of reggae and swam in the warm sea.

Puerto Viejo

The way it works on the tour we're on is we travel with a group of like minded people who are complete strangers at the start and could be from any corner of the world.  We all stay at the same accommodation and we have a group organiser (in this case Cindy who is Costa Rican) who sorts out any activities we want to do, provides us with useful local knowledge, arranges all our travel and sorts out any problems.  Today we went with most of the group together and did a few things.  We did a kind of nature walk in the morning where our guide Harry helped us spot sloths, iguanas, monkeys, raccoons and a load of other stuff along wooded trail, we swam in the warm sea on a quiet forest lined beach and I got bored while Becci and everyone sunbathed so I went for a run along the beach.  Later we then went to a small independent chocolate factory and learned how the cocoa was grown and turned into chocolate and ate everything from the seeds to the finished product.  We then went to swim in a rock pool under a big waterfall.  When we got back in the afternoon, Bec and me hired bikes to cycle through the town and see a bit more of the area before we move on again tomorrow and cross the border into Panama.  the place we are staying at is nice, there is a black sand beach across the road. Feeling quite groggy today with a cold hence today's report being less descriptive/humorous/cynical than usual.  Hopefully I'll be back on form by tomorrow.....

Hey Gringo!

Hey Gringos! Buenas noches, we have arrived in Costa Rica and all is well.  Tomorrow we explore (and get lost in) downtown San Jose then Tuesday we trek up Poas volcano and visit a coffee plantation.  Thurs we set off on our travels, first stop Puerto Viejo on the coast.
Hasta luego!

Erupting with excitement

Nearly time to whizz off to Costa Rica and Panama. upon arriving in San Jose the first plan is to leave San Jose...... one hour away is Poas volcano, an active volcano that has erupted 39 times in the last 150 years or so, shouldn't be too dangerous to climb to the top then! The two huge craters are filled with lakes of acid, surrounded by dwarf forest and are often puffing out plumes of smoke. Sounds like a great way to start things off to me!

After a couple of days in San Jose we move on to Puerto Viejo to chill on jungle lined beaches, look for jaguars at the nature reserve and eat unlimited chocolate on a tour of one of the cocoa plantations. A few days later we'll be over the Panamanian border in Bocas del Toro where we need a boat taxi to reach our accommodation on an island just off the coast. I'm hoping to zip wire here!  A seven stage jungle canopy zip wire should be exhilarating enough to excuse lying on the island beaches the rest of the time we're there.

Moving on inland again to Boquete the plan is to do a full day of white water rafting on the mountain rivers, a bit of trekking in the cloud forests and if we have time a tour of a coffee plantation to sample the freshest coffee in the world.  Next stop is Santa Catalina for big Pacific surf in shark infested waters, apparently the surf there is consistently world class which means I will probably drown and become shark bait.  Maybe do a bit of snorkeling and squeeze in some lounging around on the beach.  Last stop is Panama City home of the Panama canal where we also plan to explore the city and visit nearby nature reserves.

See ya laters!

Costa Rica to Panama

This years holiday is all booked, 2 and a bit weeks travelling from San Jose, Costa Rica to Panama City.  Cosmopolitan Latin American Cities, jungle lined beaches, rainforests, white water rafting, mountain trekking, surfing shark infested seas, the freshest coffee in the world and the Panama Canal.

hopefully they'll be more crazy stories worthy of adding to the travel tales blog.....