Boquete

This town is amazing! Went on a "trek" down the river this morning. Tried to cross is but got half way and decided it might not be such a good idea considering the fast current and the fact that our feet were numb! Went on a coffee farm tour in the afternoon.... Amazing! Had the best coffee I've ever had and realized I can no longer blame my coffee pot for making bad coffee. If you have good quality coffee (apparently a rarity in traditional grocery stores) a $10 coffee maker works just fine!!

More Photos

Below are a few pictures of our time in Bocas del Toro...great views from the water, Mantis Restaurant on Isla Bastimentos and views of Isla Carenero.  We had a great time, but have arrived in our new destination...Boquete!  It's much cooler (60 degrees or so) and we plan to do a coffee farm tour and some hiking!  Time to head inside before this storm hits us!

A&D...Venturing Out

Pictures!!

Here are a few pictures of our time in bocas del toro! We are off to Boquete, Panama tomorrow! More pictures to come in a few minutes!

Our Humble Abode!

A short video of where we are staying in Bocas Del Toro. Enjoy

Hocus Bocas

I’m writing this new post as Derek is getting his palm read by a homeless man…literally, no lies. He says his hand is a book. He is telling him something about his energy and that he will have 3 children, a boy, a girl, then another boy.  Also he will get a promotion next July and will be married by January….we’ll see about that.

Sorry we haven't posted in the past few days.  We are trying to upload a video of the apartment and will do so tomorrow.  I went diving today for my first open water dive...Derek snorkeled haha.  We saw a wreck, a coral reef and tons of fish and plants. I'm definitely going to like diving!  More to come...

A&D...Venturing Out

Lost in Translation

So anyone that knows me (Derek) knows that my Spanish is horrible. The only words I know are “Uno cerveza por favor” and “La perro comia la chica”, why I know that last phrase is a mystery to even myself.  So when Ashley wanted me to get some icecream for us, I took it as a personal challenge to prove to all of central America that my Spanish is really not all that bad. That even in a bus station with only American fast food restaurants all around us I, Derek, could get my girlfriend, Ashley, the icecream she desired. The order was simple; get two small blizzards (yes they had a DQ there), one was to be chocolate, the other vanilla. Mine with M&M’s and the other with Butterfinger. I found out the words I needed to know from Ashley. Cocoleche means chocolate (not really, but that’s what I said), blanco means white, which I was going to use for vanilla since we were not sure what vanilla was in Spanish. If I had to guess, I would say it’s the same word but with a Spanish accent. Its thoughts like that that make my Spanish so horrible. I found out you can’t just add an ‘O’ behind every word and make it Spanish. But that’s ok because I know that somewhere deep down my hidden talent for Spanish was just waiting to burst out, so I strutted up to the counter where a young lady was standing. For you to appreciate the conversation I’ll just put it in dialogue:

Icecream lady: “Ola, jibber jibber jibber, jibber jibber jibber and jibber?”

Derek: (thinking I would impress her with my superior Spanish skills I pulled no punches) “Ola, Como est sta? Mue Bean? Dos blizzards profavor!”

Icecream lady: (looking at me in a crazy way): “Ummmm…. Name?”

Derek: (Finding out that all the jibber was her asking my name for the computer) “Ohhh….. Derek”

Icecream lady: “Que?!?! Jibber jibber jibber”

Derek: “Uhhh… D. E. R…..”

Icecream lady: “Que….?”

Derek:  “Nombre es Rico!!!!” (thinking that Rico would be an easy translation name, my sister once told me my Spanish name was rico, I thought it would be an easy name for the lady to type understand. I mean, there are lots of Ricos right? there is Porto Rico, Rico Swave...right??)

Icecream lady: “Rico!!! Oooo nooo, hahahahahahaha” (I guess Rico is a funny name).

Derek: “Si, Rico, Uno blizzard cocoleche, small, profavor, est…..”

Icecream lady: “Jibber Jibber, even faster jibber, 25cents, jibber?”

Derek: “Uhhhh, ci…. Es uno…..”

Icecream lady: “Ok, $5.50 por favor, jibber jibber jibber”

Derek: “Oookkkk” (handing over the $5.50 as I still try and find out what happened).

As I walk back to my girlfriend I recounted what had just happened between the evil icecream lady and myself, I think the part about 25 cents was asking if I wanted to upgrade to a larger size cup but I haven’t validated that theory yet. As far as the icecream for my girlfriend, I got the order 30% correct, I did get a blizzard but only one, not two. I also did not get the chocolate with butterfinger that she wanted but the vanilla with M&Ms that I wanted….and I got a medium instead of a small. But in the end, I feel pretty confident that that icecream lady will never forget Rico and his great Spanish skills. Thank you panama city for all you have taught me!

Antics in the City

Sometimes simple things end up being really complicated in other countries. Ashley and I were sitting around the hostel wasting some time before taking the bus by reading and watching movies. We didn’t have to get on the bus heading to Bocas Del Toro until 830 that night so we had the entire day to do whatever we wanted, and what we wanted to do that day was just hang around. It started to rain around noon that day so we thought we would wait and leave once the rain passed. It did not however, and at 5pm we packed up our gear, put on some rain proof clothing, and hit the road to catch a taxi… not the smartest thing to do because if you think U.S rush hour is bad, try the capital city of Panama….which doesn’t have a single streetlight or stop sign! We should have known that something was wrong when every empty taxi gave us a crazy look and a head shaking ‘noooooo’ when we would tell them we needed to get to ‘Terminal Albrook’ ,which I would yell out to them with a smile because it was the only think I knew how to say in Spanish. My smile quickly diminished after the 4^th taxi turned us down and we had been standing in the rain for about 15min. In fact, the only person interested in helping us was some homeless man thinking we needed to cross the street and kept coming up to me and saying I needed to be more aggressive to get to the other side; I would reply ‘taxi’ but I don’t think he understood. Maybe we just smelled bad and he wanted us to get away from his corner. Finally, we found a taxi who would take us to the bus terminal after some consideration, and a few dollars more than the going rate.  He was in a big rush so he yelled “Vamanos!”, so Ashley, pack still on her back, jumped into the back seat. There was a problem though, the bag was too big to fit into the door! So there is Ashley, half in the door, trying to pull her bag into the taxi… Im pushing, the taxi driver is yelling “vamanos”, rain is going everywhere, cars honking and splashing as they zoom past the not so patient taxi driver.  And to add insult to injury, the taxi starts rolling! Ashley is still trying to get in, I’m yelling, “take the pack off”, The taxi driver is care free because he is moving, with at least some of his passengers in the taxi (I guess he thought that he would get paid even in only half the people made it to the bus terminal)! Finally, Ashley is able to wrestle the pack off and pull it in as I throw my pack in and jump in after the bag.  Another problem: the seats are not big enough to hold two people and two large bags, so I was unable to close the door (don’t ask why we didn’t put them in the trunk..there is no way he would have waited for that!) At this point the taxi is already going and I’m holding on for dear life thinking I’ll just roll out of the taxi. Finally, I am able to scramble on top of my soaking wet bag, slam the door shut, and squeeze into the 3 inches of extra space between the door and my bag. We did make it to the bus station, however, and once we thought about what had just occurred, we did nothing but laugh.  It is true, sometimes simple things end up being really complicated in other countries.

A&D...Venturing Out. 

Going out and exploring!

View of Panama City from Casco  Viejo

It’s day 3 and we are having a blast! We got off the bus and hitched a ride to the hostel using a taxi service. Once there, we were pretty tired so we called a few people and went right to bed. The next day was interesting though. We needed to get a ticket to Bocas Del Toro, so Ashley and I went down to the local bus station and picked up two night bus tickets leaving today (10-17-12) at 8:30pm. After that we had a very interesting dilemma… trying to get a ticket to see the Panama Canal the cheap way proved difficult. However, Ashley’s ‘superb’ language skills prevailed… and they let us on without a ticket. It might have been the blank stares we were giving the bus attendant, or the slight quiver of a cry coming to my lips, but in the end I guess they felt it was easier to let us on than turn us away. Once at the canal it was a blast, we watched large container ships go up and down through the locks as if they were feathers in the breeze… well more like a rock in water, still interesting none the less. After that adventure we got a taxi into the old city of Panama. I tried to go there many years ago with my sister and we were “escorted” out by a taxi driver who asked if we knew where we were. The book said it had changed for the better and that surely was the case. It was very beautiful, with old large cathedrals and a very good museum about the Panama Canal. The most interesting things on display were old American trinkets from the 60’s behind glass, most of which had some importance to the Panama Canal.   Seeing all of those simple objects being put on display and tagged as old artifacts will make me look at Goodwill completely different the next time I’m shopping there. Does goodwill even know how much money they could make by charging people to see old American stuff!?! Well, that’s it for now. We are sitting in the hostel today, waiting for our bus to leave, (hopefully to Bocas) and we will post more as soon as we have a coconut in hand!

And so it begins!

Well we had a successful flight to panama and the trip has begun! More to come tomorrow! Stay tuned

A&D

Time to say goodbye...

Derek and I have decided that if we ever do a trip like this again, we can't handle saying goodbye to people for 2 weeks straight haha!  We left Charleston for good this morning after a wonderful wedding (congrats Morgan and Kyle Weigand!) and saying goodbye to Derek's mom, sister and brother in law.  We are now in the upstate awaiting our departure.  Tomorrow at 11:30 am it will be ADIOS! to my family, except my mother and step father, who are driving us to the airport.  Derek is trying (unsuccessfully) to lighten his bag just a tad...I have decided to deal with that later.  Everything seems to be falling into place so far; we are definitely ready to get this show on the road!  Stay tuned...we will post as soon as possible once we land in Panama City!

Keep it classy South Carolina- A&D