bocas del toro

my whirlwind tour of bocas del toro is coming to an end.  i could probably spend a couple months here and not see everything.  but i guess that's true of everywhere i've been.  not enough time (or too many bars).

i only did one day of scuba diving, that was plenty.  after belize and roatan i'm not sure that any diving will be spectacular again.  but i'm looking forward to diving in cuba, i've heard that many of the reefs are pristine.

on wednesday i did a full day catamaran trip with 2 snorkel stops.  the first stop was super clear, we swam on the edge of the mangroves.  starfish were everywhere, corals, little fish, lots of jellyfish.  ever since belize, mangroves remind me of crocodile hunting and i was a bit timid at first, but after a while i was able to swim into the trees to look around.  still creepy though.  the second snorkel was nice, had to dive down a bit to see things, and still not alot of fish.  good time though.

i had been out drinking the nite before the boat trip.  i went to rip tide, a boat that is permanently anchored and turned into a bar.  fun locals but nothing too crazy.  then i tried to go to the indian place and it was so packed, i waited forever and never got a drink, much less had anyone say hello.  as i was wandering out i noticed people drinking downstairs and walked over, its the towns book store with a bar.  another local hangout, super friendly, and possibly the craziest bartender i've ever met.  i stayed way too late, did way too many shots, and wasn't feeling real great the next morning.

so i get on the boat and after about 10 minutes i started feeling really bad.  i've never been boat sick but hangover on a boat is probably the same.  i crawled onto the wooden slats on the very back and let everyone know that there was a good possibility that i would be barfing soon.

i didn't, surprisingly, and after about an hour everything was good.  snorkel in some cold water and lunch, ready for a beer.

i fished for most of the day but didn't catch anything.

i met up with captain hardy last nite for some drinks at rip tide and purposely left early because he invited me to go fishing on his boat today.  but what was on my way home?  the book store.  total fail.

the bartender told me that if i went topless for 10 seconds all my drinks for the nite were free.  being a budget traveller i thought that this would be a smart money saving move.  it was, but again, i woke up this morning (barely) and wasn't sure i could survive a boat.

this one was much better, motoring along in a fishing boat was easier on the stomach.  as it was, i couldn't even look at a beer until about 1pm.

we ended up catching a 10 pound yellow fin tuna and a 5 pound mackerel.  not much for the 4 hours we were out but i got to see several of the islands.  on the way home we stopped at isla bastimento and pulled up to the dock at los secretos, the owners are friends of hardy and pete.  possibly one of the most beautiful bars i've ever sat at.  if i come back here i might have to stay there for a nite or 2.  we had dinner, then pete filleted the tuna and we had sashimi.   nothing better than fresh caught sushi.

and now its time to pack up and move on. 6:30am flight to panama city tomorrow for a last day with mandy and kids, then i'm off to cuba for 12 days!  i have no idea where i'm going or what i'm doing but as long as i have cash everything will be ok.  i'm want to smoke a cigar and drink rum in a bar blaring salsa music.

i cannot go out tonite.  i cannot go out tonite.  i cannot go out tonite.

the good, the bad and the ugly, panama style

I FOUND A SEAHORSE!

(the good)

actually, 2.  and they were every bit of awesome that i imagined.  the tan one was just hanging out in a crevice in the reef, the brown one was hanging onto a bit of coral with his tail.  by now i think i've seen a bunch of cool stuff but this was the best.  better than the sharks.  and the rays and the rock fish and the peacock flounders and everything.  the diving wasn't that spectacular, although i'm glad i went (even if i didn't see a seahorse), but this made it worth the expensiveness.

i also saw a field of starfish.  and lots of interesting rock formations.  and a wreck.  there weren't alot of fish, and the coral wasn't comparable to elsewhere in the caribbean.  but i'm determined to scuba dive in every country i visit, so far i'm on track.

i was given a spear on the first dive and i killed 4 lion fish.  i love that i can show up to a dive shop, talk to them for 5 minutes and be given a spear.  i do have a bit of trouble killing on my first shot, i always seem to hit them in the gut, then they want to hobble away and i have to shoot again.  in belize and honduras there were giant groupers that would smell the meat and wait for you to release the fish, dead or not, and they would suck them down in one gulp.  there's nothing to eat them here, in fact they were the biggest fish i saw.  so if it was still flopping after i shot it i had to scrape it off my spear with a rock or my fin and stab it again.  i was a bit careless on my last kill and while i was scraping it off i stabbed myself with one of its venomous spikes  (the bad).  ouch.

i've heard many stories about lion fish stings and none were super pleasant.  they range from really bad bee sting to hospital time.  i felt the spike enter my thumb and i thought, oh great, maybe i'll have cardiac arrest at 50 feet, that'll be cool.  instant throbbing pain.  i swam up to my dive master and tried to tell him that i stabbed myself with a poisonous fish, but i wasn't dying yet, so no worries.

by the time i finished the dive my thumb was almost twice the size of normal, bright red and massively painful.  but since i hadn't yet found my seahorse i didn't wanna go back so we went to our next dive site.

by the end of the second dive it was almost back to normal and it barely hurts now so i think all is ok.  just to be sure i'll drink plenty of rum tonite to bully the other toxins out of my liver.

which brings me to 'the ugly'.  men shouldn't dive in speedos.  enough said.

and since i've brought up things that annoy me, don't use your ipad as a camera when you're at a busy tourist site.  10 people with ipads can block 100 people from seeing anything.  i have countless photos from the panama canal that are ruined because someone (chicks, mostly) is holding up an ipad, and couldn't be bothered to fold their cover under.  rude.

now its about nap time for me.  i found some fantastic mexican food (and good margaritas too) and my a/c finally works, perfect combination for an afternoon nap.  my hostel is great but they only have 3 controllers for the a/c units.  when you leave there's a switch in the lobby that cuts power to your room, they switch it back on when you return.  but the a/c doesn't automatically come back on, you have to get a controller, walk to your room, turn it on, then return the controller.  people don't realize this so they lock the controllers in their room somewhere which means that other hot people don't get a/c until a controller is located.  not the best system.

even with the bad and the ugly today has been great.  and its thai tuesday for dinner, then off to check out the bar scene.  so far i like roatan alot better but i'll do my best to enjoy bocas del toro.  its almost like my job.

love this

panama canal!

right now i'm sitting on the balcony of my hostel in boca del toro, panama.  my flight was an hour and a half late so i didn't get to see any of the town, it was dark and rainy as we landed, and i had my head mostly down as i walked from the airport to the main street.  my hostel of choice was full so i went next door and all they had were dorm rooms.  i'm just too old to sleep in a room of drunk 20 year olds with 8 bunk beds and one bathroom.  fortunately, though, they had one bunk room empty so i have 8 beds to myself tonite.  tomorrow i have a reservation for my own room.

from what i can see from here there are bars everywhere, loud music, some stores and restaurants.  if it wasn't raining i'd wander over to the beach but i'm not feelin it right now.  i have all week to explore.

i was pretty sad to leave mandy and joe's condo.  they are the super nicest people in the world.  it was so good to get some 'family time' in, loved playing with the kids.  i currently have the children's song 'b-i-n-g-o' running through my head, but at least it replaced 'panama'.  i fly back to panama city on saturday for one night before my flight to cuba so i'll have a bit more family time before the next months of lonely traveler start again.

mandy is the most amazing person.  she is a great mother and totally fearless and outgoing.  the adventures she's been on would take me till i'm 65, if i started now.  i'm an adventure newborn compared to her, but i could sit and listen to her stories all day.

yesterday we did something together that she's never done, we went to the panama canal to watch the boats go through.  when i say she's never done it, i mean the tourist part.  she's actually worked on boats that crossed the canal a few times.  in fact her 3 year old son makaio has done 2 crossings already.  see how far behind i am?

mandy, makaio, koa (1yr old), me and jimmy (joe's brother) went to the panama canal museum and spent the day learning about the history and watching boats go through the miraflores locks.  you can actually watch them live online at www.pancanal.com.

i was super excited to go but the experience was way way better than i expected.  the museum was 4 floors of old machinery, pictures, geology, small scale models of the locks that you could open and close, lots of awesome stuff.  also a 3-d movie that was loud and kinda scary.  my first 3-d movie, too.

we went out to the 4th floor observation deck and watched 2 ships go through.  that was pretty amazing.  its hard to believe that 100 year old concrete and locks still worked so well.

our ships were a tanker and a car transport.  the transport was so big it didn't look like it should fit, there were maybe a couple feet clearance on either side.  maybe.  there are 4 rail cars with lines that drag the ships through, they go back and forth tightening or slackening the lines to keep them straight.  when the big boat was through the lock it actually smacked the wall and we got to see concrete crumble off the side and into the water.  the little cars were moving frantically to get it back in line.

if i can show up one day and watch a boat take chunks off the canal, i don't know how the walls aren't totally destroyed by now.  it was pretty cool.

they are already working on the expansion canal, we could see the trucks and bulldozers working in the distance.  this will allow 120 foot ships to cross, i think 90 foot is the max size right now.

it won't happen this trip (or will it?) but i really want to cross the canal on a boat.  preferably one that i am sailing on, not just crossing to do it.  so next up in my skills list, learn to sail.

its only 9pm but i think i'm done for the day, ready for bed.  i spent an hour in the gym this morning (first time in almost 5 months!) and my poor body needs to recover.  oh, so sad!  hopefully this week will be full of surfing and boat rides and snorkeling and fun.

couldn't believe it fit

las perlas interesting fact

interesting stuff...

the most famous pearl that came from las perlas (the group of islands including contadora) was owned by elizabeth taylor.  richard burton bought 'la peregrina' for her for $37,000 in 1969.  the pearl was formerly owned by mary tudor, queens margarita and isabel, and the bonapartes.

originally a slave found the pearl and was set free after bringing it to spanish court.

panama!

i haven't been able to get the song out of my head since i got here.

panama is so beautiful.  i haven't seen much of the country yet but i could sit all day and watch the boats.  i'm at mandy and joe's place on isla perico, just across the water from panama city.  its on the amador causeway, which was made to connect a few of the nearby islands with the dug up materials from the panama canal.

joe is working in panama for a month, drydocking a boat that he built a couple years ago.  he and mandy and the kids have wandered around the world building and working on boats, i met them when they briefly lived on kauai.  the apartment that they live in here has showers with disco lights and music.  and i met a columbian hooker (but not in their apartment).

mandy, makaio, koa and i went to isla contadora for the day today, another beautiful small island.  it was a 2 hour ferry ride on one of the boats that joe built.  the island used to be pretty busy as a stop on the drug routes.  alot of money was invested because of this but now there's really only one hotel that is open and most everything else is slowly rotting away.  the water was a beautiful blue and we spent the day drinking bloody marys and building sand castles with the kids.

contadora means 'accountant' in spanish, i know this because instead of writing 'unemployed' on all of my immigration forms i write 'contadora' so they won't be afraid to let me in.  i thought that isla contadora was a strange name for an island in the middle of nowhere, panama.  at first it made me think of one of the hitchhikers books where they take all of the middle management and pack them onto spaceships, telling them that they are going to a new planet, but really they just wanted to get them off earth.  when the ship lands the planet becomes populated by accountants and hairdressers and telephone operators, etc.

but really the island (and all the others in las perlas) were big in the pearl trade and everyone used to bring their pearls to contadora to trade with the spanish, hence, accountant island.

tomorrow i'm off to see the panama canal.  i can see the end of it from here but i want to go to the miraflores lock and watch the boats go through.  for some reason this is the only thing i've truly wanted to do on this entire trip.  and i'm unreasonably excited.  i was going to find a boat to cross on but it might take a few days to find one and i don't want to sit around waiting and not seeing anything else.  so a day at the observation deck should be good and maybe in the future i can cross.

i also bought a ticket to cuba today.  i'm going for 12 days.  health insurance is mandatory but at $3/day i'm not going to complain, it allows me 24/7 access to any medical service i need.  maybe i'll get my teeth cleaned while i'm there.

boats moored near the bridge of the americas

tegucigalpa airport

the last thing john said to me yesterday before he left was 'you're flying into the second most dangerous airport in the world'.  

i immediately envisioned an airport full of pickpockets and muggers.  but no, he's talking about safety record.  second most dangerous in the world.  why would you tell someone that the day before they have to fly there?  

i get to the roatan airport (slightly bigger than the molokai airport) and see my plane, it has about 30 seats, not too big, not too small.  there are 8 passengers.  ok no problem.  i'll get my drink fast.  

there's a bit of a storm today so the first bit of jiggling caught me off guard (i was eating my small airplane lunch, yes, they still serve free meals on central american flights), but the next 10 minutes of turbulence actually made me stop eating.  and that's when i remembered what john said.  now i have half an hour to envision all of the ways that this plane can break into pieces and catch on fire.  i make sure all of my electronics are turned off for once.  

the pilot tells us to stash our stuff for landing and i almost need a barf bag.  seriously, why would you say something like that to someone?

needless to say, all went well.  until a man came running across the tarmac yelling at me, oh shit what did i put in my checked luggage?  but he came to direct me to a different entrance since i have a connecting flight.  

ok.  totally pleasant, all is well.  lots of pointless worrying.  next stop, el salvador.  if i'm only landing at the airport and leaving in a few hours can i count it as a place i've been to?  should i run outside just to pay $30 and get my passport stamped?  

a perfect example...

last nite after monday nite football john gets on his motorcycle to go home.  and yes, he'd been drinking a bit, nothing unusual about that here.

not far down the road he gets caught in a traffic stop.  he smells like booze and his registration is fake.  the cop makes him get off and begins his questions, decides to confiscate john's bike because he'd been drinking.  he looks at the registration and tells john that its fake, of course john argues.  but this isn't the average cop here, he's actually from a bigger city so he recognizes that the address is printed wrong.

so john asks what he can do to get out of the situation.  maybe make a prepayment on the fine?  the cop says maybe that would work.  john asks how much the fine might be, the cop says he doesn't know.

john walks back to town to get money, walks back to his bike, 'shakes hands' with the cop, losing 500 lempira in the process ($25), and even gets some tips on making his fake registration better before he drives home.

roatan business.  no paperwork, no hassle, everyone's happy.  seems to work.

ready to go again

sharks n mace n things

i did a shark dive last week that was pretty fantastic.  it was a real shark dive, too, not sweet little nurse sharks or being stuck in a cage.  i caught a ride across town to another dive shop and about 15 of us jammed onto a little ponga boat for a 15 minute boat trip.  the dive site was called 'cara a cara' (face to face), we dropped down to 70 feet and the dive master brought out a closed bucket and suddenly there are about a dozen large caribbean reef sharks circling us.

for the first part we stood on the sandy bottom with our backs to a rock ledge and just watched them swim.  when it was determined that everyone was playing nicely and there wasn't too much current we started swimming with them which was way more interesting.  turn around and there's a shark behind you, above you, under you, staring at you with their little black eyes.  one had a giant hook still attached under his mouth.

after about 15 minutes of swimming we went back to our ledge so the dive master could take the lid off his chum bucket.  3 frantic minutes of sharks thrashing for the fish bits and it was over.  definitely worth the money.

you might be asking yourself why i'm still on roatan.  i am too.  i just can't stop being lazy enough to book a ticket anywhere.  its so freaking comfortable here.  i can speak spanish or english, there are bars and street food everywhere, to-go booze is perfectly acceptable for walking around, and the dive shop patio is always filled with fun people that have parties.  i swim and do yoga and sit around watching the beautiful weather pass by.  its hard to leave but i'm shooting for wednesday.  well past time to get out of the wonderful comfort zone i find myself in.

i've made some friends here and had an interesting experience this past week.  a friend was house sitting at a fabulous house on the water and invited me to tag along.  i got to live in a real house with a real kitchen and a real washing machine.  i did dishes and swept a floor and realized that i've all but forgotten how to do housework.  it was actually nice to clean.  not that i ever want to make a habit of it again but at some point i'm gonna have to.

i also got to take long showers with hot water.  oh what luxury.

i've learned alot about roatan in the 3 weeks i've been slouching around here.  one man owns the electric company, reco, and he charges 63 cents per kilowatt hour.  everyone bitches but there's nothing you can do.  the new road has caused some friction since the president came to officially open the road (which, btw, i was planning on meeting the president of hondurus but i ended up being too hungover to even see him, it was too bright outside).  the road is hailing the start of mass tourism and what is inevitable and no one likes it.  right now this place is absolutely perfect but plans are all in place to expand and the first corporate hotel chain is building (hyatt).  the taxi drivers aren't allowed to park on the main road anymore (they could when it was dirt) and they are angry.  the president told the chief of police that parking laws will be enforced and so far its fun watching them argue in the middle of the road with the newly appointed parking enforcement.

it really comes down to one thing here, though, what john calls 'affordable corruption.'  you might get pulled over for anything but 100 to 500 limpira will take care of it, depending upon the severity.  so $25 for a major infraction if you're nice to the cop and have the cash, all is well.

the taxes are pretty crazy but everyone has a plan to get around them.  the sales tax is 12% on everything and businesses get charged a flat 25% income tax.  all of the businesses have a rate for services, but if you pay by credit card be prepared to pay an extra 10-20% because that means they have to declare it.  pay by cash and no one has to pay any tax.

there's also a sneaky way to get around airline baggage fees too.  if you know you're going to be over weight line the top of your suitcase with school supplies and you get a free pass for the donation.  good stuff to know.

at the moment i'm watching a drunk man chase a crazy girl.  he's pissed and wants to break her hands.  may sound harsh but its actually pretty funny and no one's attempting to interfere.  actually, most people are egging him on, telling him how much more she deserves.

while there are many strange characters on this island there's one woman who stands far above the rest.  she's a bit crazy (not entirely, tho) but also a junkie.  usually she just runs up and down the road singing and screaming and taking off her clothes.  throwing stuff at passing cars.  all fairly tolerable.  she's been chased by police many times and usually gets naked and jumps in the ocean until they leave.  no one is responsible for her and the loony bin on the mainland won't take her.

a couple days ago she was going up and down the road ripping out the flowers that all the shops have planted.  that was the last straw for alot of owners because when you yell at her she waits until night and does horrible things, like unmoor the boats of the people that pissed her off.  yesterday 9 people called the police and they didn't do anything.

so marco dug out the mace and decided that if she keeps messing with the shop he's just going to mace her.  after sitting on the dive shop porch drinking for a couple hours he decided that we needed to have mace practice since no one had ever tried it before.  and it is harder than it looks.  we picked a spot on the wall and aimed.  marco also wanted to test what it did on a patch of skin and sprayed himself.  the biggest consequence of mace practice was walking through our area and breathing it in and coughing for hours.  it wasn't so cool.

today the crazy girl didn't bother us (someone set out a bucket of water to throw if she came too close, slightly more compassionate than mace).  but she did go to the cemetery and steal all the flowers from the graves.  then brought them to the center of town and screamed while shredding them.

the people here are pretty laid back but that was the limit.  people were extremely offended and started chasing her down.  she picked up a rock and randomly smashed a car window as she ran.  and back to the drunk guy, he recognized his mother's flowers and what a scene that makes.  crazy drunk chasing a crazy junkie.  good times.

he's still down on the beach waiting for her to make land and break her hands.

time to watch some football.  missed the browns game today because the power was out and no tvs were working but doesn't appear that i missed much.  0-5.  so proud to be from

kinda creepy

aow dives on roatan

i spent the past 2 days getting my advanced open water scuba certification.  it took me a while to figure out why i might want it since i've done way more dives than regular certification lets me, so why bother, but i guess some places actually regulate diving and it might be necessary.  no one in central america seems to care.

i picked 5 dives, navigation, deep, wreck, search and recovery and fish id.  it was so much fun having something to do besides follow someone around and look at stuff.  i did follow marco around but he was my private tour guide, really, i was the only one in the class.

deep was first, we went to 130 feet and saw (from above) a shipwreck.  then we did puzzles underwater to test how slow my reactions were, or if i had any reactions left at all.

navigation next, and i was dreading this one.  swimming straight lines back and forth with a compass was ok, hard to get lost.  the squares weren't even bad, even way out in the ocean with nothing for reference.  but where's the boat?  i have no idea.

next day was my first wreck dive, we went to el aguila, a ship that was purposely sunk to add something interesting for all the divers.  click here for pictures.  tight spaces, sideways rooms, all sorts of things growing and hiding all over the place.

search and recovery was the most fun.  after el aguila marco and i sat on the boat (windy, wavy, little bit crazy) and we tied knots until i thought i'd be seasick.  the mission for this dive was to find a scuba tank that marco had hidden and transport it back to the boat.  i got to ask him a few questions (in what direction was it last seen?  how deep?  etc), then me and my compass were off.  i had to go about 300 feet south in 45 foot depth and grid search a sandy patch.

found the tank without too much trouble but tying knots underwater was way fun.  attach a lift bag, blow some air in it and swim everything back.  i was actually shocked at how easily i found the boat again but blindly stumbling onto the boat counts just as much as knowing where it was in the first place.

my last dive was fish identification, marco took pictures of fish, corals, any marine life and i tried to identify them as we went along.  my first time writing underwater (i thought my writing was awful sitting at a desk...).  i didn't find my seahorse but almost as cool i saw a peacock flounder (look for it here, it looks like a patch of sand).

now that my dive class is over i really need to figure out where i'm going next.  maybe panama city.  i've been telling everyone that i'm leaving on friday but i have yet to check for buses, flights, anything.  roatan makes me lazy.  no wonder people come here for a month and stay for 8 years.

sunset over the dolphin pen