Thursday, June 27, we took the 7 hour bus to David. The ride was nice with AC and an audiobook. Our hostel for the night was called the Purple House Hostel. It is quite purple and so is most of its contents. The lady who owns and operates it is from New York, she came down initially with the Peace Corps. We met two young Irish guys and one young guy from Britain. Good conversations. There were others there from other places as well, but we didn't get to talk with them much. When we were preparing for this trip 4 [View Full Entry]

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Hola from Costa Rica! We are missing everybody..especially over Christmas! We checked into getting a phone card to call everyone, but they are very hard to find...as well as the pay phones! We will call everybody when we make it back to Panama sometime in January, but just wanted to let everybody know we were fine. Thank you for all of the emails and we will reply when we have a better internet connection! Miss you all! Also, will upload some more pics when we get a chance! The digs are a little more primitave at this point! [View Full Entry]

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Nous avons quitte Monteverde pour aller voir le volcan Arenal, un volcan en activite depuis 1968. Il crache des pierres et de la lave presque chaque soir et nous voulions aller admirer ce phenomene. Finalement, apres avoir passe 2 jours dans cette ville, nous n'avons reussi a voir le volcan que pendant 30 secondes, entre deux nuages...a croire qu'il n'existait pas! Nous avons quand meme pu aller nous baigner la nuit dans des eaux thermales et avons marche en foret (pour finalement ne voir qu'un paresseux et des dindes volantes, mais bon...). La premiere nuit, notre hotel a ete attaque par [View Full Entry]

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I had not visited Latin America since 1970. In 1970 and before I frequently traveled to Mexico’s southern Pacific Coast and to Guatemala. My means of travel then was the Mexican bus system and hitchhiking. I stayed for long periods of time and enjoyed it immensely. I painted many watercolors on these trips. What is Mexico like today? When I see it on the television news it seems crowded and overly concerned with making tourists feel like they are visiting Mexico but still sleeping at home. My wife Susan and I decided to fly down to Costa Rica and spend a [View Full Entry]

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So by now we were sure we would be woriking away at an established organic farm with several other interesting wwoofers. Scarfing back delicious raw food cusine while having in depth conversations about different aspects of non religious spirituality and than in our leisure time taking part in the yoga workshops that were advertised when we agreed to stay at RAWTREAT for the first two weeks of the summer. Instead we're staying with a wonderful man named Robert who couldn't be happier to host us on a whim. Being a little silly as we both are from time to time we [View Full Entry]

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Heading back north from Panama, I crossed the border back into Costa Rica and headed to Chacarita to talk with the park rangers. I arranged to go back to Piedras Blancas, but first spent a fun night on the town with Fernando in Rio Claro - met his children and had karaoke sung to me! Rode in to the park with Arturo and the river was so incredibly high. The May trees were still in flower so there was lots of yellow coverage everywhere. The Raleigh construction site was looking good - Phase III had done a great job on finishing [View Full Entry]

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Phase II was back on environmental project in Piedras Blancas but with a new group and new fellow project manager Kris. Kris is a trek leader but didn't want to do a trek all three phases. We were due to build the second accommodation cabin and continue with trail building. It was a tough phase, with some interesting characters who developed a habit of preferring sunbathing and reading their books to working... but when they applied themselves a great deal was achieved. We built the second cabin but again couldn´t paint because the generator failed to give us enough power to [View Full Entry]

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Hi all In internet for a few hours before heading out again tomorrow to Piedras Blancas with our second group. We will be there over Easter. 1st phase - 10th March to 27th March. Included a fantastic birthday celebration as the venturers found out it was happening over phase. The other project manager arranged a cake for me that night from the local town as we happened to do the shop that day which was really fantastic - sugar feast! I also got a lovely card signed from venturers and park rangers and we had a happy birthday hot chocolate treat [View Full Entry]

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The title of this entry says it all. I´ve gone too long without updating. I´ll try to pick up where I left off. I was in David, Panama the last time I updated and now I am in Golfito, Costa Rica. This is what I did in between: Tom and I went to Pedasí a small town south of Las Tablas on the Azuero Penninsula in Panama. If you look on a map Azuero is the bulge on the south and center part of the country. The plan was to find a place to stay during Carnevales. Las Tablas has the [View Full Entry]

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