The four step methd to taking a shower with a rat...

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We were stuck in the border town of Paso Canoas between Costa Rica and Panama last night in the hotel ducha con raton, which roughly translates as the hotel with rats in your shower. I woke up early at 4:30 and decided to go to the bathroom and as I was doing the business I heard a small scratching and straining coming from the shower drain that was basically a hole knocked in the wall at the bottom of this shower. As I stared at the noise wondering what the heck was that, I saw a nice size very black rat head stick out to see who had turned on the lights so early. Should I tell Midori or not...? She did take a shower in there yesterday afternoon when we got to the dive. We were too tired to complain and basically just accepted our fate of paying $25 for a third world trash hole. But I really hadn´t expected the rat. Plus the water that came out of the faucet was a nice brownish river color. Also I should mention that the shower head was your basic every day water tap that is usually saved for the outside of your house. Nice touch. Anyway, I decided that I had to have a shower and came up with the following four step procedure. Please feel free to use it and pass it along to your friends. You really never know when you might be showing in polluted river water with a rat in the drain.
1. Place ( Jam as hard as you can) towel in rat hole ( drain). If your wife hasn´t had a shower yet so that you can use her towel, I would go for a massive amount of toilet paper here.
2. Turn on river water long enough to wet under arms and private areas. To wet these areas without getting your face anywhere near the shower requires that you bend as far at the waist as possible in both directions without causing back injury. I found it especially difficult to get my head away from my arm pits.
3. Turn off river water, soap mentioned essential areas.
4. Rinse, once again getting contorted while cussing out hotel management, staff, construction crew, and the rat. I named the rat Pedro.

This worked good and I actually emerged feeling cleaner, somewhat. When I complained to the management, she looked amazed that there was a rat in there ( sure) and laughed that it was named Pedro. I think her name for it was ByeBye Gringo.

As an interesting side story to this hotel, while we were eating at the hotel´s restaurant ( don´t ask why) Midori decided to order spagetti for breakfast. She is getting tired of beans, rice and was looking for a change. Suddenly mid bite she starts to grimace like I remember from when she was giving birth. She spit something into a napkin and was kind of quiet. Turned out to be a small stone. Now ask yourself like I did. Have you ever seen anyone get a rock in their spagetti? My wife sure knows how to pick a meal...

Finally, some good news. After being told that we couldn´t get into Panama yesterday because Arisa´s passport is only good for another 5 months rather than the required 6 by Panamanian immigration, we decided to give it another try before heading back to the Costa Rica side. This time the guy looked and when I explained the problem, he waved us on and said, ¨solo un mes¨. Very cool. So now we are esconced at nice hotel in David, one hour from the border getting laundry done, doing internet and getting ready for the mountains tomorrow. The surf forcast is bleak for the next week, so we will head for the hills to hike and take in the scenery.

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Comments

[Mom and Dick]

News from the homefront
Thanks for the update on your travels. It sounds as if you are having a blast!. We are still laughing at some of the accounts of what happened. We are both doing good. Mom had her second cataract surgery yesterday and is doing great. Can't wait for you to get home and give us a first-hand account of all of the actions - rats, rocks, and all And we are sure that Arisa will have a gazillion pictures to show. Keep us posted. We love you and miss you. Mom and Dick