Casa, sweet Casa....my unusual home for the past couple of weeks on Isla de Margarita, Venezuela......unusual, but it works extremely well with any breeze wafting thru the curved walls and doors, openings everywhere and surprisingly spacious...it looks pretty small from the outside.........but I'm off manaña to crackarse and to catch up with the boys (and girl) to try and get things moving...and to try again to pass the brasilian visa application marathon testathon!!.....now for some photos?.........OK it's much later...the camera has these pix stored in some unbelievably tricky way...or I'm a bit tired, whatever, this is all I can get up this evening...... read more

Well, Hola again...hope you enjoyed the interval...some have, some have actually missed me...that's nice....Well, I'm here on the lovely Isla de Margarita in Venezuela...can you find it Kate?...and still haven't found if the drink was named after this place or vice versa...I reckon if you have a few you could be here!...perfecto island, classic Carribean, and I'm doing the homestay thing with a Mum and Son in a house, well, actually its an igloo!...hard to imagine how the architectural style translated but this place is ferro-concrete, several domes, painted white and surprisingly functional...any breeze passes thru...I've got a little room upstairs, air-con, and even a little tv..in fact I'm getting most of my español from the tv, mythbusters dubbed, seinfeld dubbed, all the sports dubbed... I'm living the simple life, brekky around 7 then walk to ... read more

We gotta get out of this place...if its the last thing we ever do...sounds familiar?...well its been a few days and you're all probably wondering just what's going on...crikey, he hasn't written anything for a day or 2!..shock, horror...ahh, I know you're all suffering withdrawal but really, there's been very little to say....don't say it!....so maybe just a little picture of our town...like it is our town now..........we have become embarrassingly local, I know every crack in the footpath, how deep all the puddles are, where the pit-lids are missing (many), all the sharp bits of steel embedded in the path (many) right at toe-amputation level, all the buildings....our street is lined with tenement buildings, about 4 or 5 storeys high, 2 flats wide, balconies with elaborate wrought iron grilles, washing, mats and people hanging out ... read more

Time and the hour, going thru the same thing again, in your actual Panama City, right by your actual Canal...and trying to take the mind back to where the little note book says I last blogged...scrambled notes from odd opportunities along the road, when passions were high, death just a shot away, all the senses attuned to the present, head full of ideas, heart full of fear, love, scent of roses..whatever...now trying to interpret not only the writing but the sense also... So, out of Domenical and just drifting without any rush, south towards the end of Costa Rico...dense, green impenetrable jungle to the left, towering giants, draped in lianas and creepers, brilliant flowers, masses of insects, butterflies, birds and sure as sure, deep inside, the animals whose calls indicate many, very sharp teeth...on the right ... read more

Well, Gentle Readers...where are we now?....still in Costa Rico and, as usual, feeling a whole lot better about these places once I've spent a couple of days...same old misconceptions, preconceptions etc etc ...so, we headed off to Playa Naranjas, a couple of hundred kms I think, roads were average, which means v good for CR, along lots of roads up to here I've been seeing gangs of guys with machetes slashing the grass at the side of the road..even right out in the middle of nowhere...but here in CR the grass grows right up to the edge of the bitumen and plants and trees have branches right up to the edge...and over...so a lot of the time its like riding thru a tunnel...I'm not normally claustro but this got intense and kept me on my toes..and ... read more