Tom´s central-american adventure

Happy easter to all!

Hope you enjoyed it and got a little break from work, school or anything else that might be happening outside of Panama!

Easter in Boquette was missing the easter hunt, but we made up for it in other ways.
Paradise garden had a tonn of visitors and for the first time mostly all were rich panamanians from Panama city arriving in big american diesel trucks.
All the voulenteers were busy guiding people around however we didn´t need to do much talking as panamanians in general like to poke and pester the animals.
Ironically alot of the animals in Paradise garden come to us because their owners either don´t know how to handle them, abuse them or just get bored with them.
I´m scared to find out exactly how many animals that acctually die or are traumatized for life because of bad owners, but i think the numbers are pretty high.

I´ve heard stories about panamanian children stoning wild animals mostly because thats what their parents would do.
Even around various sorts of plantations snakes are killed.
Not all of them are venemous and would probably flee as soon as they see a human than stick around.
The sad part is that the snakes eat mice, rats and other rodents that again eat farmers crops.
I wonder if panamanians will ever learn?

Good friday, my fellow voulenteer (Sean) and i ate a tasty italian dinner with the owners of Paradise gardens and their daughter.
Towards the end of the meal the street outside was filled with people carrying pictures of Jesus and the virgin Mary.
Some were acctually huge statues with lights powered by a generator.
Panama is catholic and for the first time we really experienced what their religion means to them.

Not much happend saturday exept more visitors of the panamanian sort.
The highlight came sunday morning when we were invited by Donna, an american voulenteer and her husband chef, previously owning and running several restaurants in New Hampshire.
Needless to say we had a very delicious easter sunday with omelettes, belgian waffles, homemade fruit siryp and mango juice to name a few of the dishes
Special for the occation was that we were joined by Maisie, the baby howler monkey soon to be released into the wild.
I´ve been here almost 4 weeks and clocked up $10 dollars in tips, a work offer at a horse ranch in Colorado, recieved bites and cuts from various animals and building cages for them and last but not least, a network of nice americans that drive us down to town after work!
Pretty good for being in a country just by chance!

However, not all days are spent at work.
Last week i went horseriding (special price thanks to new contacts)
Lovely ride, beautifull views and a horse missing the panamanian temper, good news for me
My next adventure was a hike on the famous Quetzal trail, passing the popular Bajo Mono waterfall that is not very impressive if you saw the pictures from the waterfall in La Fortuna
Quetzal´s are birds that tend to be hard to spot.
We were lucky and saw 4, but i only managed to photograph two of them.
Lots of other wildlife to be seen.
Birds, a sloth that actually moved for abit and bumping into 5 cows on one of the trails!

The owners of the hostel left for a easter holiday and the deal was that Wendy, a local in town, Sean and me would help run the place whilst they were gone.
It was unclear waht exactly Sean and me would get out of the deal and this is maybe why we have relaxed more than actually worked

Plans are still 100% ready, but i will be leaving sometime earlie next week and make my way up to Costa Rica, San Jose before my plane takes me to Havana, Cuba!
A Short trip, but i hope to see as much as possible and soak up some true cuban culture and maybe some cuban cigars if health treats me good
Allthough an expensive city to visit i got a good deal on a hotel (!) and plan to take full advantage of hot showers and my very first privat room if you dont count sharing a room with a fellow norwegian voulenteer in San Jose.
Dorm life is finally effecting my sleep and back.
It´s also worth mentioning all the different snoors you hear during a night.
Sometimes you wonder if your in the jungle and not up in the mountains!

My camera is out of batterie (again) so these links below will provide you with the last pictures from Boquette.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32364&l=570e2&id=509299407

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32394&l=2956b&id=509299407

Time is running out in the internet cafe.

take care everyone and send me some news if you have any!
and happy birthday to anyone celebrating as this month comes to a close and also to those who are a year older in April!

Tom

Time goes by and i still find myself in Boquete.

Boquete is small, but not too small and you feel somewhat at home.
To keep living costs down i have 3 options.
The two local supermarkets that sometimes have good food or the 24 hour open Romero situated behind the central park.
Most of the time i´ll walk down to the shope with people from the hostel and cook something together.
This is however the only hostel i´ve wanted to make food as other places i´ve been, seem to have alot of bugs running around the plates or don´t have community kitchens.
I´m staying at Hostel Nomba run by an american (ofcourse), but to be fair he´s done a great job and offers everything from poker night, spicy chicken wings night, hot springs night and at the moment is hiking up a mountain/volcano with a group staying at the hostel.
Friday evening a big bunch of us went down to David, a larger town 45 minutes away that had a fair going. Similar to the Palmares festival in Costa Rica.
We squeezed 12 people in the car and got back around 6 in the morning, but it was a good laugh!

If the american running the place or hís panamanian girlfriend are out of the house and the doorbell rings anyone closest to the door opens it, greets the new travellers and chats with them until the boss arrives to take their money.
Where else in the world of hostels would you find this, probably only a handfull of places.
The place isn´t fool proof though as we discovered durig the weekend.
A crazy columbian showed up late on his motorbike waking the entire hostel.
A "sorry" next morning would have made up for the noise however this man was a nutter and even the panamanians had problems understanding him.
The morning after he went out started up his bike, reved it for 5 minutes and just left it going and went to take a shower!
Everyone woke up and everyone was in a bad mood!
Finally he shut the damn thing off packed his stuff together and drove away.
First time i´ve seen the hostel in such a state of emergency!

I´ve now been working at Paradise gardens for close to 2 weeks and i still love it.
Sean, from Ireland who i met in san jose came down last week and ever since has been helping me with taking visitors around and building cages.
The owners of paradise gardens seem very happy to have us there.
Last night we were invited out for dinner at a local restaurant serving peruvian food. Had a lovely time and might come back after my cuba trip to help them renovate a dove house that will be turned into a voulenteer house.
I also enjoy taking visitors around so hopefully i will be able to be abit of both.

Panama City

Last friday a bunch from the hostel took a bus down to the capital for a long weekend.
7 hours on a bus is so worth it when you see the city infront of you with skyscrapers everywhere.
Getting out of the bus we almost wanted to drive back home again as the humidity was unbelivable!
We checked in to the hostel, situated on the 2nd floor of a "small" skyskraper.
The place was huge and pure luxury. On the top of the building was a pool but we werent allowed to use it. Still managed to get to the top and take some pictures!
We went out in the night. The main street for bars and clubs is called calle uruguay, but was expensive and everyone was tired from the trip down so we went to bed.
Next morning we moved to a different hostel and went later to a huge shopping mall. In the evening we went out to eat and at about 3 in the morning i went with Craig (voulenteer at Paradise gardens) to the airport to pick up his sister who was on holiday.
The cab ride was one of the worst ive ever experienced!
One of the wheels was loose and the whole thing skidded uncontrolable on the road. The one thing that made it even worse was the lack of seatbelts.
Finally we arrived in one piece, met Craig´s sister, got a safe taxi back and my plan was to have a snooze until midday.
I try´d to sleep but it was so warm, even at night that i got up earlie and happen to bump into a guy from nomba that was on his way to the canal.
Got a taxi out, waited in a line with busloads of americans and finally got in.
They have an impressive museum stretching over 4 floors.
The first days when the canal was being built all the way to future plans of expanding the canal.
This is one of the main sources Panama make money.
Panama now handle all aspects of running the canal, but up until year 2000 America did.
Sadly we missed all the ships that morning so we just took some pictures and headed back to town.
Went around the old town. Lovely buildings, nice people and some brilliant pictures!

Im going to cut this abit short. My internet time is over and im celebrating St. Patricks day in about an hours time so must get some beers and food before it starts!

The link for the pictures from panama city is under :

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31126&l=3001f&id=509299407

Take care

tom

Friday to monday i went down to Panama city.
Fun place to stay, but only for a short time!

The pictures can be found on this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31126&l=3001f&id=509299407

Don´t have enough time to write anything long, but will try later this week.

enjoy and hope you are all well!

So i´ve uploaded all of my pictures on to my facebook acccunt.

Im sending a link that hopefully makes all of you without facebook able to see my photos.
If you have problems getting on the site let me know asap so i can try and fix it!

Before i leave, happy birthday Sally and Henry and anyone else that has a reason to celebrate in march!

Hasta luego & enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30052&l=839b9&id=509299407

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30198&l=c9fcd&id=509299407

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30204&l=efcdf&id=509299407

i was uploading my pictures in the local internet cafe when the computer died, managed to start uploading again on another one before my camera died so i guess tomorrow i´ll get pic uploaded.

Sorry for the delay, pic are on their way!