Bocas del Toro

Since I wasn't raised in a family that prioritized travel, I always thought that trips beyond the states were these impossible adventures out of my reach. After being given this amazing opportunity this summer, I'm glad to say that I have discovered all on my own the real value of exploration. Every new place I visit makes me feel more lucky than I was the day before. And for a girl who even feels lucky to spend time in Knoxville or Athens, Panama is a bit overwhelming. Bocas Town is certainly no exception. I love that this place isn't your typical tourist trap, and how little things make it feel special.

Like the...errrm...interesting view out of my balcony window:

The...errrm...interesting local businesses:

(Bocas Town Books might be my new favorite establishment)

And the cutest hotel room infestation anyone could ever hope for:

Ok, infestation is a bit of an exaggeration...we've seen 2 of these little geckos in our room. We've also seen 50 cent beers at the hostel across the street, hippies riding all types of boards (skate, surf, and long), and delicious bagel sandwiches about 20 feet from our door:

Also notable, is that neither Buck nor I realized that we had entered a new time zone when we crossed the border, so we wondered why everything was closed as we tried to have dinner at what was actually 10:00PM. We had pizza that night and have since had pizza for dinner at 3 different establishments all three nights we have been here. Pretty classy, eh? The best pizza so far was from "The Black Olive" where we had greek pizza and falafel for a total of $11.

What else...

I bought this book used at the Bocas Book Store:

(and will in the future lend it to anyone who would like a good laugh)

Everything is splendid (as my good friend LBach predicted)! What's not to love about a week spent in a beautiful place just walking, eating, lounging, and exploring? Tomorrow we will take a boat tour to Isla Bastimientos to try and find some poison dart frogs...then back to the San Jose airport and finally back to the states.

CRAZY!

In Transit

Both today and yesterday were spent mostly in transit. But alas, Buck and I have arrived in Bocas Town on Isla Colon in Panama. We begin with a 5AM cab yesterday, followed shortly by doughnuts and significant downpour. This leg of the trip was to San Jose, the land of overpriced cabs, what seemed like millions of shoe stores, and a man selling rubic's cubes to drivers sitting at a busy intersection. We weren't huge fans, honestly. But we stayed a little out of San Jose in San Pedro - actually at Hotel Milvia once again. I really enjoyed our walk around the UCR campus and of course, seeing Harry Potter at the San Pedro Mall! Even with the fun, yesterday served to prove that I am not a city-person.

So this morning we were at it again with another 5AM cab. This time, to catch a bus to the border. The ride was about 5 hours, followed by 20ish minutes of shenanigans at the border. Once in Sixaola, you fill out your paperwork then walk across this terrible bridge to get into Panama. Buck and I were recognized as gringos, and were therefor approached by many people offering to "help" us. Ignoring everyone else, we hailed a cab to Almirante, where we would catch our water taxi to Bocas.

All this is boring, so I'll skip ahead to our arrival in Bocas Town. Here, I instantly recognized this as a place full of much friendlier people, much cleaner streets, and a fair amount of tourists. The main advantage, to me, of being in a somewhat touristy town is the availability of diverse foods that we missed in Costa Rica. One other advantage is the look of the place. It is BEAUTIFUL since the island is quite small, and therefor not crowded with many cars or tall buildings. The majority of establishments in Bocas Town are actually on the water, which will certainly make for some beautiful meal-times and more over the next week.

We have very few plans for this week, but I know this:
I want to sleep in past 7:30. I want to eat indian food. And I want to take a boat around the other islands of Bocas del Toro. Maybe even see some red frogs on Isla Basimientos!

I'll write later about some of my final thoughts on Costa Rica in the days before all this travel (they were very fond FYI), but for now, I'm falling asleep as I type.

Buenas

Pretty things

The researcher here studying monarch butterflies fully realizes his ability to spread joy. He collects monarchs and measures them all while they are still alive. They can survive in the little paper bags for a day, and then the next day he lets other people release them! First, Katie was marking them so he would know if he caught them again.

 

But then, I got to release a few and watch them fly off the porch! What a good feeling!

Plus, yesterday was possibly the most beautiful day here. We had super clear skies, it warm enough that people were being lulled to sleep in their rocking chairs, and we even made more brownies after the sun went down! I'm really going to miss this place. Look out for some pre-nostalgia in the coming posts. There are so many things I want to make sure I don't forget about once I leave this beautiful place.

Ugly Things

My nightly ritual: Before hopping in bed, search the room fully for any organism that could potentially feel the need to crawl across my face in the middle of the night.

When Buck was here, he helped remove any offending insects. Now, I have to be the one to physically relocate them. You'd think I'd be more used to it by now, the near end of my trip, but moving this guy from my bedpost was still a bit unsettling:

Earlier yesterday, I got to join some of the groups at Lelo's tilapia farm and restaurant in Lower San Luis. The whole place was a beautiful example of what hard work and a firm commitment to the environment can produce. All the chairs and tables were hand crafted, but in a very simplistic style. The tilapia ponds were gravity fed from one to the next, and the landscape was beautiful and green.

Everyone was served whole tilapia, and I got the last one! It looks really ugly, but was CRAZY delicious!

If you had told 10-year-old me that I would be eating the fins right off a fish like they were garlic chips in 10 years, 10 year-old-me might have passed out. Luckily, 20-year-old Dana loved trying something new and exciting!

Both a Blessing and a Curse

It's not a new website, by any means, but my recent discovery has brought both great fortune and terrible longing.

www.foodporndaily.com

I now spend hours a day dreaming of food that I will never have. I seek satisfaction from the beans and rice I am served breakfast, lunch, and dinner...but satisfaction never comes.

But for the blessing column - Jessica, Rachel, and I did manage to sneak into the kitchen last night and make this, the most magnificent desert in all the land.

Seriously, perhaps the best dessert I've ever had:

In conclusion, please do yourself a favor by going to www.foodporndaily.com and going to the bottom of the page to click "Gallery" and enjoy looking at some freaking amazing foods. I mean maybe not as amazing as a "Moist Brownie Layered with Peanut Butter Truffle and Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache," but certainly something that isn't beans and rice.

Learning

No...not Spanish, sadly. But today I did spend my whole work day learning to use both Photoshop and InDesign. Knowing how to operate these programs is going to be incredibly valuable for my future career. Both were frustrating at first, but very surprisingly, one day of hard work got me pretty far! Enough fiddling around with the features really does a world of good. I have a pretty good template for the 2011 Sustainability Report that I built from last year's. So I still know nothing about making a document from scratch, but I'm getting good at manipulating the things on the pages. That will certainly do for now.

Also on my mind today, the fact that I haven't heard back from any of the 6 places where I submitted my resume. I knew that getting a job in Athens would be difficult, but I'm getting antsy. I'll have to keep applying! Lots and lots of applying...

The good news: banana bread in the dining room for snacks today!
Random, but those are the things in my head today.

I hope everyone in the states is doing well :)
Adios!

Cabeceras

I realize I haven't posted in a while...and I plan on getting around to posting on some things that went on in the last few weeks, but first I want to talk about the lovely trip I took this weekend!

I had a wonderful taxi driver that made me laugh and took me to Cabeceras, Costa Rica to see the man that he called "Senor Hormigas". Cabeceras is about an hour away from San Luis, and as we approached this small farm town, Evelio explained that the root of the town's name is cabeza. The closest translation of the town's name would be like pillow, you know - the place you put your cabeza. It made sense to me, and I will forever think of this place as "The Pillow of Costa Rica".

First of all, it was freakin' beautiful:

Buck managed to find a little pulperia that also had a place for him to rest his cabeza:

(business in the front, Buck's room in the back)

I felt so happy to be able to help (even just a little) with the scientific process. We sought out fire ant mounds, but had a great time with some great weather. From morning to noon, the plan of the plots went from little squares, to big squares, back to little squares, then to triangles within squares, and to sqaures within triangles. I won't try to explain the methods, but it really was a lot to work out in our heads. All that matters is we got some mounds marked before lunch time.

Here is the view from plot #2:

(plants in the foreground will be bursting with ripe coffee berries in about a month)

And here is the little bugger that stung the hell out of Buck:

 

After lunch, I discovered that no taxi driver was willing to come pick me up from the middle of nowhere on the day that transporting bicyclists to and from Santa Elena could fill their time. So sadly, the trip was cut short around 2:00 as I quickly packed up all my things and made the bus to Santa Elena. However, once there, I still had to get down to San Luis. Luckily, it was a very nice day, and I walked down the Trocha without even once wishing I were traveling by car.

However, if I had been traveling by car, I totally would have gotten to the cheese factory in time. Instead, I approached the door at 4:03, not sure if it would be open or closed (things close pretty early on Sundays). To my delight, I saw people inside ordering the most delicious coffee and chocolate chip milkshakes you could ever imagine. My euphoria was abruptly interrupted when a door closed right in my face! I watched the employee flip the sign to "cerrado", and my heart sank a little. I'll have to wait until my next trip to Santa Elena to enjoy some of that heavenly beverage.

Anyway, it's getting late (9:48...HA!) so I'm scooting off to bed. I have to get up early tomorrow so I can get some writting in before the Earth Charter meeting with the kitchen staff. Work is going well, and I can't wait to see what the UGA Costa Rica employees think of our implementation of Earth Charter initiatives.

Adios!

New Friend

Excuse me, but you are not welcome in my room: