Canals and machetes

So far, Panama has been a very pleasant surprise. From amazing landscapes, incredible beaches, long busrides, packed party-hostels to the impressive panama canal, we have had fantastic experiences.

Admittedly, our four day stay in Bocas Del Toro in the North-West of Panama might not be classified by all as a high-class distinguished experience. Our island was packed with backpackers and was permeated by a vibe of cheap beer and parties. Even though we might have succumbed to these local temptations from time to time, we managed to visit the beautiful red frog beach, known for it's poisonous - wait for it - red frogs (which we couldn't find though) and witnessed the amazing annual drum parade celebrating the founding of the city with hundreds of marching bands. It started in the early morning and didn't stop until late at night - not really the perfect cure for a hangover...

Bocas marching band

Next stop Panama City caught us off-guard, in a good way. The city, embraced by a green, hilly and quiet undeveloped country, announced itself with the Bridge of the Americas. The capital of the country seems to be the place where the canal toll is being converted in big cars, tall skyscrapers push away the slums and thirtiers go to expensive parties. Wandering through this infrastructure paradise, Dimitri pointed out the architectural highlights as we noticed we were being tailed by enormous birds gliding in the sun-blue sky. Finally, a visit to the Panama canal visitor center and a talk to a senior tourist guide revealed the secrets of this engineering wonder.

Panama City skyscrapers | Technical discussion with senior canal engineer

The scenery on the busrides were truly fantastic. Jungles on hills and valleys containing palm trees with coconuts, gorgeous rivers running through them. Dimitri managed to purchase a machete in Bocas which will hopefully come in handy at some point when we want to slice open a fresh coconut, slice a piece of pizza or try to make our way through a jungle. Or if we encounter the many rumoured drug trafficers in the jungle between Panama and Colombia for that matter.

We are somewhat prepared to meet this guy

It seems unlikely that we will encounter those chicos however because tomorrow we are heading to the paradise of the San Blas islands by sailboat. Three days of (hopefully) sun and fun later, we will continue on from there to Colombia. The sailboat that will take us there is in hands of the Delfin Solo crew. All hands on deck!

From Nica over Tica to Panama

After having enjoyed a great stay in Nicaragua, I've been using crazy busses, boats and an airplane to get out of this beautiful country. Shortly after being welcomed by beautiful birds on the river between San Carlos and Los Chiles, I crossed the border with Costa Rica on a small boat. I stayed in Heredia, close to San Jose, and I continued to Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo. In this laid-back village with almost no people I took the opportunity to go on a 4h trip to check out the jungle and learn how to spot animals, like snakes, spiders and sloths (NL: luiaards). After having grabbed some snakes and let some animals run over me, I still had to pay for all this luxury. Since the closest ATM was "just 6 miles ahead", I decided to run a bit. It turned out to be 15 km (at night, dangerous road cfr. Lonely Planet) and I don't have to explain that my feet were hurting like hell because I was wearing just simple flipflops. Worst. Decision. Ever.
A few days later the pain totally faded away while walking over the bridge-border to Panama (see below). I truly felt like Christopher Columbus discovering the Americas.

The taxi drive through the Chiquita banana plantations (taxi driver: "no worry, tengo un arma") revealed the secrets of the bananas: from little green fruits in blue plastic bags as protection to the genius cable system to transport the banana bunches by bike, to the refrigerated Chiquita trucks and finally to the big Chiquita cargo ships. The taxi dropped me off at a small harbour, and a boat trip later I finally ended up on the island of Bocas del Toro.

After meeting a German diver I went for two dives (ship wreck and vertical coral wall). Satisfied, I dreamed about fish and lobster food, but some noisy tourist came into my room in the middle of the night. It turned out to be noone less than... Spinksmeister Spinks. Mission 'meeting', check!

Greetings from Panama

Blissful insanity

I have experienced a lot of great things in the past two weeks. So many in fact, that I haven't had time to update the blog (this might be a recurring excuse throughout the trip...).

In LA, I got together with all my friends and had some great "cooking kicking nights" as Halla has come to call them. With Ardy, I ran into Martha Stewart at the grove and politely declined to buy her new book. I drove up to San Francisco where I had some crazy nights with Juan-Carlos, but luckily still succeeded in getting up early for a 20 mile bike trip around SF ("Comon Graham, you have to man up!"). It was fantastic to meet Marla & Hunter up there as well (and thanks to Hunter for barely getting me out of a parking ticket at Stanford campus ;-) ). After Frisco, I drove up even more north to wine country where Pablo is doing a wine internship and apparently had access to free wine tastings to some of the most expensive and distinguished wines of the region ("Excuse me, do you offer the complimentary interwinery tastings?").

Martha Stewart

Wine connoisseur

Golden Gate Bridge

LA

On my way back to LA I met up with Ricardo who tried (and failed) to teach me salsa. Although it had been over five years that we had seen eachother in Zürich, he pointed out that "it felt as if it was just yesterday". A truth wich I knew could be extrapolated to my entire two-week stay in California. The next day I drove south next to the ocean, experiencing the beautiful beaches and hiking trails of Big Sur. I had to remind myself not to become too excited with the amazing views, because, without any doubt, I would still encounter some spectacular places in the months to come.

Big Sur

Photographer at Pfeiffer beach

Pfeiffer beach sunset

Big Sur

Back in LA I stayed with Stephen and Rehana and had an amazing time. They proved to be excellent hosts, and even took me along to a Bengali party where the women dressed in traditional Sari's and the men participate in a macho pool tournament. I got to meet up with Lynwood for lunch a few times and had a great time. We had long conversations about traveling and movies and life in general. When I got ready to leave LA on Monday morning, Rehana and Stephen insisted on getting up at 4.30AM to wave me out, even though I assured them they wouldn't be able to wake me up at 4.30AM if they ever come to visit me in Belgium...

Once arrived in Panama, I decided to immediately take a night bus up to bocas del toro to meet up with Dimitri. From Dimitri's post you can tell that there are some interesting bus drivers here, and after just one bus ride I can already confirm this. I am pretty sure that for my bus, they hired an international celebrity...

The bus driver

Bocas Del Toro promised to be a relaxing, exotic environment as I took the watertaxi here in a "Far Cry"-like scenery. Today however there seems to be a local annual holiday and apparantly it is expected of every inhabitant of Bocas Del Toro to own a drum and play in a band walking in the parade. Interesting at first, but it has been going on for 5 hours straight now. To make matters worse, our hostel seems to be located in the middle of the parade route, such that we are hearing a blissful blend of 3 or 4 band at a time. Forget about malaria, insanity is the real danger out here.

El bus esta muy loco, wtf!

While reading "appointment in milano" by Warren Decko, I suddenly stare out of the window as the salsa CD in the bus hits another up-tempo track, flirting with the punta-music I recently discovered. I remember your mail talking about neverending hikes through the forest in Wallonia. I smile. Here, the tree leaves seem to keep their greenish colours all the year, supported by hot sunrays and rainy late afternoons. The bus drives ridiculously fast, as the driver were competing with the bus just ahead, sometimes vice-versa. Actually, I realise myself, they áre.
When the bus drops me off in Juigalpa around 11:00 am, I grab a tasty dish with a Calalas drink, € 2,7. Apparently there is only one bus to San Carlos, and la jente tell me it will pass between 13:00 and 15:00. Of course, it is around 15:00.
When the bus passes (it actually never stopped), I had to jump through the backdoor while throwing my backpack into yet another pounding discoteca bus. The scene could have been stolen from a cheap American action movie. What an entrée, I laugh about it.
At some moments during the 3h trip, the bus is so full that the backdoor next to me has to stay open because some Nicas have to hang out of the bus to reach the 300% capacity limit. The road is bumpy and terrible. Although this is a 'highway', there is only one (and a half) lane. At the same time, road works are going on. Neglecting all of that, the busdriver sticks to German rules: drive as fast as you can. This is insane. Again a race with another bus. I love truck races, but I do not like rally with busses full of people at 100 km/h on unpaved roads.
When the front bus manager yells, the backdoor manager next to me opens the door and throws some bags or random bulk out of the vehicle in the middle of the road.
When Shakira calls 'rabiosa' through the surround speakers, my memories fly to the Brasilian party place in Brussels, and I have to think about you again. I hate but love these rusty yellow busses; they make me dream away while I'm having the time of my life.

Little Corn Island

I'm surprisingly still alive after some life-threatening activities. After a few days in the north west in Nicaragua, I went boarding on a volcano (some scratches more) and I chased my water fear away by following a diving course (drank way too many salty water). So finally I am a real 'aquarius'!
My left foot got hurt because I thought that would be an effective way to stop my boomerang gift (thanks TRITEL amigos!).
The transport in Nicaragua is not thát easy either. I had to take two busses for more than 10 hours, a boat for two hours and a small airplane to reach the most wonderful paradise island ever, Little Corn Island. Well hidden and yet undiscovered by Google Maps, this place hosts Jamaican Bob Marley lookalikes and it turned out to be a great dive spot, surrounded by white beaches - palm trees included, bien évidemment. Stefano, the charismatic Italian dive instructor m (imagine his under water guestures and multiplicate by 1000), did teach me how to enjoy the under water world, providing me the opportunity to stick to the topic of this trip, "the world is not enough".
Now relaxing with a pineapple cocktail just in front of me, starting to wonder how I will go to Costa Rica. In 10 days I will probably meet Graham in Bocas del Toro, the one and only Caribean party island.
Greetings!
dM3

Californ-i-a

Life is good.

While dM3 is living it up in Nicaragua, I arrived in LA on Sunday evening and was greeted by the great Californian climate I missed so much (although admittedly it does get a bit cold here at night for the moment). I sighed of relief when my bag rolled onto the conveyer belt as one of the last and headed towards USC campus, to stay with my good friend and ex-roommate Payam. But not before driving past the infamous Eurohaus, once a bastion for shameless extravagant student debauchery, now a mere shadow of its former glory and home to what appeared to be five Asian students with a penchant for Ace Ventura haircuts.

Looked something like this

My first day in LA was filled with flares of nostalgia. I visited USC campus, remembering some of the places that made a lasting impression, as well as some of the places I swore never to enter again, like the math library. All kidding aside, it felt good to be back, and things only got better when I inadvertently ran into Ardy, who hasn't changed a bit and seems to be doing great, and later De-oneandonly-Salvo, my main math buddy who always had my back and proved a challenging pingpong-partner.

Close to campus

USC campus

Since it was Halloween, later that evening we formed a crew of seven and headed over to the West-Hollywood parade, which each year hosts about half a million visitors. Once arrived, we discovered some of the most original costumes ever, as well as a performance by Robyn (@boskabout she is a really amazing performer like you had said!)

Robyn performing

Alien vs predator

Not wanting to stand out, I had attempted to style my beard as Wolverine and had attached some fake blades made of paper to my fingers. As the evening progressed I started realizing that most people were looking at me wondering whether the battery of my electric razor had run out halfway and why I taped folded sheets of paper to my fingers (which ultimately proved extremely unhandy when attempting to do anything from putting on my sweater to opening the car door). They can say and think what they like, but I was visibly content when near the end of the evening somebody walked up to me and said: "Awesome man! Right on!" The smile on my face instantly faded however when he turned to his friends and yelled: "Look guys! Edward Scissor hands!"

I must have looked like this... except with half-shaven beard and a shirt on

That being said, the trip is off to a great start. A lot of my cali friends have left LA through the years, but I am looking forward to seeing all other friends and family in CA in the coming weeks!
Graham