Not meant to be pirates...

Well after 6 days on the ocean we´ve finally made it Columbia.  Por Fin !!!  (at last !!)  The sailing trip was definately an experience.   It started off really great !  We sailed not far from the coast of Panama to the San Blas islands.  The islands are gorgeous and the Kuna people are pretty interesting.  They have maintained their own independance of the islands with their main currency and trade unit as the coconut !   They´re rather small people and come out in little canoes to all the boats and try to sell stuff to everyone.... Everything costs $5, except coconuts, they´re 2 for $1.00... Not really sure how they come up with it, but it seems to wrk for them.  The water on the way (and in) the San Blas were very calm, so sleeping an sea-sickness were not an issue.  It was also kinda nice that we didn´t move during the night, as our room was located right next to the engine compartment, but hey, we were the only one´s on the boat with a room, so being a couple really paid off this time !!

Anyways... after a couple of days of lounging around, swimming, and wandering around the Kuna islands it was time to set sail for Columbia.  I wasn´t really aware how slow sailboats move, particularily when there is no wind.  Well there actually was wind, but it was going directly against us.  We did a lot more ¨motoring¨ than actual sailing.  A few more horsepower would have been nice.  All in all it made for a pretty interesting trip.  The captain and his wife were a very nice couple from Venzuela. They didn´t speak much English, but we still very nice.  Also along with us was the crazy Jean-Claude from France (he rode his bike to panama from Quebec in under 2 months... he´s 56), the 2 girl Swiss cousins (who hated every second of the trip, but found solitude by chain smoking) and our American translator Brandon.   The engine ran non-stop for 3 days and the waves were quite large in the open waters.  Those little pink pills sure came in handy, both for the motion sickness and making you tired enough to sleep through the motor.  We finally made it here after an extra day at sea due to an average speed of 2 miles per hour for the last 2 days....

All that being said, it was really a great time.  Eileen (the captains wife) was an amazing cook and would make giant breakfasts, lunches and dinners.  It seemed like all we did was eat and relax.  We are now in Cartegenia, Columbia which is a gorgoeus place.  It is much nicer and a thousand times cleaner that Panama City.  We went on a city tour today.  It was great, 100% in Spanish.... the fastest spanish you´ve ever heard.  The only word I understand was ¨Cartegenia¨.   Oh well it was pretty cool anyways.  We are working on figuring out our next steps from here.

We´ll catch up with y´all soon.

d&d

Waiting to sail...

We've made our way across Panama to the Carribean side where we will be daparting to Columbia.  The boat has been delayed a couple of days due to storms which are following the hurricane (near Cuba?)  I have no idea?  Apparently we're heading out on Tuesday morning, which is good because there is not much to do over here.  There are not much for grocery stores or anything.  We're staying at "Hostal Wunderbar" which is a bambo hut in the middle of nowhere.  The sailing trip will last 4 - 6 days and hopefully we will get some nice weather.  Panama's rainy season is 9 months of the year, and when it rains, it pours... much like today, yesterday and the day before that...

We'll catch up with you next week after the sailboat ride !

Adios.

Panamania!!!!

So today we explored the city of Panama, pretty busy place. We wanted to get up really early to make our way to the Canal but ended up sleeping in because of an all night punch party... oooopps! We met my hero last night though, rode up to the hostel on his BMW oldschool bike and inspired David and I to get some leathers and try out Route 40. He's been riding for two years now and had some pretty incredible stories. We're hoping we can line something up because I think it would be pretty nuts! Anyways, back to our day... we woke up a tad late and made our way down the street to catch the local bus to the canal. The buses are unreal, wish we had taken photos but we were pretty scared of taking the camera out today on the streets... anyways, the buses are just old yellow cheesewagons that aren't so yellow anymore. Pretty sure they have pimp out competitions! I honestly don't know how the drivers see out of the windows because there all painted up! So we took the bus to a HUGE terminal where we had to find another random bus that took us to the canal. The bus ride was great fun, aside from the fact that I thought it was going to fall apart as we hit any pump on the road and there sure were tons of those! We finally got to our stop when the Panamanian clouds decided to roll in and soak us from head to toe! It was a good thing we took our shampoo and were able to have our first warm shower though! We went to the canal with an Italian couple we met last night and we were lucky they came along because they were able to translate a whole lot better than either of us! We lost them somewhere in the canal and now that I think of it, we haven't seen them since we've been back... Sure hope we didn't pull another Dave move and left them waiting for 8hrs... So the Canal was pretty neat, really happy we checked that out. It's incredible how they built such a monstrosity in the early 1900's and they still use the same gates as the original transport in 1914!

After abandoning our friends we went to Casco Viejo which is the original Panama town center. The panamanians abandoned the city when pirates took over back in the day and they have recently went back in and tried restoring it. It's a really beautiful place. There's neighboring buildings where one is falling apart and the other is absolutly incredible! We ate dinner at one of the restaurants there out on the street and then decided to walk back to our hostel... if only we had a decent map or any sense at all of where we were it probably wouldn't have taken us 3hrs... The hostel had told us it was a 20min walk! We found the central street which was a big market type place, it was wicked, we were tempted to buy a few new pairs of shoes but decided we would hold off on adding an additional 10 pounds to our bags till at least we arrived in South America! We were told that Panamanians were incredible pick pocketers as well and I'm proud to say that even in the crowded ghetto streets we weren't stupid tourist and didn't lose a thing! Or at least that either of us are aware of! So we finally sucked it up and waved down a cab to take us back to our hostel. I'd have to say that it's a good thing we did because I don't think there was any hope at all that we could have navigated our way back.

 

 Tomorrow we are off to Puerto Lindo to a hostel called Wunderbar where we will get ready to go on our sailing trip to the San Blas islands for some snorkling and spear fishing. From there we head to Cartagena Columbia!

And it begins....

We've said good-bye to everyone now and are on our own.  We're leaving to Panama in a couple of hours after a pretty exciting night.   Our flight leaves at 7:30 am I decided it would be a good idea to get to the airport very early so we don't miss the flight.  The way I see it, you can never be too early ! 

We also decided that we need to start being cheap, so we thought we would save some $$ by not getting a hotel.  Instead we went to Senior Frogs with Heidi (from work) and had a few Margaritas until 3 am, then hopped in a cab and went to the airport to find a nice bench to sleep on...  It would have been great except there was no bench, and the floor temperature was about 2 degrees celcius.  Good thing we weren't wearing warm clothes !!  After freezing our butts off, we checked in and grabbed a couple of warm coffees.  Which also would have been great had they not tasted awful !!  Hopefully we can get some real coffee in Columbia !

We're excited to get on the plane so we can finally get some sleep !  See you later !!

D & D

What a stressful start....

Well 2 days of waiting around at Bad Boys in Playa finally paid off when David decided he would make his way to our meeting spot... What a smart guy! Really though, I´m pretty pumped that this happened because I´m gunna drag it out as long as I can! 


So yesteday Aunty Dot & Uncle Tim spoiled us rotten and got us day passes to Dreams Tulum... Don´t know if any of you have been lucky enough to ever stay there but holy cow is it nice! I think I would probably be content in going back there tomorrow and then the next day and then perhaps just spend my next six months there! The only down side to that would be that when David and I would return back to Calgs we would be morbidely obese! Awww the food was delicious! Anyways, we all had a blast and it was probably one of the best ways to start off a 6 month backpacking trip! Not like our expectations will be set very high or anything! 


Tomorrow the fam is meeting in my little town and well hang out around here and then David and I are off to Cancun leaving for Panama on Wed morn! CAN´T WAIT!!!!! 

False Start ?

I've been sitting here for the past few moments pondering whether or not I should post this or not, but what the heck, I'll take the hit and lay it out there...

In case you weren't aware, it 9:10am on Friday which means I should be on a plane on route to Mexico, or so I may have thought.  The good news is I stayed up all night making sure everything was wrapped up at home and ready to go.  Left the house on time with everything I needed, good news as well.  Made it to the airport one hour and forty five minutes early for my flight, really good news !!!  Things were really looking up, until the ticketing agent informed me that my flight is on Saturday morning and not Friday as she pointed to the bold font SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2010 on the itinerary in my hand.  Oooops!  Maybe I should have checked that out.  Calgary is so complicated, I can't wait to get out of here and get to South America where things are straight forward and there's no chance of misinterpretation or confusion of trip plans...

Better early than late I guess.  I'll try again tomorrow.  Hopefully Dawne will still be waiting for me at the beach bar in Playa del Carmen. 

dS

Hola Mexico!!!

It´s been a crazy couple of days... Last night was one of the best sleeps of my life! I was sooo overtired and I think there was just a tad bit of stress involved in getting us all packed up and ready to go but man was it worth it! 

Mom was hilarious at the airport! We took her there and pretended to all be in a frantic mess and asked her to look over the boarding passes to make sure they were ok and when she read them and saw her name she didn´t believe it! I don´t think she started to believe it till today when she fell asleep, wide open mouthed on the beach!!!! 

I´m sooooo happy we´re here though! Doesn´t really fell like I am though and that I´m going away for 6 months... Yesterday when we got to my house in Chan Chemuyil there was a cockroach just hanging out, eating the candle wax on my counter.. I was pretty angry mainly because I loved that candle but it was huge (well not quite as big as the one Nik & Jon killed in my shower) but the thing was crazy! I don´t know if you´ve ever tried to kill a cockroach but they jump and fly and are incredibly fast!!! I think just picturing my mother, my sister and I running around the house screaming at the top of our lungs is enough of an explanation of how chaotic it was! I guess that´s kinda a lie... Nikki kept her cool and captured the crazy fool, still had nightmares about it all night though! What the heck am I going to do sleeping in a hammock in the jungle when we go on trecks in South America?!?! Dave will have to bring a very big shoe! 

David is coming and meeting up with us on Fri, we´re hopefully picking him up from the airport if the crazy nuts mexican drivers don´t run us down before then! Then we´re going to stay at Aunty Dot´s & Uncle T´s resort on Sun. We´re really excited about that! Then we´re hoping to meet up with Heidi and hopefully Joc too on the 9th... Party it up in Cancun! Can´t wait, this has been a pretty great start to our adventure! Cross your fingers that a scorpian doesn´t fall on me in my sleep tonight!!! MISS YOU ALL! xoxoxox