Our New Office

We’ve gotten to see quite a bit in the last week or so. We’ve also gotten a lot of work done, so it’s been a nice mix of work and play in the remote and ever-changing Lancaster household. Here are the highlights:

We toured the Old Downtown (a/k/a Casco Viejo or Old Quarter or Casco Antiguo), but unfortunately forgot the camera (Doy). Out of 10 months of travel this is the only camera mishap so far, which is actually pretty impressive, I think.

Anyway, trust me when I say that it was an afternoon filled with:

• a delightful walking tour
• Cuban food for lunch
• Italian espresso after lunch
• nice views of the coast and city skyline
• interesting colonial architecture
• beautiful renovated theaters and churches
• impending storm clouds, and
• a museum devoted to the history of The Panama Canal, which we were told included English language descriptions, but actually only had one small sign in English out of the 100 or so other signs in Spanish.

But, there was air conditioning so we didn’t complain.

Over the weekend we rented a car and headed to Coronado, which is about an hour to the southwest of Panama City. On the way, we realized we had made a big accomplishment without even realizing it.

We’ve officially visited South America. All this while we thought we were in North America, but Panama City is in South America. This means we’ve officially visited three continents in our travels. Above is a picture of the Bridge of the Americas, which connects both North and South America. It’s also along the road you take from Panama City to Coronado.

According to the sign, “Coronado is Life,” so I’m glad we got to visit. Who knew what we were missing!

Actually, there’s not a whole lot here except a black sand beach, which was tough to get to and the water has some crazy waves and rip tides going on so we didn’t even get in.

Just to get on to the beach we had to wade through this … ick.

Besides the not-so-great beach, we did manage to find one of the best restaurants we’ve ever eaten at. Fire roasted chicken with fried yucca is my new favorite meal — but only from Restaurante Don Chacho in Coronado.

We also found our way to El Valle de Anton, the world’s second largest extinct volcano. The town of El Valle sits right in its crater.

Funny thing is that we had no idea what El Valle was all about until I started researching for this here post. I think its apparent that after so much time exploring new sights, Jason and I are starting to get lazy. First we forget the camera and now this!!!

But the good news is that without knowing the details at the time, El Valle was still a lovely place with its cloud forest, cool temperatures, and market.

We finished off the day with a mini photo shoot and some adventure travel in the car. Turns out navigating Panama City isn’t as difficult as the tour books will tell you.

Last weekend we took three days to visit Montezuma, which is on the bottom tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. We had some really good moments and some not so great moments.

Of course, the road to Montezuma was tough – loud, dusty, slow-going. But the views were excellent.

Here’s Jason eating pie for breakfast. We stayed in a cute little hotel (El Sano Banano) that served great breakfast. Most everything in Montezuma is vegetarian and organic, so needless to say, Jason was hungry.

Jason takes most of the photos you see on the blog, but every now and again I luck out with a good photo of my own. This photo I managed after an iguana scurried down from a tree I was resting under.

Later that day we saw the infamous white-faced capuchin monkeys for the first time. Caught up in all the excitement, I started taking shots like crazy, but none turned out that well (a/k/a all the pictures are just plain bad) and the monkeys were being naughty, which didn’t help.

The water was an amazing blue color and it was clear! But the waves were strong and the rocks made it almost impossible to swim and snorkel.

The next day I drug Jason out of bed at 6am to go on a hike to see a waterfall. He got stung by a bee (twice) and slipped on a rock. Our little adventure wasn’t the highlight of his trip. I think he would rather have been eating pie.

Anyone who has traveled to Costa Rica most likely has a few navigation stories or opinions on the roads. We’ve talked a bit about the roads too, which you may remember from my post about the Costa Rica earthquake a couple months ago.

We were told by a tour guide that the government decided to invest in schools and health care, not the roads. We’ve also heard that the local governments don’t pay for roads because they’re waiting for the property owners to fork over the cash to build or maintain the roads themselves.

Whatever the reason for the single lane, washed out, pot-hole laden roads in Costa Rica, bumpy roads are part of the deal. In other words, you haven’t really experienced Costa Rica if you haven’t had a flat tire.

However, there are a few navigation strategies you can employ that might make driving around here a bit easier. Take this section of road we came across on our way to the Arenal observatory.

On this day Jason slowed to a stop just to take a photo, but the day before he decided to take the road at full speed. At some point you get tired of going five miles an hour and just want to get there. It’s bumpy no matter how you navigate so I guess he felt like full speed ahead was the best navigation strategy.

This picture is also from our recent road trip to Arenal. Looks like a little rain may have caused a mudslide. No problem, just drive around.

Costa Rica drivers aren’t much better than the roads.  The speed limit is 40 kph on the country’s two-lane highways, but the average speed is somewhere between 80 and 120 kph. Actually, it doesn’t really matter what the speed limit is. Locals will tail you and pass you despite your speed or the oncoming mack truck.

Costa Rica navigation strategy? Let them pass; even put on the breaks to make it easier for them. It’s not worth the accident.

In addition to the roads and crazy drivers, there are also periodic police checkpoints. We were stopped once and were only asked to show our drivers licenses, but we’ve heard stories of police saying they’ll write a ridiculously expensive ticket or you can just pay the fine now and be done with it. Of course the fine is for $60, but they’ll take whatever you offer.

How’s that for law enforcement?

Because the police can spot the rental cars from far away, I have a feeling its the tourists who get pulled over more often.

This is the car we get to drive from time to time. No radio, no air conditioning controls, no cruise control, and the windows barely roll up, but it passes mountains and clears potholes. Can you really ask for anything more?

September 15th-19th, 2008. We made the long treck from Reno to Denver on Monday and Tuesday, then we drove from Denver to Iowa on Friday.

Here are the highlights of our week in transit:

We stayed in Rock Springs, Wyoming Monday night. We saw a woman walk into the Bennigans/Applebees we were dining at and demand to know what happened to her job application. Yet, as if that wasn’t wacky enough, it was 11pm. If THAT isn’t wacky enough for you, she looked like a meth addict. And if *THAT* isn’t wacky enough for your tastes, she came in with her teenage son who already worked at Bennibees so he could ‘vouch’ for her.

Yikes.

Tuesday I enjoyed a meet-and-greet from a Wyoming state patrolmen. 87 in a 75. $100. At least he was nice. We then hung out at Alex and Matt’s house, and we had a lot of fun playing with the dog, talking about the meaning of words that end in “cide” – such as homicide, pesticide, etc. – and smoking some fine cigars. Good times.

Wednesday we saw my parents for a couple of hours and ran a bunch of errands. I paid a $12 bank fee because I pulled cash out of my savings account. Explain that one to me like I’m a three-year-old.

Thursday Sara and I re-arranged our storage space. When I packed the space (with the help of the movers), I wasn’t thinking about which boxes should be stacked where. I left a box full of important documents (that I’ll need come January for taxes) in the very back of the space. I was dreading this task, but it wasn’t actually that bad.

Friday Sara and I drove from Denver to Ankeny, Iowa. My highlight of the day was listening to call-in radio “swap shops.” It’s like Craigslist but it’s all done via telephone. A person calls in, says they have something they want to sell or want to buy, says their phone number, then hangs up. The host of the show (a.k.a. the radio personality), repeats what the caller said and their phone number. Then the process starts all over again.

This is a great example of one of the many things I had absolutely no idea existed. Never in my life did I imagine that people could call the local radio station and say what they had for sale on live radio. This concept would never work in a big city – idiots and perverts would ruin it in 10 minutes. Small-town America really is amazing when you stop and think about it.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Sara made friends with a truck-load of piglets at a rest-stop in Iowa. We followed them for quite a while, and Sara later confessed that she wondered what it would have been like if the truck lost control and spilled piglets all over. Wouldn’t it be fun? Maybe she could even play with one. “Piggies!” she would exclaim.