Making a Run for the Boarder!

And no, Celine, not to Taco Bell.  But the first thing I and my fellow English school friends did once we crossed the boarder was hit up the McDonalds in "City Mall"!  They use real grease here and the Coke has real sugar.  Mmmmmm...

You may have heard me talk of the boarder between Costa Rica and Panama before, but it's this crazy ass place!  You check out of Costa Rica and physically walk .25 of a mile in filth and taxis and semi trucks in direction of Panama.  There is no signage, no sidewalks, nothing to indicate what you are supposed to do!  Thankfully collectively we have done this enough that we are experts.  We know where to go, what to say, what fake documents to carry and who to talk to.  It's still a bit of a frogger game walking through all the traffic and garbage in the heat.

We were headed for Santa Catalina in Panama, then on the bus to the boarder we decided to stay our first night in Boquete, Panama. Once there we decided to stay our 4 day there as none of us wanted to get back on the bus. So here we were in a colder mountain town with our beach clothes!  Thankfully we all know how cold the Panama buses are so we had one little sweater each.

We ate, drank, danced like crazy people and generally had a great time.  We also got cheap pedicures, rode some horses and hit up the hot springs.

Yesterday we ended up at a nice pool in Golfito after crossing back over the boarder.  Photos to follow!!

ps. The reason for the boarder one is two fold, one we had a 4 day weekend off from school and we all needed to update our visas!  The Costa Rican tourist visa is for 3 months, but you simply leave the country for 72 hours and viola! you get another 3 month tourist visa!  

Love to all!
xo!!

Just to Keep You Interested!

had to cut this skirt, it was too long and hot!  yes, i used nail scissors!

golfito - VERY nice houses for the area

Golfito!

After one Cuba Libre.  hahaha

Happy and cute on the boat!

Dinner!  Snapper!

I look like I'm clenching my teeth!

hahaha 3 am comes super quickly in Costa Rica!

Day at the pool!

Cashews!!!!

downtown Golfito

my new boat! ;)

love!

My new house!  (i wish) 

i'm asleep and we haven't left yet!

Going dancing, well some of us danced! haha

April 17th 2012 thoughts from my morning

My catch from Saturday!

Today I woke up feeling tired, sad and a little lonely.  I hesitate to say I’m homesick because I’m not sure I am.  I miss my friends, family and kitties but part of me doesn’t want to go back home.   The part of me that wants to stay is afraid that if I do stay I’m just making things worse for myself when I do return.  But I have nothing planned until July.  Girls Camping Weekend is the most important thing I have to do all year. 

I woke up thinking about my friend Christine too.  She was gone for a year and I only called her twice.  I sent her a few emails and no real mail.  I see now that I should have done more to support her from here.  And I’m not saying that to make anyone feel bad or guilt them into emails.  But being far from home can be hard at times.  You make other friends but there’s no history, they don’t understand why you do things or don’t do things or react certain way to situations.   I’m struggling with these relationships that I know are temporary.  

Maybe the weight of my reality at home is hitting me?  I’m feeling very much like I should already know what I’m doing with my life.  I’m 42 for kitties sake, shouldn’t I have it figured out by now?  

This weekend I spent both days at the beach.  And yes I got a sunburn, so much for that base tan from the fall! Haha  But while at the beach I wasn’t worried about my future, sure I still didn’t know anymore than what I was doing right then but now I feel a heavy heavy weight pressing on my heart and my brain is racing to make sense of the jumble around me and at home. The problem is coming home doesn’t help me.   I’m just in safer place to be confused, discouraged and unsure.  I’m hoping my mood, like the weather here will change quickly.  I probably just need to cry a bit.   

Waiting for a Train

Freedoms just another word for nothing left to loose.  I’m sitting here studying my Spanish and listening to Janis Joplin’s Bobby McGee with the rain literally dumps outside.  Damn, that song always gets to my vagabonding gypsy heart.  If I didn’t get anything else from my dad, it was certainly my overwhelming desire to travel and see and do things.  Well, and most likely my taste for beer too.  It’s hard to explain the feeling I sometimes get, it’s so overwhelming, like every particle and cell in my body wants to flee.  To get on a bike, in a car, a van, a bus, plane.  Sometimes when I think of “home”  I think of my van, and get excited about the sink and the stove and the fridge.  other times I think of camping in the forest.  But sometimes when I think of home, I think of my nice soft comfy warm bed, and my kitties and a nice boy lying next to me.  Today I’m tore between all of those desires and feelings.  It might be time to make a spreadsheet.  When all else fails try an excel spreadsheet for a shot of logic. 

Alice, Drink Me!

This stick was too big

Flat ass but still fat!  :)

One of the best things about Costa Rica is coconut water and fresh coconut*  to drink/ eat on the beach.  But usually to get these you need a man with a machete, sometimes a man to climb the tree to get them down too.   Or so I thought.  Saturday the other woman from the school and I rode our bikes to the beach.  We first stopped by one of the resorts to talk to the manager.  We now have permission to use the pool whenever we want.  So we did.  But didn’t stay long as we wanted to eat our picnic & fruit we brought.  We left the resort and started walking down the beach.  We came upon a makeshift shelter and had planned on eating there until 2 dogs ran up and peed on it.  But the previous occupants had left a perfectly good coconut behind.  It was the perfect size and I could hear the water inside.  Score!  Now I just needed to open it!  

So I’ve seen Coco, and William both open the older coconuts before.  And I was there when Sean got his step by step lesson.  So I gave it a shot!  After about 20 mins and an entire bucket of sweat I finally got it open!  I was so excited!  I’m not going to die after all if stranded on a tropical island!  It was delicious too!  

*There are two kinds of coconuts here, the young ones which they call pipas.  These are great for drinking but the fruit inside is very jelly like.  It tastes ok, but I prefer the older ones for eating.  The older ones are what most people at home find in the grocery store, the dark brown ones with three holes at the top. But that’s not how they are in nature.  They are wrapped in a very strong outer shell made of fiber stuff.  So to get to the water and fruit inside you have to break them out of the shell without damaging the actual coconut.  The best means to do this is to find a smallish stick poking out of the ground, a log or a tree, stab the coconut with it and pry the outer skin off.  Easier said than done!  I this case I had to find a stick and wedge it in the sand next to a big piece of drift wood to get the leverage I needed.  It took all my body weight and strength!  I’m hoping next time will go more smoothly and faster!   

Take a Step Back to Wednesday!

April 11^th 2012

Today was a day off from school.  I woke up to torrential downing pouring rain, great, so much for the beach today.  I was planning on heading to the beach with the other woman teacher at the school.  So instead I had breaky then ran some errands.  There is a new veggie fruit place in town.  It’s great!  Fresh everything and sooooo much cheaper than the grocery stores.  I was pleasantly surprised to know someone who works there!  Then I finished cleaning the new to us fridge.  It was sooo filthily that Coco was shocked and disgusted that we plugged it in before we cleaned it.  I’ll spare you the graphic words he used.  We didn’t clean it first because we wanted to make sure it actually worked first.  It’s working like a champ now!  Hello cold cucumber water!  

After my chores I rode over and met my friend.  We went to the bar at the beach to chill, talk, I had a beer, she wrote and basically we got out of the house.  We realized while discussing important issues that we are both taking in our surrounding and easily distracted!  Phrases like "look at those cutter ant working away" "wow this tree is beautiful!"  "That's the most beautiful bird I've ever seen!"  Interrupted our serious talk of life. and made us crack up laughing.  Laughter really is the best medicine!  We finished it off with pizza and laughing at inappropriate things.  Laughing at and about men and wondering how we can get to Cuba from here!  Nice to think about!  If I stay here till June I will need to do a boarder run to renew my tourist visa.  Most likely I’ll be headed back to Panama for a long weekend.   Panama is cheaper and the amenities are better than CR.  I’ll be loading up on salt and lemon peanuts.  And maybe some shorts that fit.  And some new undies.  Hand washing and line drying actually seems pretty hard on clothes here.  Plus I don’t have that many clothes here so I’m wearing them over and over and often and again.  I hand wash one week and take my clothes to the laundry the next week.  The mundane here is interesting to me.  I’ve been away from home now 49 days 7 weeks.  The longest I’ve ever been away from home is 7 weeks.  It has gone by so quickly and is so different from my other trips abroad.  In some ways better, in someways worse. 

I skyped with my Thai kitty and Frank this weekend.  I miss them and the other but I still feel like there is nothing for me there.  I feel like I’m searching, trying to understand something or come to some conclusion about something.  I’m just not sure what that something is.  Maybe something in my heart.  Maybe something in my brain.  Both? Neither? I know that part of this trip was supposed to be about love, or the illusion of what love could mean to me.  I’ve lived a long time with walls up, at arm’s length and maybe I’m ready for that to change.  I wish I knew. 

Well, I Never!

All my life I've had a huge ass, not necessarily wide, but lots of junk in the trunk if you will.  up until recently.  I'm not sure what happened.  Age?  Lack of exercise? loss of weight?  It's terribly disturbing that I'm now a boarder line flat ass.  I don't fill out my shorts or my pants.  my once too small too tight underwear are sagging.  So today I went on a longer bike ride.  On the bumpiest, rockiest, gravelly road I've ever been on!  and up a couple of hills.  Mt. biking is fun, though I feel a bit jarred!  I'm not sure it will help my ass, but hopefully it will help something!  :)
My plan is for more biking and hiking!  Tomorrow I'm biking to the nice beach with my friend for some much needed sun and shell hunting!  Tonight is homemade nachos and pina coladas at another friends place! 

Wish you were here!