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…ok so it was more like lazy in the sun… but I slathered on the sunscreen and went down to the beach to spend my last day here in the Quepos/Manuel Antonio area… Apparently I did a pretty good job with the sunscreen ‘cause I was at the beach from like 12:30 until a little after 4 and my skin only feels better than it did this morning… woohoo! It kinda sucks that I don´t have any pictures from here… but I could have bought a disposable camera if I really wanted to… ah well… It’ll always be in my memory.. and besides… there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll be able to find a reasonably priced digital camera once I get to San Jose tomorrow… but we’ll see… If not, then I’ll definitely get a couple disposables so I at least have some pictures…

i’m worn out from being in the sun and I have to catch a bus at 6am so I’m gonna go rest up.. lata!

I woke up this morning with swollen, painful skin so I opted to spend my day indoors… on the internet and recontemplating the routing of my trip.. making some changes and clarifying some things that I hadn´t thought to think of in my initial planning phase…

I´ve added an aerial photograph of the beach I´ve been hanging out at… it´s on the far side of the point in the photo… Aren´t you all jealous? I´m hoping to have let my skin rest long enough to go down on the beach tomorrow for my last day in the area… Before heading up into the cosmopolitan hurriedness of San Jose…

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So I was looking around a little souvenir shop tonight and what did I find but a brand new shrink-wrapped copy of the guidebook that got stolen… I´m ecstatic… even though I paid $45 for a $24 book… but it´s imported I guess… and I was happy to pay it… that book is indispensible…

Went to the beach to day… and forgot the suntan lotion.. (I promise I was going to put it on, Lane) and got burnt a little crispy… but it´s not terribly bad so I hope it feels ok to go in the sun again tomorrow… ´cause I don´t want to miss one day of this beach while I´m here…

Anyway… I gotsta run…

¡Lata!

Today I finally made it onto the beach and into the water…

After a rough start involving some loneliness/homesickness in addition to a bit of a stomach ache of unknown origins (though it was right after I ate breakfast…), I made my way over to Manuel Antonio to the gorgeous beach… The beach is really long and curving with rocky, mountainous points at either end… The water has got to be like 90 degrees… which makes it not that refreshing but also kinda nice at the same time… And being at that beach I just had to think about what the weather is like back in New York to remind me how much better it is down here

Oh yeah.. Everyone should send me their email address at me@dception.com so I have it.. ‘cause I don’t really have anybody’s since my PDA left me…

Anyway… I love you all.. Talk to you soon!

After a long day of bus travel I am now in Quepos, a smallish town with a rather developed tourism industry… I was originally planning on staying in Manuel Antonio, but when I got into town there was not one room under $35 in the whole town (it’s not very big) despite the very helpful Isaac who brought me to almost every hotel… So I had to make my way the 6km back to Quepos and after much searching finally found a room for about $9-ish which is nice and clean and whatnot but with shared bathroom/shower facilities… which is fine considering they are also nice and clean.

Manuel Antonio is kind of like a more upscale tumor growing from Quepos which was more opportune for tourism development because it wasn’t such a large town to begin with… leaving more room for big expensive hotels and the like… and the town is also right at the gates to a national park of the same name… So yeah… it’s hella touristy… lotsa dreadlocks blowing in the wind.. that sorta thing mixing with older people and families who are more adventurous than most (ie. not opting for a cruise or package vacation)…

Anyway.. there are frequent buses between Quepos and Manuel Antonio (because its only 6km…) so tomorrow I’ll probably just bus over there early to try to get into the park before it gets too crowded and perhaps try the cheap hotel there again to see if they have any rooms then (doubtful considering the weekend starts tomorrow).. if not I can just stay here in Quepos and bus back and forth to go to the beach ‘cause supposedly the beach here is not nice though I haven’t seen it yet…

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well… I’ll make some phone calls as soon as I find a place that’s got decent rates… But for now…

Buenas Noches!

I knew I should have started that pool about how many times I’d be robbed… Today, on my 8th day of my estimated 4 month trip, I fell victim to a distract and grab team while sitting inside a quiet restaurant. My brand new digital camera, my PDA, my discman, my new sunglasses, and my travel guide which is my only source of information were taken…

I was sitting there eating, a guy walked up and asked me a question and when I turned back I noticed my small bag was gone… by the time I looked up again there was noone around… I ran out to the street but saw nothing…

I had the restaurant owner call the police and had a report written up so as to maybe get some money back from insurance, as I’m sure I’ll never see any of my stuff again… It sucks but it happened and there’s nothing I can do now… I still have all my money and my passport and clothes and everything so I really didn’t lose anything that was necessary… but not having any pictures from this trip is not something I’m looking forward to…

Umm.. other than that I had a long day of very scenic bus rides… Tomorrow I’m headed out to the coast to a town called Manuel Antonio which is right at the entrance to a national park… I’ll write more then.

I got up early this morning and headed up into the mountains to a town called Boquéte… it’s really beautiful, nestled in a valley among gorgeous mountain scenery, the weather is refreshing.. warm in the sun but the air is cool which is a nice change from the hot, sweaty places I’ve been since I got down here… and I got to have my first veggie burger in over a week AND an awesome strawberry-banana smoothie… Woohoo!

Anyway… the hotel that I wanted to stay at is full, but the owner brought me to this woman’s house who has 4 rooms built on the top floor that are quite nice. I’m paying quite a bit ($12) but I have a nice view from my window and the bathroom is really nice, so whatever.

I’m going to stay here tonight and tomorrow night and then on Wednesday I plan to head back down the mountain to Davíd, switch buses, and make my way to the border of Costa Rica and hopefully make it to a beach town before dark…

It looks like I’ll be able to connect my camera to these computers to upload some pictures… will update a little later with those hopefully…

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Hello all,
After a long day of ridiculous transportation issues, I am now in the city of David in the Western end of Panama… I’m staying at a hostel here for the night before heading out tomorrow… either to the beach or to the mountains… I haven’t quite decided yet… But all is well… except for my butt from sitting in uncomfortable bus seats all day long…

Anyway… I need to get off the computer so I will update more when I next get a chance…

Pura Vida!

So this is my last night here in Chitré.. Tomorrow I will be heading out to a city called Davíd where I will be staying over 1 night before making my way to an island in the Pacific called Isla Boca Brava… which contains only 1 hotel/restaurant and no phone… But I should have internet and phone tomorrow… so you´ll hear from me before I disappear to the desert isle for a few days…

´Til then!

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So I´m still here in Chitré… I should be heading out tomorrow in search of the beach… but we´ll see if the place I´m planning on is going to have someplace for me to sleep… But yeah.. not much doing today.. just bummed around town a little more, spent some more time at church.. and read a lot of my current read Robinson Crusoe… I´m just enjoying the ambience of the place before moving on I guess..

In other news, I hear you folks up in NY are getting slammed this weekend… 12-18 inches of snow by Sunday morning? That´s pretty ridiculous… I´m almost sad I´m going to miss the ensuing chaos… but not that much

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My third day is winding down here in Panama… A day that began with a quite pleasant 3 1/2 hour-ish bus-ride.. with air conditioning and everything… and lord knows that won´t happen again…

I´m now in a town called Chitré, which is either a large town or a small city depending on your definition… but it´s a rather pleasant town/city… definitely not a tourist town… I don´t think I´ve seen anyone since I´ve been here that I would pick out as a tourist… But I guess that´s a big part of what I like when traveling… to see what life is really like in different places… It´s very calm compared to Panama City and everyone seems to be extremely friendly…

The main point of interest in the town is the cathedral… which is noted for it´s balanced use of wood and gold tone as opposed to the usual Central American tradition of over-doing it with gold. I went in to take a look and ended up sitting in on about an hour of what was a much longer mass… I think that´s the most time I´ve spent in a church in the last 5 years combined… at least… and I was surprisingly pleased by it… I´m feeling cleansed somehow… Who knew?

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Here I finally am… I´ve made my way down to the southernmost country in North America… any further south and I´d be in Colombia…

I´m sitting in an internet cafe in Panama City enjoying the feeling of posting my first entry about my first day of my 4 month trip… Unfortunately this computer doesn´t seem to have a port where I can connect my camera to post pictures, so those will have to wait til I find a better computer somewhere…

Suffice it to say that I´m enjoying myself… I´m staying at this hostel that occupies 2 floors of a highrise apartment building in a nice area of the city… and for all those up Norte, its 9:30pm and its a pleasant 79 degrees out… perfect for strolling around in the really inexpensive pair of Timberland sandals I got earlier… I think I´m gonna do a little bit more shopping tomorrow too cause everything is really cheap here.. I need a belt, a towel, and a watch… Woohoo!

I was hoping to do some touristy stuff tomorrow but we´ll see if I feel comfortable enough with my spanish to figure out the buses to watch the boats go through the locks on the canal… If not, I´m sure I´ll come up with something entertaining to do…

So.. until then.. signing off from Panama…

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I’m leaving in 6 days and I still don’t have a passport, a backpack, a camera or boots… but isn’t that how it always is with me? It’s pretty crazy that it’s rushing up on me so damn fast… I’m gonna be busy for pretty much the rest of the time before I leave so I’m just going to all of a sudden find myself in Panama thinking “What the hell just happened?” But maybe that’s how life should be…

P.S. I’m 23.