El Limbo on the Beach Isla Bastimentos

... from home: My dogs and friends and the familiarity of everything.

Mom misses most from home: her little dog and not living out of a suitcase.

My favorite part of this trip: seeing new places, learning more spanish, and experiencing it all with Mom. She's a super-trouper!

Mom's favorite part of the trip: Exploring new places with me (no, I didn't make that up!)

My most surprising aspect of trip: Realizing how bad my ...

... surf particularly unkind for relative greenhorns like ourselves (though conditions were pretty kick-ass for body-surfing, which was way more fun than being pounded trying to surf). Sharing, as we were, one surfboard meant that we got less than half an hour of use each before retreating through the ever-present rainfall back to the boat. To top off a lousy days entertainment all round, when we returned the board it transpired that we had somehow but quite a ding in ...

... got music thumping all the live long day and night, a lot of poverty and a lot of trash. BUT…in all of this, if you make your way “up in the hill” you find beauty, solitude and THAI!!!! So, that’s what we did, we walked about a third of a mile up. It started us walking through the neighborhood, then through a little park, then through the jungle. When we arrived we found these beautiful little bungalows, clustered ...

... change from Gregorio. The house (as most in this area) is completely off the grid. All power comes from solar or a gas generator..... hence the problems begin! We lost power last night at around 9:30 which was followed by a long beeping sound from the solar batteries that lasted the entire night. We were quite worried that we may lose the food that we brought as the fridge went without power for about 12 hours. This could have been handled better by ...

... skin feels in this climate. Then, just as I thought it would be a calm evening, the clouds rolled in and the cool off began with a nice tropical rain. It's not the kind of rain that just peacefully falls, it drops by buckets. The evening was peaceful, we decided to stay in and eat some of the food we would never finish up. What we don't use, we will leave for Susana or whoever wants it.

... we went to the Red Frog Beach on a preserve island (so there was a $3 each fee to go to the island). The beach was amazing, the best we've seen so far. The water was crystal clear -- water that I was actually happy and willing to swim in because I could see below my feet. We were pretty tired so there was some napping involved on the beach. When I woke Sarah (the teacher from Boston) showed up with another group so I ...

*Dan* (again. sorry!) So we traveled to Bocos Del Toros from Panama City, about an eight hour over night journey with a boat trip at the end. The most memorable part of this (a story we are still getting quite a lot of fun out of 2 weeks later) was an unnamed member of our group going for a poo toward the end of the journey (despite a sign in the toilet expressly forbidding this in spanish) you would hope that mine and Jamesīs spanish was good enough that we would ...

... hub of the Bocas Islands, was great fun. A high speed power boat over beautiful glassy waters taking about 20 mins. Its was damm hot so leaving our Aussie time saviours from the boarder we got supplies and headed over to Isla Bastimento our home for the festivities. Hotel Bastimento confirmed our original fears. Thou admittedly in an absolutely lovely room we were paying far over the odds and there was plenty of space left in the rest of the hotel, let alone, the rest of ...

... another possibility for me?) Taylor - Wise beyond his years 16 year old son of Brian about to start school online (How cool!) Erin - Alaskan DUI perpetrator working in construction in Panama Charlie - London guy who just bought a land on a nearby island Tim - Floridian Boca hotel owner Mature yet outlandish conversation followed and I enjoyed frshly caught lobster Pasta, hot water, internet access, free calls to the US, DVDs all ...

... sells products from all around the world, including German Muesli for less than it would cost in Germany itself. They also produce their own Bocas chocolate bars which are delicious). First we rented to sea kayaks (same as canoes but with no top and wider to be able to go over sea waves easily). It was Veronikas first time paddling in a kayak, and she did wonderfully well without falling off once! We toured the coast of ...