Costa Rica then Panama with a Veer to the Left

April 10, 2010 to August 2, 2010


The Photos


This started out as a response to an e-mail from a couple that I met in Guatemala and has turned into a full fledged blog post, started by me, REALLY polished by Rebecca, elaborated on by me again (ouch, this writing thing is painful), re-polished by Rebecca and then finally published.

OK, it is true we have completely stopped updating the blog.  Neither of us really knew how to get motivated or how to motivate the other to do it.  Once we were behind it seemed impossible to catch up.  We know it is better to live it than blog it, but we find the guilt near the end almost overwhelming (considering that so many wonderful people have wanted to live vicariously through our blog).

So last you saw us we were in Guatemala, but getting ready to leave in the next day or two.

What started out as a leisurely jaunt to Costa Rica, turned into a mad dash as we suddenly realized we might miss the very person we wanted to see.  We made it, but just barely, skipping all of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras.  We did arrange a brief but wonderful stop in San Isidro to CouchSurf the incredible Arine, Pierre and their three month old, Tristan.  The main attraction of Costa Rica was spending time with our friend Boarhead, an added bonus was Hello/Goodbye hugs from Sam since we arrived mere minutes before she left.  BH recently bought into the intentional community Feunte Verde, where he is creating a completely new life for himself, while divesting himself of the bulk of his interests in Dallas.  The community consists of 11 amazingly diverse families (with space for 11 more) attempting to create a sustainable neighborhood.  They are two years into creating this community which I can already see will be wonderful when it is complete.

While there we helped build his composting toilet and cleared some land, in the process rousting out some of the more dangerous critters of Costa Rica, (a Mama Fer-De-Lance and several large scorpions.)  Our final undertaking before Boarhead left was to unearth two massive slabs of rock perfectly situated as the Mother Hearth for his new home.  The inauguration was very exciting as about 30 minutes into the first fire, a shard of rock suddenly exploded upward, spraying us with fire.  No one was hurt but we were all made aware that we are only here because we are allowed to be.  The next night’s community fire performance went off much better, further enhancing the atmosphere BH is creating.  His own slice of paradise at the base of a 1000 foot jungle wall where the monkeys wake you up and put you to bed every night.

After BH headed back to Dallas, for continued life consolidation and a little bit of fun, we just kinda hung out at Feunte Verde.  For quite a while.  Absolutely nothing was pressing us onward and the chance to experience Ayahuacsca, with a Ayahuasquero relocating his group from Brazil to Costa Rica, was certainly enough of a draw to keep us around for a little while.  In the meantime, I unintentionally invited some turbulence into our lives by trying to catalyze the life goals of a truly wonderful Chilean chef.  Despite not reaching the desired end goal, we experienced so many wonderful times over delicious meals with abundant conversation.  We even managed a crazy jaunt to the beach, where I had the pleasure of teaching our chef about fire spinning.  Rebecca would definitely have enjoyed the nighttime beach more if she hadn’t been made so miserable by salt in existing scratched bites being compounded by new biting No-See-Ums, ouch!

*One of my joys in life is to help people do what they want to do, it doesn’t always work out at the time, but I know the ripple effect will create what is to be.  In the end, I always feel the positive energy of at least trying when no one else thinks it’s even possible. 

We wrapped up Costa Rica by participating in a very intimate Ayahuacsca session with Vismay Amrit, his pregnant wife and a close friend of theirs.  The session started and ended around a table full of candles, singing and chanting in Portuguese and English.  As the night progressed, we began a shuffling dance that Rebecca enjoyed but was not the movement that I felt I wanted.  It was probably for the best, however, as it soon became harder and harder to keep focused on the words and movement.  After throwing up twice, I experienced what I would call a slight body buzzing with some doubling of vision, as If I were looking at an old 3D movie without the proper glasses.  It was not the powerful visionary experience we were expecting from the research we had done on this jungle medicine.  Despite my disappointment, I am looking forward to trying it again and it seems there are many opportunities within the United States...

Our rested Costa Rican vibe rapidly evaporated once we got to Panama.  We enjoyed walking aimlessly around, exploring this current slice of the world.  In doing so we reconnected with each other, reminiscent of our days in San Francisco.  However, we began to worry as we started hearing rumors that crossing the Darién Gap was problematic at best.  The little information we found on traveling overland from Panama to Columbia, stated it was both uncommon and unsafe.  The suggested modes of transport were either fly* from Panama City to somewhere in Columbia or take a boat.

*I feel it is important to make note that when we left Dallas, one of our main objectives for the year was that we would NOT use airplanes for transportation.  We also planned to be in Peru by June and somehow never made it.  Despite the regrets I have over these missed obligations, I think the trip has been better from NOT following such arbitrary rules.  We lived and learned, what I feel many people already know ~ You can’t do it all, but you do all that you can.  You never close yourself to opportunities and opportunities arise that you could not have imagined.

We had already been thinking about finding a boat to travel with and work on but nothing had come of our two and a half months of searching.  We priced out both flying and boating while at the same time Rebecca put out a post on CouchSailing, part of the wonderful CouchSurfing network.  Almost immediately we get a response from Mik in Trinidad with an amazing offer.  We find out that flights to Trinidad are only slightly more expensive than the other two ways to leave Panama.  So we book it post haste.

Getting into Trinidad was interesting and shows how trusting Rebecca and I are in the world we find ourselves in.  We were completely prepared to fly 1,200 miles to an unknown place to meet a guy we had only talked to online.  Immigration, however was not nearly as trusting as us.  Since Rebecca is not familiar with International flying, she didn’t know to stay with me through the process.  Despite that, she had no problem getting through, while I was sent back into line to wait.  It helped that she had just enough information on who we were coming to see and eventually immigration called Mik to verify our story.  Finally we were allowed to enter the country and luckily without purchasing the normally required onward flight.

We spent the next month in Chaguaramas, Trinidad living on a boat.  We soon learned that Chaguaramas is very well know amongst the sailing community as a good port for storing and restoring sailing vessels.  It is ideally situated South of the Hurricane Zone and an easy landing spot off the Trade Winds of the Atlantic Ocean.  Our time was split between dry dock and docking in port as we helped get the boat ready for sailing.  It was a very relaxed time for us, as with so many phases in our trip.  We also spent truly interesting times exploring Trinidad and talking to Mik from Denmark, Jessica from the States and Nombuso from South Africa.

Mik was in Trinidad checking out the boat we were working on with the intention of buying into the group (only $15K/person) that co-owns and co-operates the boat, a kind of test run to see if personalities and desires would mesh.  If they did, Mik would spend several more months getting ready for a two year voyage.  We got some neat photos of us painting the entire underside of the boat ... rather artistically if I may say so myself.  After getting the boat in the water early, the rest of the 5 person crew arrived and we soon started on our 7 day trip that turned into only 4 days when the motor on the boat went out and the wind died.  We found ourselves drifting towards Venezuela where it was reported there were pirates!  We all spent the night in watch shifts making sure we didn't drift too close to land or get run over by other boats.  Eventually we got more wind and sailed back as far as we could before getting the boat towed in by essentially a speedboat.

Before we were able to take our sailing trip the Captain (because of the strict 30 day Trinidadian Visa restrictions) required us to have an onward plane ticket.  In continuing to look for the things that would exhilarate Rebecca, I off handedly said "Why don't we go to AMSTERDAM!"  She seemed quite taken with the idea and I knew I had a great group of friends from the Dream-Your-Topia project at Burning Man in 2008.  I also couldn’t wait for her reactions* to a completely new culture.  So again off we fly, further throwing our trip into the chaos of explorations that I think in retrospect has been one of the most amazing elements. 

NO PLANS = Wonderful Adventures

* This trip has largely been inspired by finding the things that bring out the inner light within Rebecca.  I LOVE watching as her face lights up when she encounters something that seems familiar but has just a little bit of a twist in taste, texture or look ... Like Fresh Mangos! WOW, I have to admit it actually pushed some jealousy buttons when I saw the look in her eyes!  Wonderful to see let me tell you! 

We spent an incredible month in Amsterdam. Starting with a couple weeks at Dadara, Thera and little Mundo’s house, all remarkable artist in their own ways.  I spent countless hours watching Dadara paint, reminiscing about past projects, prognosticating about future ones and talking about how to make a living as an artist.  That was followed up by several nights camped on the deck of Martin’s  Voorzanger houseboat on the Amstel, the most wonderful caring man and father I have ever known.  Followed up by renting an apartment from Kamiel Proost with his wonderful art displayed around his space.

I have to say, I really LOVE that city.  I am sure it had a lot to do with the nearly perfect temperatures (after the heat of Trinidad and Central America) and the cherry on top was the complete LACK of mosquitoes.  The two combined allowed us to sleep with the unscreened windows open which was pure BLISS after a month of trying to get air circulation through mosquito netting and the previous month trying to sleep under a fan to keep the beasts at bay and prevent the itches that require scratches.  One of our best days was spent in Vondelpark.  We biked* over, set up a blanket, talked about everything, watched the people and the dogs and the ducks, eventually wandered all over the park, alternating who picked the next direction, climbed all over several sets of amazingly interactive playground equipment and one weirdly wonderful tree, which I later documented in Dadara’s guest book.  We were stunned and impressed to find a park specifically designed to enjoy nature.  Especially, since in Texas, the word park generally means Baseball Diamond, Basketball Court or Soccer Field.

*Amsterdam is BIKES, forget anything else you have heard, go there to be completely immersed in the biking culture.

Having a little over a month before we meet Rebecca's mom in Paris, we were once again floundering on what to do.  We had talked about how much we were both enjoying the experience of biking around Amsterdam and one day Rebecca said "What if we just biked to Paris?"  Since anything she desires to do, I'm immediately completely willing to do, it didn't take too long before the random thought turned into a real live plan.  Rebecca Google searched 'Bike Route Amsterdam to Paris' and sent me the first path she found (she eventually sent me one or two more but I don't think I even looked at them.)  I began trying to see the lay of the land topographically and trying to guess if this crazy girl, who has never biked more than 10 miles at home has any idea what she's getting herself into in the 400+ miles from Amsterdam to Paris.  Fortunately, a large portion of the trail is beside water so that's going to be as easy as 'shoveling sand.'  Rebecca searches on Marktplaats, the CraigsList of the Netherlands, for bikes and finds a matching set for 300 Euro, that we arrange to check out in Purmerend, just a quick train ride away.  In almost no time we outfit ourselves with panniers, tent, sleeping bags and pads, rain pants and a GPS to navigate by.  I know it was hard on Rebecca and you can read the day to day report here: Part 1 and Part 2  That was the most amazing thing to me, once we began biking, Rebecca began writing almost daily.  I couldn't have been happier and wanted to keep her on the bike for a long as possible, just to facilitate that creative burst.

 

This was just about the most wonderful part of our thoroughly fantastic trip.  Holland was super easy, with no hills for at least the first 150 miles.  Eventually we did have to climb some hills that required pushing the bikes, but for the most part we were absolutely fine on our Wal-Mart(esque) bikes with only 6 gears.  Yup, you read that right.  In the end we only needed lower gears for half a dozen places in the entire 3 months we were biking.