Rica Costa Rica

It is said that there are three types of electricity: direct current (DC), alternating current (AC) and pure fucking magic (PFM). I experienced some PFM the other night during our passage from Nicaragua to Costa Rica when the weather unexpectedly turned against us. Despite all the forecasts and initial hours of mild wind and seas on our 20-hour passage, the notorious ´Papagallo´ winds - named for the low-lying land and bay across which they blow, from the Caribbean south to the Pacific - kicked in and started to kick our butts right after midnight. The 35 knot winds brought with them 6-8 foot seas, stacked up steeply on top of each other, making for an uncomfortable and sleepless night.

While ´lying´in bed - really just holding on - I started to notice that on big waves, but not every big wave, some light in my room would come on for just a split second. Never predictable enough for me to wait for it, never on long enough for me to locate it - the best I could do was narrow it down to a corner of the room. But without the light switch on, none of the lights in the room should have been getting power from the DC circuit. Magic, Pure F´ing Magic.

After three hours of abuse and perplexity (as the onboard electrician/plumber/mechanic, I was a little embarrassed about writing it off as magic), it was my turn to go on watch. It wasn´t until the next day that I figured out that the light was coming from inside the closet, which turns on when the closet door is opened (just like a refrigerator light) - so even though the door was latched closed, the boat was crashing into the waves hard enough for the switch behind the door to be activated...damn. In a way, I was sad to find such a rational explanation for the previous night´s mystery light. I´ve been trying to forget it and remember it as PFM - it´s a lot more fun that way.

Despite the abuse we took, the boat pulled through the weather really well - it was good to see that this boat that we´ll soon be taking across an ocean performs well under pressure - the autopilot never faultered and the stabilizers kept us much more stable than we would have been had we been in a sailboat or something smaller.

Now in Costa Rica, I´m poised and ready to head into ´the mountain´tomorrow - bought a small tent and a new camera today - for a night away from the water and other people. I´m looking at a hike and camping in the National Park of El Volcan Rincón de la Vieja - it´ll do me good to get into the clear cool air of the mountains and get my legs moving a bit again.

Pictures coming soon...

Transitions

Since our last post, Emily and I made the long bus ride(s) from beautiful Boquete, Panama, to San Jose, Costa Rica, where we spent one last night together before flying out to our respective destinations. Saying goodbye to Emily was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Over the six months that we had been dating and the three months that we had been traveling, we lived an absolutely fairy tale existence - some of the happiest times I've known. We could only be grateful that, from the beginning, we knew exactly how much time we had together so we knew to appreciate every moment.

It's still hard for me to wrap my head around the reality that I might not see her for over two years, but that's a fact that I'm slowly getting used to. Emily leaves for Senegal today where she'll go through three months of language and skills training before entering into her village and home for the next many months - keep track of what's going on with her through her new blog: undersenegalskies.blogspot.com And hopefully she'll check in here every now and then as well. She's in for a wild adventure there with the Peace Corps, for sure, and I can't be more proud of her for the good work that she'll be doing.

So, sans my travel companion and friend, the adventure goes on...albeit with and entirely different purpose. After a month spent in Puerto Vallarta with friends Tom and Nicole and kids - with daily boatwork, margaritas and beach volleyball - I'm now on a 55-foot motor yacht, named Khushiyan (Hindi for happiness), steaming down the Central American coast bound for Cocos Island, the Galapagos and eventually the Marquesas and Tahiti.

I'll say that this ride is the most comfortable I've had since we left San Diego - I have my own stateroom with a queen-size bed, air conditioning, TV and DVD player, I-pod docks all over the place and the boat is tricked out with stabilizers (for making the ride smoother), the latest in navigational equipment, a night-vision camera for night watches, and more things than I know how to deal with. It's nice.

I'll also say that I'm slightly terrified of being on a boat with no sails, in the event that we run out of fuel or the two engines somehow fail, gawd forbid. We do have two satellite phones, though, in case of anything like that, so I'm not really fearing for my life. It's more a psychological barrier for me to get over...but also keep in mind.

From Acapulco, where I met this boat, we have made it to Guatemala where we're taking five days to travel inland - a welcome break from all the water and open horizons. I'm glad to be getting the chance to see the color and beauty of the place - the markets, the people, the land. We're seeing Antigua, one of the early Spanish capitals of Guatemala, ruined in the 17oo's by earthquakes, and now a still very European-looking, well put-together town, Chichicastenango and it's markets, and Lake Atitlan. There was also a climb to the near-top of a nearby volcano to see (from 15 feet away!!) flowing red-hot lava - pretty surreal.

From here, it's on to Nicaragua on Monday and then to Costa Rica by the end of the week. I'm doing well and hope you're all the same. Check back in soon to catch photos from the last several weeks...coming soon.

Final Days in Panama

With our time in Panama coming to a close, we've decided to settle in (a relative term during this kind of travel) for a short week in the Western Highlands town of Boquete to relax together before going our separate ways at the end of the month. This has afforded us some time to reflect on all the places we've been and to appreciate the number and diversity of the people, communities, and landscapes that we've met along the way. Since our last word, we reunited with Emily's close college friends, got some more time in Barrigon (Kayla's Peace Corps site), ventured deep into the surrounding jungle and emerged to timidly step foot onto the dance floor of a Panamanian music party.

With a smile on his face, Ben endured some serious girl-talk time in Panama City before Emily, Kayla, Katherine, and Micaela headed to the remote San Blas Islands for a New Year's weekend. With slackline and hula hoops in tow, the ladies brought the circus to their tiny island, which took no more than two minutes to circumnavigate on foot. While they practiced their tricks, they got the thirty or so international travelers -- hailing from England, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, the Netherlands, Mexico, Venezuela, and Argentina -- to join in. The excursion provided plenty of time for swimming, snorkeling, sunbathing and, most importantly, long-awaited quality time amongst best friends.

Micaela hoopin' on the San Blas beach:

After a couple more days in the city, we bussed back to Kayla's house in Barrigon for some time in her hammocks. Of note during our time there was an extended visit to the town's own master woodworker and his shop. Completely engineered and built by himself, Fernando's shop is set up at the bottom of a small waterfall. All his tools -- table saw, hand saw, drill press, lathe -- are handmade by him and powered by nothing but the falling water itself. He can, and does, build just about everything, from rocking chairs to window frames to sugar cane presses. We caught him in the process of making stacks and stacks of perfectly uniform, detailed bed posts and other bunkbed parts. He then allowed us to squeeze our own sugar cane juice in his homemade press -- what a sweet treat!

Six Puget Sound Loggers in Panama City:

Ben, Emily, Katherine, Kayla, Micaela, Molly

Fernando's water-powered workshop:

Fernando using the lathe to make bedposts:

Pressing sugar cane into juice:

Then . . . things got wild. After consulting with Kayla and some local geography experts, we (Ben, Emily, Katherine) embarked upon a trip unlike any we had done before. With two good maps, a sketchy itinerary (at best), a short list of helpful names, a couple of bags of rice, and a lack of certainty of the trail ahead, we began our multi-elemented trek from Kayla's house, through the jungled mountains all the way to the Caribbean Coast. Promptly, we ran into mud and didn't emerge from it for two full days. Often knee-deep and occasionally close to tears, we also took time to appreciate the gorgeous scenery and pristine jungle constantly surrounding us.

On the morning of Day Three, we awoke in the tiny community of Calle Larga to the good news that the owner of the only motorized boat in town was able to scrounge together enough gasoline from his neighbors to make the three-hour trip downriver to the coast. Our relief quickly turned to terror when it dawned on us that the leaking (like a seive) twenty-foot wooden canoe would be carrying us over winding Class II rapids. As the boat bounced off rocks and the frail planks made audible hints of splitting, we bailed water frantically while the hired helper up front fended us off boulders using his long wooden stick. Miraculously, we arrived at the coast, unharmed, in the small town of Belén.

The next morning, finally dried out and confident in our boat-riding abilities, we boarded a slightly sturdier boat to head west down the coast. As we were leaving town and pointing directly at several rows of large breaking waves, however, our confidence was shattered when our boat driver yelled over the engine noise to ask if we knew how to swim. Minutes later, drenched with spraying saltwater, we were able to release our white-knuckle grips on eachother and enjoy the cliffs, jungles and sandy beaches that made up the coastline.

Day 5, at last, was less harrowing than the previous four. We walked (strolled, sometimes) along the coastline that alternated between sandy beach and forested trail (pleasantly reminiscent of Washington´s Olympic Coast). Day 6 brought our return to civilization, but not before another scary boat ride up another river, five more hours of trudging through mud, and a truck ride up and down steep gravelly roads and across seventeen (we were counting) streams and through four large, deep, rushing rivers.

Oh yeah, and we forgot to mention that it had rained torrentially upon us for a good part of the last six days. Hence the mud. And the rivers crossing the road. And the absence of a single piece of dry clothing between the three of us. This just made our arrival at the hostel (with warm showers, cold beer and clean, dry, comfortable and insect/flea-free beds) that much better.

While our account here might sound a bit nightmarish, we actually had a lot of fun and reflected most nights on how lucky we were to experience a chunk of Panama that is, unfortunately, missed altogether by most outsiders. Along the way, we met an incredible set of people - people who guided us, gave us directions, took us in, cooked for us, and helped us in a number of other ways. Most days we would enter a village totally unsure of where to go and how to reach our next destination, and within 15 minutes we would find a family to stay with, someone to prepare our rice and lentils, and a good lead on how we would proceed the following day. The experience as a whole was unforgettable.

Ben's feet covered with ruin-your-socks mud:

Katherine and Emily at the end of Day 2 - Notice the thigh-high mud stains:

Emerging from a mud pit:The boat and drivers that took us down the river and over the rapids:
Crossing the mouth of a river on the coast:
Crossing back over the same river the following day, this time at high-tide:
A jungle path along the coast:
Ben and Katherine walking the shoreline:
Katherine and Emily:

In the days following the trip, the three of us reunited with Kayla and spent some time on the dry, sunny, warm Pacific Coast. We also got a chance to go to a "baile," a traditional music concert/dance. Luckily for us, this particular baile was hosted by two of the most reknowned accordion players in Panama, along with their respective bands and their personal yodelling/yelping accompianists. The dancing, made up of hundreds of aggressively-shuffling couples of all ages, continued until dawn. We tried our hand and quickly became the spectacle of the cement dance floor, but we were only able to last until 4 a.m.

With all that adventure behind us, we said a tearful goodbye to Emily's friends and headed here to Boquete, a beautiful mountain town with lots to do and see. We've been glad to be able to slow down and enjoy each other's company for these last few days.

Since arriving in Boquete, we have:

Strolled through an impressively-landscaped garden, adorned with kitschy wooden babes:

Learned about the "bean-to-bag" process of coffee farming:

Cruised around on rented mountain bikes:

Gotten Ben's hair cut:

Toured the countryside on a scooter:

And hiked to a hidden waterfall with a perfect picnic spot.

But don't be fooled -- we've spent the bulk of our time here playing cards and sipping locally-grown coffee.

So what's next? Together, we'll take a bus over the border to San Jose, Costa Rica, where we both have flights to catch. Emily flies out on Tuesday; she'll return to Los Angeles and work on preparing to leave for Senegal, where she'll be a Peace Corps Volunteer starting on March 10th. Ben flies to Mexico to rejoin the crew of Ohana to help them make the return back up north for a month before boarding a 55-foot motoryacht headed for the Galapagos Islands.

Catch-Up Photos

A few photos to catch up...

Here we are in the Panama Canal about to cross below the beautiful Centennial Bridge

Emily driving the boat through Gatun Lake - maintain course and speed!

Ben waves to fellow cruisers transitting the canal, in the large Lake Gatun

Emily holding the port sternline taught in the Gatun Locks - she´s got nerves of steel to maintain her job with that huge cargo ship so close behind

Ben lounging at his post at the bow, enjoying his view down towards the Caribbean below, waiting for the water level to start dropping in the middle chamber of the Gatun Locks

Ben getting his first view of ´sea level´since entering the Canal seven hours before - the large steel chamber doors swing open to release us onto the Caribbean side

A top-down view of Barrigon, the community in which our friend Kayla lives and works for the Peace Corps

Emily and Kayla on the front porch of Kayla´s home - complete with electricity and running drinkable water...and cat and spiders and preying mantises (manti?) and loads of neighbor kids

Ben, Kayla and Kayla´s neighbor Julien at his farm, about a 30 minute walk up the valley. Julien´s crops include: oranges, yuca (a starchy root vegetable), beans, peppers, spinach-like greens, coffee beans and more

Kayla leading a community course on nutrition and well-balanced meals...´a little more vegetables, a little less rice´

Us with Kayla and friends, Brooke and Donny, with our giant cacoa harvest - each of these pods houses twenty or so cacoa beans which are removed, left to ferment for a few days, dried, roasted, and then ground into a powder, sometimes mixed with sugar to make a tasty dark-chocolate treat...a bit of work, but totally worth it!

Salomon and his family in front of their house - we hiked seven hours in to the Omar Torrijos Herrara National Park near Barrigon to meet and stay with them as well as hire Salomon to guide us to the beautiful Tife Water Falls

Their house, perched on a knoll, is part of the six-family community of Caño Sucio inside the national park...look close, it´s there

Emily on a treacherous bridge crossing en route to Caño Sucio

Ben getting schooled by Emmanuel, age 7 - Salomon´s oldest son

Emily and friends Katherine, Kayla and Micaela - bursting onto Panama for a raucous New Year´s Reunion

For more photos, check out Kayla´s blog: http://kaylainpanama.blogspot.com/

A Big Canal and a Little Village

Our arrival in Panama on December 9th seemed to designate the start of "Phase II" of this Great Adventure. We've regained our landlegs and, for the first time since leaving San Diego, stayed off boats for more than a week!

An adventure in itself was our passage through the Panama Canal on the 11th. It was a thrilling experience, and probably one of the most memorable of our entire trip -- not just in the sheer awesomeness of the processes, people, and moving parts of the Canal, but also in the opportunity to be part of a extraordinarily impressive system that has functioned continuously and flawlessly for nearly a century. In case you missed us on the live web cam, we made the eight hour transit under the adept direction of our assigned Transit Director, Robin, with Ben controlling the port bow line, Emily at the port stern line, and two hired linehandlers taking care of our starboard. The first stage of the transit, called "uplocking," involves a series of three chambers, each of which successively brings the boat to the height of the next chamber by rapidly filling with water; our job as linehandlers is to maintain tension on the lines connecting our boat to the massive concrete walls, thus keeping the boat in the center of the chamber and a safe distance from the 800 ft. cargo ship that is only about 20 ft. in front of us in each of the chambers.

After uplocking, we arrive at Gaturn Lake, 85 ft. above sea level, which takes about three hours to motor across. For the downlocking portion, which starts at the end of the lake, we were in front of a Japanese container ship -- its 40 ft.-tall bow towered over our little catamaran; its anchor dangled perilously over Emily's head. Downlocking, which also takes place in three successive chambers, is a bit less physically strenuous for us linehandlers than is uplocking, since it involves letting tension out on the four lines as the water level drops.

Back at sea level at the end of the day, the giant metal gates of the final chambers opened up before us, leading us straight onto the Caribbean Sea. From there, it was a few days cleaning Escapade at the Caribbean-side marina, a bus ride back to Panama City, and a few days exploring and eating our way through the metropolis of the capitol before escaping for the beauty of Barrigon.

This secluded mountain community is home to one of Emily´s closest friends, Kayla, who has been our hostess with the mostess for the last five days. Kayla is a Peace Corps volunteer who, during our time here, has been working with the community on edible garden plots, nutrition-related education, fuel conservation/efficient wood-burning stoves, and a variety of other endeavors too numerous to name. Kayla has integrated herself into the community in a truly admirable way, and the people of Barrigon have a mutual love and respect for her.

We have been indirect beneficiaries of this work and trust -- at just about every turn of the forested paths, we are greeted wtih a smile and "Buenos Dias." We have been readily welcomed into every family home we have visited and to every community event, including a raucous end-of-the-year school fiesta and a First Communion ceremony.

We´re having such a good time that we don´t want to leave! We´ll spend one more night in Kayla´s beautiful little house, and from there journey into the National Park that is a six hour trek up the road from Barrigon. We´ll spend Christmas in Panama City with Kayla and another dear friend, Micaela. From there... who knows?

Happy holidays! We wish everyone happiness and good health in the last days of 2009.

Canal Transitting

Tomorrow, Friday the 11th, we transit the Panama Canal. It's kind of a big deal. If you're interested, you can catch us on live web cam (okay, it's more like still shots updated every few minutes) at http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html sometime during the day.

On the site, you'll see options to view several cameras placed at strategic places throughout the transit. The order by which we'll pass each will be: Miraflores Locks, Centennial Bridge, and Gatun Locks. We'll begin our trip sometime around 7am East Coast time and will probably be to the Caribbean side sometime between the afternoon and the evening - but due to the unpredictability of the transit schedule, it's impossible to say where we'll be at any given time. So be hip and take the whole day off to watch us on this momentous journey. Or check in every now and again and try to get lucky - we'll be the big catamaran sitting in the middle of the locks, hopefully not getting run over by a 900 foot container ship.

We're really excited - wish us luck!

We Have Arrived

Pictures from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama:

Kayak-bound Mangrove exploration near Puesta del Sol (Nicaragua)

Loungin´ Aboard Escapade Under a Full Main and Genoa:

Morning reading spot on Escapade (Otto, the autopilot, takes care of the driving most the time)

Ben and Boat-Dog Nash in Costa Rica´s Spectacular Bahia Santa Elena

Ben harvests coconuts in Las Perlas:

Emily enjoys the harvest:

Our cabin porthole - not a bad view to wake up to, eh?

Ben and Emily, Survivors of a different sort

Emily casting for the big lunker...end result: skunked!

Our own private island for a day: Isla San Bartolomé in Las Perlas:

Well, not quite literally - it´s hard to ´arrive´when your final destination is ambiguous, at best. But figuratively, we´ve totally made it. After our taxing, nearly nonstop passage from Nicaragua, we have reached Panama and are preparing for our transit through the Canal, scheduled for Friday. As a reward for our quick pace, we spent a few days relaxing in Las Perlas Islands in the Bay of Panama, about 50 miles southeast of Panama City and the Canal.

During a trip with no defined final goal, these islands were about as close as it comes to fulfilling our images of what we were looking forward to when we started this crazy hare-brained adventure. Las Perlas are the embodiment of the idyllic tropical scene - small, barely-inhabited islands covered with palm trees and ringed by white sand. Fresh coconut water is ample...for anyone willing to shimmy up a tree, knock loose a coconut, smash it on a rock, painstakingly pry it open and get doused and splashed with its leaking juice in the process of reaching the remaining tablespoon of water - there are plenty of coconuts; our energy is the limiting factor. The rest of our days are spent enjoying the fine sand, the big blue sky with corresponding big red sunsets, the warm water and - with the help of snorkel and fins - the myriad fish, rocks, and coral formations beneath the surface. No wonder ABC (NBC?) chose these islands to film the Survivor series a few years ago.

And now in Panama City (anchored beneath the historic ´Bridge of the Americas´) we are seeing more human bodies than we´ve seen since leaving Los Angeles a month and a half ago - talk about sensory overload! If all goes as planned, we will transit the Canal (three locks up, across huge Lake Gatun, three locks down to the ´other side´) this Friday, the 11th; Escapade will tie up to the dock for Christmas and we´ll go ahead on our own way, wherever that may lead. Stay tuned in the next day or so for more complete details on the transit - you may be able to watch us on a live video stream.