Ella Tienefe...She Has Faith

Happy Birthday to our new neice, Ella Tienefe Mikal! Great name. We are celebrating your arrival today in the beautiful city of Cartagena, Colombia! We've decided to bring you and your big sister here when you're old enough. So, Congratulations Danny and Chas! We're so happy for you and so proud of our growing family!
As a side note: we need the Mikal Jr's phone number (email it to us, don't post it as a comment)

Ok... so we sailed to Colombia. Hazaa! Three weeks in Panama and now we are in Cartegena -- a colorful colonial city on the Caribbean coast. But let's back up and fill in the missing three weeks with a quick update...
From David, Panama we travelled via a long and uncomfortable bus ride to Panama City -- which everyone in Panama simply calls "Panama" as opposed to Ciudad de Panama, very confusing. There are a few different kinds of indigenous indians in both Costa Rica and Panama. They are allowed to travel freely between the countries but they appear (to us) to be on the receiving end of some discrimination (for all the boasting we hear of how progressive Central America is). I (Scott) traded seats with an indian woman on the bus who was removed from her comfy seat and forced to sit on a stool, although she was on the bus much earlier than many others.
We spent four lovely days in Panama City in a nice hotel with Uber-air-conditioning, watching episodes of Law and Order, eating Lebanese food, and with considerable shame, Dominos Pizza. We also got a dose of the US elections insanity on CNN. It was a nice treat for the crazy hot temperatures on the Pacific coast... much warmer than the mountains of Costa Rica. I liked all the graphics and reporting on CNN for the elections, it reminded me of John Madden explaining with a completely straight face about the supposed detailed intentions and strategies of a bunch of helemeted pituitary freaks jumping into a giant body pile on a the 30 yard line somewhere. X's and O's being guided around on a sreen with an invisible pen. Statistics and historical material and maps of blantanly, racially driven, redrawn districts in Texas. And yet all the same old white guys with clean Blue Blood last names.
I can hear the speeches now. "We will change nothing, and stick with this President and his honest and virtuous war" ... or ... "We will call this administration into accountability and grind this government to a halt for the next two years". Yeah for America.
I'm sure it will continue to be embarrassing...
So in Panama City (nice place, big and cosmopolitan) Annie and I began to research diffrent travel options to South America. For those of you who don't know -- there is no road between Colombia and Panama, not even the semblance of one. We knew this beforehand and had written Colombia off as a place that we had no intentions of travelling. Full of kidnappings and drug smugglers just like our the State Dept. says on it's website. (The State Dept's basic advice to American travellers is: everywhere and everyone is evil and corrupt, if you travel outside of this paradise you will probably die, why don´t you just take a weeks vacation at Universal Studios?) Anyway, we discovered flights to be expensive to Quito, Ecaudor and elswhere in South America except for Bogota, Colombia. We then researched other options, went to the Panama City Yacht Club (someone said they could take us by sail in December when the winds were better) and to the Cargo Docks for a cargo boat (which looked simply too sketchy) and then found out about a German sailboat that was leaving from somewhere on the northern coast of Panama east of Colon, in about a week... it would take 15 passengers for around the same price to fly -- $250 per person -- not terrible. We set out from the city to Portobelo, Panama on the Caribbean coast with a contact number to call to find out where and when exactly, because this boat was still at sea and out of communication. So we hung out in Portobello for two days, a rowdy Caribbean town with good spicy seafood, met some great Koreans and a Japanese guy trying the same thing as us. Finally we heard from our contacts that the German boat would be some 80 miles down the coast -- 40 miles of which we bused, stayed a night in a coastal ville called Miramar, and then took a wooden launch piloted by three Kuna indians from the San Blas Islands. 40 miles through open and somewhat rough seas to Porvenir, one man at the motor, one fishing, and the other perpetually bailing water from the leaking boat. Porvenir island is the capital of the northeasten most province of Panama -- I think called Kuna Yala. Maybe 15 people lived on the island. It had a single hotel, an airstrip about a hundred yards away and an immigration office. We stayed there for three days, one on a neighboring Kuna island (due to some shady hustling by a local [failed hustling]), one night at the Porvenir Motel, and one night on this beautiful tropical island sleeping in hammocks under a cabana... The next morning out of the misty rain on the sea materialized the Stahlratte; "the Steel Rat". 120 feet long, 103 years old, rusty, sails reefed and down, in the fog, it looked every bit a ghost ship. We were met by the captain Feite (Peter) at immigrations and motored out to the ship.
The next five days were fantastic. There was a total of 19 people aboard -- 16 travellers and 3 crew, and two motorcycles. There were four Americans, us and two girls from Oregon, three Kiwi, one Australian, one Austrian, four germans, two brits, two italians, one dutch woman, a frenchman, and a partridge in a pear tree. We had four awesome days of sailing, swimming, drinking, barbecuing, jumping off the huge boat, swinging like pirates, getting mildly seasick and more than mildly sunburned. We played crazy guitar, watched movies, cooked huge meals together, battled with the single hand-pump toilet, learned how to sail a tiny bit, read a book each (not as impressive as the Australian Penny's five and a half books). Best of all was the snorkeling. I snorkeled three days, one day for three hours on the reefs surrounding the 300 plus San Blas Islands. So fun. A couple people got stung by jellyfish, and one of our friends saw some hammerhead sharks. Goodtimes. Our last day was spent steaming (no wind) to Cartagena for nearly 40 hours straight. We had more fun than should be allowed.
So we are in this historic Spanish colonial city, a favorite target for pirates since the 1500's. Last night we got together with everyone from the boat, now scattered across the city, for pizza and drinks. Colombia by the way is very safe and friendly, with well travelled places needing only the basic precautions we would use travelling anywhere. (like Chicago, or Denver...) Cartagena is the most beautiful city we have seen yet and we are still slowly considering which direction to take next. Hugs all around...We miss you!

Exclusive Teen

We made it into Panama! we're in David, Panama right now...the border crossing was fairly painless. Except that today is Panama's Independance Day. Turns out that we're doing a Tour of Central American Independance Days! Which is fine...but the banks are all closed. So we've been thwarted again in our mission to exchange dollars for local tender. The one thing we do have going for us is that the Panamanian currancy...the balboa...is really just dollars. seriously. everyone here just has pockets full of American dollars. I mean i get some balboa in change (and it looks identical to pennies, quarters, etc.) and the exchange rate is actually pretty comprable. We are both confused.
Anyway, so far the consensus is that Panama is a bit more sophisticated than Costa Rica. They actually have a highway - like an interstate. We even saw strip malls and subdivisions outside of David. It looked a bit like Florida. That is until we got to our hotel. It's about to fall down. I mean, it looks big and has a restaurant in it and all, but I'm afraid I'm going to fall through the floor (which is on an extreme slope). And I can't explain why, but the shower felt like I was closing myself in to a refrigerator. (anyway, it only cost us $8.00).
So fear not! Panama is a success!

We think you should name the new baby...

OH, Lo siento. it´s been a while, and I´m feelin´ my mom´s anxiety all the way in Southern Costa Rica. Seriously, though...we´re fine...we stayed at El Jardin until last weekend. Scott finished the kitchen counter project just in time for the arrival of a Medical team from the US. Our dear friends now have their hands full with organizing a bunch of Americans, so we´ve moved on to the beach! We spent a day in transit in San Isidro de General, and then three days at the Playa Dominical. it was absolutely beautiful! I´m really sorry we still can´t put pictures on here cause ya´ll would be jealous! Dominical is a really small surfer town. Just one little dirt road strip along the beach. But the waves are enormous, the water´s really warm and tropically, and the beach is velvety sand (very unlike the crabby, gooey beaches we saw in Washington...sorry Jeff, the tropics are prettier- and they don´t smell as bad)
Last night we stayed in a less touristy beach town- Uvita- very small, very pleasant. Then there was some confusion with the Lonely Planet explanations of where there are banks and such...what it boiled down to was that we had to get on a bus this morning with only about $5 worth of colones, and search for a bank. Then we missed our bus stop...Then we ended up 17km away from Panama (we´re in the town of Neily)...Then by the time we ate and found a place to stay tonight, the banks were all closed. So, we´ve decided that instead of trying to exchange all our money into colones...Why not just go to Panama?
Sounds like we´re flying by the seat of our pants? um...maybe a little. So... we´d appreciate your best wishes, prayers, energy channeling...as we attempt our first border crossing tomorrow. Should be fun.
But seriously...we´re finding it much easier (dispite all of our "mistakes")to get around now that we can use some basic spanish. It´s amazing how easy it is now to understand "The bank´s closed"!! We´re having a good time, and keeping in good spirits. I think we´ve got a little travel bug, now that we´re up and moving again. For now the plan is to keep moving, until we decide to stop. sound good?
Oh, and for all you who tend to worry, and are threatening to call the US embassy...Scott says that if we get kidnapped, you´ll know. Because they´ll call you looking for a ransom. (i.e. we´re afraid to make promises in case we can´t find a place with the internet -- please stop worrying, we are fine)
Well, we certainly did miss out on Halloween. we celebrated by taking a sunset stroll on the beach. Oh, and eating the best Thai food I´ve ever had. Seriously, I can´t explain how good it was. We looked into flights from San Jose to Thailand.

Kay, Love you all! and Happy November!

P.S. We think you should name the new baby Muey...but not anything to do with Guns n´Roses... (it was a dream I had...I can explain later)

And I forgot my camera!!

So, I'm a jerk for not getting this whole thing on video for y'all, but Scottie's dream came true. He actually participated in a Football Salon game this week! It was Team Gringo vs. A Bunch of Old Ticos. (Scott was on team gringo, obviously). There were three Americans, Two Dutchmen, and a German (all in their mid-twenties to early thirties). Oh, and of course, Adrian...he's Tico, but a practicing Gringo. He arranged the whole match, and he assured scott that the other team was all over 50, so not too worry about being too humiliated. Turns out, it was a pretty close game, 16 to 14. The Ticos won. Obviously.
It was a very spirited game, yet managed to remained respectable. (As opposed to another game we saw where the goalee was strangled and thrown off the field by his own teammate. He deserved it.) Scott played goalie in the end, blowing the game and right before the buzzer took a shot directly to the face. What a loser.
I didn't write that. Scott did.

So we've got the weekend housesitting for the Babcocks (Amber and Nathan). We're enjoying the use of a real kitchen and a DVD player! It has made Scott nostalgic for Colorado. And I think we just got roped into another awkward social situation tonight. A double date with a Tico couple...they speak no english, and our spanish has quickly deteriorated since we stopped taking classes last week. It should be interesting.

El Jardin de Eden

Hey team, we´re sorry we haven´t posted in a couple of weeks. Let´s see, where we left off before was with some folks from the US that had joined us at language school. That was three (plus) weeks ago. Turns out now we are living with those Americans so to speak.
A quick synapsis. During the last two weeks of school, Annie learned Spanish and I got progessively dumber. She now does most of my communication for me. I´m exaggerating only a bit.
The Americans we met were missionaries. Two couples. Nathan and Amber and Rick and Judith. Amber and Nathan are the same ages as Annie and I respectively. Rick and Judith are in their fifties. Rick is a non-denominational pastor, Judith is a clinical psychologist, Amber is a nurse, and Nathan is an administator... They arrived in Orosi after we had been here a week. Nathan and Amber are the directors of a place called El Jardin Segrado (The Sacred Garden), which is a retreat center for Tico (Costa Rican) churches from all over the country as well as a base for medical missions to indigenous natives that live in remote mountain reservations in Costa Rica. Both couples are establishing permanent residence here and are basically reviving this slightly dilapitated place which thier mission agency just recently bought. Annie and I now live in the Garden which is aptly named. I think I have eaten more fruit off trees here in one week than I have in the past six months. To give you an idea of what is there: bananas, manzana agua (water apples, they look like red pears), three kinds of oranges, two kinds of lemons, one sweet, grapefruit, guayaba (gauva), chiyote (I couldn´t begin to describe this), cass and frutas (I´m pretty sure most of you have never seen these two diffent crazy kinds of fruits), coffee plants (of course), two kinds of platanos (plantains), etc. It also has a pool all in about four acres. Hmm, you are asking what are we doing here... I must back up.
I mentioned Marjorie, my language teacher. Margoth was Annie´s teacher. They have become some of our closest friends in town along with this other Tico, currently a coffee picker, named Adrian, who´s 24. During our three weeks of classes, we learned about a huge landslide in Orosi that killed 7 people 4 years ago. A week after this slide, the river flooded (Rio Rentevazon, it´s pretty huge) and destroyed an important bridge. The replacement bridge is a cable suspension walking bridge about two persons wide and I´d say nearly five hundred feet long. In the bouncing center of the bridge, you are probably sixty feet above the roaring river over rapids which turn insane muddy brown when it rains (which is nearly every day-- down the road is a National Park which is tied with the rainiest place on earth). Anyway, Orosi is on one side of the bridge, and the Jardin is on the other, so we cross it often. If we can ever get pictures to upload, we will post some photos.
Later I learned this landslide (you can still see it), destroyed Marjorie´s family´s house and killed her mother, her sister, and her brother. Yeah. Marjorie lives in an apartment in town, with two kids and her spouse. They are trying to build a little house.
I offered to help her family (free) if I could, which cannot afford contractors, only materials. (of which they are waiting on a loan from the government). She later told her other students whom were the new missionaries in town - they thought it was nice that we offered to help, so they offered the Garden as a place to stay. Turns out the Garden needs a contractor bad, so this last week Annie and I together have built a simple outdoor kitchen and demolished part of an interior kitchen that needs to serve over a hundred people. I have already built a couple of tables with found materials, there are counters to be contructed, tile, a new sink, etc. In return for our work Annie I live in this huge nice white house on the Garden. Across the way lives Robert, a 19 yr old Panamanian guy in his own yellow cabin. He is the groundskeeper, and the secretary I think. We´ve been meeting neighbors, fixing various things, reading books, having dinners with people, exploring and having a great time. We even watched the new X men movie on Nathan´s laptop, we rented it from a video store in Orosi. It appeared to be a bootleg of someone taping the movie in a theater with french subtitles. You could see people walking in the theater.
Last week our friend Adrian took me to a video bar. This is a bar where they show music videos simultaneously on a bunch of TVs and a projector. The best part is that Ticos LOVE 80's music. While there I saw a local Salon Football player...
Futbal Salon? Side Note: Salon Football is this a Latin American type of indoor soccer. In Orosi there is a free arena where there are games every afternoon and night...always. This game is awesome to behold. The court, of artificial grass, is maybe 5% larger than a basketball court. It is completey covered in nets. The game is a like a cross of soccer and basketball. To slow the speed of the game down, the ball is much smaller than a typical soccer ball and maybe four times as heavy. This game is crazy. fast-paced, high scoring, the players (five on five plus two goalies in little nets) as in basketball -can foul out. It also reminds me of hockey, lot´s of brutal plays and injuries, fights... I am totally addicted. They have a special type of leg pumping they employ when a player get a the ball in the chest at high peed. In fact this internet cafe is inside the Orosi Futbal Salon arena. We´ve been catching games occasionally, especially some final matches. It makes sense that this indoor game is so popular in a place that rains so often.
So anyway I saw one of the players and I told him good game on Domingo (Sunday). He was so excited a gringo had recognized him he invited me to his brother´s wedding the next week. The wedding was nice, it was at the Catholic church in Orosi which is 400 years old. The reception was the night before. Very fun. Adrian let me borrow nice clothes and his mother found Annie a pair of heels. We also went to Tico birthday party. Yes, they have piñatas in Costa Rica.
Yesterday Margoth hiked with us up into the mountains to a little Cafe Finca, (coffee farm) owned by a great guy called Nano. We went to a catarata (waterfall), swung like Tarzan on a vine, cooked food in his kitchen, and fed his dogs bananas. Good times. We have been in Orosi for over a month now, reluctant to leave... we know many people in town and we feel like part of the community. We are in some ways no longer tourists.
Okay, we´ll nip it here... we love you all.

AARRGH! It´s National Talk Like a Pirate Day!!

So...photos....Yeah, I know it´s been promised, but i´m currently experiencing some difficulties in formatting? Is that a viable excuse?
In the mean time, the quick update is that we´re still in Orosi, and we´ve committed to another 2 weeks of Spanish classes. Our teachers are awesome, and i´m not just saying that because Marjorie (Scott´s teacher) is sitting next to me. We really like this little town in the mountains.
This week we´ve been joined by a bunch of Americans. Which, obviously, everyone in this hemisphere is American, so we find ourselves at a bit of an identity crisis when trying to describing our nationality. So, to clarify what i was saying, this week we´ve joined by a bunch of United Statesians. There are three guys, all traveling independently, and a couple who just moved to Orosi (they´ve been missionaries in Holland and Belgium for the past 20 years, but are from California).
so, we really haven´t gotten out much. We study often. And I think we´ve already learned a lot in our first week here. Scott does a Frankenstien style of communication, and that gets him pretty far. I´m a bit more timid (not surprising) but at least starting to understand what´s going on around me.
Oh, and there´s a restaurant in town that has the Best Burgers in America (and I mean ALL of America) for only $1.00!! So, that´s where we´re going right now! mmm. so good...

Orosi & the curious incident of how I shouted; "wrong-eyed Jesus!"

Ok, I robbed Jim White of that title. (folk artist)
So team, we're in a central valley pueblo known as Orosi. This place is a much needed change from San Jose... which was beginning to wear on us (Scott). It's probably 4000 people in this little mountain valley. We are enrolled in language school, and we just completed our second day. We found a great deal, in a great place. It's nice and quiet here and off the traveller's circuit. It is also monsoon(rainy) season here, which helps.
So Annie and I are staying at a hostel called Montania Linda, which we love. The place is empty save for two Dutch girls (who speak perfect English, German, French, Polish, and of course Dutch... and soon Spanish). There's also a Frenchman here named Lorenzo, who is a perfect French version of Lewis Smirl. Seriously, it's creepy. He is ridiculously intense in every mannerism. We love him. He has been travelling in Latin America for over a year.
Our classes are three hours a day, one on one with our own teachers (Margoth y Marjorie). Much of our time in the next three weeks will be studying and practicing Spanish. The school and the hostel are owned by the same family.
On my birthday we paid a driver, along with our friends from Holland, to take us to the top of Volcano Irazu which is the tallest active volcano in Costa Rica. We were suprised to find a crazy green caldera (lake) at the top. It was practically fluorescent. Hopefully we can post some photos soon.
Happy Birthday to Mark and Judy of course...
Thank you all for your comments, keep them coming. Mamas we miss you - Amy you are hilarious, we are so jealous of your time with Amora... punk.
It's time for a run with Lewis substitue, Loro (Lorenzo)... Adios.

Titulo; perspectivo!

Hey team.
Turrialba was a nice mini version of San Jose. Kind of a hub mountain town. This country is a hurricane of activity - or at least it seems that way on foot. Even if it´s a pouring monsoon rain, Ticos (Costa Ricans) are everywhere doing everything on foot themselves. They would probably think a place like I-80 in los Estados Unidos was a similar frenzy.
We took a bus up further in the mountains one day and checked out a pre-Columbian ruin. It had aqueducts feeding some pools and irrigation canals that were built around 1400AD and were still working. Remember ya´ll - they didn´t have the wheel.
Annie and I are trying to find a spanish program\school. We have some great leads. We´ve been here a week now and have learned much (espagnol- see!) on our own. We truly know that is our primary goal here. We don´t have much of a desire to ´adventure seek´ just yet. We haven´t even been to the coast yet- we just want to communicate so badly. Why do anything if you can´t do that? This place is not simply mountains, jungle, coast etc. -- it´s a people. We want to know them foremost.
Hey we miss you all. Glad we can communicate like this.

P.S. Anybody want to get a new perspective on how great and humanitarian America is? read Understanding Power: the Indespensible Chomsky. For those of you who don´t like politics, don´t worry- it´s more history.

San Jose and Socrates

So, after a super-chill weekend here at the Tranquilo Backpacker Hostel...with its reggae music blaring into the wee hours of the night and its Oreo Cookie theives...We're heading out.
We're going to catch a bus to a small town about 2 hours east of San Jose...Tarriabla.

Our Spanish is still non-existent, so sorry, Beth...I have no idea what you said! pretty bad, huh? Scott's actually researching spanish schools as we speak. I'm trying to learn what I can from a small phrase book we have.

In the mean time, we've been getting a visual tour of the city, and discussing the basic elements of moral philosophy- As Socrates said "We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live." We don't have any obligations at this point in our lives, no real responsibilities or even needs. So how do we know what we ought to do? What is right? What is best?

Well, I hope all your labor day picnics and weekend getaways are going well! And Happy Birthday tomorrow, Mom!!

The Basics

Hey!
We made it...safe flights all around. We got a taxi from the airport to our new little abode- the Hostel Elvis! that´s right...pictures of Elvis everywhere. I don´t really get it. But we actually slept most of the day after our overnight flights, so tomorrow we´re planning on getting out a bit more to do some exploring.

My goal today- learn how to count. I thought I knew how to count, but my failed attempts at conducting routine purchases has shown me otherwise.