¿Donde estas el bus de fiesta?¿Como entrada el bus de fiesta?

um so yeah... megan and I had our last night out in Panama city and it was only a half success...again. We did go see traditional panamanian dance. I was all about it. I have decided, wether or not this is politically corect or not, that latin women really love shit on their heads. Wether it is flowers, fruit, heavy baskets, or gold sparkly things, they are all about it. Come to think of it I am too! I was really happy with the amount of costumes involved with the traditional dance, panama hats, this type of exspensive ruffle dress maybe called a pollera, pom poms, man purses, dragon suits, and best of all enormous purple flowy dresses that were flailed around while men tap danced at the feet of women. I have pretty much decided that I always want to dance with shit in my hair and huge long ruffley dresses.... and if a man tap danced around me I´d probably be into that. We had to eat dinner at this show and I had some delightful squid with red peppers and coconut sauce and then my favorite latin dessert ever tres leches cake! This show also involved a lot of middle aged and old people, including but not limited to a group of spanish women who were swaying back and forth, clapping and singing along with the opening songs. It also meant that I got to exsperience one of my favorite past times... watching old folks try to dance and move their hips. Fantastic. After that Megan and I had planed to try to catch the fiest a bus ( a us school bus, painted, with disco lights, a dj and a pole inside) and then go to karnak a egyptian themed bar next to a cowboy themed bar on isla flamenco. Well let me tell you! we saw FIVE fiesta buses on the way there, I was pretty hopeful and excited! But alas when we arived at flamenco... neither cheesy bar existed, then we acidentally crashed a birthday party, and then left just in time to catch someone elses wedding´s fireworks show. We decided to wait a bit for the fiesta bus, and then call it a night, and then it happened... we saw the fiesta bus! I flagged it down! and it passed us!!!! Snubed by the fiesta buS! we solemnly flaged down a cab, and asked him how the fiesta bus worked... he exsplained you could rent it out... or sometimes pay 10 bux to ride.... and then he cut two of the fiesta buses off! we got out at supermercado rey because no cab drivers know where our hostel is, and we figured we might see the fiesta bus on the short walk home..... we did not, but we did watch a live salsa band complete with fedoras through a chainlink fence.... we couldnt afford admission. Today megan and I went to the egg shaped bahai temple on top of a mountain in panama city.... it was very sureal and involved alot of our cab driver asking for directions and recieving dome shaped hand gestures and directo! mas ariba! when we finaly made it we quietly read all of the bahai literature... and then we were given silk capes to cover our scandalous shoulders. We listened to the service... which was mumbled in the poor dome acoustics... and then we left and said to eachother that was cool and all but lets go get fancy iced coffee and go to the mall, so we did to kill time before our flight home. Yup its true the journey is ending.... next stop on the central american tour Philadelphia... and thats not a typo spelled with a ph not a fil. I cant say that im ready to go home... im ready to do all of south america... but im broke and i should probably visit all of my awesome friends in philly and then get a real job and use my degree....

we fly out at 8pm tonight.... philly get ready!

oh! and we visited the kuna tribe in the archepelago de san blas.... and they are a bunch of jerks! Also Im not a fan of bucket showers..... ask me about all this later....


see you all soon!

being striped by natives, painted purple, and covered in beads.

so i cant really even begin to tell you about the rest of my day with the naso right now because so much has happened since my last blog!!!... you will just have to hear all of that when you ask me about my trip. I also must preface this blog with two a. there is a line of people waiting for the internets b. this story is much better in person, acompanied by photos. But before I get to the good stuff, let me say that before we went to the darien gap we went to panama city... and surprise of all surprisas... it was a citudad... verdad. There are billboards, flat screen tv´s, iced coffee, stores i cant afford ( yes I found the latin american version of anthropologie... it is via vae ) , it is crazy... things are open 24 horas. So anyways after nightclubbing, eating octopus with purple olive sauce, and shopping... we headed to the infamous darien gap... well I mean as lose as you can get without being kidnaped or paying a guide 500 dollars. I mean we couldnt travel through all of central america and then go to panama and not see the end of the pan american highway.... so we traveled to yavitza its a good thing we did not listen to lonly planet who called yavitza unremarkable. When we got there there were tons of interesting friendly people. Of course i dropped off my backpack and picked up my camera. I had seen a woman with a neon colored wrap skirt, When we got to yavitza there were tons of people wearing them, I had a hunch that they were indigenous... so like any good photographer when i saw a woman with a skirt ... i followed her... to her house. at which point i asked her to come in and ended having a 20 min talk with her about the embera... yeah thats right the tribe i though was inpossible to find in the darien without paying an arm and a leg for a guide was right under my nose! i ended up buying a wrap skirt from her and then ... shock of all shocks they offered to paint us with jagua fruit! Megan and I were so excited! they told us to return at six, so after exsploring and getting a bit closer to the gap, and discovering a whole embera comunity, we returned at six, and got painted. it was amazing. They told us not to shower for one night. So we eagarly followed instructions, and much to our surprise we woke up in the morning covered in purple splotches.... what they did not tell us was that the jagua gets darker over night and soaks in more... but when it is still tacky it transfers and then stains.... it was absolutly hilarious everywhere our arms rested while we slept was covered in dark purple splotches.... luckily both of us dont rest our face on our arms.... after that hilarious mornings we put our purple splotchy bodies on a bus for a few hours and checked in to our hostel in torti and hoped a 5 min bus the next morning to ipeti embera... which was amazing. we wandered around inviting ourselves into peoples houses.... which were crazy... and a but scary, they were on stilts, and the floor was made of palm tree fibers, i kind of felt like i was going to fall through everyones houses, oh and you clibed up a log to get in them, on of the first few houses we invited ourselves into was marias... she and her boyfriend were sitting in a hammock making baskets. After a interesting lengthy conversation she showed us all of her crafts, then pictures of their traditional dance that they do in the wrap skirts topless, covered in beaded necklaces and jagua paint, the she showed us the beads, then she offered us the opertunity to try them on.... on her porch... I of course said yes and maria and her mother exuberantly and as modestly as possible striped me down on their porch and dressed me in traditional embera dress.... while megan took photos... and then megan followed suit... the pictures really say it all ask me to see them when i get back in a few days. Then maria after we were dressed showed us more necklaces and then gave us earings she had made, we tried to pay but she insisted they were a gift, we both bought some baskets, and then she asked for my phone number, i dont know that she will ever use it but I was touched none the less. After more exsploring we stumbled upon the cultural house, and some women insisted on feeding us for free, then after that delightful lunch we exsplored more meeting amazing people and taking photos... i kind of want to live with this group and always wear just beads and a wrap skirt and purple dye, and make amazing photo essays. The next day we went to ipeti kuna... the kuna dont speak english or spanish, they speak kuna, and understand spanish but refuse to speak it, which is cool, i used the lonley planet guide and spoke kuna... and they gave us the cold shoulder as lonley planet warned.... lets hope they are a bit nicer on san blas... the islands that they own and inhabit... because that is where we are headed next.... and then the adventure finally comes to a close... three days in san blas two in panama city and then back to the states.... however i must say as sad as i am to leave i am sooooooo excited for philly!!!

The most delicious hot chocolate ever.

So today I went in a dugout canoe to the naso tribe to visit with a family in the rtibe and ask them about the challenges that their tribe has faced. After this conversation the most amazing thing took place..... Hot chocolate was made. No not from a mix but from cacao seeds that were roasted over the fire in a cast iron pan, ground in a pila, mixed with nitmeg right off the tree, and cinamon sticks, then mixed into hot water..... soooooooo delicious. hot cocoa will never be the same. As if that wernt enough we were also treated to sugar cane, and roasted coconut, oh and we also sucked on the sweet white fruit around the cacao seeds. there will be more on this day later but I had to blog this with my remaining few minutes of internet. Up next panama city then ipti embera to get painted purple!!!

The tale of the ¨no show novio¨ and the ngolbe bulge.....

So I am in panama finally. I wasted a few days being a girl and exspecting that once I found my long lost novio, once is phone emerged from ´fui area coveratura¨, we would overcome flakyness and tico time and give me some much awaited bessos. unfourtunatley no dice. This wild goose chase ended it a few to many local calls, and a extra day or two in san jose ... not the end of the world. In the extra day I did manage to see some beat boxing didgery doo players that were fantastic. After giving up on my novio I decided I was done giving him chances and was ready to get the hell out of costa rica. I bit overtired and a bit disgruntled after a fitful night of sleep I boarded the 6am bus to puerto viejo where megan was waiting for me. Now I have a pretty iron stomach... I have eaten at street markets here and drank the water... but I guess not eating much and girlily obsessing at 6am means that for once it was not megan throwing up on a bus here it was me, and my nervous stomach. Luckily I was able to calmly get up and say ¨perdon, nesicito vomitir¨ The bus driver pulled over and I imediatly vomited my jugo de mora and threw away the rest of my pan tostada. Upon re enetering the bus a very nice woman offered me a tissue and we ended up having a delightful three hour conversation in spanish. Which not only kept me amused but made me feel great about my spanish! When I arived in puerto viejo, town of my fling with the no show novio it was apropriatly grim and rainy. Megan and I decided to leave imediatly if no sooner. We caught the next bus to sixiola and crossed the most hilarious border crossing yet. If you are ever going to go from costa rica to panama do it in sixiola... the boder literally is a huge rickety wooden bridge that you can see through at some parts due to rotting wood. You have to prove that you will leave the country at some point ( very intense) and then if you are american you need to get a visa... very fun. After that we continued in the rain to get a boat to bocas del toro. Everyone that we have talked to told us that bocas was amazing.... I dont know what they are smoking. We first went to isla bastimentos which I liked more than colon... the island everyone talks about. We arived on bastimentos in the middle of a downpour. We checked out lonley planets hotel pick... it had bed bugs. So we ran in the rain to the next closest cheap thing. Hospedaje sea view. It is located on stilts over the sea, the roar of the ocean put us to sleep. Amidst rain showers we did manage to hear the gali gali language ( a combo of creole, spanish, english, and ngolbe bulge). I did some shooting, and checked out the west indie imigrant town we were staying in. Then the next day megan and I went to the other side of the island, which lonley planet neglected to mention that you cant get to it the 1 dollar way when it has been raining. We hired a boat for a whoping 50 bux. I figured that I wasnt going to be stuck in the rain and not go to the tribe I came for.... I should have not gone. When we got to the tribe, after a hilarious boat ride with a old man with tons of shit who didnt know where the creek he lived in was, we payed 2 dollars to get in and treged through mud and gasoline, I asked many questions about there culture but got vauge informationless answers, They pretty much looked like a normal village, and there traditional crafts looked suspiciously like tourist trinkets.... But I did get to play with some children and spend the day on a boat. After returning megan and i caught a 3 dollar boat to colon. We checked into our hostel and realized that we had acidently wandered into spring break. We indulged in some cheap hookah and free drinks for ladies night at several bars. We stayed today to go to the beach... which is why people come here. Unfourtunatly like on bastimentos you cant walt to the beach ( ridiculous) we took a 4 dollar colectivo bus, and then had to walk 20 mins through mud to get to ¨the beach¨which really was alot like a foot of sand and some warm waveless shallow water. Another fun bonus was that there were ants and unidentifiable ¨bugs¨maybe, that looked like small clear quills or needles that kept atacking our feet and causing a ton of pain. We got to the beach and said screw this and screw this archepelego, we walked back to the dock and sunbathed until the bus came. We are off to the wekso station in parque amistad to see the naso teribe next.... Lets hope that goes better. After that we will be off the the embera and wounan tribe to be painted purple!

poor decorating, methodist missions, crayola walls, and lost novios.....

well loyal bloggers it has been a while. Let me preface this by saying that I am in an ornery mood right now. Why am I bloging? I am in hotel pange again with free internet and no berny... thats right no novio. My novio that i have been planning to meet back up with for a month is mia... well actually i am pretty sure is boss and freind who is um praying for my safe travels and wishing me well, is keeping berny hostage in a distant mountainrange that is fui a la area coveratura... in other words so cell signal no internet. Why i was not informed of this is beyond me... but the last e4mail was i love you i cant wait to see you... so now i am in san jose standing at the trendy email in the bar at my douchy hostel... wanting no one but him... but I will only let myself be disapoiunted for another day and then its time to move on to panama. I am so excited for panama. So nowe that that disclamer is over.... its time to talk about el salvador! getting there was a bit complicated from belize and resulted in another night at dona goya... one of my favorite hostels. then of to el salvador. Getting there took a day and resulted in uys staying in san salvador... only slightly less frightening than managua.... but then again the guide book did not warn us that the majority of hotels rent by the hour in managua... as is the case in san salvador. We checked into american guest house, which rents by the night not the hour but just barely. The decor of our room was hilarious.... its where my facebook profile picture is taken. It was at if 1975 had a epileptic fit and vomited all over the room. There was some peeling 70s print wall paper, printed bed linens which did not match, a non functional tv cerca 1968, a bright blue fan, a tourism poster of el salvador, and a glass unicorn lamp. Naturally megan and i spent the entire night taking photographs and posing in pattered dresses. after all this fun I went to use the bathroom only to dicover antenae poking out of a hole oposite the toilet in our bathroom, I ceased all bathroom activities. Megan decided to brave it and wound up being eqauly freaked and beating the wall to frighten our roach friends while she went pee. We slept with the lights on and left in the wee hours fo la palma. Whatever cruel foce that alowed us to stumble upon american guest house allowed us to stumble upon a great hotel in la palma. We asked for a fdouble room and received a 8 dollar per person suite. Literally. Tile floors, two twin beds and two full beds all with real matresses and box springs, a table, a patio with hamocks, a fridge and a tiled bathroom full of mirors and shelves. I of course took of my bags and jumped across the room atop the sea of matresses. La palma was an adorable town full of mirors and adorably painted things... and not much else. Megan and I had a blast window shopping and eating and crafting at our table. We left in the morning for alegria. we missed the last bus to allegria but everyone was so friendly that they found us a cheap tuk tuk that took us with all of our bags up the mountain to allegria and searched intensly for a hotel for us once we found the one we wanted closed. I am convinced that no one visits el salvador... we did not see one tourist and as a result everyone was SO friendly. We had come to allegria for the hotel that we could not find that lonley planet said was run by a cute couple who teach art and have a gallery in the hostel, it alsoi said that we could help with classes. the first day there we could not find the hostel owners but were assured it was open. Instead we tried to go to the quote un quote healing waters that was a short walk down hil, about 20 mins, actually lonley planet was wrong... after ignoring directions from some school children who were stalking us, we found out that is is actually a hour uphill, i told the children that they did not love me and should go to school, and we headed up the hill. when we finally arived we payed our 20 cents admission and swam in the ciy bright green healing waters... which actually turned out to just be cold and muddy on the bottom, i beleive there are still some healing waters on my shoe. We returned to our hotel , which by the way was decorated with religous icons and strange wooden animals. The next day we wound up finding the people who run the art coop, we thought we might stay another day and teach a class, but first we needed money. After finding that the atm in the town literally did not have 5 dollars in it we left the enxt day for nicuragua. Rather than going back to san salvador we decioded to take the unknown route to the border and not backtrack. After 7 buses, a tuk tuk, a rickshaw, and a cab, we found ourselves in nicuragua in a crapy hostel with dirt on the beds. After a dinner of SALAD!!! and a pina colada, and a ok nights sleep we found a better hostel and camped out there until we left for megans aunts methodist mission. Now this is not my normal vacation scene... a christian misson, but it was a nice break. We helped some people, ate some free food, slept on real beds and most inportantly did LOTS of free laundry. All thanks to the generosity of the mission and megans aunt. And megan and i finally got to teach an art class, but this time for orphans at the schools mission, pretty great. To all of you from the mission who are reading this thanks a million! well blogging has made me a bit less sad... I think im going to use my cheap international calling privledges now... hopefully I will have a exubverant post next... we shall see

belize it or not they dont want us in dangriga no mo!

so belize.... its kind of crazy. Belize is a interesting cultural salad; originally latin, lots of africans migrated thanks to the brits, they are the ´indigenous people´of belize... i supose they exist and they are called garifuna, then more imigrants from asia, then, and i think this is most recent, imigrants from india, oh yeah and german menonites have been there for ages too, and they have rastafarian acents just like everyone else.... and there are some mayans and latin people too. Now I dont want you to think that Belize is not mostly english speaking dark skined caribs.... im just not sure about ´garifuna´we were told by lonley planet that the garifuna still drummed and dressed traditionaly, they were suposed to be in guatemala, honduras and definetly belize.... however tradition dress did not happen, and megan and i think that when they see us they stop drumming. The people in la moskitia were most likely garifuna... not that they would know it. but actually I´m getting ahead of myself. We started our journey in orange walk, we got of the bus and were imediatly flung into a parade for a mayoral canadate. They are very enthusiastic about their politics.... later we would hear the election time song... among my favorites. we checked into our shity ´concrete box with scorching hot water´as lonley planet called it and then ate some shitty chinese food. then we were sold the exact tour we were looking for off the street, slowly we realized that our tour guide was really into me but luckily I was able to evade him. We took the long boat ride down the river to the ruins, and they were pretty cool, but honestly I think im ruined out after tikal... oh shit i dint write about that yet... tikal was friken huge, and awesome, and really exspensive... anyways after the tour we returned to our hotel with the cute asian couple with the two fluffy dogs. and the next morning we left for dangriga. I knew dangriga would be cool because we listened to reggae the whole way on the chicken bus. we got there and we saw some more houses on stilts and some creole food that we had never heard of. I convinced megan that we should totally eat from the shack on the side of the road.. we at garnaches ( corn chips with cheses and coleslaw and katchup) and sorel juice, and a burito like no latin burito ive had. we asked our hostile about garifuna druming and val of vals hostel, said maybe on the weekend, which is also what the guy hitting on us at the bus station said. So we decided to go to placencia ( which of course we called placenta) to go to the beach, we did that for a day and intended on two days but stupidly let oursleves get so burned as a result of limeaide and good books as ample distraction, that really we couldnt handle another day at the beach. So after retreiveing our jelly from the ladys fridge in the morning after the invitation, ´sur gal go up da an get yo jellay, its no prob-lem´we headed back to dangriga... to go to the garifuna museum if nothing else.... and maybe even hear some druming. It was at the museum that we learned that the diferences between black people and garifuna would be sublte... and maybe we had been seeing them all along ( kind of like santa, if you beleive hes all around). we also learned about several migrations, punta dancing ( garifuna mating dance similar to a very reserved and subtle dropping it like its hot but shake), and making casava bread. After that I went to go shoot and got in trouble for taking a picture of a grocery store because the men sitting on the stoop thought i should pay them, and clearly i hated people in dangirga and was trying to get rich. After eating some more garnaches.. we set out to search for druming...we tried three times at various hours and all we found was empty bars and a truck full of guys who hit on us and slowly drove by us trying to talk to us as we were walking... awesome. We left the next morning for belize city. Before we left more people tried hitting on us, and when we did not respond they told us that you dont treat people like that and that if we hate black people so much than dont come to dangriga... I replied that it had nothing to do with their skin but that i just didnt feel like being hit on this early in the morning, and i reminded them that megan was dating black man. Then we were told that we arnt welcome in dangriga.. they said dont come back! and we said dont were thanks to you we wont! once in belize city, We checked into another shit hole hotel only to find that there was an 11pm curfew... even though we needed menonites to help us get into that hotel... we left and went acros the street to an even shitier hotel, struck a deal with the french canadian guy who ran it, and we were granted an exstended curfew... midnight, then we turn into a pumkin. We went to ´the club´only to find that there was a pricey cover and a ton of people waiting for the price to drop or th band to show... at around midnight... a garifuna band showed up... for a punta dance party.... obviously we stayed. We watched punta in action... and danced a bit, looking painfully white. I ended up non sexually dancing with a stoned guy with dreads who I could not understand at all. Megan ended up dancing with a guy who scared away all the cute guys to avoid the other guy with a fly fishing hat on and bad teeth... we had fun, felt white, were offered weed( and refused) , and free beers( and accepted them), and then left at 2am... to find a sleepy french canadian, and to hear a old man making gross noises through the thin walls. This morning we crossed back into guatemala and got advice on what buses to take to el salvador from a man and his family that are sneaking into guatemala without passports to they can eventually get to the us... aparently jesus told them to do it. We did find the bus and tomorow he start our decent to panama... next stop san salvador.. stay tuned.

semuc champey ¿death trap?

so I am back in the land of free internets. I am in flores guatemala right now and I am proud to say that I survived the semuc champey tour... that was almost not true of everyone... more on that later. So semuc champey is a natural rock formation out of limestone that entails several pools of turqoise clear mountain water ontop of a natural bridge made of the rock formation that is above a raging river... quite a crazy phenomenon. The tour was maybe my favorite tour ever... and I conquored a few of my fears involving heights and ladders. the tour started with getting on a rope and wood swing that swumg you 6 or 7 meters above the water, and then you jump off of it. I did this after a bit of debating and i think i liked it? then after that we started caving. This is by far my favorite type of hiking. This meant that for 2 hours we swam slash hikled with candles throgh a cave... it was awesome! at one point there was an option to climb up another scary ladder on the rocks or climb up the waterfall with a rope with knots in it... i tried this after watching many others and almost made it but was too short to reach the last step and after dangling for a bit climed back down and used the ladder. Then we got to another spot where we could jump off into water.. of course we could not see how dèp the water was or how high the jump was but i did that too! all in all the cave was great. After the cave we floated down the river on tubes and then we were given the option of jumping off a bridge... i once again said no to this.... im not sure that, even if i was suicidal, i would ever jump off a bridge volentarily. after that I bought some home made mayan chocolate with cardamon from a girl on the street... and it was fantastic. then we went to semuc champey... i swam in the amazing pools and went close to the edge of the bridge where you can see the river rush underneath it while a very nervous employee watched megan and i. then I swam some more and then our guide aske who wanted to ´do´the waterfall... not quite knowing what this would entail and not wanting to pass it up if it were at all a possibility i went alon... just to see. turns out you cant see the jump unless you climb down a flimsy rope lader looped around a limestone rock... I managed to somehow do this. This meant i got to stand above the river and below th bridge... pretty awesome. I declined the first jump after hearing that is was scarier than the bridge... but when compared to going back up the later i decided i would do the second jump that was not high up but involeved swiming out of the curent or plumeting to your death. The first guy went and our guide told us the current was too strong and we would all have to go back up. All of us followed his instructions except for one girl and one guy .. our guide asked if they were good swimers and then let them go. The girl made it and all of us watched as the second guy missed his opertunity to get out 5 times while his girlfriend cried and sweared in israli... she had said that she shouldnt do it because she wants babys and they just got maried. He made it finally. all of us were a bit freaked and we left. Near death aside... it was a great day.

the next day we went to the bat cave... and found not batman but a sparkly bat cave that looked like fragle rock. I also learned that batshit is sticky and dark brown and helps with traction when hiking in drippy caves. Also flocks of bats are really cool to watch. Also i wish people had not over exagerated the slipery nature of this hike ... i regreted not bringing my real camera.

we are now in flores after a crazy shuttle involving seeing a valentines parade, being searched for fruit and riding with some smelly germans. Upon reaching our hostel and learning I have free internet i checked my email only to fing berny my novio on gmail and i tried my hand at gchating in spanish... very tricky. then after that megan and i went to the cheapest place in lonley planet... only to find that it was fancy... and with bad service... but it was fun to have a fancy romantic evening with my girlfriend... and we saw the israli couple.. they are still alive and together...