That night we went out to get a nice dinner and also try out one of the casinos in the city. We went to a Italian restaurant and had a really, really nice dinner and after all that food we both got so tired so we didn’t feel like going out but on the way home we ended up still going into one of the casinos just to have a look around and we spent 4 whole dollars in the slot machines =)

The next day we slept for as long as we wanted and then we got up to go to a Huge shopping mall where we went walking around for almost the entire day and since I still have some pain in my foot this wasn’t the easiest thing in the world but still we found some things to buy. (Read: Steffi found some things to buy, including a super pink couch but I had to say no.) And it was cool to see the big American sized shopping mall and all the mannequins that had huge breasts and looked like playboy models. Or at least it was for the first hour or so after that I got a little grumpy.
In Panama City there is one thing that you cannot miss if you visit and that is the Panama Canal it is a huge canal that joins the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean thus saving a lot of ships the long trip around South America. The Canal was built in the beginning of the 20th century and at the 10th October 1913 the two oceans was joined together so the first ship was able to pass trough from one side to the other at 7th January 1914.

Since the canal has been there for so long the ships have grown a lot so now they build ships according to panamax size which means that they are built for the maximum size of the panama canal and they pass through the locks with only inches on each side, at the time we where there we saw one huge ship pass through and although it didn’t look like it had much room left it was still not the biggest size possible. This ship had to pay 90 000 dollars to pass through and that is still cheaper than going around South America. We also saw two “small” ships go through the locks with some tourists and they had to pay 1500 dollars each.
At the moment they are building new sets of locks so that when they are ready they will be able to accommodate ships with twice the cargo capacity these ships are now called Post panamax class and until the new locks are complete they have to take the long way around South America.

A little while later we had gone to bed and he came back into the room and started flicking the light on and off we asked another guy that was standing next to him what was going on and he said that the guy had started looking for his girlfriend inside the walls and that he still just heard everyone speaking Dutch. The guy left the hostel early the same morning.

Next we are off to Cuba for two weeks.

Bye bye
Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on November 5, 2009 from Panama, Panama
from the travel blog: 212 days
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A ghetto on water. That was our first impression. We couldn’t have been more wrong. We arrived to one of these amazing islands on a cloudy Sunday morning. An island as big as 3 or 4 football fields inhabited by 400 Kuna Indians.

Apparently, we were the only white people and no other tourists. I felt like Morgan Pålsson (utrikesreporter) when walking around there trying to talk Spanish with a heavy Swedish accent.

San Blas is a series of 365 islands of which only 49 are inhabited by the independent Kuna Indians. Some of the other islands are coconut islands where families takes turns in living on for 3 months selling coconuts to Colombian boats.

I have never seen a more crowded place but this wasn’t a negative thing here. It was rather the contrary. People helped each other and enjoyed being near one another.

These people live their whole lives with sand under their feet and in their hammocks. They are “produced” there and they eat, sleep, get married and are later buried in their lovable hammocks.

The Kunas hunt fish, collect cocunuts and make molas. A Mola, in the Kuna culture, is a traditional blouse worn by the Indian Women. It is made from two intricately appliquéd panels. These colorful graphic panels are collected as an art form.

The island was crowded with happy children playing and running around. When living like this I guess they have a lot of time “producing babies”.

The first day here they took us out to a tiny little island and it felt like me and Chris had skipped engagement, marriage and just fast forwarded to honey moon. Paradise is the only word I can describe this island with. At 12 o’clock they came back with the boat to give us a delicious meal of freshly caught fish with rice and vegetables. After a few hours we met a guy from the States who had decided to go travelling on his own. We had a really nice time together and hanged out again two days later.

There’s so much that I want to write about this experience but it’s a blog not a book :) Next stop Panama City.

Estefanie

written by  Steffi & Chris on November 2, 2009 from Carti Icotupo, Panama
from the travel blog: 212 days
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After been busy diving every day we decided to go to the beach to relax. When we arrived there was nobody at the beach. We had it all to ourselves… or at least we thought so. But when we came back out of the water our bag was gone. Stolen, gone, vanished. We thought we had kept an eye on those few (3 persons) passing by. My first thought… My sunglasses!!! My first real sunglasses that I decided to pay some extra for because I knew I would wear them every day for 212 days on this trip. I started running around with my Polish anger bursting through my veins thinking that the guy couldn’t be far away. The island was pocket size! Suddenly I see our stuff scattered over the ground behind some bushes. My sunglasses were there and so were our clothes and hotel key but the wallet was of course empty and Christoffer’s cellphone was gone as well. Luckily, it was only 8 dollars which was the money we needed for the transport and the cellphone was quite old.

Our last day, we decided to go on a tour around the archipelago. For the first time in my life, I saw wild dolphins. I truly wanted to be Jacques Mayol (Le Grande Bleu) in that moment and just jump into the water and play with them.

Next stop San Blas islands.

Steffi

written by  Steffi & Chris on October 25, 2009 from Bocas del Toro, Panama
from the travel blog: 212 days
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So while Steffi was checking that I went for a walk and had my first encounters in the city. The first guy who talked to me said “Do you wanna buy some cocaine? No? Ok. How about heroin? No? Ok. I have marijuana as well? No? Ok bye." Next I walked past a sex shop and then some prostitutes then finally I found the ATM and was able to get some cash. Probably the worst first impression I've had but Steffi liked it, atleast when we where on the Tica bus she keept saying she wanted to buy a house here.

Next we were off to a guy named Victor who had replied on couchsurfing, but once we got in the taxi I started feeling really bad and weak this was because when we were on the beach last weekend I accidentally cut my foot on a broken surfboard and it has ended up getting really infected although I have been really trying to keep it clean. So this had happened on Sunday and now it was Wednesday evening and I started suffering from a bad fever.

When we got to victors place we hung out for a while and then I had to go to the bathroom but once I got inside it was a little dark so I just felt my head spin and next thing I know I hit a paper stand that was on the floor with my head, I got up felt really dizzy and had to sit down on the toilet for a while.

When I came outside again we started to try to figure out if I should go to the hospital or wait for the morning and then go to a doctor.
To get a second opinion we took a walk to a local pharmacy to get some advice what to do. She told us to go to the hospital at the night and that the closest one was a private hospital.

So we went and once we got there they first made sure we gave them money and after that they were really helpful. They took some tests and cleaned the wound and made sure that it was “only” an infection. Got me a recipe for some antibiotic and that was it. 90 000colones later we were going home to victor again and actually feeling a lot better.
Next day we sleep a long time almost 12 hours and after that we went to the bus station and on our way there we saw a really bloody street fight on the same street they had offered me everything last night. And that just made us more sure that this city really wasn’t anything for us we have stayed out of the big cities so far and will probably keep doing so for a while.

Last of all I want to thank Victor since he works the night shift and was sleeping when we left we never really got to say good bye. But he helped us a lot and thanks to him I’m a little bit less invalido today. When I’m writing this we’re sitting on the bus on the way to Cahuita on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on October 16, 2009 from San Jose, Costa Rica
from the travel blog: 212 days
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Ready, set... swooosch!

Christoffer competed with a german guy who now is known as the man, the myth, the legend. There was a tunnel of smoke next to Christoffer and out of the smoke flew this historic man in 82km/h. A new world record was set!!! A good start of the day so afterwards we went back to town and celebrated with some mojitos.

After that it was time to dust off our noses and go to the place we all love. The beach. Fito had asked us earlier if we wanted to come and spend the weekend with him and some friends out on a lodge he owned. We said yes without blinking.

Before the beach

The party of 8 consisted of:

Fito. The proud and crazy Nicaraguan who hates silence. He is all about adrenaline. Three years ago he was in a big motorcycle accident. Was in bed for a year. As soon as he could walk again he went out to the sea ready to surf again and broke three ribs. He has good projects going on (his company is called 505) and if you ever come to León look up this guy.

Greg. The gringo from North Carolina. Everything he owns, his whole life, is in this guy’s truck. Greg is out with his dog Sola on a never-ending road trip together with his bible “The Adventurers Handbook”. His hobbies are eating, spear fishing and surfing. He lost his job in the US and that’s when he decided to leave the country. “It’s better to be poor here than in North Carolina”.

Martin. The proud fiddle player from Ireland. Who needs Google? This guy knows everything.

Visean. Roots in India but raised in Manchester, UK. Knows a lot of dirty jokes.

Kajsa. Probably the happiest girl from Gothenburg. Presumably because she left Gothenburg and came here. A beautiful voice and can sing every single nubbe-song there is.

A happy party of 8 left León and arrived at a lodge just meters from an endless beach. The best thing. Nobody there but us! We had the whole beach just to ourselves. It was a good weekend!

After that Christoffer and I tried to surf for the first time. Both Greg and Fito are addicted to surfing so we had four boards with us to the beach. Both of us fell in love with the surf from the first second so it will be a lot more of that in Bocas del Toro, Panama.

The Sunday everybody was hung over after a great party the night before so we just relaxed in the hammocks all day, ate good food, watched the sunset and then went back to León where we spent two more days because it’s such an awesome place to stay in before heading off to Costa Rica.

Amor y paz!

Steffi

written by  Steffi & Chris on October 14, 2009 from Leon, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: 212 days
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We quickly found a good double room at a cheap hostel. Just minutes later a guide started talking to us and we asked him if he knew any good Spanish schools. Tired as hell after the never ending bus trip we still decided to follow him to the school. We met the owner and it sounded good so we bought it… One lesson learned. Never do business early in the morning.

Why? The man who runs the place lies probably more in one day than Pinocchio does in a year. For example we paid for 40 hours of Spanish lessons but the day after it turns out we will only get 34 hours because of pauses that apparently was included in the 40 hours… After arguing with him he says “I forgot to tell you…” Apparently he’s done the same to other students but we will get our 40 hours after having argued with him about it.

We have now studied Spanish here for five days. Almost fluent now. Our teachers are great! Mine has never heard of Google and neither of them has been outside Guatemala. My teacher doesn’t speak any English so I’m literally forced to learn Spanish.

We are living with a Guatemalan family together with some other students. One happy old man from Texas that loves the cerveza, sings every dinner and loves the expression "Ya man". There’s also a guy in our age from Nottingham staying here, also travelling down to South America.

And what else? Yeah, we have tried salsa. It takes a lot of cervezas or tequilas to even think you can do it.

Now we have finished our week of intensive Spanish studies and to catch up the 5-6 hours that was lost in breaks but he forgot to tell us about we had to do 7 hours on Saturday and Sunday and unfortunately we also had to change teachers since our teacher refused to work during the weekend since they probably wouldn’t get paid. So Steffi got a good teacher again but I (Chris) ended up with something not as good. Not only did she have zero patience and very bad English (my Spanish is not as good as Steffi’s so when I asked about a word in English she just said “si, si” even when I knew that it was completely wrong.)
She also had 4 breasts 2 in front and 2 in back and was telling me that her entire paycheck went to trying to feed her 3 kids. (She actually sounded like that was a good thing.)

I managed to get most of the important grammar out of her though, so now I can at least try to have a conversation with someone in Spanish. It might take me awhile before I get the verb right but it’ll get there. =)

Some of you might be wondering what happened to Honduras since according to our plan that’s where we are supposed to be right now.
Unfortunately the old president has returned to Honduras and after he urged all of his followers to join him in a demonstration in the capital the ruling government decided that it was best to close the ports, airports and also the border at some crossings. This meant that we probably could not go diving on Utila or Roatan in Honduras so we decided to skip the whole country (Except when we have to pass through a small part going from El Salvador to Nicaragua.)

We still have to go back to these wonderful countries one day, since every day we discover something new that we would like to see or experience. There is so much more than one could ever imagine when looking at pictures or reading guide books.

This ended up being a really long post but now we are off to Nicaragua by bus and just stopping for a night in San Salvador to stretch our legs. As Lonely Planet beautifully expressed it San Salvador is like when you're telling a woman she's got a nice personality. Not that beautiful =)

Buenas Nachos amigos!

Stefanita y Christóbal

written by  Steffi & Chris on October 12, 2009 from Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala
from the travel blog: 212 days
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We got on a local bus and it felt like we were in a movie the few hours while we sat there, packed like tuna in a can, jumping up and down on the seats over the pebbly roads next to Belizeans and their squeaking chickens. The bus stopped every 100 m to pick up someone and then just 50 m later drop off someone else.

Apparently it was Independence Day this day so a few hours after we had arrived in San Ignacio we watched the carnival with happy Rastafarians, semi-wild horses and more. Some woman got so excited of the base in the music she started humping a car.

We were planning to stay in Belize for two days but ended up staying here for five. In other words, it was good. Real good.

We couch surfed at Markus (aka Dr Feelawesome) place the whole time right outside San Ignacio in the middle of the jungle. The place is called Parrots Nest in Bullet Tree Falls. Sounds like a treasure map destination.

It was a bit sad to leave Belize. I will definitely come back one day.

Over and out.
Steftscha

PS: If you wonder about Markus nickname Dr Feelawesome, it comes from when he and some friends came up with a game called the Beautiful Life Game which kept going for several years where they challenged each other on doing things that enriched their lives like for example concerts, rollercoasting, travelling etc. Markus thought of Mötley Crues song Dr Feelgood and just made it better. Dr Feelawesome.

written by  Steffi & Chris on September 27, 2009 from Benque Ceiba, Belize
from the travel blog: 212 days
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Then we spent the rest of our day sitting on the beach sipping wine and relaxing! Then it was time to walk back!

That’s all from tulum too bad we didn’t have time to see more of it!

Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on September 20, 2009 from Tulum, Mexico
from the travel blog: 212 days
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That night we started with sitting at the hostel for a couple of hours sharing some vodka and sprite and meeting people living at the hostel.
We ended up going out that night and by accident I dropped my camera in the floor and it broke so now the pictures are really not that good. I think that the lens has been banged up a little bit. It wasn’t the big camera, but unfortunately the little one is the one with the underwater housing.

The next morning at about 7 steffi woke me up saying “come with me out on the balcony” and since we only got back from the club 2 hours earlier my response was “what? No? Why? Come sleep here instead.” But she insisted so as I came out on the balcony she told me that just a couple of minutes ago some guy had come into the room while we were sleeping and laid down in her bed saying “is it o.k. if I sleep here?” and she replied “No, go sleep in your own bed.” So he said “no, no problem, it’s ok I sleep here.” Steffi tried to kick him out of bed and the guy replied “It’s cold, I want to sleep here”. Steffi said that he must go to his own bed when he says “this is my bed” and pointing at steffis. Finally he went to sleep in the bed next to hers. This was when she woke me up and then we got the manager who kicked the guy out from the hostel.
The next day we changed rooms to a private and then we spent the rest doing not much at all, swimming on the beach and just relaxing.
The day after we had planned to leave but then a guy from Argentina who we had met the first night at the hostel, offered to show us to a reef where we could do some snorkeling we ended up swimming for almost 3km which was really cool also got to see some fishes that where better than just snorkeling at the beach.
Since this was the first day we really spent on the beach and because sunblock is for the gays i ended up with a bad sun burn on my back and steffi also got burnt even tho she was wearing sunblock, so now she as a clown ass. =)
Next day we took the bus down to Tulum!
bye bye Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on September 18, 2009 from Playa del Carmen, Mexico
from the travel blog: 212 days
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