Saving Money
22/03/2006
After a few days in Puerto Viejo's paradise, we suddenly remembered that we had some kind of schedule to follow.
We thus decided to leave this place and obviously, just outside the hostel with our huge backpacks, we were surprised by an extremely violent tropical storm: wasn't this supposed to be the damn dry season?!?
Soaking wet and a little bit worried because of the rumors we had heard about corrupted police officers, we finally got onto a bus heading South towards the border with Panama. However, getting into Panama was extremely easy: at the check point they didn't even control if our passports had been renewed and so, there we were crossing a trembling bridge over the river which divides the two countries.
Nonetheless, the difficult part had still to come: once in Panama, we were assaulted by a hord of "taxy drivers" proposing us a five dollar trip to the closest town. These guys didn't know what they were stepping into: two Italian tourists perfectly trained to bargain by an Uruguayan lady!
Francesco, feeling a little bit like Henry Kissinger between Israel and Egypt, leaded the negotiations: after an hour and a half of heavy insults and a few "compliments", such as "el italiano más duro que nunca he encontrado", we finally managed to save a dollar each.
Talleyrand and Susana would be very proud of us!
Birthday Party
23/03/2006
Still white as two mozzarellas, even if we had already spent a week at the seaside, the first destination we chose in Panama was a group of tiny islands called "Bocas del Toro".
Sick and tired of our pale condition, we decided to try with a shock-therapy: no sun-screen at all.
Once completely sun-burnt, we had to remain in our hostel in order to recover, but fortunately we found out that this forced and unexpected stay would be delighted by many charming people.
Australians, Canadians, Americans, French, Swedish, English and Norwegians were part of the group and every evening they contributed to make Mondo Taitu a very cool place to be.
Nevertheless the first evening was awesome because of a Kuna girl (Kuna people are Panama's natives). She was celebrating her 29th birthday with 3 Kuna friends and a gigantic cake: obviously, to do that, she chose the bar of our hostel!
Since for a Kuna Joska is "the most similar thing to Leonardo di Caprio" (as a friend in Panama City told us), we immediately made friends with them and were thus invited (or rather forced) to go dancing some salsa. Once on the dance floor, we suddenly remembered that we weren't so familiar with salsa; however we were lucky enough to meet Alfonso: the best and gayest salsa instructor of the whole island.
We are still wondering if he did it for pure altruism or maybe because he as well is a big fan of Leonardo di Caprio, but the fact of the matter is that we got a 3 hours long free lesson!
Making Money
25/03/2006
Unfortunately, after a few days we recovered from our sunburn and so we had no more excuses to delay our departure. Early in the morning, we thus caught a plane to Panama City, but our minds were still thinking about the incredible last night in Mondo Taitu.
A couple of days had been more than enough in order for us to make friends with several guys, above all with Laura and Martin. Laura is a Texan girl part of the staff of the hostel, while Martin is an Australian yoga instructos who turned out to be a pizza chef as well.
This was his proposal for the last evening: he would prepare the dow for the pizzas, the Italians the sauce and everybody else would add their own ingredients. Oh, we forgot to say that, apart from Martin and us, whoever wanted a pizza had to pay 1 dollar.
The whole thing ended up being a huge amount of work (we cooked from 6 pm to 11 pm) and, we thought, a great financial succes too. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, we realized that the 25 dollars we had made were hardly enough to cover the costs of the ingredients!
Anyhow, cooking 35 pizzas (yes, for the ones who are good at maths, somebody didn't pay) helped us to create such a cool evening that the day after, we were so busy thinking to what we had done, that we didn't even have the time to be scared to death by the cold war left-over which was flying us to Panama City.
Dagli Appennini alle Ande
26/03/2006
As soon as we arrived in Panama City, we were immediately struck by its heat and loudness, which were a hell of a contrast with the relaxed vibe of the past days.
After a tour of the city which allowed us to understand the great difference between the misery and decadence of the ancient part of town and the wealth and liveliness of the modern one, we finally got in touch with Amelie.
Amelie is a Guatemalan girl who moved to Panama City 12 years ago and who was so kind to show us around town. We thus had the chance to meet some of her friends and relatives and hence to realize that their life style is after all very similar to the one we have in Italy.
Even if we had a great time with our new friends, the day after, once visited the Canal, we decided to escape from the noisy capital and headed to a small mountain town called "El Valle de Anton".
El Valle is a small village settled in a mind blowing location: in fact, it lays in the middle of a volcan's crater which obviously isn't active anymore.
Once there, the nature of the "mountain climber coming from Lecce" was unveiled: we immediately decided that the day after we would hike to the top of the highest mountain. To do that, we had been told that at least four hours were necessary: this piece of information allarmed Joska a little bit. He hence decided to glue one of his rotten sailing shoes (as he has been doing for the last 6 months) in order to "better" face the mountain.
Looking at the pathetic "glue operation", put Francesco in the best mood ever: while making fun of his companion, he proudly extracted his 3 kilos heavy hiking boots which had been burdening him ever since our departure.
Believe it or not, the day after, in order to make it back home, he was forced to tie a straw around one of his professional boots which had been miserably collapsed!
Cast away
01/04/2006
Leaving El Valle we headed to Chitré, which has only one highlight: a fast internet connection.
We thus moved quickly to Las Lajas, a beautiful palm-lined beach on the pacific coast. After a couple of telephone calls, we finally arrived at Roy's cabins: a few huts on the beach, a fridge and Roy. In order to reach this place, one has to walk on the sand for 4 km; alternatively, he has to jump on 4WD cab, if the tide allows it.
Imagine our surprise when, in such an isolated location, we met a 28 years old Panamese guy who speaks perfectly Spanish, English and German.
Drinking and chatting in our hammocks under the stars, we found out that Roy is also an excellent counterpart in any kind of conversation: from Panamese real estate opportunities, to Sovietic cosmonauts and even to Scandinavian girls, he seemed to know everything!
We spent three lazy days basking in the sun, relaxing and meeting peculiar people who passed by, until we finally felt that it was time to go back to Costa Rica.
22/03/2006
After a few days in Puerto Viejo's paradise, we suddenly remembered that we had some kind of schedule to follow.
We thus decided to leave this place and obviously, just outside the hostel with our huge backpacks, we were surprised by an extremely violent tropical storm: wasn't this supposed to be the damn dry season?!?
Soaking wet and a little bit worried because of the rumors we had heard about corrupted police officers, we finally got onto a bus heading South towards the border with Panama. However, getting into Panama was extremely easy: at the check point they didn't even control if our passports had been renewed and so, there we were crossing a trembling bridge over the river which divides the two countries.
Nonetheless, the difficult part had still to come: once in Panama, we were assaulted by a hord of "taxy drivers" proposing us a five dollar trip to the closest town. These guys didn't know what they were stepping into: two Italian tourists perfectly trained to bargain by an Uruguayan lady!
Francesco, feeling a little bit like Henry Kissinger between Israel and Egypt, leaded the negotiations: after an hour and a half of heavy insults and a few "compliments", such as "el italiano más duro que nunca he encontrado", we finally managed to save a dollar each.
Talleyrand and Susana would be very proud of us!
Birthday Party
23/03/2006
Still white as two mozzarellas, even if we had already spent a week at the seaside, the first destination we chose in Panama was a group of tiny islands called "Bocas del Toro".
Sick and tired of our pale condition, we decided to try with a shock-therapy: no sun-screen at all.
Once completely sun-burnt, we had to remain in our hostel in order to recover, but fortunately we found out that this forced and unexpected stay would be delighted by many charming people.
Australians, Canadians, Americans, French, Swedish, English and Norwegians were part of the group and every evening they contributed to make Mondo Taitu a very cool place to be.
Nevertheless the first evening was awesome because of a Kuna girl (Kuna people are Panama's natives). She was celebrating her 29th birthday with 3 Kuna friends and a gigantic cake: obviously, to do that, she chose the bar of our hostel!
Since for a Kuna Joska is "the most similar thing to Leonardo di Caprio" (as a friend in Panama City told us), we immediately made friends with them and were thus invited (or rather forced) to go dancing some salsa. Once on the dance floor, we suddenly remembered that we weren't so familiar with salsa; however we were lucky enough to meet Alfonso: the best and gayest salsa instructor of the whole island.
We are still wondering if he did it for pure altruism or maybe because he as well is a big fan of Leonardo di Caprio, but the fact of the matter is that we got a 3 hours long free lesson!
Making Money
25/03/2006
Unfortunately, after a few days we recovered from our sunburn and so we had no more excuses to delay our departure. Early in the morning, we thus caught a plane to Panama City, but our minds were still thinking about the incredible last night in Mondo Taitu.
A couple of days had been more than enough in order for us to make friends with several guys, above all with Laura and Martin. Laura is a Texan girl part of the staff of the hostel, while Martin is an Australian yoga instructos who turned out to be a pizza chef as well.
This was his proposal for the last evening: he would prepare the dow for the pizzas, the Italians the sauce and everybody else would add their own ingredients. Oh, we forgot to say that, apart from Martin and us, whoever wanted a pizza had to pay 1 dollar.
The whole thing ended up being a huge amount of work (we cooked from 6 pm to 11 pm) and, we thought, a great financial succes too. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, we realized that the 25 dollars we had made were hardly enough to cover the costs of the ingredients!
Anyhow, cooking 35 pizzas (yes, for the ones who are good at maths, somebody didn't pay) helped us to create such a cool evening that the day after, we were so busy thinking to what we had done, that we didn't even have the time to be scared to death by the cold war left-over which was flying us to Panama City.
Dagli Appennini alle Ande
26/03/2006
As soon as we arrived in Panama City, we were immediately struck by its heat and loudness, which were a hell of a contrast with the relaxed vibe of the past days.
After a tour of the city which allowed us to understand the great difference between the misery and decadence of the ancient part of town and the wealth and liveliness of the modern one, we finally got in touch with Amelie.
Amelie is a Guatemalan girl who moved to Panama City 12 years ago and who was so kind to show us around town. We thus had the chance to meet some of her friends and relatives and hence to realize that their life style is after all very similar to the one we have in Italy.
Even if we had a great time with our new friends, the day after, once visited the Canal, we decided to escape from the noisy capital and headed to a small mountain town called "El Valle de Anton".
El Valle is a small village settled in a mind blowing location: in fact, it lays in the middle of a volcan's crater which obviously isn't active anymore.
Once there, the nature of the "mountain climber coming from Lecce" was unveiled: we immediately decided that the day after we would hike to the top of the highest mountain. To do that, we had been told that at least four hours were necessary: this piece of information allarmed Joska a little bit. He hence decided to glue one of his rotten sailing shoes (as he has been doing for the last 6 months) in order to "better" face the mountain.
Looking at the pathetic "glue operation", put Francesco in the best mood ever: while making fun of his companion, he proudly extracted his 3 kilos heavy hiking boots which had been burdening him ever since our departure.
Believe it or not, the day after, in order to make it back home, he was forced to tie a straw around one of his professional boots which had been miserably collapsed!
Cast away
01/04/2006
Leaving El Valle we headed to Chitré, which has only one highlight: a fast internet connection.
We thus moved quickly to Las Lajas, a beautiful palm-lined beach on the pacific coast. After a couple of telephone calls, we finally arrived at Roy's cabins: a few huts on the beach, a fridge and Roy. In order to reach this place, one has to walk on the sand for 4 km; alternatively, he has to jump on 4WD cab, if the tide allows it.
Imagine our surprise when, in such an isolated location, we met a 28 years old Panamese guy who speaks perfectly Spanish, English and German.
Drinking and chatting in our hammocks under the stars, we found out that Roy is also an excellent counterpart in any kind of conversation: from Panamese real estate opportunities, to Sovietic cosmonauts and even to Scandinavian girls, he seemed to know everything!
We spent three lazy days basking in the sun, relaxing and meeting peculiar people who passed by, until we finally felt that it was time to go back to Costa Rica.
