Patagonia – Barliloche and Beyond.

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Noel

We opted for a 22 hour bus ride from Buenos Aries to Bariloche rather than spending the extra on a flight. We had been told that the busses were pretty great, as far as busses go, so we had to give it a try. Unlike the busses back home in Canada, the busses in Argentina have seats that go right down into a slightly angled bed with a full leg rest so you can actually lay out and get pretty comfortable. They also play fairly decent movies in english, feed you 2 course warm meals complete with wine and desert, give you blankets and pillows and when they do stop it’s only for a few minutes so you aren’t stuck wandering around weird buss stops in the middle of the night while the rest of the people line up for bad food. All up we arrived well rested and it was a pretty good experience. If I was a few years younger and had all of the time in the world I would likely take busses all over the country, but since we only have a month here and our next destination is a 33 hour bus ride away and then the one after that is even further we are going to take planes from here on in.

Everyone tells us that we got lucky with the weather as it’s been in the mid to low 30’s which is well above their average. Bariloche reminds me of a bigger Nelson in the way that it’s a cute hill side town overlooking a lake and is situated about 11k from a really great ski hill. The main roads are paved and most of the smaller ones are gravel and very dusty. The main strip in town is quite a bit larger than I was expecting and there are lots of scruffy hippy types milling about. The tourists, of which there plenty, flock to the many chocolate shops and buy in bulk. My overall impression of Bariloche is that it’s larger than what I was hoping for, a little run down and a bit spread out. I guess I was expecting a South American Whistler type vibe and it wasn’t quite up to par. Having such a great summer and winter vacation like Whistler in your back yard is something that I will never take for granted.

After a few days of taking busses and taxis to various trail heads for our hikes we opted to rent a car for a week. It wasn’t cheep, but it was worth it because if took us to places we would have never seen otherwise. One of the first things I noticed about this part of Patagonia is that regardless of how far up a remote gravel road you are, you are sure to run into loads of young people hitch hiking with back packs and trekking gear. They must just pop out of the mountains, find a road and start hitch hiking because they are in the most random spots. The same goes for people fly fishing. It didn’t seem to matter how remote we were people were everywhere. I guess crowds are to be expected as this area of Patagonia is considered close (22 hour bus ride) to Buenos Aries and in their summer a lot of them vacation here.

I was keen to find out where the best fly fishing was and Josi was keen to hike every mountain peak. Back home in BC Josi and I usually find mountains to hike that have good fishing at the top so we both get what we are looking for. In Patagonia, when you hike to the top of mountains you are way above tree line and the freezing cold lakes at the top are void of fish because they at the foot of giant glaciers and full of silt. We came to a silent and mutual agreement that for most every day we spent hiking a mountain we would also spend a day finding river to fly fish.

The day after we arrived in Bariloche we did a 16k hike up a mountain peak that overlooked Bariloche and the surrounding lakes. Going up was easy, but one the way down we chose the more direct route to get home which was straight down under a gondola. Going down would have been a great ski run, but on foot your toes start to jam against the tips of your shoes. By the end the day our feet were pretty sore. The next day we hiked 24k on a much much bigger mountain called Refugio Frey who’s trail head starts from Mt Cathedral. Along the way we came across a super cool cabin built partially under a massive huge boulder that is used as a refuge for climbers. At the top there was another cabin/ refuge beside a small lake. Here there were many climbers camping with their tents sheltered by small stone walls to protect them from storms. It was a really cool vibe as people played music, socialized and climbed the many cliff faces that surrounded the camp. By the time we got to the bottom we were pretty spent and getting to see such amazing sights made the trip well worth the effort.

After back to back days of climbing and one day of shopping around Bariloche is was time to go fishing. I read online about one fishing store in Bariloche that was meant to be good so we went in to buy some flies and to talk to them about where the fishing was good. When we got there the older lady working was smoking a cigarette while she helped some other customers so I checked out their fly selection. I though that I was going to be in trouble because I had packed a bunch of trout flies that I tied back home that work really well for cut throat and rainbow trout up in Canada, but the ones they had looked nothing like the ones I had. When I asked the lady what flies worked well and where the fishing was good she pulled another drag from her smoke and told me that she didn’t know and went back to her smoking. Needless to say I didn’t buy anything and hit the road with the flies I had. After driving a while we pulled up at a river to have lunch and I fished for a little. It was pretty heavily fished and I didn’t have any luck with my dry flies, but thought I may have had a bite on a nymph. When fishing in a river you can’t always be sure if you had a bite, or you are bouncing off of the bottom. After lunch we continued on and stubbled onto a little river on a dead end road that lead to a lake so we decided to give it a try. The first thing I saw when we got there was a big brown trout about 4lbs jump out of the water along with a few nice sized rainbow’s jumping as well. I was so dam excited I could barely wait to get my fly in the water. After fishing for a while with no bites I stopped a local who was fly fishing with his son and asked him if he could recommend any of the flies in my box. He shook his head in disapproval and pointed to a couple of yellowish flies and said “colour”, but that was about it. I fished for a while longer using the few that he pointed at and still no luck. We couldn’t catch them so we decided to join them and jumped in for a refreshing swim in the crystal clear water.

When we got to the next town we found a proper fly fishing shop and this time is was more of a familiar experience. The guy in the fly shop showed me a selection of dry flies that work well in the area and then pointed on a map to a spot on a river a few hours away. Unlike the flies we use back home these all had big long legs and they look very real and bug like. All geared up we packed a lunch and headed out. One thing that I find really interesting in Patagonia is how in one minute you can be in a lush green forest with lakes and mountain peaks so high that they reach up and touch the sky and the next minute you are in a virtually flat dry and dusty desert with dusty gravel roads that go straight for miles. It’s a contrast that I’m not used to having grown up in BC.

When we got there we were in what seemed to be the middle of no where and once again we were surprised to see how many people were camping and fly fishing along the banks of this remote river. Turns out that many of the people who live in the cities had for the area in Patagonia in and around Barlioche and many of them love to fly fish. After fishing for a short while and only catching few small trout we drove on. We came to a indian reserve where they collected $30 pesos ($6 CAD) from us in exchange for us fishing on their land. While we didn’t catch a lot of fish the few we caught were small, but a decent size, the biggest of which was about 17 inches.

After that we ventured to Mt Tronador which is 3,491 m mountain a few hours away from Bariloche. We got lucky because there was a last minute cancelation at the Hotel Tronador which is a super remote and very cool 50’s lodge way up a gravel one lane road 30K away from the base of Mt Tronador. It’s situated on the edge of a beautiful bright green lake and included in the costs are three meals a day and the use of a small row boat and loads of trails leading up into the mountains. The lake had huge trout that loved jumping in front of my flies, but none would bite. The local fly fishing guide told me that it was too hot and the chances of catching them were slim. He did tell us about a small lake 8k up a hiking trail in the mountains. Josi and I decided to check it out, but when we got there there were so many hungry biting horse flies that we didn’t even get a chance to fish. We drove up to the base of Mt Tronador and went for a quick hike, but once again the horse flies were all over us. Even our OFF spray from Canada wasn’t enough to keep them away. Josi was even getting bitten through her sweat shirt. Lucky they weren’t so bad in and around our hotel. Staying here was the highlight of our time in the Bariloche area.

My next blog post will feature our next stop in this amazing adventure as we fly south 3.5 hours to El Calafate and then on to the even more remote town of El Chalten. This will be the furthest south either of us have ever been and there’s a lot of excitement around our travels to this remote part of Patagonia.

Posted in Adventure, Cool Shit, Fishing, Travel, Wildlife
Country: Argentina

Buenos Aires – Argentina

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Noel

Even though I was excited to be going to Argentina, I knew that I was going to miss the laid back and healthy lifestyle that we had in Costa Rica. There is something very cool about being able to wake up and go for a surf in tropical warm water every day and eating unlimited fresh fruits and seafood for next to nothing. But it wouldn’t be much of an adventure if we just stayed in Costa for six and a half months would it? Having never been to Argentina I was exited to see what fun and cool things we would get up to.

Getting from Mal Pais to Buenos Aries was an adventure in itself. We started in a small twin prop from Tambor to San Jose where we stayed the night before departing early the next morning to Panama City. Our Panama to Costa and back leg of our adventures wasn’t a part of our around the world ticket so we weren’t flying business class. Luckily I’m always nice (and Josi is even nicer) when checking in and this time it paid in full as we got a free upgrade to first class.

Josi found us a great hotel/apartment in Recoletta right beside the old graveyard. I’m not a fan of grave yards, but this one is over the top with huge statues, cool carvings and it has a real tourist draw. Our apartment was on the top floor, had a full kitchen (that we never used), a huge patio, great views and a really comfortable bed. When we go back we will either stay in Recoletta again, or we will stay in Palermo Soho which is a little more out of the way, but is a lot hipper and a less touristy part of town.

Buenos Aries is a city for lovers. There always seemed to be a warm breeze to cool the hot summer sun as it’s soft light fell onto couples making out on park benches. The people are friendly and often comical when talking to them on the streets or in their shops. From what I can tell Argentinians have a real pride in who they are and in no way seem threatening or menacing like many of the other Latin American countries that I have been to. The one thing that I don’t like so much is that most of them love to smoke cigarettes. We felt very safe in Buenos Aires, but I’m guessing that there is a darker side that we thankfully haven’t seen. Once while having a coffee on a patio close to our hotel in an affluent area and another time while shopping in Palermo Soho people came up to me and told me to be careful with my camera as they were worried that someone might steal it from me. Everyone was so friendly and everything seems so safe that I wouldn’t have believe it to be possible, but when looking up at the apartments all of the second floor units, and even many of the 5th floor units, have their balconies fully gated off so no one can get in. I wouldn’t expect that anyone would choose to live in a cage, especially on the 5th floor, unless break in’s were somewhat common.

On the weekends there are several markets selling all sorts of cool hand made things, food, and junk. There are people playing music and dancing tango and lots of tourists and locals alike experiencing the beautiful summer days. We were hoping that all of the stories of really cheep leather shoes, clothes and restaurants were all true, but we have yet to discover any great deals. A nice pair of men’s shoes costs about $160 and a main course for dinner goes for about $20. Not overly expensive, just not as cheep as it was a few years ago I guess.

I’m sure you could do it, but being a vegetarian or a vegan would be less than easy because they really love their meat. The food courts in the mall even have open grills where they cook huge steaks. I went full on meat for dinner one night and I felt full and a little funny for days. After a month in Costa Rica of eating seafood, and a lifetime of hardly eating red meat, it’s a bit of a shock to the system. What I do love here is their Chimmy Churry sauce. Every restaurant has their own unique version of it and I put it on absolutely everything.

In my next blog post I will tell you about our 22 hour bus trip to Bariloche and all of our hiking and fishing adventures in Patagonia.

Posted in Adventure, Cool Shit, Flights, Food, Travel, Uncategorized
Country: Argentina

Things to do in Buenos Aires

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Josi

Buenos Aires is a beautiful city with so much to discover and filled with taxi drivers who love to give you a free tour (in spanish) as they drive you to your destination. It is fairly easy to navigate as it is divided in different neighbourhoods which are called Barrios and all quite different from one another. We’ve only spent four days touring around the city and it went by way too fast! Noel and I already agreed that it would be nice to come back to Buenos Aires for a few days at the end of our trek through Argentina before our departure for South Africa.

Overall, we will be spending 26 days in Argentina which sounds like a long time at first, but when you start listing all the amazing places to visit and when you look at the size of the country, you soon realize that a month will fly by in no time. In my opinion, it is best to stay a bit longer in each location to get a real feel for the vibe and fully experience the place, rather than packing in too many destinations. Plus it is nice to have a few days of down time when you are on the road for so long. Both Noel and I love to travel without a fully planned itinerary so we can stay longer if we love a place or move on to the next destination if we prefer. Being on the same page has made it very easy on us to travel together.

So here is what we’ve been up to over the last few days:

Shopping

The best shopping is found in a neighbourhood called Palermo Soho, about 10 minutes ($6CAD) away by cab from where we were staying in Recoleta. If you feel like checking it out, just ask your cab driver to drop you off at the corner of Armenia and Honduras and you will be in the heart of it. You can find several local designer shops offering classic and eclectic clothes, bags and shoes. The items that I have been on the hunt for are bikinis (as I love the sexy bottoms they sell in South America), bags of all sorts as well as bohemian style clothing. So far, all I purchased is this gorgeous salmon colour bikini and I plan on continuing my hunt when we come back from the mountains.

Another popular place to shop in Buenos Aires are the malls. They sure love their malls in Central and South America! Noel and I are not mall rats at all back home in Canada and we surprised ourselves spending way too much time in them so far on our trip. On top of the shopping experience, it is also a great place to cool down after walking the streets! The best mall is definitely the Recoleta Mall. Even though it’s a bit pricy it has the best stores. At this time of the year all the stores are on sale and most of them are part of the tax free program. Basically, at the time of purchase they give you a form to bring to the airport along with your receipts in order to collect the 21% tax back. It makes it a bit more enticing to make purchases.

My hot husband shopping the sales!

Churches

I’ve never been much of a church lover until a couple years ago when I went to visit L’Oratoire Saint-Joseph in Montreal with my parents. I love to look at the details of the architecture and the art and most of all I love the peaceful feeling you get from sitting down on these old wooden benches. On our tour of the city, we visited two smaller churches, one in Recoleta and one in Palermo. We also did a quick visit to the La Catedral Metropolitana, considered one of the most beautiful buildings in Buenos Aires. The Cathedral was fairly ordinary on the outside and reminded me more of a tribunal than a church, but is absolutely beautiful inside. I felt so inspired that I kneeled down to pray for safe travels for Noel and I (Noel snapped a photo).

The Recoleta Cemetery

This is the first public cemetery of Buenos Aires and where people of all levels of the society have been resting in peace over the last couple of centuries. Noel and I went in for a self guided visit and it turned out to be a great opportunity to snap a few photos of the amazing graves that the families have put in place to celebrate the lives of their loved ones past. To be honest I got a bit overwhelmed in there and was happy to be on a self guided tour. It is truly impressive to see how much love went into building this beautiful sanctuary.

Palermo Park

On our second day in Buenos Aires, Noel and I felt like getting our sweat on to compensate for all the sweet treats we’ve been eating. There is no better way to discover a city than by going from run. We ran from Recoleta to Palermo and all around the park area and back. On that particular Sunday some of the roads were closed off and a ton of people were walking, running, roller blading and biking on the streets. Some people where sun tanning in the grass and It felt like being in a tropical Stanley Park. On the way back to our hotel, we walked through the botanical garden which is a must see. It is a peaceful place to enjoy a Sunday morning and cool down from a run.

Feria de San Telmo

Apparently every Sunday this fair takes place in Barrio San Telmo, bringing hundreds of merchants selling all sorts of stuff from antiques through jewellery, clothes, leather items, gadgets and food. Locals and tourists gather to walk up and down the street and experience this festive vibe. There is music and tango on the street and clearly everybody is having a great time.

As I mentioned earlier, we are now on our way to Bariloche and then further down into Patagonia, returning to Buenos Aires toward the end of the month. One thing that I am looking forward to experiencing in Buenos Aires, if we manage to stay up past midnight, is the nightlife. I read online that most clubs open around 1:30am and stay open until 7am. Apparently it is vibrant with people who love to dance without taking themselves too seriously. That screams Noel and I ! Please let us know if you have any other suggestions of things we must see or most do.

View from our Balcony

Posted in Adventure, Travel
Country: Argentina

Too Relaxing of a Layover

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Josi

Noel and I stayed in San Jose for a night before starting our Argentinian Adventure. The price was right so we chose one of the big box hotels by the SJO airport which was characterless, and nice and easy at the same time. We were up early the next day on our way to Panama and then onto Argentina. The flight from SJO to Panama was one we purchased as it was not a part of our scheduled around the world ticket. What was great is that they upgraded us to first class which surprised Noel considering we were wearing flip flops, shorts and TShirts.

Our 5 hour layover in Panama didn’t seem so bad knowing we had access to the first class lounge and could catch up on emails and work. We got comfy, drank coffee, did a bit of work and watched planes take off. At some point, we got tired of eating Copa’s prepackaged lounge snacks so we went to grab a quick bite downstairs in the airport. After eating lunch I took my phone off of Airplane Mode to check my emails and the local time adjusted itself. We thought that we knew what time it was, but we must have had it wrong. We spent way longer than we thought in the lounge and rather than having over an hour left we were about to miss our flight to Buenos Aires. After a long run through the airport we made our flight with only a few minutes to spare. I am so glad that we didn’t miss our flight to Argentina as I didn’t want to spend the night in Panama.

Our next flight was about 6 hours and for the first time it felt like what I always imagined First Class to be… It was very comfortable. The seats reclined to a level that made it more than easy to sleep, the food was surprisingly delicious and the landing as smooth as it gets. We landed at 1am and after a quick cab ride we checked in to our hotel in Recoleta, a nice neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. Since then we have spent our days discovering this super cool city, taking it in as much as we can before leaving to the mountains of Patagonia. I absolutely love Buenos Aires and could easily see myself spending a much longer period of time here. The weather is about 32 degrees everyday with a mix of sun and clouds and a nice breeze which makes it very enjoyable for walking around. The sun stays up until about 8:30pm and the humidity level has been very tolerable. I haven’t bought many things as of yet, but the shopping here is amazing and I’m in bikini and purse heaven!

Buenos Aires has a very romantic vibe and I witnessed a lot of people kissing passionately at restaurants and in the parks, which makes for a great stop for our honeymoon. The three neighbourhoods where we hug out the most: Palermo, Palermo Soho and Recoleta remind me of New York in a less busy way. The fact that there is not much traffic makes it possible to steel a quick kiss from your lover in the middle of the street as you are crossing. More photos of Buenos Aires to come real soon!

Posted in Adventure, Flights, Travel
Countries: Argentina, Costa Rica, Panama

Mal Pais, Costa Rica

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Noel

We flew out of Bocas Del Toro to San Jose Costa Rica and then connected to Tambor which is an airport with a super sketchy little small gravel airstrip on the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. On the plane we sat in front of a guy who lives in Santa Teressa who knows Jobbie so we shared a cab with him to Mal Pais with saved us a couple of bucks which was nice. Having spent a lot of time in Mal Pais over the years it felt as though we were back to our home away from home. While there is always swell here, it’s not the waves that keep us coming back, it’s the people and the laid back vibe. It’s super chill with great food, decent surf most of the time, and lots of fun things to do.

Our good friend Jobbie, a fellow Canadian who I met down here 12 years ago, has a surf shop and surf school in Mal Pais. http://www.jobbieslongboards.com. If you are looking for the perfect get away from the winter rains and want to learn how to surf, relax, and have a blast, be sure to look him up. And if you are wondering why his logo and all of his apparel graphics are so dam cool, it’s because I have been doing all of his creative since day one. A little ruthless self promotion. What’s cool is that yesterday I also designed up some shirt and ball cap designs for Product C, a local fish market and restaurant that totally rocks in exchange for free meals.

Josi had caught a cold in Vancouver just before we left and it never quite left. Over the last week she was hit pretty hard and she even had to take a couple of days out of the surf. She has been riding her now short board and was stoked to find out that she can now duck dive, something that she always wanted to do. Now that she is starting to feel better I’m sure that she will be in the surf every day. I have been waking up between 6 and 7am for an early morning surf but today I took the morning off because I paddled through some jellyfish yesterday and my arms are marked up pretty good. It hurts a bit when you first get stung, then feels like a mild burn and the next day it swells up and gets itchy. Your only defence once you have been stung is to pee on it right away, then pour vinegar on it when you get home and after that to scrape it with a credit card. The scraping is meant to get out the stingers. It doesn’t help that I’m more susceptible to jellyfish stings than some and because of it seem to get stung more than most.

Jobbie hooked us up with a killer apartment right by the beach which is so great. Two bedrooms, AC, full kitchen and 24 hour security so you don’t have to worry too much about things getting stolen which is good. While it’s super beautiful here and the locals are all super nice, you hear stories of things going missing all the time.

Josi’s parents have joined us here from Montreal and are staying through Christmas which is really great. For them this is a big adventure as they have only been out of Canada a few times and usually it’s at an all inclusive. It’s pretty rustic here with only gravel roads and the restaurants are often open walled huts where they cook on open fires. They are great sports and I think that they have been having a good time so far.

Yesterday we went fishing with our friend and local fisherman, Dougie (https://www.facebook.com/douglas.castrillo.14). $150 gets you a boat that can sit 6 people out on the open ocean for 4 hours. Dougie is a great guy and as far as the local fisherman go he is the best. If you are ever down here I highly recommend that you send him a message and have him take you out. Josi caught a big Amber Jack, Luke caught a huge Mahi Mahi (Dougie is holding it up in the photo below, I caught a super tasty Yellow Fin Tuna and the rest of the team caught nice size Amber Jacks as well. We saw dolphins, huge sea turtles and lots of fish. Needless to say, we are all going to be eating lots of fresh seafood for the next few days!

Well, it’s hot and I’m itching to go for a surf so I’m out of here. At some point I will pull out my good camera and will take some nicer photos. And if the surf gets big then we will be sure to get some surf photos as well.

Posted in Adventure, Fishing, Flights, Food, Surfing, Travel
Country: Costa Rica

Bocas Del Toro, Panama

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Noel

We took the night bus from Panama City to Bocas which cost $55 for both of us which seemed like a great deal. Save the costs of a hotel for a night, and $220 in airfare. Half asleep and in the middle of the night as the Feds checked our passports we were second guessing our decision. We should have guessed it was going to be weird the second a bus worker talked to us in length about the importance of not going PoPo on the bus and then promptly after showed us his bare belly that protruded as though he was giving birth to an alien. At first I though that he had experienced first hand the importance of not going PoPo on the bus, but he then walked the isles asking for money. Even the locals were giving him change to I chipped in a dollar assuming that he was collecting money to pay for sorting it out his tummy problem. We were loaded up with snacks and the trip started off fun like adventures are meant to. Come the middle of the night the AC was cranked and we were freezing. Luckly we had towels to use as blankets. A little later in the night and two security checks later, one that included showing passports, two food stops at the typical weird restaurants that busses always seem to stop, and the driver rocking his latin music all night long was just enough to ensure that we didn’t get any sleep.

When the bus finally dropped us off in the early hours of the morning it was pouring rain and a bit of a panic. We were swarmed by tax cab drives asking to take us to the boat launch. Bocas is group of islands and the only way to get there is either by water taxi or by air. When the boat pulled into Bocas I was a little surprised by how developed and how run down things were. I guess that it didn’t help that one of the first locals that talked to me was a sketchy Caribbean guy asking if I wanted some weed.

After a few days the sun came out and things seemed better. Yes, the same sketchy Caribbean guy kept asking if we wanted weed, but we stopped seeing things as old and falling apart and quickly came to appreciate it’s unique Caribbean charm. The town is built up a little much for our liking, but a short water taxi, taxi or walk away you can find your own little piece of tropical paradise complete with palm trees, warm tropical ocean and a slight hint of what you can see may be great surf on much bigger days.

Most of the guest houses and restaurants in Bocas are built on stilts over the ocean which is super cool. Partly to keep them cool and part to keep out the rats and bugs. Even still, we were told that they have to spray for pest often.

We researched Trip Advisor for best value places to stay and ended up staying at Bahia Del Sol for $88 per night. It may have been a bit much, but they had a fast internet connection which was great because I was able to complete my photography site (http://www.noelfox.com), and it came with a good breakfast every morning complete with great local coffee. Jack and Lee, the couple who run the place, are a nice and somewhat odd American couple. I’m not sure why, but must of the people who move the tropics are a bit odd in one way or another, but then again who isn’t. After breakfast Jack takes the scraps of leftover fruit and throws them off of his patio into the sea where hundreds of fish would come to feast. I really wanted to fly fish off of their patio, but I feared that I would be catching Jack’s pet fish rather than the bigger, more tasty fish I was after. Our room was only feet off of the water and the sound of the small wind waves lulled us into deep sound sleeps each night.

We really enjoyed taking water taxies to deserted beaches and to the little villages in the area for between $1 and $5 per person. You can flag them down from the beach and they will rush in to take you to where you want to go.

One of our highlights was a trip up to Starfish Beach. We took a 45 minute bus trip with mostly locals to the north end of the island for the day. Then either a 15 minute hike through the jungle lined seaside, or another boat trip and you are there. If you go, we recommend eating the seafood at the middle, white beach side shack that’s run by a really cool Caribbean gentleman. When we arrived at the beach there was a 15 room, 72M private cruise ship docked just off shore and a small group of older Russians had set up a small luxury camp on the beach. Servents/ crew would race back to the ship on jet skis or in a large white Zodiak style of boat bringing back champaign and service what ever their needs might be. In talking to the crew and were surprised to find out that the guests were each paying $65,000 Euros a day. When they left our new friend gave us their left over Caviar & Egg covered crackers, pastries and raw vegetables which we enjoyed eating for lunch.

The main reason we chose to go to Bocas was because of it’s great surfing. Unfortunately, even though early December is considered high season, there were no waves while we were there and nothing epic in the forecast so I called up our buddy Jobbie (http://www.jobbieslongboards.com) in Mal Pais Costa Rica to ask what was going on over there. As always Jobbie said the surf was epic to we double checked his claims online and sure enough it’s going off. We quickly changed our flights and are now headed for the Pacific. While we would have loved to spend a little more time in Bocas Del Toro, Costa is about 10 Degrees warmer and there are way better waves at the moment so we are out of here.

Next stop, Mal Pais, Costa Rica. Pura Vida!

Posted in Adventure, Travel
Country: Panama

On the road

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Josi

The world adventure has begun! It was more than a year ago that Noel and I decided to embark on trip around the world. For a while, we weren’t sure of the exact date of our departure and since the summer is so nice in beautiful British Columbia, we decided to stick around and enjoy the sunshine. It was perfect really since it gave us time to go to Mexico for two weeks for a swimwear photo shoot/ surf trip, and prepare for this trip. It took a lot more preparation that I had envisioned, so we both ended up working a lot more than expected and the trip, even though it was coming quickly, seemed like it was never going to happen.

Noel’s mom drove us to the airport and it is only when we sat down on the plane that it felt real!

We have been gone for 4 days now and it seems like it’s already been forever. Vegas was a blast! Staying awake all night was definitely the call and it made for a sleepy plane ride on our way to Panama.

It is the first time for both of us here and we didn’t know what to expect at all. I was surprised to see how many high rises there are in the city and how tall they are. My guess is that the tallest is around 80 floors and the crazy thing is that it is right next to the ocean. The architecture of some of these new buildings is impressive.

The old part of the city: Casco Antiguo is beautiful and great fun to walk through. The old buildings now house government offices, churches, restaurants, stores and hotels. It definitely has a tourist vibe and at the same time it is vibrant with the locals presence. Casco Antiguo is on the other side of the bay from the downtown area and it makes for a bit of a clashing scenery. While most of the government buildings are revamped and quite charming, the rest of the area is surrounded by dilapidated buildings and rough neighbourhoods.

Unfortunately, there is no real surfing right in the city, so after two days, we decided that it is time for us to move to our next destination: Bocas del Toro.

We could have flown there easily within 45 minutes and we decided that saving a few bucks by taking the bus was a great idea. It is an 11h bus ride! Ouch! In fact this is where I am writing this post at this very moment. I love going on bus rides in tropical places because it gives you time to reflect on what you’ve seen so far and plan your next adventure. That being said, the real reason why I like bus rides is that you get to bring snacks! And shopping for snacks in tropical places is the best!

First you get as much local food as you can: empenadas and locally made ham and cheese croissants are the best! Second you get to choose between all the sugary snack from your youth and some that you never even heard from before! The labels are usually pretty awesome too, in a non American kind of way! Third is the drinking yogurt! I don’t know why we don’t carry more in our grocery stores back home in Canada, because it’s are purely delicious and they have all the fruit flavours that you can imagine. I have to say that the mango and passion fruit mix is my favourite so far.

My sugar rush is finally coming to an end so I will put my headphones on, listen to a audio book and pray for the bus driver’s assistant to find the key to for the bathroom which has been locked since we left the bus terminal a couple of hours ago:)

Posted in Adventure, Flights, Food, Travel
Countries: Canada, Panama, USA