Hanging Andrews Lights

We flew in from Panama to Portland and it went from sweating day and night, to freezing my cahootzies off. We stepped out of the airport and it was freezing! We waited with our cold shuttle bus for EVER. Then, we missed our connecting bus so had to stand outside for 20 minutes in super freeze-town. I put on all the clothes I could, and rediculously wrapped 3 shirts around my head to stay warm. Then we got off at the wrong stop and had to walk like 10 Portland-sized blocks. Then we got in my van with no heater and drove to Andrew and Gretch's. Then, at long last, we were warm. Aaah. It was too cold to think about pictures when you're an ice-cycle, but here are fun pics from the next day!

Andrew with Isa, Wren with North.

We bought Dave's Wicked Good bread in bulk, and got these two kids, for free!

Uncle Wren guessing how many fingers North is holding up.

A heated (well, don't let the shorts fool you, it was still cold) game of HORSE.

North awesoming.

Pretty sure this is wren landing a back-flip ball-toss.

Post light-hanging handiwork check.

North. Awesoming again.

It sure was fun hanging out, and I'm sure I'll get used to the cold again. Brrrrr.

Panama Comin' Home

Wren and I are just finishing up our warm, interesting, fun 6 days in Panama. Here are some random nightcaps. Like seeing this building, a Frank Gehry design (he designed the EMP in Seattle).

One adventure was taxiing to the Metropolitan Natural Park. We din't end up going in because the price was out of our range, so we decided to walk back. At one point Wren steers us in a direction and I suggest it might not be safe. He assures me it's fine. Not 2 minutes later, 4 police walk up to us and inform us (in Spanish, so I can't really understand so Wren is translating for me) that the area is not safe, and they will walk us through the area and then drive us themselves to our hostel. Wren passes on the police ride (to which I astonishingly reply, "What?! That would have been awesome!" They flag down our taxi, and we make it home safe.

On another walk, it starts raining at an angle! Notice the dry side of the tree? Well, there was somehow no dry side of me, but once the rain let up, the heat went back to work, and we were almost completely dry once we reached the hostel.

On one of our walks, we saw this metal seamstress.

During our adventures we try and take awesome pictures... this ones a winner in my book.

The morning we left we caught a 5:15am taxi, had three flights which included 4 security checks (one stop included two checks!), encountered a meat-sniffing dog (like the kind that look for drugs) whose owner confiscated wrens sausage and lunch, one screening took my fork, I had a pat-down, and we almost missed one of the two connecting flights! Finally we are on our last flight to Portland. This is a happy Wren.

Once in Portland, its FREEZING BALLZ! We have to take a shuttle to the tram, then wait 20 minutes for a bus (where I pillage my clothes and put on another pair of pants, and wrap 3 shirts around my head because it's FRAAZING BALLZ!), then walk 10 minutes to my van, and drive 20 minutes to Andrews house. Whew! Total travel time was 19.5 hours! Good times!

Panama: The Island of Flowers

On the final day of our Panama trip, Wren and I took an hour ferry to Isla Taboga (Island of Flowers), a sweet, sandy-beached island.

 The water was so clear and so warm!

Wren hung the hammock under a shady tree, so when we weren't in the water, we were there or lying on the sand in the sun as we read our books. I also enjoyed watching the crabs dig into the sand, or pick things off the rocks to eat with their pincers.

 We walked around just long enough to find this place... which probably says Bella, but suuuure looks like it says Della to me!

We decided we want to go back to that island.

 It sure was nice.

Panama City by bike

Wren and I are on our last leg of our Panama adventure, and Luna's Castle is our final home here. It's great, they have a small "movie theater", lots of space for hanging out, and...

Bikes to borrow!

So we went on an adventure to find the post office, but first stop, Donald RUMP's Hotel (tee-hee!), which as of today, is the tallest building in Panama City.

It looks like this.

Another cool building was this beaut, the F&F Tower, ranked 7th in 2011 Emporis Skyscraper Awards for its architectural excellence. Pretty snazzy.

It was such a beautiful day for a bike ride. And because of the bikes, we discovered an awesome park that we walked around later.

Wren likes to add geo-caching to our adventure's list, so we did, and guess who found it? Me!

We also found the best and cheapest batidos (milkshakes) in town. I think we had one every day. Afterwards, that was our bike gang name "!Los Batidos!" It just sounds so awesomely tough.

Eventually we found the post office and made it home safely.

 Thanks Luna's Castle for the great adventure mobiles!

The Panama Canal: Locks n Crocs

Wren and I saw the Panama Canal. It is absolutely amazing how the locks work. You can check out a great description of how they work here.

Or for visual...

 Super top view.

We toured the Panama Canal museum/information center. This photo is from a virtual crossing station they have in the center.

This nice guy called in Joe Biden for us to see.

And there he is center-ish, Joe Biden, the smaller of the two guys in the blue shirt. That was pretty cool.

 Also pretty cool? This sign. Especially because on our train ride, Wren questioned my croc sighting... but now he knows, now he knows.

Pretty cute sign for such a crazy, snaggle-toothed, dangerous reptile, eh? Yah for locks, spontaneous celebrity sightings, and crocs!

The Panama Canal Railway

We rode the Panama Canal train! It is a railway line that links the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The rout is 47.6 miles across the Isthmus of Panama from Colon (Atlantic) to Balboa (Pacific). Construction started in 1850 and took 5 years to complete. It was integral in the construction of the Panama Canal.

It took us through towns,

 And across waters. Oh, and in those waters I saw a Crocodile... that was cool.

Trains are fun, they come with so much history and romance.

 We had a great ride.

Panama, La Isla Grande

After a 3 day cruise, Wren and I land in Panama. It's sweaty, wooey! We must travel from Colon to La Isla Grande, and we do so by catching a cheap cab (only $2!), to a retired and pimped up school bus, where we meet a couple who are traveling house-sitters!

We take a teeny boat the 8 minute ride across the water to La Isla Grande, where we will be for two nights.

We find a quaint place to stay, then move on to more important things... batidos (milkshakes)!

We explore a bit and find a cute restaurant with swings for chairs! I love it!

Though the island is called Grande, it is small enough for us to hike across. Though along the hike, we saw the Grande-est spider we've ever seen! Yowza!

 Once safely on the other side, Wren puts his "deserted island" skills to use by opening us a coconut!

It was so delicious!

 One of our surprisingly favorite things about the island (and as we noticed further into our trip) were the leaf-cutter ants. This is a poor photo, but the path you see there is actually made by them, going on for quite a while, many times we would follow the trail and not find the end.

Here's an online photo and some fun facts! These ants can carry up to 50 times their weight, they travel several hundred meters in search for the right leaves, the leaves they bring back to their nest is to fertilize a special fungus which is their food, their nests contain over 5 million ants and be the size of a small car! Neato!

Speaking of bugs, being that it was so hot, and our room's window screens were ripped, we were kinda devoured by mosquitos...

Regardless, the quaint, mellow island was a great start to our Panama experience, and we both agreed that we really like it here.