No-see'em Sanctuary feeds into Extended Animal Farm

Our time at the Villa in Panama was great. We had the space to unwind, consider what it is that we want to experience in our new lives together, and the luxuries that normally are afforded by stability for just long enough to eventually get unsettled again.

The only real problem we had at the sanctuary was with the sand flies. Or as the locals call them, the no-see-um's. One morning I woke up with around 80 to 100 bites all over my feets, legs, arms and back... it was a party.

At the villa we snorkled and saw barakudas and a potted manta ray, paddled kayaks around island reefs, and generally lounged around the house. Laura did a lot of Reiki sessions, sometimes on myself. And I spent a good amount of time writing my book and I've written about 120 pages or so now.

We also took a good long hard look at what it is we want for our selves, and the opportunities and costs of living we have observed in Costa Rica and Panama. We have decided that Costa Rica isn't going to be where we settle, the cost of living is too high and there isn't much in the way of flamenco dancing opportunities. Writing my book is now becoming a major goal, and I want to dedicate around 6 to 12 months to this objective. My criteria have thus simplified, I'm just looking for a low cost of living environment, in an inspirational setting. Laura is looking for a place she can dance [rather than teach]. And so now are criteria is pretty much down to 3 things...

The week continued, and by the end of the week we left and went on the road back to Costa Rica, only this time via the west/pacific coast. Between ourselves and manuel antonio, there wasn't anything we wanted to visit anymore, since we knew that the costs were generally very high, and we would rather now travel less but in higher luxury than longer at lower budget levels.

We couldn't get all the way to Manuel Antonio from Bocas del Toro in one day, in fact, we estimated about 3 days minimum, so we made it four days so that we would have some rest along the way.

The first day we magically connected within seconds from boat to shuttle, to another shuttle, and then finally to another bus and landed in a great shit hole called Golfito.

Crossing the border on the south pacific side was a joke. We walked through the border post, which was full of people just "hanging out" and shops. We literally couldn't even see the inspection office so we kept walking and we were suddenly in costa rica. We got to the bus stop, but then we decided that we needed an entry stamp into Costa Rica or we might get problems when we left the country.

We found the entry post for costa rica, another 5 minutes past the bus stop but they made us walk back to panama to find the bureau... all in all it was a weird experience. I've never seen such an optional border crossing!

After all that, when we got to Golfito we only saw trashy buildings, drunks, a half attempted carnival park, and yet more drunks. A man collects money to help the poor youth who fall into cocaine addictions. Between some half fallen apart walls men played pool. I had the worst food I've had in a long time and our hotel room was expensive and awful. We had big holes for the mosquitoes to come in, and to go to the bathroom we had to switch the light bulbs manually!

At this point we firmly decided to stick with our plan and to not take the ferry into the densest, wildest national park of the country: the Osa peninsula. We continued on via a more "orthodox" route and did another day of bus traveling to Dominical.

Dominical was more touristy, the food was better, and our room wasn't half reclaimed by the ground. The beach was full of white surfers with brown skin, rocks, big waves and a raw messy jungle feeling.

The next day we went to a gorgeous beach, mainly because of how raw it was, and saw some spectacular lighting on the ocean when an approaching thunderstorm was rim-lit by a shinny twinkling sun. The sea lit up in sparkles with deep colors behind it in the distance. the waves crash on islands and changed them into dragons. And the distant rock-steps to our left held up a far away solitary giant fat gnomes tree lost in the sea like an island.

We got excited about a waterfall, but the journey to it would have costed us 50$ each, which we decided against for perhaps obvious reasons, but it was still frustrating cause we end up traveling so much and then not going to the sites due to their insane unfair prices...

The next day we made it to Manuel Antonio and we ended up staying 4 days, here is where our animal farm experience began! So far this place had the best beaches we have seen until now, and really a very large amount of wild life. The park is very small, but really enjoyable. We went on secret paths that were off limits to a secluded water fall, and we had great picnics on the beach. If you ever come to these parts though, you really only need two days, and don't bother with any of the beaches, hotels or restaurants outside of the park -- it's all about the park and two full days in the park should suffice!

We saw a red eyed tree frog [that let me touch its foot!], lots of thunder, giant iguanas, 4 or so sloths, racoons, 3 types of monkeys at close proximity, lots of really weird bugs, a small yellow spotted tree frog, a centipede, and many different birds.

To see all these pictures, and more, as well as all my other pictures from all my travels, please visit my online photo album collection