Well, my old camera kicked the bucket, so I got a new one yesterday. I'm real excited, and that's all I'm gonna say. Also, the other night I was roaming around near my house and I heard the sound of a dear little frog. I'm not entirely sure what class of frog it is, but it's green and layed eggs in a little pool next to my pad. Then I proceeded to take them in as my own personal pets and have been monitering their safety for over a week now. One way I've possible ensured their survival(or made them weaker, who knows), is I've been adding water to their pool. It hasn't rained in over a week(I mean, I live in the middle of the rain forest in the damn rainy season, where is all this rain I was promised??), so their pool keeps becoming this sad little mud spot on the ground. So I grab my 5 gallon bucket and add around 12 gallons of water to their little ecosystem. Good fun really, don't tell mother nature.


Hi Carmen!

The style of hammock I so desire to obtain(but are not made here).

Maw.

The kids. (By the way that is a cacao fruit in the water there. You know, where chocolate comes from.)
Adolescents.

Melanie's Family has a nice little getaway house over in El Valle that I was fortunate enough to be allowed to visit the day before I left. I wish I could have spent more time there because thier mom did an amazing job designing and building everything about the property.

A little outdoor pation with a built in little building with a bar inside.


View from her front yard in El Valle.
A nice little path they created by the stream that runs through their yard.

The whole family, plus me.

This is my last Casco Viejo post, I promise. But it was just such an interesting place.

This is a part of Panama City that was very interesting for me. It was very run down in some parts, but in others they were starting to revitalize the buildings.
Here you have two revitalized buildings with an old one in the middle.

Peeking through broken shutters into a lot.

View of most of Panama City.

Still not sure what I'm not supposed to do here. Maaayyyybe....I'm not supposed to steal the "do not __" signs.

Panama Canal

Where the boats come from on the Pacific side.
The bell on the first boat to fully travel the canal.
This guy just walked around all day and told visitors detailed information as to what was happening in the canal. What a job. Maaaaaaaaaybe a little boring.

Weekend at Chewnings beach house

A friend of Melanies has a family beach house about an hour and a half from Panama City, so about 10 of us headed on out there this past weekend for some beach action.

Flubberguts.
View to the ocean from his outdoor cabana.
Afternoon clouds coming in like clockwork.
Live bug.
Dead bug...

Hangin' out in Panama

Melanie, Eduardo and I having a few beers...

A view of the Americans bridge from the FSU campus.
Hmmmm.....If I wear this tank top will I look like this? I certainly hope not.

Bocas del Toro

Well the first thing I did once classes were over was buy a bus ticket to Panama where I met my brother in Bocas. I stayed there a few days and then went with him to some sort of Peace Corps party in a tiny town called Miramar, that most likely held around 20-30 families. Or at least that's how it appeared. It took 20 minutes of people seeing my brother, his friend and I sitting outside of one of two convenient stores in the town and yelling into the house next to us, "hey, you've got costomers" before a woman in her late 50's wandered out lazily and unlocked the store. And then in this store we managed to find some dusty cans of tuna and every brand of mayonaise you could dream up. mmmmmm....
Road behind Mondo Taitu, the hostel I stayed at in Bocas.

A bar called Shipwreck because it was built over a sunked ship. Go figure.
Sunrise.
The view from the hostel in Miramar.
Hitching a ride in the back of a truck from Miramar to another village in order to get a bus to David, from where I went straight to Panama City.