Where Have You Been?

Carrie &Jonathon,

I’m confused looking at your site… you guys have traveld a lot looks like… where all have u been?

james

Hey James!

Well, we have done a lot of travel in the past, but since October, we’ve been Read the rest of this entry »

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Hotel Santana: A review of Hotel Santana in Santa Ana, Panama City, Panama

We spent two nights at Hotel Santana in Santa Ana, Panama City, Panama.
Here is our review of the hotel.
I remember hearing something about Manuel Noriega when I was a child.
I remember thinking he was in Nicaragua.
“Noriega” sort of sounds like “Nicaragua”, especially to a 9 year old.
Why do I bring it up in a review of Hotel Santana in Panama?
The United States invaded Panama in 1989. To some of you, this isn’t news. To me, (and I imagine to many people in the US under the age of about 33,) this is surprising news.
The United States invaded a country as close as Panama?

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Panama Viejo and Casco Viejo in Panama City, Panama are not the same thing

Panama Viejo and Casco Viejo in Panama City, Panama are not the same thing…

I don’t know why, but for some reason, I thought that Panama Viejo (old town Panama City) was Casco Viejo. I was wrong.
This morning, Jonathan and I decided to go see Panama Viejo and then have lunch at one of the many new and fun places in Casco Viejo.
Casco Viejo is also called Antiguo Viejo, as you’ll see in the video below.
We grabbed a taxi right out front of our hotel (Hotel Santana), and were taken to Panama Viejo. Our driver also told us where it was safe and where it wasn’t if we wanted to walk around the old city.

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The Panama Canal at Miraflores

The Panama Canal at Miraflores

For some reason, whenever I hear of the Panama Canal I think of “Arsenic and Old Lace”.
Teddy says “I’m going to the basement to dig the Panama Canal!”
I love that show…
No trip to Panama, especially Panama City, would be complete without a trip to the canal.
We didn’t really make it work last time we were here (as we just passed through Panama City), but this time we knew we’d go.
Our overnight bus arrived into Panama City from David at 6:00am – exactly on time!
There are some crazy buses in Panama (all over Central America)!

From there we went to our hotel, and they let us check in super early, which was great!
So, we were able to grab a nap.
I read that there is a restaurant in the visitor’s center of the canal, so we decided to go there, have lunch, and watch a few ships pass through.
It was awesome! The food was ok, not the best (and pretty pricey), but good enough.

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Boquete: Two Excellent Weeks In The Mountains of Panama

A few of you have mentioned that we’ve been posting rather sparsely the past couple of weeks.
So, I thought I would summarize the past couple of weeks in Boquete.
(This is a long post, but I’ve included lots of pictures. This should help if you like to read by skimming. )
Carrie and I have had two wonderful weeks here in Boquete, and we’ve really enjoyed our time here in Chiriqui Province, Panama.

(In case you missed it, I did talk about our wonderful day at the beach at Las Olas/Playa Barqueta.)
Before heading to Florida, David and Cora had dinner for their guests/renters.

The dinner was for Nick and Joyce, friends of David and Cora’s, to celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary.

The next day, we drove David (day-vid) and Cora to the airport in David (dah-veed).

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Bugs in Boquete: Panamanian Bugs and Critters

We had a blast making this video about Panama’s Bugs and critters.
It’s a bit of a tribute to Steve Irwin and really was just done in silliness.
Hope you enjoy seeing the bugs and critters that we discovered in Boquete, Panama.
It’s all a bunch of silliness, really.

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Playa Las Olas and La Barqueta: A Day at Panama’s Beach

Getting to the beach at Playa Barqueta (or) Playa Las Olas, Panama is relatively straight-forward (for a place that doesn’t really have streets labeled that well).
You take the road from the Panamerican Highway into David that would take you to the David airport, and then follow the signs to las Olas.
(There are signs to Las Olas all the way, but in David, the sign and the turn is easy to miss. Heading to the airport, you take a right at the private Catholic School for boys – a 3 story building at a non-descript intersection before the turn to the airport), and then follow the road.
Las Olas/Playa Barqueta is a condominium beach resort and hotel which also has some lots and condos for sale right on the beach (from $239,000 to upwards of $400,000).

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Podcast #5: The Northern Part of Central America

In this podcast, we cover about 7 weeks of travel, from the time we left Granada, Nicaragua, early in December, through today, January 18.

Download the travel podcast MP3 here
We cover our travels through places and experiences like:

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Speaking Three Languages

There’s a joke that goes around quite frequently:

What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual

What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual

What do you call someone who speaks one language?
American.

There are lots of people in Boquete who move there from the United States. These are people who have had homes and have moved their entire lives to Boquete and have lived here for years. (I’m not talking about newcomers.)

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Tourism Map of Central America: Our Map from 3 months of Travel

In three months, we visited 6 countries, covered over 2,500 land miles (mostly by bus) and saw some really amazing places.
We also met some truly fantastic people – both people who are involved in tourism as tourists and tourist guides, and people who are living their lives in the countries we visited.
This map is not yet 100% complete, but gives you an idea of the places we’ve been and what we’ve been up to.
If you’re looking to ride Ticabus or Tracopa and want to know exact locations, this map should be rather helpful for you.
Also, we’ve tried to put in all our hotel stays (Think we got them all on here) and will be linking from this map to the reviews on our site so that you can easily get to everything in one place.
This should help you know where to stay if you visit these countries.
If you’re going to Central America, we hope that this helps you to both find things you’d like to see and do, as well as to know where exactly those things to see and do are located.
If this map does prove helpful for you, please comment below and let us know!

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