April = holy cow month!

I cannot believe that a month and a half has passed since my last post.

I also cannot believe how much can happen in such a short month and a half window of time!

As I don't really have much time and energy to post now (but am forcing myself to cause if I don't then I won't lol), I'm gonna keep this to a brief recap:

Work = Excellent. I had an exciting month full of highs and lows that included restructuring and in some cases restaffing (although that's never an easy thing to do...), hiring some new folk and continuing to grow and prosper even in difficult times for the world.

Working out = Not so excellent. I missed 4 boot camp classes this month and am soooo not impressed with myself for that. There were legitimate reasons involved (either clients flown in from abroad or bday parties or other courses that I paid for blending in the mix) but I'm going to really push myself over the next few weeks to make up for that.

Studying = Good. I'm still working on GMAT material, preparing for that exam this year. Nobody said it would be easy (and it's really not! hahaha) but I"m actually kinda enjoying it...god I'm such a nerd.

Other Stuff:

• I bought a house! That's right! I'm officially going to be a landlord!
• I got my M2 level Motorcycle license! That is beyond beginner level for those of you who may not know - I took a Rider Training Institute class and everything and can now ride a motorcycle as fast and efficient as any guy I know.
  
• I set up my vacation plans for the last 2 weeks of May to go to Grand Cayman Islands! Woot Woot! TIckets are bought and paid for.
  
• I went to visit some old friends and family in Halifax Nova Scotia - the city I went to university in, but had not been to since...and that was such a long time ago... it was SOO good to see those people and visit my old stomping grounds!
• I am getting a life outside of work! hahaha That might sound weird to some of you, but to those of you who know me well... that's a HUGE milestone for me! I've been meeting all sorts of new and interesting people... and who knows.. romance may be lurking soon! ;)

That's it, that's all folks...

My list of upcoming things to do include (but are certainly not limited to):

• Training new Staff and setting up proper protocol and polocies
  
• Buying a motorcycle - immediately if not sooner!
• Working on my new investment house - it's gonna be so pretty when I'm through with it!
• Scuba Diving in Grand Cayman Islands
• SkyDiving at Niagara Falls
• Possibly more romance and socializing... hehehe

and who knows what else!

This is the year of random folks! If anyone has a crazy or random idea of something for me to put on my To-Do list - by all means! Share these fabulous ideas!

Ta ta!

Vienna - Mostly Mozart

A relatively short entry -

Friday night when I got back from the ballet, there was an English movie on the TV about the life of Mozart. It wasn’t a documentary-style movie but more of a Hollywood rendition, regardless, it really peeked my interested about Mozart. I never knew he was regarded as so childish with a crazy giggle and first played for the Empress in the Schoenbrunn Palace (which I got to actually go visit that exact room he played in when he got his start – I will talk more about that in the next entry) when he was SIX years old! He was already a music prodigy at age 6! Why didn’t I know this?

Anyway, this movie succeeded at peeking my interest enough to wake up on Saturday morning and head straight to Mozart’s house here in Vienna. I knew it was close to the St. Stephan’s Cathedral but I didn’t realize that I walked right by it until I purposely went looking for it on the map. So I went to Mozart’s Home here in Vienna, which is preserved now like a museum. What an awesome experience to really have history brought to life like that!

*Note: this is not Mozart's House - but it's one of the gazillion stores in Vienna that serve to please the Mozart fanatic. Like most museums, I was not able to use my camera inside Mozart's house.

Staatsoper - Vienna - Free Ballet!

On Friday I decided to go to this place. The Stattsoper is an operahouse which stages ballets and operas from around the world on an almost daily basis. There is a whole lot of history here. In fact, I later learned that part of it was bombed in the past (during the war) and rebuilt to be the beauty it is. I decided that I had never seen a ballet in my life (although I think when I was REALLY young in New York I may have seen the nutcracker – but that doesn’t count cause I barely remember it) so now was the time. When I walked into this place I realized 1. The Ballet was a big deal. Man am I glad that I actually dressed up. The place was packed with people wearing their finest. 2. Everything is German. Not even an English sign that said Tickets Sold Here or something could be found. So as usual, I followed the masses and stood in any lineup I saw.

My eyes were wandering around at the beautiful architecture and the people around me when I found this old lady (probably in her 60’s) smiling at me. I checked to make sure she was looking at me and she walked over. I must have looked more puzzled than I thought standing in that lineup because she spotted me a mile away as a tourist. In sweet broken English she said: “Hello, I have ticket for you – you come with me.”….HUH? Considering she didn’t look like something to be too scared of, I did as she asked. She walked me over to coat check, took my coat and got it hung with hers and then walked ahead of me into the main floor….like 5 rows from the stage! Before I sat down I finally said to her “how much?” to which she replied “Free”. …. Again… HUH? She smiled and explained to me as best as she could in English why she was doing this for me as her husband joined us. From what I understood, she and her husband come with a good friend of hers often and that friend was sick that night so she was looking for someone who was alone who would want to - simply not let the ticket go to waste… must have been why she was smiling when she saw my puzzled face circling the room. It must have been obvious that I was a first-timer. LOL So holy cow! Sometimes I think I’m sitting on a lucky horse shoe! How awesome is that? I go to my first ballet in Vienna, prepared to pay a hefty fee for probably a shitty seat in the back upper balcony and I end up in FOR FREE, conversing with a sweet old couple, only a few rows away from the stage! Not bad if I may say so myself!

The show, the whole experience turned out to be awesome. In fact, as I was watching these men and women on stage defying gravity and laws of human limb movement – I started to think I may have been a ballerina in a past life. I Sooooo wanted to do what they were doing. It was so beautiful to watch and I felt like I was completely connected with the women on stage, the orchestra in front of me and the beautiful music and of course the storyline. It was an experience to remember. As I am all about experiences in life lately – check that on my list of things to do before I die. In fact, I may have to do it again and again sometime in the future, I enjoyed it that much.

Vienna, Austria - Continued

My time in Vienna is soon coming to an end so I’ve running around like a crazy woman in the past two days (since the conference ended) to get my time’s worth out of this trip and to soak in as much Austrian culture as possible. In the end, this culture is definitely one that I can get used to. Although, I have to say, this 6 hour time difference is getting the better of me. On the bright side, when I wake up here, it’s like 1am back home so needless to say I will have no problems going to sleep and waking up bright and early when I return. On the flip side – I’m going to be hungry for breakfast at like 3am. Ouch. Speaking of breakfast, I noticed something funny this morning. Feeling particularly jet-lagged (still, even after a week here) I decided to have a cup of coffee. As I reached for the sugar I noticed that there was another little cup thing filled with packets…not of sugar but of pills… Tylenol (I think) – at least that’s what they looked like. I thought that was pretty genius. It’s like the hotel’s way of saying “rough night? Come have breakfast with us, we’ll take care of you”. :)

Anyway, to summarize, I went to a live Ballet, a slew of Museums, Mozart’s House, the Oldest Zoo in the world (with animals that I don’t see much of in North America so that was super sweet!) and the Palaces and living quarters of the Emperors and Empresses of Vienna’s past. Like any other place I’ve visited in the world, I’ve found some things that I love (specifically with regards to food – as is usually the case) and others that I’m not so fond of (such as Austrians being amongst the people who smoke the most in the world – i.e. still smoking in bars).

Over the next few days, I will recap my experiences at many of these places and solidify why I think that Vienna is such a great city to explore! Stay tuned!

Vienna, Austria - The Begining

Here I am in Vienna, the beautiful capital of Austria. I am at the halfway point of my trip now so I thought I would take a moment to update so I don’t forget some awesome details of this trip so far.

First and foremost, I never thought I would say this but Austrian Airlines is such a great airline! You walk on board and they are handing out bottles of water for you. The inside of the plane is amazing – spacious, fun bright colors, clean and the 1^st class cabin is just out of this world (no, I didn’t get to fly 1^st class on this trip). To finish up about the airline, the food was actually delicious, I got both dinner and breakfast served on the flight along with FREE DRINKS… By the way, helpful tip: Don’t mix sleeping pills with white wine unless you REALLY want to sleep for a very long time. LOL Anyway, aside from the fact that they run few direct flights to Austria from Toronto in the week (making the flight usually full of families and lots and lots of kids), it was a great experience and I would definitely fly with them again.

I arrived in Vienna early on Monday and checked into the hotel and took a nice long nap until about noon when I decided to venture out and grab a map and start to explore. Here are a few observations that I made immediately:

· I don’t speak or read a word of German… this is not the best situation to be in when trying to learn your way around a map in this city.

· Taking a taxi is not the best solution because not only can I not read the map very well, I can’t pronounce where I want to go to the taxi driver. Solution – Take public transit. The subway here saved me a lot of Euro in capfare but was also quite easy to navigate with the big signs that spelled out the places I wanted to go to.

· Signs here are wacky - At least, different from what I’m used to. For example, blue circles with red Xs in them – what do they mean? It’s been 3 days and I still haven’t a clue. I also can’t tell the difference between exit signs and bathroom signs in most places. In fact most doors have what looks like a bathroom sign hanging next to it (ssilhouettes of man and woman, separated by a line) but I think it just means that it’s a public room for both genders? I can go on and on about some signs that I’ve seen, which for the most part, cause me to stop and stare with a puzzled look while I try to figure out what I’m supposed to do. Even the cross or do not cross signals at crosswalks are confusing! In the end, I find myself just following the local’s lead.

· Austrians are no Vegetarians. – I learned pretty quick that just about every café or diner/restaurant in the city’s center claims to have the BEST “Wiener Schnitzel” in the city. These are basically sausagy-type hot dogs that are servevd cut up in tiny pieces on a plate with a toothpick-like fork. They’re actually pretty good.

· Austrians LOVE chocolate. – It didn’t take me too much time to notice that the bakeries and cafes were also ALL competing with eachother to sell what are called “Sacher Tarte” – pronounced more like “soccer-tart”. Simply put this is death by chocolate. I got to go behind the counter at one shop and watch the little old lady in the back make me one. She put layers of chocolate on top of more layers of chocolate and as my eyes widened, she asked me in sweet broken English if I wanted whipped cream on top of it! DON’T MIND IF I DO, I said. Hahahaha Delicious is an understatement – it’s a good thing I’m only here for a week or all my bootcamps would go down the toilet.

I didn’t stay about too late on Monday cause I was still pretty tired so I found my way back to the hotel and ate some dinner in the lounge and before I knew it, I was seeing some familiar faces of other delegates for this conference, whom I’ve seen and met at past conferences. What was supposed to be an early night on Monday turned into lots of late night cocktales with new aquaintances in the lounge. Fun times.

Tuesday I got up pretty early (8am here would be like 1am back home I think), worked out for a while to erase the guilt of eating that Sacher Tart the day before, and then took off to explore the Spanish Riding School. Someone told me that they offer shows a few times a week at this place called MORGENARBEIT – SPANISCHE HOFREITSCHULE, Bundesgestut Piber, which is a school for the most beautiful royal equestrian white horses. The website didn’t show any shows going on that day but it did say that visitors can come in any morning at from 10am-Noon to watch the morning exercises. Here I saw some horses do things that I didn’t know horses could do – like stand up on their hind legs and hop up and down, walk sideways and even backwards in synch with eachother, trot while lifting their legs up super high in an almost dancing-like motion and so much more….have you ever seen a horse do that? It was incredible. It's too bad they threatened to kick me out if I took anymore pictures...

I left the Riding School and started taking pictures of the amazing architecture surrounding me.

I kept walking and exploring until I found myself at STEPHANSPLATZ, the site of Stephansdom, also knows as St. Stephans Cathedral. As I opened the giant doors to peek in, I noticed immediately the smell of – well – OLD. That’s right… it just smelled REALLY old. I saw a lot of tourist looking people walking around taking pictures so I followed suite. I couldn’t resist trying to capture the beauty and enormousness of this amazing place on camera. When I felt like I had enough of the old mistyness and dim lighting of the inside of this place, I ventured back out onto the street.

Some things to note here – most of the streets in the downtown core of this city are pedestrian only cobblestone. When you do reach a crossroad with a few cars on it, it was actually overwhelming how many horse and buggies took over these streets. From what I could tell, it just made no sense to drive here cause you’d get stuck behind a horse and carraige. In addition to that, when I realized how easily I stumbled from the Riding School to Stephansplatz, and how I wanted as many pictures of the beautiful architecture as I could get – I quite literally put my map away and just wandered around for hours. It was refreshing and pleasant to be lost and have no idea what direction I was walking in (those who know me, know how bad my sense of direction is haha). It’s not like I could read or make much sense of the map in German anyway. Every time I turned a corner or approached a new plaza, I was pleasantly surprised with a beautiful statue or building or museum to walk in and explore. I probably walked for about 7hrs straight on Tuesday.

Once in a while I would find a subway station and venture underground. The interesting thing here to note is that the subway and public transport system here is almost EXACTLY the same as what I found n Barcelona, Spain – people TRUST people here! I bought a pass for the week for 14Euros and then when I got to the subway, I couldn’t find a place to swipe the card or even put it in a machine to punch…nothing. Again, I was following the locals and I realized that nobody had passes in their hands. After inquiring about it, I was told that everyone should have one but they don’t need to use them. Occasionally the local authorities do spot checks of everyone coming off of a subway car and I guess if you’re caught without a pass the fine is quite hefty. Amazing. When will Canada catch up to this European concept of trust I wonder?

After a while, I found myself in the governmenty part of the city, specifically RATHAUSPLATZ – aka. City Hall Plaza. Let me just say – their city hall is unlike any city hall I’ve ever seen. I’ll let the photo do the talking here: (photo) I walked around to the back of the building and found that during the months of Feb and March, they turn the entire property into a giant ice-skating festival - Vienna Ice Dream AWESOME. I immediately found out where to rent the skates and off I went circling the crazy obstacle on ice-skates. What a great little place to run into. After a few hours the place corwded up with some pushy kids who quite literally almost caused me to fall on my ass so I figured it was time to go at that point.

I found my way back to the hotel around 6:30pm and got ready to go out to a pre-conference event that was planned at a local pub, which I later found out has a whole lot of history to it. This place is called BITZINGER, located in historic AUGUSTINERKELLER, once part of Vienna’s 16^th Century-built defensive fortification. It was a great pub, with great local beer, an awesome buffet of food – all FREE of charge. Not a bad way to end a perfect day.

Wednesday and Thursday have been non-stop business conference days – with presentations from leading experts in my industry across the world. Wednesday night however was the official conference-sponsored party. To make a long story short here I got to get all dressed up fancy, ate a whole lot of food, drank a whole lot of champaign(again, all FREE of charge) and made a whole lot of new contacts around the world (and collected more business cards than I possibly know what to do with), complete with live music at Sky Bar, which boasts itself as Vienna’s most stylish bar with fantastic views across central Vienna. There was no lie there. The place was GEORGOUS.

It’s Thursday night and im taking it easy, catching up with work while preparing for my adventures to come tomorrow and Saturday as I explore more of this beautiful place. Stay tuned for more!

100 Day Challenge Rocks On - 1st Month Results

Ok folks, I'm going to gloat for a bit here because February was a tremendous month for me. Not only did I get a whole lot accomplished, but I feel amazing about those accomplishments. Yea yea, go ahead and laugh at me all you want for patting myself on the back but here goes why I say these crazy things. Read this and THEN decide whether or not to laugh...

• I discovered a new Holiday - Ontario celebrates what is called Family Day the same weekend as Valentine's Day. Wow - this new holiday makes SO MUCH MORE sense to me than the V-Day one. I did have a famous rap star wish me a happy Valentine's Day though which I thought was quite cool. LOL I went to the East Coast that weekend to spend a few days with my family. To update all who may be curious about that: My brother proposed to his girlfriend on Valentine's Day (hahaha I teased him for being so unoriginal); My brother also bought himself a motorcycle! That was SOOOO my idea! LOL; My youngest niece turns 1 year old next week - she's gotten so big so fast; My other niece turns 5 in April; My mom and dad are excited about this Anthony Robbins seminar I'm sending them to in a few weeks in New Jersey. YAY FAMILIA! xoxo
• I still over-working myself full time as usual with my regular 9-5er but those who know me best know that I only do this because I absolutely LOVE what I do, and as a result, it is not work to me at all.
• Bootcamps on Mon and Wed evenings are gong AWESOME! My measurement results 2 nights ago show me that I turned 3% of my overall bodyfat into muscle, I lost 4 inches in total (0.5inch each arm // 0.5inch each upper thigh // 1inch waist // 0.5inch chest // 0.5inch hips), but gained 5 pounds! Muscle really IS heavier than fat! Geeze!
• I started going to school Fri. evenings and all-day weekends for my GMAT prep course. I am SUCH a geek... I am having WAY too much fun being back in a classroom again - kinda scary. LOLI took a practice GMAT exam last night which I did a LOT better than expected on so I'm excited about that, but I also got to see where my strengths and weaknesses are as we reviewed the results so I know what to study more and less of over the next few weeks until I write the real exam in April.
• I wrote my M1 Level motorcycle exam on Tuesday morning, and passed so can now officially drive a motorcycle. Scared yet? hahaha I can only drive it in the daytime, with no passengers though - just a beginner level. And no I haven't even bought one yet. hehehe
• Somewhere in the mix of all that, I found time to work hard to get my staff situated for my absence next week (I fly out to Europe for a conference on Sunday afternoon in Vienna, Austria) so they know what to do while I'm away. I also did some research on the top 10 things to see and do while I'm in Austria so I'm super pumped about that. I am hoping to get some time to pack and maybe even buy a new camera tonight because I have school all day on Saturday and I leave Sunday. LOL
  

Sometimes I feel like there are not enough hours in the day! LOL

I am looking forward to a relaxing month of March when I return with only a few classes once a week and bootcamp to worry about. Then I write the GMAT exam in April and start my Motorcycle driving course for the M2 level in April as well.

What's in store for May? Can anyone say GRAND CAYMAN ISLANDS HERE I COME?!?! :D

Ok, ok, before I get WAAAYYY to ahead of myself here -
How was YOUR February???

My 100 Day Challenge Has Begun

On February 1st, My 100 Day Ultimate Challenge began!!

Jumpstart 2009,

Hold myself accountable

Motivate my team

Build my business

Change my body

Be a better person

The challenge: To be fully committed to improving myself physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

For the next 100 days – I challenge myself to:

1. Take my business and career to the next level, set a new standard, and step up..
2. Be as healthy, vibrant, and energetic as I can be
3. Do a random act of kindness
4. Experience a magic moment and give gratitude.
5. Give myself a gift, do something for myself every day. Self improve and be fabulous!

Some thoughts that were put into setting my goals (which I want to share with everyone who may want to do something similar!):

Business

This can be anything from increasing finances to better time management, set short and long term goals, set one small goal per day and achieve it and you will be amazed at the results from it compounding.

- 100 days from now what improvements do you want in your career or company?
- What obstacles can you see that you will face?
- What are the solutions that you can devise now, so when the time comes you are prepared?
- What superfluous activities and meetings will you simply say no to or delegate so that your energy and time are managed more efficiently?
- What is the new standard that you are going to set for yourself, and your business?

Write short and long term if you’d like, as detailed and specific as possible, and as many as you’d like so you can check off for that sense of accomplishment as it begins.

Health

Everyday make at least one healthier choice to improve your overall wellness. Many of us have identified our obstacles from our Tony experiences, so now is a time to reaffirm our progress and condition our new standards into our lives. 1 day of skipping the cookies doesn’t always make the difference, but 100 days definitely does.

- What areas do you want to improve your health?
- Do you want more energy?
- Do you want more definition?
- Do you want to lose weight?
- Do you want a better sex life?
- What specifically are you going to do to achieve these goals?
- What healthier foods will you choose to nourish your body with?
- What activities do you love to do that will help you feel more alive?
- What has stopped you in the past and what will you finally free yourself from to achieve the health and happiness you deserve?

Emotional & Spitual

Magic moments are everywhere, find the beauty in another person, be appreciative of a gorgeous sunset, dance in your living room, laugh until you cry.

- This can be as simple as a smile to a stranger, a phone call to an old friend, or a random post with a compliment to someone on this site. Anything that would bring a smile to another person.
- Is there someone you have not talked to in a while that a simple phone call could make their day?
- A smile or a joke can be infectious, could you see the benefit of giving a little extra kindness to the cashier or parking attendant?
- Is there someone you could forgive, a burden you could let go of?
- Is there a letter or card that you could write that would inspire another person, or make their heart smile?
- Is there a random act of kindness or good day that you could accomplish that would help another person?
- I believe religion is a very personal matter so all I ask in this challenge is that you spend 5 minutes a day being truly grateful and appreciative for all the amazing gifts in your life.

Give Yourself A Gift and Be Fabulous!!

- Walk by the mirror naked and tell yourself how sexy you are!
- Read a book that could inspire you, or help you to grow in any level.
- Read a blog that may have a piece of insight that could help you in a time of need.
- Take a bubble bath , dance in your living room, dance down the street who cares!
- Listen to your Tony tapes.
- For men, do something masculine and meaningful, ride your motorcycle, race a car, go to the gym, go fishing, have a poker night, do what boys do.

The purpose of this challenge is to improve ourselves, to love, to laugh, and to live!!

Feel free to share your goals, and how I might be able to help support you in achieving them.


Cheers!

Classic Series - Taxis

I promise that my Classic Series is approaching an end soon people. Only a few more are worthy of posts I think. It dawned on me as I was going through my old blog posts that I had A LOT to say about Taxis in Panama when I lived there! hahahaha Here are a FEW posts that I found that I had written on the subject - all equally fun reads:

First Entry:

As this blog gets underway you may notice that I have a lot to say about “cultural questionmarks” as I like to call them. Cultural questionmarks are things that I noticed throughout time spent in a place (in this case Panama) that basically makes me go “HUH??“, for lack of a better word or expression…

Right now I want to talk about taxis, taxi drivers and just plain driving in Panama. Driving in Panama is quite an experience. Some believe that if you can survive on the road here you can survive ANYWHERE. After a few mind boggling experiences I can say that I am a believer. I was involved in my first ever serious car accident here (and had I been about 2 feet up farther than I was at the time I would most likely not be here today to write this). It was a crazy scene that gave me more of an adrenaline rush than say sky-diving. I remember someone telling me I was crying. I was so shooken up that I didn’t even realize that I was crying. But here I am and all is well so back to the topic at hand. Taxis here in Panama create for me an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes I love them, most of the time I hate them, but they always seem to have their ups and downs (and I’m sure I will hit on some “Ups” in future blogs to come as I find my taxi stories quite entertaining). One of the downs is that they are downright reckless drivers.

Panamanian culture is like most Latin American cultures when it comes to a sense of time. Where I am from, if you have a meeting at 8AM and someone hasn’t shown up by 7:50AM you panic. Here in Panama an 8AM meeting translates to anything before 8:45AM. People stroll (not walk) and don’t ever seem to be frustrated by tardiness. Ok so that’s great. Less stress is created by less pressure being put on you to be on time. Fabulous. This is very generalized but goes for almost anything here.

So I ask you this one very specific question: Why in the *!$%* is everyone here in such a goddamn rush on the road?!?!

The public transportation here is the worst of them all. Taxis and buses in this country will get a gringa killed quick. There is absolutely no sympathy for anyone trying to cross a street on foot. Its common to see people literally stranded in the middle of one of the busiest streets in the country because they have cars zooming by them on both sides while they stand on the yellow dotted line trying to innocently cross the next lane, and hopefully the next one and the next one, until their toes reach the sidewalk on the other side. And even then they’re still not safe. Cars here (and yes mostly taxis and buses) can be seen creating their own lanes on the sidewalks. Curbs seem to exist only to slow them down slightly but that doesn’t mean that they won’t try to speed up anyway. They are like scavengers searching, thirsting for the smallest space to squeeze through, hoping that if they honk their horns enough times other cars will move (which they DONT by the way, but horns and horn usage is……you guessed it….another topic for another day) and they will reach their destination point a whole half second faster than someone else. But who is that someone else? Who are they racing?? As I just explained above, it is certainly NOT a race against Father Time. I just don’t get it.

Ok so perhaps I am bitter because I am bias because I come from a culture where we quite willingly and happily practice defensive driving and even allow pedestrians the right of way. Perhaps. Or perhaps I just treasure my life and am getting tired of having to silently say my goodbyes everytime that I try to cross a street or get in a cab. Perhaps. All I know is it’s a lose lose situation for me. If I choose to not use a cab and walk, I A.) gross myself out with sweat and ickiness in the process given the heat and humidity and pollution of this fabulous city all mixed in one and B.) Risk being one of those innocent people trying to cross a busy street praying that someone will have compassion and slow down to give me a head start. A sucks and B sucks too so what do i do? I normally just get in a cab, tell him where to take me and duck my head down and close my eyes and hope that I make it there in one piece. So far so good but damn if there haven’t been some close calls.

The next day:

Sorry for the lack of spice here but I haven't really had time to do much of anything today, let alone write about something. Nothing extra exciting has happened to me today anyway to spark conversation SO keeping in sync with yesterday’s theme about taxis in Panama, check out this email that was sent to me today. I just wanted to prove that my rant yesterday was not just something that I pulled out of my ass. Enjoy!

Taxi!

International Living Postcards–your daily escape
http://www.internationalliving.com

Thursday, July 27, 2006
Panama City, Panama

Dear International Living Reader,



“Buenos dias,” I greeted Eric as he walked into our Casco Viejo office this morning looking a little frazzled.

“Yea, yea, right…buenos dias,” he responded. “I barely made it here this morning. My taxi didn’t have any brakes.”

“Oh,” came the collective response from the office staff. Nothing surprising there.

————————————————————

The taxi Jack and I took to the grocery store Sunday afternoon ran out of gas. Fortunately, we were just across the street from a gas station at the time, and the driver was able to coast into the station to fuel up.

When I relayed our little adventure to a friend here, she replied to say, “Oh, right…that happened to me once, too. We ran out of gas and coasted into a nearby station. Then the taxi driver turned around and asked me if I could pay my fare in advance…so he could use that cash to buy fuel.”

Martina, who works in our Panama City office, tells the best taxi story I’ve heard yet. She and her boyfriend hailed one in Casco Viejo for the 10-minute drive home. Traffic was bad, so the driver took one detour after another, rerouting and rerouting himself farther and farther off course. Finally, when he’d reached a point that was at least 20 minutes’ drive from Martina’s apartment…that is, twice as far from her destination as where the ride had begun…he stopped, in the middle of the road, and told Martina and Grant to get out. He had had enough of the traffic…and the ride was over.

“We had to walk home from there. It took us nearly an hour.”

“You didn’t pay the guy, did you?” I asked.

“That’s the craziest part of the story,” Grant exclaimed. “Martina gave the guy a buck!”

You never know what might happen or where you might end up when you get into a taxi in Panama City. Neither can you be sure what fare you might be charged.

Maria, our nanny, takes Jack on an outing every day…to the pool, to the park, to the movies, all of which are within a few blocks of each other. We cautioned Maria about taxi fares her first day in the city and advised her to ask the charge before climbing in.
“These guys have been quoting me anything from $1.50 to five bucks,” she reported back. “So I’ve stopped asking. Jack and I get in…and I get my money ready during the drive, exact change. When we arrive at our destination, Jack gets out…then I get out…and I reach back through the window to hand the driver $1.50. That’s what the fare should be…and that’s all I’m paying. A couple of times, drivers have called after me…but Jack and I keep walking.”

Kathleen Peddicord
Publisher, International Living

P.S. I almost forgot the most important thing to know about taxis in Panama City: Never order one from your hotel. These “hotel taxis” charge multiples of the street taxis…say as much as $8 for a ride that, in a street taxi, might cost you a buck. If you’re staying at a downtown hotel, ignore their offers to call a taxi for you…and make your way down to the street, where you’ll never have to wait more than a few minutes to hail one on your own.

A few days later:

Sorry for the brain fart folks but this morning’s occurance made me laugh so hard I just had to write about it. I have been living in Panama for well over a year now and this was the first time this has happened to me.

I had some errands to run this morning before heading into work and given the crappy, rainy weather we were having I decided to jump in a cab to do so. As I have mentioned in previous entries, taxis in Panama are always great fun experiences. Seeing as it was early in the morning I wasn’t expecting much and for the most part I was right in my assumption that it would be a chill cab ride.

Then suddenly the driver turns to me and says “you’re not from here are you?”. This is a statement that I hear often enough and so I stopped taking offense to it. I’ve learned that it doesn’t necessarily mean that my Spanish sucks that much to make it so obvious that I am foreign, but just that there is an accent - that I cannot deny. So when he said that I smiled and nodded and told him he was right.

Then the kicker comes. He smiles at me and says “You’re Canadian aren’t you?” Holy jumping beans!! How the hell did he know that? I began looking at myself and my purse and shirt, trying to find where I had left a maple leaf sticker or some sort of indication that I would be Canadian…..nada. How the hell did he know that? I asked him and he said it is because he lived in Canada for a while and therefor knew the accent. But I was speaking Spanish! This blew me away. The first really smart and observant cab driver I think I have ever met in this place….amazing.

From that point this cab driver then proceeded to invite me to have breakfast with him and turned on the flirtatious charm that they are so famous for, which slapped me back into reality and made me realize once again that I was in Panama. It’s all good though. I politely declined his offer and laughed as I got out of the cab and went into my office.

It made me think though. I must have a really ethnically screwed up face. I remember when I was living in Boston for a few months a while back. I used to get stopped on the street all the time by guys who knew that I “Had to be” Puerto Rican. In fact, I used to get the Borriqua comment all the time when I was in the states. In Canada it was the same. People used to always ask me if I had a hispanic background. I was almost convinced that I seemed Spanish until today when I met this cabbie who pegged me as Canadian. I find this interesting. If he had said “American” or made the assumption that I was from the U.S. that is one thing….my accent may have given that away….but No. This dude just jumped on ”Canadian”….representin’! Whaaa!

Classic Series - Women at Work in Panama

The theme of my classic series is slowly winding down but not before I post this baby:

Women at Work (In Panama)

Being a woman in Panama has it’s ups and downs. I have been lucky so far. I focus on the ups, but the downs are very VERY visible. We as women cannot leave our houses and walk to our cars without getting whistled or hissed at or yelled at by some random road worker or security guard. It took me some time to get used to it but now I walk on confidently as if I hear nothing. It’s funny though…sometimes these guys get so determined to get your attention that when you don’t give it to them they literally start to get upset and scream at you. That’s when I laugh to myself because they honestly think that we like it or something. Gimme a break!
Anyway, moving on…

So I walk into work the other day and being the new year there is a lot of talks about new contracts for everyone. As a foreigner here, my paperwork and Visa stuff is different than that of any Panamanian woman so I tend to ignore the rumors. I learned the hard way that there is a difference between listening and not reacting to rumors and ignoring them altogether. Note people: Rumors should always be heard….just so you know. Whether you want to believe or act on them is entirely up to you…but listen to them damnit!

I chose not to listen to rumors until I was quite literally dragged into the conference room by my elbow by some random person who seemed to be lurking the hallway in search of women to drag in this room. After a few “what the hell”’s and a desperate attempt to free my arm, I realized it was a loosing battle when I saw what was IN the conference room. It looked like a medical lab was set up. “Oh are we getting flu shots?” was my natural response. At that point the lady laughed while strapping my arm down and pulling out this giant seringe (this is also where i should let you, the reader know that I don’t do well with needles). “No….you are getting a pregnancy test.” she said….then I really started laughing. “YEAH RGHT! THAT’S A GOOD ONE!” I roared….but stopped abruptly when I realized that she wasn’t laughing with me. It was also at this point when I realized that all the equipment was in fact to draw blood.

“TELL ME YOU ARE JOKING” were the next words to come from my mouth. She smiled and went on to take a bunch of blood from my arm…..but I wasn’t smiling. I wasn’t whining either…in fact, I think it is safe to say that the whole thing bewildered me to the point where I didn’t know what to say. I sat there with an open mouth and dumb look on my face as she seriously drew blood from my arm without any hesitation.

She did it as casually as if she was picking lint off of my sweater. Like, there is no way I would mind or have any objections to what she was doing. I mean, jesus man, to get a cotton swab of saliva from my mouth in the states or Canada you would need a search warrant! But here in Panama, getting a sample of blood from all the women in the workplace to test for pregnancy is a no-brainer!

I walked out of the conference room stunned. I asked other women I work with if they had the same experience and they laughed at me for making such a big deal about it.
“Sure” they said…”We all have to get one before we get our contracts. I mean, there is no way they would contract us to work if they knew we were pregnant. Why does this shock you so much Jen? I mean, what is the big deal?”

With wide eyes I dropped the subject and walked away. PEOPLE!! THIS IS SOOOO Illegal on SOOO many levels where I come from! I mean talk about discrimination! HOLY JUMPING BEANS BATMAN!! They won’t give a woman a job here if she is expecting a child??? Amazing! Thank god I didn’t fuck around and get pregnant here, cause that would have been my ticket out of here!

Anyway, i know this might strike up some controversy for anyone who reads this but man….I was floored at the idea. Am I alone??

Classic Series - My Tattoo

Yes, the classics continue - what i consider as my best pieces are being put forth back on the internet and today's feature is a story I wrote in November 2007 - when I made the big move back to Canada:

TATTOO

THE END OF AN ERA HAS ARRIVED… - I HAVE LEFT PANAMA
So where am I typing this from now? I decided to take a DRASTIC turn (North to be exact) and jump into new adventures. So here I am in Toronto Canada at the end of Novemeber FREEZING MY HINEY OFF!! I literally went from beach weather and fun in the sun one day to COLD ASS mittin and scarf weather the next. Am I crazy? I seriously started to ask myself that when I wake up in the mornings under quilts. It’s been 3 years Mr. Quilt, but we meet again…

Anyway I wanted to write today about my decision to leave Panama on a High Note. It was inevitable, the decision was made long ago to take on the challenges that I am faced with in Toronto, but in the end I was still hit like a tonn of bricks when the day came to actually pack and go. I left Panama on a Sunday, after a ThanksGiving weekend of partying with friends and wrapping up loose ends.

The Friday before that, I decided to get this bad boy: (picture of tattoo here)

Now, I knew that I wanted to get a tattoo not long after I decided to stay in Panama when I did. I’m not sure how many of you know this but when I left Canada for Panama originally I was only supposed to go for 8 months. After the 8 months was up, I was in no rush to go back to Canada so I stayed and made a living quite nicely and was lucky enough to find a job that I loved. 2.5 years passed before I decided on the Toronto assignment. What exactly that assignment is, I might discuss in future postings to come.

Back to the tattoo. I always knew that I wanted to get one so that I can never forget my Panama experiences (as cheesy as that sounds - get over it) and I even knew what I wanted (see “design meaning” below). For whatever reason I just kept procastinating on it until I realized that I was leaving about a week ago. Suddenly there were no more excuses. So I went to see the dude who gave me my prize jewel (nipple ring) and described my ideas for this tattoo design in detail on a Wednesday. He told me he would spend Thursday working on it and that I could go in Friday to get it done.

So what do I decide to do? Seeing as Thursday was a holiday I decided to get Rip Roaring DRUNK - I believe it is safe to say that I drank for 14 hrs straight on Thursday. Here is where I give a quick shout out to all my friends in Panama who came out on Thursday to bid me farewell. You guys ROCK!

Anyway, back to the tattoo….(again)… Friday came around and even though I felt death creeping into my apt when I woke up, even though I threw up a few times in the morning and almost threw up on my friends Flip and El Rob during lunch when I tried to fight down some soup, even though I was suffering from mis-coordination all day and had a bad case of the shakes…..I was determined to get that tattoo done.

Some of what happened in that tattoo parlor is a blur to me now so El Rob as my witness, if you are reading this and I forget something, feel free to chime in in the comments section.
So we get to the tattoo parlor and I pretty much fall asleep on the couch in the waiting room. Sleeping was my only comfort. After a while of waiting while the artist prepared the final sketch and printed it out and got everything ready, he called me in and the first thing I asked him was “do you mind if I lay down while you do this?” … His response: NO. Ok then… So I sit in front of him and as the sound of the buzzing needle fills the room my head is spinning and I am looking for a bucket to sit in front of me just in case. No such luck. I look over at Rob with wide eyes as the needle pierces my skin and this man that I don’t even know begins to inflict a pain onto my back like no pain I have ever felt.

I think it is safe to say that the sound that came out of me at that point sounded something like a dying cat. The artist stopped and I immediately said “I THINK THIS IS A BAD IDEA TO DO TODAY - RETHINKING THIS - NOT TODAY MAN!”, and as I started to get up the artist pushed my shoulders back down and sat me back down and said “TOO LATE.” I can see why he didn’t want me leaving his shop with nothing more than a line on my back, as that would totally be bad business for him, BUT at this point he had no idea how hungover I was. He looked at El Rob and kindly asked him to raise the volume on the nearby stereo so that my howls of pain and suffering do not scare the people in the waiting room away.
Simply put - I was Fucked.

El Rob was patient and supportive throughout it all, encouraging me that it was almost done and that I was doing great but all that came out of me was poisonous venom. “It’s OK Jen, you’re doing great” he would say as he rubbed my leg in a comforting way. “Stop being such a fucking cheerleader.” I would come back at him with.

All the while the tattoo artist had his own increasing frustrations. “NO SE MUEVAS!” was all he kept saying, in a firm voice as he would press my shoulders down and continue with the torture bid.

I swear to god to me I wasn’t moving at all… but when I’m hungover, my body shakes… I finally squeeled and revealed the secret to the artist, who just shook his head and in not so many words told me I was stupid for going in hungover.

My favorite was when El Rob said to me “Ok Jen, now you have to stay still cause he has to color it just like he is coloring a coloring book - he needs to stay in the lines…” and my response in a mouthful of tears was “shut up Rob, I’m not a fucking coloring book.” Oh the poison and acid just kept spilling from my mouth as I pretty much bawled like a baby throughout the whole thing.

Less than and hour later, the artist was done, and amazingly with only one minor fuckup. Considering how much of a problem client I was, I would say that’s not so bad. He looked at me at the end and said to Rob “look at those eyes…she HATES me.” hahahaha which was true at that point. I just wanted him to die for inflicting so much pain on me. I debated about purposely throwing up on him but decided that would just be bad form.

What is done is done and I have no regrets about the tattoo. Leave it to me though to screw up an experience like that.

Take it from me kids… Tattoo + Hangover = SUCH A BAD IDEA.

Design Meaning: It is a symbol of Femininity with elements of Earth(rose), Air(Bird), Fire(Sun) and Water(fish) to represent Balance. In addition to that I threw in a heart for Love and a snake for Power. In the end we have
Femininity
Balance
Power
and Love.

What do you think?

Classic Series - The Laundry Incident

Continuing with the theme of bringing some classics from my old blog back to life online, here is one that is near and dear to my heart:

The Laundry Incident

It was December of 2005 and I had decided to spend X-mas with my grandparents who live in Puerto Rico. It was about that time when I had to leave the country for 72hrs to re-enter it again to update my “tourist status” anyway (we have to do that every 90days or so here - you guessed it, more red tape) so I figured why not go to P.R. which is not as far as Canada to be with some family for the holidays. I stayed there for 3 days, short trip, I know,…and flew back into Panama boxing day.

Two days later I decided to hop on a bus with a small group of friends for a long (yet really quick) drive to an area of Panama called Bocas Del Torro. For anyone who has not yet been, PLEASE make the effort to go. You will not regret it. It is by far the most beautiful area of this country that I have been to. I still have not been to San Blas though, so for now I can say that. Anyway, spending New Years in Bocas was one of the best times I have had in a long time. I’m writing this now 8 months later and I still sit back and grin when I think of that trip….oh my…more stories to blog about soon…

So we get back from Bocas and I realize that between working a lot and then taking two trips back to back like that, I was long overdo for some laundry. In fact, I had just about nothing clean except for 1 pair of dress pants and a blouse. So what do I do? I decide what the hell, I take all my clothes and stuff them into the giant green army dufflebag (it was my fathers from when he was in the army) and take them all over to this little laundrymat that I always went to. This place was run by a small chinese family…really nice people. They knew me by name and we chatted a bit whenever I brought my clothes in. I used to be able to get like 3 loads of laundry washed, dried, folded and sorted and ready for pick up the next day for like $4….not bad in my books. So I took ALL of my clothes and brought them over. The lady smiled, we chitchatted and she took my clothes and gave me my receipt. I headed home feeling good that I got that out of the way.

So the next day I went by to pick up my clothes immediately after work and the laundry mat was closed. Oddly enough it didn’t just look closed…it looked shut down. All the windows looked like they were painted black….I thought it was weird but I was sure there was an explanation. After 2 more days passed and I was without clothes and the laundrymat was still closed and dark, I started to panic…..I wasn’t sure what to do if they closed down because at the time I didn’t know that this laundrymat was a franchise and had other branches in random parts of the city. Had I known that then, I would have been able to go to another branch and ask them where the hell my clothes are..

More days passed and I was sitting outside of a friend’s place one night when my roommate called my cellphone. She had just walked by the laundrymat place and decided to call me when she realized what happened. I will never forget the words that rang through my ears that night….”jen, the laundrymat isn’t just closed….its closed… The black windows isn’t paint or covering….it’s smoke and ash! THE LAUNDRY PLACE BURNT DOWN!!” Great…just freakin great.

Did I mention that I packed ALL of my clothes in that dufflebag to get washed? ALL??? ggrrrrr….. Do you know how hard it is for a woman like myself to find clothes that i actually like? Let me share something about myself here….I HATE to shop for myself. I HATE to buy new clothes. When I DO find something good, it’s gold and I treasure it. I’m convinced that somebody up there was getting back at me for something bad I did in a past life….I was convinced. All my clothes….gone. Did I ever recover? Not really….Did I cry? Maybe….am I still pissed when I think about it? YES. But life goes on I suppose….*sigh*

The End

Classic Series - The Darrien Experience

Again, continuing with my classic series, I've decided that some of my old masterpieces need homes on the world wide web so here is another:

The Darrien Experience
This is a story about an incident that occurred with my roommate and I and a buddy of hers while trying to get to a beach. My roommate who I will call “honeybrown” (stealing the nik from El Rob) had a friend visiting her from Canada who I will call “whitey” and if you’re lucky I might get around to posting why I call him that one day soon. Whitey was staying with us for three weeks and during that time I think it is safe to say that he had an awesome time and lots of stories to tell. This story however is special because of all of the other stories, I would have to say it is this one that creates the most emotion for me when I tell it.

My girlfriend Reyna invited the three of us to stay at her place one Saturday night so that we can wake up super early and leave from her house to go spend all of Sunday at the beach. As Canadians, we love the beach and so naturally, we were sold on the idea. Sunday morning came around and we got up early to get dressed for the beach (I had a green bikini and really cute little green sundress and honeybrown had on similar attire but in a fun orange color I believe), pack Reyna’s car and head out to a nearby supermarket to fill up a cooler before heading out. On the way to the supermarket Reyna tells us that she has a few other friends who are going to be coming in their own cars. Ok…sounds cool so far. So we get to the supermarket and she tells us to go ahead inside and buy what we need to while she parks her car and looks for her friends in the parking lot who were apparently waiting for us there. No problem. We find what we need at the supermarket and are heading outside when we realize that Reyna is nowhere to be found. Scratching our heads, puzzled at the idea that she would just leave a bunch of foreigners there, I called her cellphone. Turns out that she went back home to go park her car because her friend has a giant vehicle that we can call fit in and go in together. Ok…I’m not panicking yet. A few minutes and half a bag of melted ice later, we are waiting as she shows up in a giant old forerunner and introduces us to this ugly fat man who was actually really nice so we piled into the car and headed out. Realizing how hot the sun was we were all very excited for the beach but tired from the activities of the previous night so we decided to close our eyes and get a tiny nap fit into the schedule since we weren’t driving.

I woke up an hour later and realized that we should have been at the beach by then or at LEAST be somewhere where we can see the coast. But that wasn’t the case. All I saw were trees. So I asked Reyna where we were going and she just smiled and said “oh he has a farm that is going to be much more fun than the beach…..A FARM?? What the hell?? First of all, we are Canadian….we know farm life….and if we wanted farm life, we would have been in Canada. Secondly, we are in bikinis and sundresses and sandles…do we look like we want to go to a farm?! NO. We planned on the beach, we were told we were going to a beach and so we stayed at her house so it would be convenient to go to a beach. Mierda.

I think I made it pretty obvious that I was not impressed. I sat back and glared at her as she talked up this farm making it sound so fun and exciting because he had horses. I love horses, don’t get me wrong. But not that day I didn’t. How rude of them to change the plans like that without even consulting us! I was insulted and embarrassed because at the time honeybrown and whitey spoke almost no Spanish between the two of them so I had to explain the change in plans that my girlfriend went ahead with (since Reyna speaks no English). Their faces dropped much the same way mine did when I heard that. But what could we do? We couldn’t tell them to pull over and get out of the car. We had no idea where we were. In fact, when we asked where we were and where this farm is, the answer bewildered me even more….Darrien…also known as the province nobody goes to. Darrien is a large province in southern Panama that actually connects with the Colombian border. This is a no-go zone because of all the guerilla warefare going on and the extreme stuff that tourists want no part of, going on at the boarder. Any foreigner can read from any travel book to stay far away from this area as it is known for kidnappings of foreigners. And this farm was right smack in the middle of this province. Hell, in a sense, was this not a kidnapping? We were all so pissed that I don’t think we spoke 2 more words the entire way to where we were going.

Suddenly, the vehicle stops somewhere in the jungle next to a brook where 3 or 4 of the ugliest, dirtiest horses I’ve seen in a long time were standing. As if this couldn’t get any better the guy driving says this is as far as the car will take us. What the hell? I stood there in amazement as these people actually expected me to jump on one of these horses and follow them…in my sundress, bikini and sandals. Call us picky and no fun but screw that. So I asked how far we were going and if we could just walk it. “SURE!” the guy says…”It’s just like 5 or 10mins up that hill”. Ok fine, we discussed sitting in the stream and sipping on beer from our cooler and waiting out the day there until they were done enjoying the farm but realized that we are the better people here because after what they just did to us, we were actually still trying to be considerate. I look back and laugh.

That stream looked like the closest thing we were going to get to a beach and if we had half a brain we would have stayed there and waited and made them feel bad for doing that to us by not going and sitting and sulking. Hahaha But no…we tried to make the best of it. We started walking and everyone else took off on the horses. There was a path but nobody waited to make sure we were ok on that path. A 5min walk soon turned into a 35min hike knee-deep in horse shit….yes folks….horseshit. I wish I were kidding or even exaggerating. By the time we got to the “farm” everyone who went on horses had finished a few beers, were cooking a meal and laying in hammocks watching us and laughing.

I don’t think there are words to describe the mixed emotions I felt at the moment I arrived at the farmhouse. I was so upset I wanted to cry. I was pissed off cause we were not at a beach and had no say in it. I was tired from the hike in the sun, suffering from a sprained ankle, COVERED in horse shit and panicking because I’ve been told that in places like that people catch random diseases like Dingue, and I was oh so pissed off at the smiling faces we met up with at the house. They were laughing at us! Unbelievable! Oh and it’s also worth noting that honeybrown at this point started hyperventilating and laughing at the same time as tears ran down her face because she has issues with gross things between out toes. Considering we had flimsy sandals on that wound up getting lost or caught in the horseshit as we trudged through it (and we were certainly not going to go digging for it with our hands), the ickiness between the toes was unavoidable.
Needless to say on the way back we took horses…..so not impressed. Lesson learned? Don’t count on Reyna to do what you want to do. I know that sounds harsh because she really is a nice, sweet person. But she also showed me her inconsiderate and rude side that day as she pursued her own interests alone (because this guy who owned the farm was ugly and fat but rich and hitting on her). Panamanian women LOVE attention so much that they would do things like that to their foreign friends. Unbelievable.

Coming up next: The Laundry Incident...

Classic Series - El Valle Hike

Some of you know that before this blog, I had another blog site that I used to keep track of my crazy stories of life in Panama. That blog was part of the PortoDiao.com group, who I still have the highest respect for; however as I am no longer residing in Panama, I've moved onto the independent wagon of blogging. I kept most of my postings in this old space so decided that it is time to bring back the classics for your reading pleasure. Over the next few days, I will be bringing back what I think are the best of my past posts beginning with this one:

Story 1. - The Hike I will never forget (dated sometime in 2006):

Last night I was driving back from Casco Viejo (an awesome part of the city for night life) with some friends when we were stopped at a traffic light and I saw a truck that had a bunch of guys hanging off the back of it. Suddenly I was reminded of this hiking trip that I had taken with some friends a while back and I was in tears from laughing so hard in the back of this car. This image of the people hanging off this truck reminded me of such a minuscule part of that hiking story but it was still great. The story goes like this:

One day my roommate and her boyfriend, when they were just hooking up, send me an email with information about a weekend hike that this tourism company was offering for $40. The add said we would be hiking for 4 hrs the first day and then 5 hrs the next before catching the bus back to the city. This $40 included transportation to and from the city (a few hours bus ride), a guided tour and a meal on the afternoon of day two. I love the outdoors and hiking, it was in a part of the country that I knew from experience was absolutely beautiful, the advertisement seemed like this company knew what they were doing and the price was right so 4 of us packed our tents and bug spray and hopped aboard the bus early that morning.

A few hours later we stopped for a rest and a bathroom break and then continue on our way to this beautiful area. Once we arrive there we are told that someone was supposed to meet us at this rest stop and that someone was supposed to be our tour guide…but he never showed. So another guy who was with us from that company did the noble thing and stepped in to take his place cause he was “experienced” with the hike. So far no complaints. Was I naive in trusting him when he said he knew what he was doing? Some people may say yes but I dont think so. In fact after a few minutes of walking I learned from a few others who were walking with me that they had done the same hike with the same guy as the group leader before. This was good. This told me that they not only survived but they must have enjoyed it if they were coming back for seconds.

As the hike goes into it’s 4th hour and the sun is starting to set I found myself starting to have second thoughts about this hike and especially about this dude. There was about 16 of us who were hiking with him if I recall correctly and we were all of different sizes, shapes and ages. In fact there were some people on this hike who were older and possibly h ad heart conditions. I noticed right off the bat that we were lied to when we were told it was an easy hike. The terrain was TOUGH. With the intense heat and constant inclination as we made our way up one of the slippery mountain (and I mean UP folks…we’re talking like 90degrees up on all fours with the giant bags on our backs), it was no surprise that some people were falling behind and needing breaks more often than this tour guide who was in great shape and used to the hike. By the end of day one we weren’t actually settled in our tents until well after 9:30pm and we were all DEAD. We had a little picnic in the dark with flashlights where we feasted on tuna, block cheese and crackers. Let me mention here that we had been hiking for over 7 hours by now and so being as seven is more than the 4 we were told about, our water and food supplies were already dwindling.

Day two started bright and early as we were up with the sun packing up our things and back on the trails again before 8am. Our legs had a few hours to rest and so were feeling like jello. It wasnt until about an hour after I started hiking again that I felt my legs were completely there, and this was only because the physical pain, sweat and burn were the constant reminders. After 5hrs that we were well out of water and food supplies that we bought with us (remember, we were planning for a 5hr hike the second day) and yet we had barely hit the halfway mark. Why? I don't know. Maybe the people who set this up thought they would be taking a bunch of superheros with them on this hike. We were traveling fast and tough and given the crazy heat and sun I was thoroughly impressed that nobody passed out from exhaustion or dehydration. I was on the verge of dehydration. What saved me? Drinking water from a river we stopped at. That’s right folks. I’m hiking through the mountains of a third world country where the locals travel by foot or horse only, horseshit everywhere along the paths….and I decide to drink the water. Was I looking for disease? No…I was looking to survive. Was I happy about having to resort to that…..NO.

The cream of the cake though was (and this proves how fast we were hiking through this mountain) when we LOST three people who were lagging behind. Our group was so spread out and people were lagging so far behind that we didn’t realize that we lost them until over an hour after it happened. I remember that anger towards this man who was leading us began to form at this point. He was in the front of the group and so when he would stop and rest, it would leave just enough time for the others to catch up. By then he had been resting for about 20mins and so got up and started again….but these people who had just caught up had to either skip the rest or risk losing him again. What kind of a tour guide doesn't wait for his group? My favorite was when he realized that the group was lost. We remembered exactly where and when it happened. There was a fork in a path about an hour back and he didn’t bother waiting to tell people what way to go. In fact I specifically remember my roommate and I saw which way he went and then waited for the people behind us to catch up so we could tell them what way to go and so then they would wait for the next people and so on and so forth. Good system? Sure…unless you are at the back and you think you are the last person in line when you are in fact not….which is what happened. So naturally these three people who were lagging behind took the wrong way and we saw the bright colors of their shirts about 2 mountain tops away over an hour later….shit.

So how do you react when you are a tour guide and you realize that you have lost three people you were responsible for? Well, you don't start screaming and throwing a hissy fit and blaming it all on them and try to get the group to carry on without them…that’s for sure. But that is exactly what he did. Amazing. He only finally agreed to try to go back for them when another dude in the group volunteered….guess he couldn't look bad so after the obligation ate at him for a while, he went back. Although I was grateful for the break we got from having to wait for him to come back from finding these people, I was suddenly unsure of things. Besides the fact that the hike was taking hours longer than we were told it would, and besides having to drink the river water that had god knows what type of bacteria floating in it and besides being out of food, tired and sweating so badly I couldn't stand my own smell, it was a fun hike (with the exception of the whining that was coming from known parties - you know who you are)…until that moment where i saw how our “guide” reacted in a crisis. I was unimpressed at that moment.

ANYWAY, to make a longer rest of the story shorter, we all made it home in one piece….barely and at midnightish. After a few doctors appointments we are all happy and healthy and sit back and laugh about the experience now. We wound up going on without those lost individuals and somewhere along the line while waiting at our rendez-vous spot, some native locals brought them to us on horses. Talk about lucky.

Some other quick highlights of that camping trip:

- When this native woman came up to us (god bless her) with a bushel of bananas…i guess she saw how badly we wanted and needed them and let me tell you…I think that was the best banana I had ever eaten in my life.

- When we were picked up and thrown in the back of a truck to the finish line which had a river for us to swim at and cool off and get that “meal” (which turned out to be nothing). Haleluhia I say hahaha.

- When we got to the swimming hole and honey brown found a tick stuck on her leg.

- When Angie and myself kept falling in the mudd.

and my favorite:

- When one of the old ladies who got lost caught up with us and helped me tell off the tour guide. We sent him to hell and refused to talk to him again the entire way home.

Awe the joy….the list can go on and on. In the end, i would definitely hike again like that. The scenery was too beautiful to pass up. All I would do differently the next time around is make sure I get a bit more information about the company hosting the hike, the guide’s abilities and I would definitely pack a little more carefully. This was my fault though…I should have known after "the Darrien experience" that to Panamanians, a 4 hour hike is really a 9 hour one. I take full responsibility for not acknowledging that in advance.

You win some you lose some though right?


Next posting: "The Darrien Experience" - Priceless story that will explain the comment I made at the end of this posting.... stay tuned!