The Food Saga: The Drinks

In the Andes, espe­cially in Bolivia, mate de coca was a great option. It is basi­cally a tea of coca leaves: as the Boli­vians say, “la hoja de coca no es droga” (Coke leaf is not a drug). Maybe not a drug, but it is sup­posed to help with soroche, alti­tude sick­ness. I’m a big tea drinker, espe­cially of green tea, and I did like the taste of the beverage.

The Food Saga: The Chicken Era

In, Cen­tral Amer­ica, as well as in Peru, you just need to know three words to order food: arroz (rice), fri­joles (beans) and pollo (chicken). Makes life easy, doesn’t it! How­ever, the food may be quite basic, and at one point, you’ll be des­per­ate for some­thing other than chicken. I mean, how much chicken can one eat???

The Best & The Worst

We both loved our trip in Cen­tral and South Amer­ica. And now that we are home again in Canada, we thought about it: what were the best places, the best cities that we saw… and what were the worst experiences?

Hello Frozen Hell...

Hello frozen hell… we are fly­ing back to Canada.

Faces Of Central America

Observ­ing peo­ple in Cen­tral Amer­ica is really inter­est­ing. First of all, there is a true melt­ing pot of cul­tures: Asians, Blacks, His­pan­ics, indige­nous peo­ple such as the Kuna in Panamá…

¿Y Ahora Qué?

We went to Panamá (in Panamá City, David and Boquete) and then to Costa Rica (in Que­pos, Playa Coco, Playa Tamarindo, Liberia, Mon­teverde and San Jose). We tried to cross to Nicaragua but could not make it.

There is no way we are com­ing back to Canada now. So we bought a plane ticket to… Perú. We will arrive in Lima, and travel in South Amer­ica for quite a while.

Busing Around Central America

But bus­ing around in Cen­tral Amer­ica is not that straight­for­ward. First of all, we have to agree on the def­i­n­i­tion of a bus. If it has no win­dows and no doors, it is still a bus? What if it is painted in flam­boy­ant col­ors, like bright red and yel­low, and has words of wis­dom such as “no pain, no gain”, or “dio bendigo mi alma” writ­ten on the win­dows? And if it takes 5 hours to drive 20 kilo­me­ters? Is it still a bus?

Border Crossing - Panamá To Costa Rica

On Tues­day morn­ing, we boarded the bus, barely awake. It took us just an hour to get to the bor­der. There, we had to take our bags (stored under­neath the bus) and go to a small round room, with tables. We put our back­packs on the tables and waited for what was com­ing up next. Sure thing, a cus­tom offi­cer arrived 30 min­utes later and searched us.

Cuidado En Panama

The streets are just a mess of cars stop­ping, cars try­ing to turn, to reverse, to park, all at the same time and at full speed. “Dia­b­los Rojos” (city buses), cars, moto­cy­cles, trucks… just ram into each other con­stantly and never ever give way.

Boquete, Chiquiri Province

We left Panamá city for David, and now we are in Boquete, about 1 hour 1/2 from David.