classicNOMADS

We have a video! And A LOT of thanks...

10/20/2015

I am oh-so-delightfully thrilled to blast out an enormous Thank-You entry!!!

We have so many people in our lives that deserve our gratitude and recognition. So many that, where our live's a film, the credits would measure longer than the movie itself.

As time goes on, we will have even more people thank (although we could never have enough time to express our appreciation to everyone who's on our minds!).

Click image to view video

For this entry, however, we'd love to thank film maker James Cashman, for the FANTASTIC video he's constructed to strengthen the campaign for our cause. Please take a moment to view his work! Click here. :-)

He's a wonderful collaborator, both flexible and confident, and a great guy to have on your team. Thank you, James! I genuinely look forward to seeing your influence as a artist change people's lives in the future.

This week, I'd also like to thank my parents, Barbara and Jarrett, for being such remarkable and inspiring role models and human beings. I essentially won the genetic lottery, as one of their spawn, and I hope that I might earn my right to that blessing with my life (or will die trying)!

I love you both deeply and sincerely.

We want to thank Daniel's siblings, especially Tom and Laurel, for hosting Daniel's photograph storefront (www.classicnomad.com), Juli and Glen, for teaching us a powerful lesson on what Family really means and how precious it truly is, Jim and Janell, for their generosity and touching gestures, and, last but without-a-doubt NOT least, Vicki and Chad, for providing us with the best reasons to make sure we make it home safely.

There are more people to thank (my nana, my brothers and sisters, co-workers, neighbors-turned-lifelong friends (you know who you are!!!!), every host who has opened their doors and hearts to our nomadic journey, and every donator who sent even a penny our way to make sure that food finds it's way into our bellies on a $600/person budget).

And a final, wonderful thank you to be to YOU, Reader, for putting up with my wordy ramblings and un-funny punnies. Thank you, for giving us both a reason to miss home, and at the same time a reason to keep moving forward.

Explore the world. Make it better!

Thank you.

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LOVE it? Visit the store!

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Costa Rica's Woodland Heart: Corcovado.

10/15/2015

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"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her."

-William Wordsworth, poet of the Romantic Era

September, 2015 - The descending trip from Costa Rica's higher parts back to the sea was a much quicker commute than the climb, I'm guessing gravity offered it's fair share of assistance...

A series of switchback roads lead towards the peninsula town of Puerto Jiménez, doorway to sanctified Corcovado.

Now is a good time to mention that we get lost (a lot) while backpacking. Sometimes it's just such a funny scenario that I laugh and laugh. Sometimes I feel so embarrassed, I blush, and shy away from opportunities to bolster my confidence in exchange for a small sacrifice of dignity. Sometimes I feel so annoyed and frustrated that I shut down, and wait for someone else to fix the problem.

In this instance, while entering Puerto Jiménez, I just recessed within myself.

To explain deeper: For me, efforts associated with social expression and communication are highly taxing... In other words, voicing thoughts effectively requires a large and continuous expense of energy and concentration, almost like treading water in the middle of a lake with anchors strapped to my feet.

Most who have met me wouldn't believe that being gregarious takes work, for me, but I actually did spend my younger school years observing extroverted behaviors in my peers, and learned to mimic the look of it, thinking (rightly so) that it would help lubricate my social aspirations.

Over the years, I became more accustomed to upholding a consistent communicational persona, allowing me to more easily navigate society and appeasing mores and folkways.

But it is exhausting. Often worthwhile, but exhausting.

Typically, I carry that weight and don't put it down. Sometimes, however, I just feel so uninspired, and so dimmed, and so danged TIRED, that I don't want to make that huge push... I just want to sink beneath the water's surface and not breath for a little while.

This happened in Puerto Jiménez. I stopped pushing myself to be communicative, which also meant I was shamefully unhelpful to my travel companion, who, as usual, picked up my ever-growing slack and figuratively carried us to our guide's home near the football field-sized cement slab of a local airport.

Thank you, Daniel, as always, for saving the day.

Our guide, Nito, is our previous host Margarita's brother, and his housemate is a Parisian named Tico... Truly... A Frenchman living in Costa Rica legally named "Tico." What are the odds????

By bed time, I was feel more rejuvenated (the culinarily authentic, Italian-chef concocted, Tico-inspired ("Tico" the culture, not the Frenchman) pasta dinner from a nearby soda (café/convenience store) certainly helped).

So THIS is what dawn by the bay looks like? Definitely worth the 4AM alarm...

We knew we'd be in uninterrupted jungle for three days straight, and we prepared accordingly: Raingear, extra clothes, waterproof camera bags, basic toiletries, plenty-o-water, and nine no-cook meals all found their way into our packs while the rest of our regular equipment found a place on the floor in Tico and Nito's spare room.

We planned to rendezvous at a small panadería (bakery) at 0500. So we finished our packing and hit the hay by 2300. No movie night for us tonight!

The next was the first of five pre-dawn days that followed. Just to reach the border of the reserve, it took an hour-long, four-wheel-drive car bouncing along one-lane plank bridges, over roughly carved dirt roads, and through running riverbeds to a stop-station at a truly stunning beach, where we hiked ANOTHER hour-and-a-half to the river that marked the entrance to Corcovado.

The road to Corcovado

From what I can gather, with the exception of a couple ranger stations where explorers rest, there is literally nothing spoiling this land...

The "trails" (although they could sometimes scarcely deserve the name) were rough and rugged, without gravel or boardwalk, and lacking any kind of guidance or markings in many areas.

I didn't mind at all... :-)

You race raging tidal waters around craggy cliffs and climb their crumbling faces and can't trust the very rocks you're clinging to.

You follow your guide and wind around trees thick as Mini Coopers with exposed roots like enormous octopus tentacles. You watch out for fer-de-lance snakes and venomous spiders and pumas and scorpions.

You circumnavigate the fallen giants of tree skeletons (and whale bones, as it turns out) who finally lost their footing to Darwin in the rapidly changing landscape that is a lowland jungle.

Some parts of the forest surprisingly looked similar to National Forests back in the United States. Maybe this part resembled Nicolette and this section echoed Hoh and this area reminds of Kettle-Moraine.

Other parts, however, were straight out of story books and fantasy novels... The pitted, coffee-colored rock outcroppings that reach out from the shore into the rip-tide riddled waves, for example, hearkens back to the Dragon-riding stories of Pern from fiction author Anne McCaffery (remember, mom?).

And the ancient, gnarled hands of trees that gripped tightly to boulders and hillsides spoke of Ents watching the world age.

It took some time for the magic of our circumstances to sink into my brain. As has happened so many times, unrealistic expectations held fast to my judgments and refused to relinquish them for some time. Once they did, however, I was able to see more clearly how special this place truly is.

We saw more plants and animals than we would at a zoo, including:

Coatis, peccaries, tapiers, orchids, macaws, tragons, mangos, sharks, caiman, coconut trees, herons, bats, Corcovado spiders the size of your palm, poison frogs, all four Costa Rican species of monkey, army ants, basilisks, iguanas, geckos, fer-de-lance snakes, anteaters, two-toed sloth, humming birds, crabs, lobster, tree boas, eagles, alligators, beetles, anoles, red-eyed tree frogs, pelicans, anemones, toucans, skinks, urchins, biting bees, NON-stinging bees (still surprisingly aggressive and frightening), sea cucumbers, leaf-cutter ants, surfing fish, buzzards, ibus, sea turtle eggs, and more. It really may have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

More than anything, the place was remarkable and special for it's unique biological signature on the planet.

A thousand, enormous thanks go out to our incredible guide, Nito, whose passion and knowledge enriched our experience tenfold. Nito: You have our sincere gratitude! And our fervid loyalty.

Nito chased away a large pack of coatis who had dug up a nest of sea turtle eggs. We sadly say those eggs torn and strewn about the sand, but he re-buried the ones that might have survived.

Our time there ended with a brutal hike back to civilization. We brought back hundreds of photos, a few sea-soaked stories and tree-lined tales to deepen our understanding of Costa Rican riches, and a lot of sore body parts.

In case you're wondering, this is the face Daniel makes after a furious wave pins him to the cliff-face we're scaling and dowses everything he owns in saltwater...

Our guide, Nito, expertly navigated the rocky terrain and managed to keep his shoes dry the entire time! I gave up... And waded in the waters rather than worry...

The time comes to say farewell to Costa Rica. 18-20 hours or so on buses and a rough-water ferry will bring us from the Osa Peninsula to the volcanic island of Ometepe in Nicaragua, where we will wait to hear back from a family we contacted about interviewing.

Costa Rica means "Rich/Delicious Coast," and it truly is a richly packed land of many vibrancies and treasures.

I'll drink that freshly cracked coconut milk any day....

A thank you was earned this week for Debi & Jeff (Millet), Kathy, David, his family, and Char, who were so so terribly helpful in giving us this great week. Another thank you to Laurene, for taking the time to talk to us about our cause and submit our story to the Belize Globe. Thank you!

She included a link to our fund-raising page, here. Feel free to visit and help us see this project through!

Explore the world. Make it better.

Like the photography?

There is more to see than a post has room for!

Click the links and take a gander at our internal gallery or Instagram account!

LOVE it? Visit Daniel's store here!

So... Where were we????

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Pura Vida

9/27/2015

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"Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others."

-Brian Tracy, motivational speaker and author

September, 2015 - After leaving Panama, I decided to keep a more detailed running commentary of events. This means what you're reading is going to be over-saturated with a stream of consciousness diary from our remaining time in Costa Rica...

My apologies... I'll attempt to avoid this, starting in Nicaragua, and spare you long-winded play-by-plays in lieu of more bite-sized entries post-CR.

Bullet holes riddle the stone of what was once a stronghold. Now, the building holds a historic museum of Costa Rica's past.

In the meantime, our efforts since we last checked in have been to polish off exposure to Tico culture during the very short amount of time we spend in this country. Having studied life in Costa Rica's largest city and capital, we took the opportunity to investigate treasured natural landmarks and tranquil country culture.

Time constraints, budget shortages, geographic efficiency, and local offers found us primarily in the Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio (abutted to the Pacific Oceanside resort town Quepos), in addition to the remote and revered Corcovado forest upon Costa Rica's wildlife hot spot, the Osa Peninsula: "The most biologically intense place on earth," according to the National Geographic Society.

Manuel Antonio is, before anything else, tropically GORGEOUS and touristically saturated... It was difficult trying to select pictures to post!

The main beach flaunts a stretch of soft sand lawns flanked with luscious jungle greenery against the blue waters. The gently curled waves of surf-worthy swells reached as far as the beach itself on either side, where dark, raw rock formations create a natural, prehistoric cradle for the tourist's delight.

I felt immediately compelled to document the scene, and as expected failed to convey it's commercial-able qualities. Oh well, with more practice, maybe!

US presence is heavy, here, making it easily navigated for an American and giving a strongly vacation-y appearance, to me.

With English being the primary language along the strip, and resorts specking the forested hills behind the beach's palm trees, it didn't feel remarkably authentic. But it certainly did feel easy-going and worthwhile.

Oh, and the sunsets... Yeah, those are worth it...

Vendors roam the beach hawking their wares. Among the most popular? Why, freshly hacked coconut milk, of course!

Don't miss the sunsets... But also don't forget bug spray, if you don't like the little devils impolitely asserting themselves.

The national park of Manuel Anonio is tucked a little ways beyond the locally owned shops and restaurants that crowd the beachside streets at the end of the main road from Quepos into Manuel Antonio.

The park itself was a surprise, for my expectations. Based on reviews I've been given, the area is regularly praised for it's frequent animal sightings of a wide and enticing variety, but they must have been shy when we visited!

A few sleeping baby bats, a deer, and a handful of iguanas just about rounded off the first half of our visit.

A pretty little waterfall lay at the end of one of the trails, and a the up-again-down-again gravel-and-guardrail trails afforded a good deal of rain-forest botanicals.

We heard the hoots and hollers of howler monkeys (but sadly had no sightings) providing an effectively animalistic soundtrack for the gently winding raised boardwalks and main, two-lane road cutting through the park's woodlands.

I have been working on tempering my expectations for the future and limiting my judgments of the past. This was a good occasion for me to exercise my discipline.

It wasn't until our second half that we were bestowed privileged by the most sought after inhabitant of them all: The Sloth.

In all honesty, sloths just don't do it for me...

They are odd-looking and strangely assembled things, with faces that looking mockingly at observers. They're rare, yes, but beyond their renowned eccentricities they aren't colorful or exciting enough to rank highly on my Must-See List.

That said, I've been avidly searching for a sloth to snap for my little brother since we came to Costa Rica (shout out to Gavin!).

His hilarious impressions of the beloved perezoso (literally translated to "Lazy" from Spanish) making it's weekly bathroom trip to the forest floor has always been an endearing and comical event, in my past.

It's a much requested, party livelying impression at the Strawn Family house.

So: Sloth? Check.

Let's see what else we find...

We happened upon a wee lil' raccoon resting in the tree, heard the aforementioned howler monkeys in the distance providing a natural ambiance, and were able to peek a handful of timid White-Faced Capuchin on the final stretch of the last pretty beach, where we were expecting to exit and catch our bus back to San Jose.

We happened upon a wee lil' raccoon resting in the tree, heard the aforementioned howler monkeys in the distance providing a natural ambiance, and were able to peek a handful of timid White-Faced Capuchin on the final stretch of the last pretty beach, where we were expecting to exit and catch our bus back to San Jose.

VERY unfortunately, our well-planned, tightly packed time table was unexpectedly diverted when a pious ranger rejected our request to leave by our intended route (which would have landed us at the bus' doorstep). Apparently, the exit we intended to use had been closed sometime in the recent past... and we quickly scampered the ENTIRE park's length back to the main entrance (where we thankfully caught the bus with time to spare...).

While exploring, local Ticos seemed quite plentiful in the park, but they were typically quick-moving and spoke in conversational, casual tones and volumes. Most were in the national park to hit the beaches, which is perfectly understandable, considering their sigh-worthy beauty. They pulled coolers on wheels and toted bloated purses full of beach gear and extra clothes while cruising down the scenic paths, most bee-lining for the blue waterside.

As we left the park, it felt clear that this really was a tourist town, both for locals and foreigners alike. Even so, it had it's fair share of natural splendor, Anglo familiarity, and opportunities to unwind and take things a little slower, all making it an enjoyable experience, on a whole.

Plus, ANY town that sells lemon sweet-bread *THIS* big and THIS tasty for two bucks is A-OK in my book!

Ever since my first tasting of Latin American sweet bread in high school Spanish class, I've wanted to attend an authentic Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration and just go mad... In November, it's finally happening!

During the between, after leaving Manuel Antonio but before we dared traverse the far more rustic Corcovado, we abandoned coastal territory and headed for the highlands.

The terrain higher up, moreso than anywhere else I've ventured in this tropically lauded land, is STUNNING.

The ascending cerros ("hills," pronounced "sare-roes") were sometimes entirely shrouded in thick, pure cloud-layers that mysteriously hid the high hills. Breaks in foggy curtains rewarded travelers with slices of the steep, sheer cliffs covered completely in a heavy cloak of rich plant life.

It was wild... It was so separated... It was wonderful.

Raindrops began to splatter the bus windows and obscured the view as we increased altitude and the temperature steadily dropped twenty degrees.

A darling angel's face followed us from San Jose to outside of San Isidro... She seemed to have a disability of some kind, and her spirit was so precious and sweet! She enjoyed pretending that SHE was the one taking pictures of US.

"THIS," I thought to myself, "is what I've been waiting to see..."

The whole thing just seemed so... Untouched... Virginal... Unencumbered by and ignorant of the rest of the planet. The entire experience boasted an air of mysticism and grandeur, I felt a fool for not taking more pictures of these cloud forests to remember what had become one of my favorite views yet.

It was one of the first times that I wondered if the locals here knew what they had outside their windows and on their doorsteps. And that night I would have the opportunity to ask one..

Margarita, amongst her brother Maurizio's charge.

Our ride into the mountains was in response to a local invitation, where we would spend a few days with a host family in San Vito, a small village only a few miles from the mountain-ranged Panamanian border.

Of the eleven siblings in this family (yes, 11), almost all still live in or around this little town where they grew up years ago.

We were immediately and warmly welcomed into the house of the matriarch (a woman I wound up naming "Santa Cecilia") next door to her daughter Margarita and son-in-law Marcos, who were in turn next door to her son Maurizio and his wife Kathia.

Both parental sets have have two children.

It was instantly apparent that we were undeserving of the adamant hospitality with which the family graced us...

Even before arriving, we had sheepishly succumbed to pestering them with emails when we were lost in town, and they eventually responded by all piling into their family car and fetching us from our pitiful plight, smiles on their faces and arms awaiting an embrace.

These are special people.

Tropical flowers in radiant display at the botanical gardens just down the road from families' homes.

More than any other part of this week, there is just not sufficient time to describe the family here... Such open-hearted people living so simply... Such land-loving and peace-seeking minds....

Thriving bamboo groves, also found in the gardens by the family property.

Mothers Margarita and Kathia (who are both enrolled in school for a career in education while their husbands work metal and tend a botanical reserve, respectively) let us ask our questions about childhood normalcy and typical Tico living while we all worked to find our communicative common ground between two languages.

It took some time, but we found a rhythm!

A lot could be said about what was discussed.

My favorite take-aways were two things: a fierce and fast little guerrilla kiss from the fantastically animated and lovable Gina (about four years old) and an oration from Margarita who passionately and inspirationally expressed her desire for the children of the world to learn the importance of charity.

"If you make others happy, you will become happy. You cannot make yourself happy by only taking care of yourself!"

Getting acquainted with the snuggly, lovely, giggly Gina, after she surprised EVERYONE (especially ME!!!!) with a swiftly planted wet one right on the smackers... (Photo credit: Daniel Heintz)

Her speech went on for several minutes. I felt so sweetly touched that I nearly cried...

The family-centric attitude these individuals have waterfalled down from their very impoverished but loving and generous parents, whose strong sense of values cascaded into their children "through their actions, not their words."

Path walking and forest bathing...

These people, who were strangers on Thursday, took us in and fed us for two days last week.

They asked no questions and accepted no payment.

In fact, Daniel had to be sneaky while I distracted our hostess in order to help with the dishes...

Times such as these seem to more accurately spotlight my own deficiencies of character, which I feel could really use some attention...

Margarita (and especially her parents) exemplify that kind ideas and giving thoughts are all good and well, but it is by the DOING of kind acts and GIVING of yourself over to helping others a personal way that can bring strength, harmony, peace, and happiness to more than just one person...

As a self-proclaimed over-thinker, it seems that a little more DOING and a little less thinking might be in order for me.

I know it to be a hard thing! Turning thought into action, that is.

But if what Margarita says is true, and it certainly seems that her parents lives are a testimony to the claim's validity, it's well worth a try.

Saying goodbye-for-now to those wonderful, amiable people felt unceremonious and inadequate...

Margarita didn't mind.

I feel I frequently fail to appropriately express gratitude and convey effective thanks in such situations, but they all seemed unfazed, and punctuated our departure with a fervid and sincerely declared, "Come back soon!"

Pura Vida : Pure Life.

Beautiful textures found in the forest.

Margarita sent us off to meet with her beloved brother, Nito, who works as a guide in the natural wonderland of the Corcovado reserve. This geographic jewel secluded within Costa Rica's biodiversity hot spot had once showered Daniel with adventures and epic tales, last he went. Let's see if it lives up to the legend next week!

This expanse of rainforest is LITERALLY in these kids' backyard... Hide-and-go-seek could take a loooooooooong time...

PS- And now, for adorability's sake, as a reward for making it to the end of this week's ramblings, to melt your heart and to help heal mine, and ¨just because,¨ I'd like to introduce you to our daughter: Osa Gina Heintz Strawn...

She adopted us, really, and protected us on the jungle paths, fighting off ant armies and battling any semblance of loneliness a human could feel. She didn't seem to belong to anyone, that I could tell.

She could accompany us where ever we went. And when our daily duties took us beyond her boundaries, she would go to our back door to wait for us to come home.

Sadly, we had to leave her... We still talk about her almost everyday... How somehow, SOMEHOW, we MUST have been able to bring her... Osa, we miss you... Please be waiting at our backdoor when we come home...

A great, big thank you and shout out goes to Holly Hatton! Holly was gracious enough to make a contribution to our fund raiser to help us explore more family for the education app where we eventually hope to donate our findings. Please click here and visit our fund-raising page to see how to contribute!

Thank you, Holly!

We will keep exploring the world. Trying to make it better!

Explore the world. Make it better.

Like the photography?

There is more to see than a post has room for!

Click the links and take a gander at our internal gallery or Instagram account!

LOVE it? Visit Daniel's store here!

So... Where are we now????

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"Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky... Stormy weather..."

9/12/2015

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"Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change."

-Brene Brown, shame-researcher turned love and connections expert, author, and motivational speaker

**NOTE** Due to frequent power outages and limited access to electricity, this blog post was backdated to last week. We have finally secured a consistent enough Wifi signal to allow work on the web. (This may happen a lot... Please bear with us!)

Our visit to Panamá has landed us near the city of Colón, exactly opposite of Cuidad de Panamá across the isthmus and canal.

More specifically: We are nestled on the Northern shore, outside the tiny town of Piña, which is a forty minute ATV ride from Colón through dense, valleyed jungle, over locked waterways and around bloated, cattle-speckled swamps.

Home for the week.

The hyperactive, love-you-to-death perma-puppy, Ash, in a rare moment of calm.

This week, while getting a feel for the land, Daniel and I managed to find lodging by volunteering to house-sit a Caribbean-beach side estate, where we are parenting two terribly sweet Rotterman pooches... Bark-worse-than-bite lil' pups named Ash and Sasha. I may call them “cute puppies,” but anyone else would say that are enormous, hulking hounds.

But they ARE undeniably sweet, I promise. Their size is just for scare.

Our view, for a large duration of the rain-soaked stay. Luckily, we Seattleites are no strangers to wet weather. If anything, it has a loveliness all its own.

The house sits on a gentle-to-severe slope overlooking the Atlantic side of Central America. The shoreline sits off axis, so looking straight across the waves, further than we can see, would be Nicaragua, and further still (incidentally) Seattle. *sigh*

Since first arriving, daily storms have waged war against the sea's surface and stirred the waters into frothing, tossing waves.

The lightening last night was SPECTACULAR. We watched from our beds, witnessing powerful, fiery tridents spearing an angry ocean's surface every few heartbeats and shaking the surrounding forest with the following forceful booms as the house was doused with torrents of rain.

Weather didn’t stop us, though, and I had my first ever ocean swim... The water was warm and filthy, filled with human rubbish and natural debris from the ferocious winds and stormy weather and black-and-brown-sanded beach was well churned (we only saw blue sky our last day in the country). We couldn't see more than three inches through the water, but chose to be trusting and dismiss Spielberg's stories in lieu of the Atlantic waters' siren call.

I loved it...

We also both faced our first illnesses of the trip this week.

Daniel had the usual traveler’s cold, and I was conscious to keep my head above the surface and my face clear of icky fluids, preventing the exacerbation of an apparent eye infection that has left me with sore sockets, bloodshot eyes, and the feeling of ever-present hairs stuck directly across my corneas.

It has ached in ways that worry me a bit (sometimes my anxieties threaten to convince that my laser eye surgery has at long last betrayed me as I feared, and turned for the worse...).

I'm just trying to prevent further infection, if I can. It's already feeling better.

Considering my immune system’s past track record, I expect a full recovery in the next few days.

The Ferocious Panamanian Mosquito Massacre of 2015

Also medically related: Given the historic nature of disease-riddled mosquitoes in Panamá's yesteryears, our bedroom beckoned preparations.

With his previous travels, Daniel is all too familiar with mosquitoes, and all that they could carry, in terms of undesirable injections. He considers them the winged terrorists of the animal kingdom (anyone agree?). I, of course, am being far too cavalier about it, and am very fortunate he is here to bedeck our beds with not one, not two, but THREE full-sized, interwoven bug nets, to keep out the vampiric insects that would add us to the 800,000 malaria fatalities (the US spent over $20 million to kill off Panamanian mosquitoes while building the canal, we are just making sure that effort was worth it!).

Geckos frequent the white-washed walls and Santorini-blue window panes of the jungle cabin, and every time I see one, I thank him and do my darnedest expose all the secret locations of the many-legged fiends that run rampant in the ever-humid house.

Jungle jaunts are generally densely packed with trees, but every so often a break in the botany rewards a viewer with a vantage such as this. The Panamanian tropical forests laid before you.

A local child brilliantly adorns her home for us. This house felt relatively upscale, when stacked next to much smaller and less luxurious abodes.

Errand runs to and from town take us through communities in the tropical wild lands. Sparsely spaced structures are plopped along side the road in the midst of the greenery.

Families (at least in this part of the country) live in cement-block cubes with corrugated metal roofs. The box-like shacks are congregated intermittently along the edge of the jungle road, almost entirely open to the elements (windows are generally absent, and oftentimes even doors are nowhere to be seen).

That said, with the vibrant paint they generally chose to coat the concrete, and the brightly-colored clothes they hang from fences and trees to dry after cleaning, homes look quite beautiful, snuggled between the trees and bushes like rainbow butterflies on a green lawn.

A beach side, family outing. Looking for commodities to barter or make a profit, if we can!

Not every house is chromatically embellished. It's not uncommon to see stone-only constructs for a family's needs.

Some children go to school (typically religious institutions smack-dab on the rainforest roadside) or work with their families (we saw no shortage of gatherers out with their parents and siblings, searching for sellables, where they could find them).

There's a simultaneous sense of community and every-man-for-himself-ness that seems to influence the brand of social cohesiveness I found here. People are willing to help others, but based on what I experienced I’m guessing some of those ties may be more tenuous than tight.

That said, it also seems to be understood that we all work together to get things done. I could sense a kind of allowance for the role each person played (or pressured others into tolerating) as we navigated our week.

Poor man's porridge made tasty with guava, bananas, and sugar-caned breakfast bread...

On an economic note, Panamá is not as cheap and I was told, and I was embarrassingly disappointed.

It may just be where I went, but prices are generally the same as Seattle, in this tiny, North-coast town of Colón (which boasts the world’s largest duty-free shopping zone).

Some prices actually seem about the same as a decent sale back home, while others dare to be shamefully expensive (in my frugal-minded opinion). Oh, well. We stocked up a week's worth of meager eatings for about $40 (14 meals for two... About $1.43 per chap per meal. Not bad).

Peace can be found anywhere. The challenge comes in attaining it.

I find myself already, only two weeks in, becoming more hasty, judgmental, impatient, and spiteful, when things feel outside of my control. The pressures of travel pull out negativity in me, sometimes.

I'm hoping to grow and move past those tendencies. I'm so grateful to be here, to have this opportunity, and I'd love to experience it with a more graceful and loving attitude. It's as much work as I thought, but I see how worthwhile the sweat can be, in the long run.

Daniel, the veteran traveler, is doing his best to handle my unruly and stubborn tantrums, and has been FAR too kind in forgiving my errs and rarely acknowledges my blatant faults... Bless his heart.

A boy and his dog... Temporary dog, of course.

Sea snails, so we see shells by the sea shore.

Lil, lazy lizard... This Basilisk scooted off, when we approached. Sadly, though, not running upon the water's surface...

Next leg of the journey is a bus ride back through Costa Rica on our way to Nicaragua. We plan to land in a community farm located on the small, volcanic island of Ometepe until we head to picturesque Granada, across the semi-dangerous lake waters that the volcano rests upon.

We apologize for being so off-grid this week. We haven't had much presence online, and thusly don't have shout-outs for donations. Please visit our fund-raising page to see how to contribute!

We will keep exploring the world. Trying to make it better!

PS, Just heard a little gecko croak!!!! Let us hope it was in celebration of just finishing off the last pesky pest in Panamá!

Explore the world. Make it better.

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Costa Rican Greetings

9/3/2015

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"You can admire people for sure, and they're worth admiring, but you need to find that special thing about yourself. It takes working hard, getting the technique, and learning to sing and all that stuff, but the master class is about bringing yourself to the role."

- Susan Egan, actress and singer

The Valle Central in Costa Rica houses a majority of it's local population. Entrenched in mountains, houses stream like a rainbow river between the hills.

September, 2015 - Okay, where to begin...

After moving through four different international airports in 28 hours, the Costa Rican capital city of San José lay before us. Quick carry-on consolidation, customs checks, and a dodging through leagues of insistent cabbies found us on our bus towards the outlying Heredia, with me already forgetting what day of the week it is...

Thank goodness for a missionary at the bus stop, and our seat-mate while riding who made sure we found the correct stop. As we bumped along over the cracked concrete, stone-wrought, single-story businesses huddling behind barred gates and barbed wire flanked the tight, turning streets. Lushly decorated mountains cloaked in white mist hid the horizon when the city's shops made way for a clear view of their shrouded slopes until the bus heaved it's load towards our final stop

Our neighborhood, until we move on later in the week.

We eventually (with the help of GPS) found our host, Mario, dropped off our gear, and took a trip to the familiar-yet-different local supermarket for dinner supplies.

Various local vegetables (fresh beans, dozens of banana varieties, yuca, taro) occupied baskets right beside standardized, metal shelves filled with recognizable US staples (Oreos, Lucky Charms, Downy detergent, Nestle Chocolate milk, Pantene Pro-V). The contrast was actually kind of encouraging, somehow.

Mario is a fantastic cook... No more need be said (polenta was made proud that night).

Hopefully some of Mario's splendid skills will rub off on me before we leave...

The next morning found us meandering the neighborhood, scouting for an available family to spend time with, and tweaking the travel weeks to follow.

Thus far, my favorite local eatery... And I haven't even eaten there, yet!

It was primarily a work day.

So much effort goes into keeping contact with potential hosts, seeking out local families for connections, continuing to build out both websites, maintaining correspondence, planning routes, and promoting our cause.

I thank work experience at an international brokerage firm and even jobs behind the counters of coffee shops for teaching me resilience to pressure and time management.

At the same time, I'm surprised already how difficult some things have been... I consider myself decently open-minded (and fervidly hope to open it more, with this expedition) but admittedly experienced an embarrassing amount of judgement and doubt only three days in... That's such a large part of why I am doing this. To grow more. To stretch further. To expand bigger.

To love better.

Sol y Luna... Equalibrio en todas cosas...

Challenges give us the opportunity to progress beyond our limitations. So I'm putting myself in harms way in exchange for the possibility of improvement.

Well, back to work. The clouds above the city are about to break loose the daily showers that wet the land each afternoon. Thunder grumbles and echoes through the valley and the sky dims while as first sparse droplets splat on broad, rain-forest leaves.

Hmmm... If I close my eyes, it almost feels like I'm back in Seattle again...

An enormous thank you to Coleen and Grace this week for making a difference and donating to our cause! Truly, EVERY little bit counts. Another thank you to Mario, for splendidly housing us.

It's much easy to help people than many of us think...

Let's explore the world. Let's make it better!

Like the photography?

There is more to see than a post has room for!

Click the links and take a gander at our internal gallery or Instagram account!

LOVE it? Visit Daniel's store here!

So... Where are we now????

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Explore the world
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We have a video! And A LOT of thanks...

Costa Rica's Woodland Heart: Corcovado.

Pura Vida

"Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky... Stormy weather..."

Costa Rican Greetings

We would literally love to see you!!!

connect with us
(seriously!)

EMAIL

Telephonic Digits

Drop a line! give us your thoughts!

Explore the worldMake it better

We have a video! And A LOT of thanks...

Costa Rica's Woodland Heart: Corcovado.

Pura Vida﻿

"Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky... Stormy weather...﻿"

﻿Costa Rican Greetings

We would literally love to see you!!!

connect with us(seriously!)

EMAIL

Telephonic Digits

Drop a line! give us your thoughts!

Explore the world
Make it better

Pura Vida

"Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky... Stormy weather..."

Costa Rican Greetings

connect with us
(seriously!)