waterblogged

A while back I developed an attitude that there are no "bad experiences"....only "learning opportunities". My trip to Panama this time really pushed the envelope on that attitude. I won't go into the details here...I am doing that on my blog "The View From the Volcano". I invite you to check in. I did take some nice photos, though, met some fascinating people, and, hopefully, made a few friends. Two of those delightful people are JuJu and Rodrigo who are surf pros. JuJu is a remarkably beautiful young lady, and Rodrigo, is well, a surf pro. They have a very interesting blogspot Surf Panama 2009 with some great pictures...neat to check out.

I stayed at Hotel Bastimentos...a hostel for serious folks. Rooms are $8 to $40. I stayed in the $8 room because I'm a starving artist and a cheapskate. They have 3 kitchens and wireless Internet, so everything (most everything) I need, they have. The hostel is old-timey wood architecture going up the side of the mountain in about 6 levels with umpteen decks and balconies. My room at the very top looks out over the water on one side and into the jungle on the other. I saw parrots, toucans, oropendulas and 15 million hummingbirds. It rained most of the time I was there, so I didn't really get any great photos. The only day that it was bright and sunny was Monday, and I went out without my camera, naturally. My son says I take better pictures when I leave my camera at home. On the rainy morning I left, I took a picture of the front of the place. It turned out terrible, but I posted it anyway. I was trying to show the Tiki columns from the set of Survivor a while back. I did get some nice photos of some stumps. I'm gonna do some stump paintings. Sounds exciting, huh?

Anyway, glad to get back to CR, but I'm also ready to go back to Bocas del Toro, too. For now, I'm back to my paints, working on some mystery artists.