Update from the Isthmus

Editing photos and writing this blog takes hours and hours and hours. I'm currently traveling at a pretty fast pace and don't have tons of spare time for those. When I'm in a place, since I don't have much time, I want to see the town and shoot pictures, so I've gotten behind on the blog and the photos, and I'm pretty sure it will stay that way until I'm home. The possible exception might be Managua, since I'm planning on staying there for more than one week with my good friends, the Mingos. So, here's an update on what's going on.

I just posted a blog entry about my time in Ecuador. At the moment, I'm in the hostel in Panama editing some photos from Colombia. I also need to write a blog entry about Colombia—I visited Cali, Medellín, and Cartagena. From Colombia, I took a sailboat to Panama. That took 5 days and we spent a couple of those just lounging around in the San Blas Islands. That was a very enjoyable trip and there were 8 other really nice travelers along for the ride, along with the captain Mark (from the States), his wife Paola (from Cartagena), and a third crew member, Aurelia (from Panama). I didn't sleep too well on the hard cushions, so I've gotten some much needed rest here in Panama.

While here in Panama, I ran a few errands and saw the canal.

One errand was to buy a couple more USB hard drives for my photos. The two 250GB drives I've been using are full. That's 250GB of data, not 500, as the drives are mirrored. I bought two more Western Digital Passport drives, also 250GB. They're quite a bit more expensive here than in the States, but I had no alternative.

Second, I went to the U.S. Embassy to get more pages in my passport. It's full. My original passport was stolen with tons of other things about 8 months ago. I am still feeling the pain of that day. The embassy won't add pages to a temporary passport. I have to get a new, normal, passport. That takes 10 days. So, I'm going to attempt to cross two borders—that's 4 stamps—on a full passport. Since I'll be staying in Managua for a week or so, I'll go to the embassy my first day there and get the new passport ball rolling. I'll leave after I get the new passport.

Third, I went to the canal. I had been there a number of years ago with my good friend Matt Powell, but it was good to see it again, especially after reading a great book about it.

Tonight, I head for San Jose, Costa Rica. The bus leaves at 10:00 P.M. and will arrive in San Jose 16 hours later. I'll be there a few days and hopefully shoot some animals, then take a bus to Managua.

After a few days of putting antibiotic drops in my painted eye, it's doing much better—pretty much back to normal.

Okay. Back to the photos of Colombia. Keep your eyes peeled for those. Hopefully, I'll be able to upload them while in Nicaragua, maybe within a week, or so.