Well, it seems the rainy season has turned! Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. I got all of the sopping wet, moldy, smelly things off of Splendid and went to the French marina to do laundry. A great weight has been lifted now that I can dry out a bit :) It still rains but in a normal, once or twice a day “squallie” fashion, the gloom is gone.
I’m super psyched about my visa. I told a friend I was going to Costa Rica for a few days to deal with my visa. They told me a friend, of a friend, of a friend (coconut telegraph) said a new law was just passed and they got a 6 month”Mariner” extension in Colon. This would mean a mariner could stay in Panama a year without having to leave the country. I didn’t get too excited but went to Colon hoping for the best but prepared to do over 30 hours on buses and spend 72 hours in a dingy motel on a border town.
HA, BADDABING, The immigration lady gave me another 6 months! It was a pain as I had to go around town and get pictures taken and copies of all my documents but I now have a little mariner card ($40) and I’m good till mid May, wahoo, what a load off of my mind. I was stressing about the long trip and expense of the whole visa thing. She laughed when she looked up my name and saw that I was already registered in the system from 5 years ago, actually it saved me $5 because she didn’t have to register me :)
Well I got my parts for my Kubota and I may have over engineered them. The pulley system (steel) is really heavy and adds a good 7lbs to the side of the little motor, now I know why the previous system was made out of aluminum :( I’m ready to chuck the whole thing or just set it up as a 60 amp 12v charger, I’m pulling my hair out!
My friend Alexandra is showing up in a week (27th) and I need to do a bit of cleaning and stocking up. In the past few months I have transformed Splendid from a home to a workshop, and need to pull her back together. Sam did a good job of keeping everything in order while I managed to get grease on everything. It’s not uncommon to find a wrench or power tools sitting amongst the clean dishes on Splendid :( I also need to pick up some more t-shirts and towels as I have a bad habit of grabbing whatever is close and using it as a rag, its just uncivilized, I’ve turned into a barbarian! Splendid has been a bit of a bachelor pad the past 5 months!
With all my running around I didn’t get a chance to see a dentist and now my tooth is hurting pretty bad. I’m going to deal with that mid week in Colon, hummm, I guess I need to take Christmas into account? I’m so not into the whole Christmas thing this year. Maybe I’ll go in the morning and get it out of the way?
I hope to have another video up this coming week. I’m stressed with projects (pre guest) but I’ll make the time. I like charging up the PayPal account these days, It makes life a little easier and nicer for sure. I went to my favorite place to eat in Panama city and ordered a cheese plate for $14 (Cheese, baguette, fruit, olives) the other day, heaven :) I tell you out of everything from the “modern” world I miss, it’s good cheese! It is so hard to find good cheeses in Panama. The Rey supermarket in Colon has a bad Swiss and cheddar, but that’s it. I don’t buy cheese or dairy for the boat as it is a treat and don’t like to eat it every day. I like the whole “Luxury” concept to my life. I appreciate things more when I have them. I can guarantee you I enjoy a cold coke more that most people as I only have a few a month.
I’m off to scrub the waterline.
Happy Holidays everyone.
Peace, Love, and coconuts.
– Alex
Glad to hear the weather is getting better. Funny you should talk about cold coke. Here in Ohio they sell plastic containers with coke. This stuff isn’t anything like the coke they sell in Mexico, Central and South America. It’s corn syrup instead of sugar and I guess it’s lacking the other things we used to enjoy in a good bottle of pop.
Lately they have been importing coke from Mexico in glass bottles and selling it here. A case of 12oz glass bottles of Mexican coke is about $19.00 at Sam’s club.
Wow, so the coke really is better here :) It is nice to be away from all the corn syrup and junkie food in the States. It amazes me that we are the richest and most powerful country in the world and eat so poorly. I’m not so big into eating hormones, chimerical, and preservatives, yuck!
I did something I wasn’t so happy with yesterday. I went shopping and gave all my semi off fruit and veggies to the monkeys on Linton. If they were wild animals I’d just leave them alone but the were “pets” in a home when they were young, abandoned, and marooned on Linton by the owner. The truth is monkeys make horrible pets. I have a really good relationship with them but the alpha-male will rarely get aggressive. He is a bit off as he was clubbed in the head with a winch handle years ago for attacking my buddies wife. He isn’t so good in the head anymore. Anyway, he came at me yesterday (they have big fangs) and got a face full of mace. He didn’t scream or freak badly, just sad down and rubbed his eyes for 15 minutes. When he opened his eyes he saw me sitting in front of him and I offered him an apple. He was super nice, took the apple, and walked away with his tail dragging. I don’t like it when people try to domesticate wild animals. You can buy various kinds of monkeys here. Hunters go into the jungle and shoot adult monkeys to take the young for domestication, it really pisses me off.
Anyway, I’m painting the v birth today for my friend arriving next week. Guin had stickers all over the ceiling and when I scraped them off it took paint, ARRRG!
I still say you should invite a monkey over for dinner :)
I still say you should invite a monkey over for dinner :)
merry christmas to trace….hope the head aches went away………..g oh yea didnt we spend x-mas in linton before the canal?