beck: one

Heres a little video I put together of our most recent adventures:

the beck from Mal Brower on Vimeo.

Panama: Day 6

Panama: Day 6

Last day on the island & our hostel in Panama City

We told the boys "No spearing today!" and told them that they had to spend the entire day with us.  We can be so rude sometimes...

We decided to show them our favorite "Executive" beach.  The boys laid out with us (a miracle!) and just relaxed.  They also found a rope swing and had some fun on that.

The nice bathrooms on the beach were pretty close to a private school that was held outdoors.  When I went to go to the bathroom, there were two little school girls in their uniform waiting to use the bathroom.  One girl looks at me and goes "Hello, how are you?" in english.  I responded back to her and told her she had very good english.  She giggled and ran away.  I don't think she understood any more english than what she had said, but she had that one saying down.

Just walking the streets of the island.

Our favorite little market.

Huge spider we found.

Time to pack up :(  The boys gear reeked like fish for months after this.  

 When I told people about our trip after we went.  Everyone always asked if we stayed in a nice resort that was there.  NO.  We stayed in the cheapest but nicest place we could find.  We are all about traveling to awesome places, but doing it as cheap as possible.  

This was our B&B we stayed at.  There were only 12 rooms.  It was $104 a night.  They fed us a delicious breakfast every morning that was included in the price.  It was nothing special, but it did its job.  

There were no nice resorts on this island.  A neighboring small island did have a 5 star resort on it, a Ritz Carlton I believe.  But our island was still basically just a little town with two markets, two or so restaurants, a small medical building, a clothing shop, an ice cream shop (and we didn't even go I am now realizing!) and a catholic school.  There are basically only 3 small hotels (we stayed at one, ate dinner at one, and I don't even know where the other one was).  The rest of the houses are rental vacation homes and homes of those that live on the island.  There are a few really nice vacation houses on the island though, they belonged to the wealthy Panamanians.

Theres our room!

This was where breakfast was every morning.

Dan and Shalane's room.

They had a random caged area with a fawn (that you can see in the back corner of the hut).

Took my 19 week baby belly picture on the roof.

We had are last meal at our favorite place before we had to get to the ferry.

We then hopped on the ferry and sat on the back to enjoy the boat ride back to the City.  Me and Shalane let Éric sit in-between us.  Shalane was super excited.  Ok and maybe I was too...

We gave him some of our dried mangoes to try which he had never tried in his life.  He loved them.  He asked where they were from and we told him Costco.  He had no idea what that was so we told him we would mail him some.  The boys then gave him a bag of beef jerky to try, and again, he had never tried jerky either.  He loved it as well.  So we included that into our package we told him we would send him.

The bridge that leads to the Canal.

It was hard saying bye to Éric, but we told him we would do this again next year with our baby in tow.  We told him he better bring his "wife" (girlfriend) as well.  He told us we have to go visit him in France, which me and Shalane will have no problem with whatsoever.  

It was then off to our hostel.  The owner of the hostel came and picked us up at the ferry which was very kind of her.  We didn't have to go through the whole "Taxi will you find this place..." debacle.  As we were driving through the main of Panama City in the crazy traffic she was telling Kevin (in spanish) all about the city.  He told her how amazed we were at how many skyscrapers and buildings were in Panama City.  She said that had only happened in the last 10 or so years.  Business just skyrocketed due to low business taxes, and many American bank business moved to Panama City.

We finally arrived to our hostel and Kevin's face says it all in this picture:

It was a 3 bedroom hostel, and the other hostels were occupied by Columbians.  We could tell that she normally didn't get traveling Americans at her hostel; mostly Latinos coming to the city for business.  

Luckily we had air conditioning, but she also gave us mosquito spray and a mosquito candle because the mosquitos are so bad.  That is not what you want to hear in a latin country.  Especially when you are pregnant.  We then spent as little time as possible in that room.  

We walked to the nearest, nicest looking restaurant and ate the worst meal since we had been there.  This made it really easy for us to go home the next morning.  And then even easier when we stopped by the little market to get candy (to make our room not feel so gross) and that was closed.  So we went back to our room, put on the AC and watched National Geographic in spanish.  

 Oh yeah.  And do you want to see how swollen my feet got that trip?  You probably don't but I need to remember how bad they got for memory sake.

They did not fit into my flip flops.  And they barely fit into my tennis shoes.  Kevin had to undo all the laces for my feet to fit.  It was painful.

But that is what you get when you travel to a hot, humid place while you are pregnant.  And I really think the first day in the city (Panama Canal, Casco Viejo, and the rainforest hike) really set me up for this.

It was hard to sleep in the hostel because the beds were tiny and they gave you one small sheet as a blanket.  I woke up bright and early and couldn't fall back asleep so I got up, took a humid, sticky shower (the worst) and got ready outside where the mirror was.

The view.

Just getting ready.

I guess the owner thought Americans just eat sandwiches all the time.  And ketchup sandwiches.
This was our breakfast.  The juice and pineapple were great, but I could not down that sandwich.  Poor Kevin ate his whole thing because he didn't want the kind owner to feel bad.
Again, this made it easy to go home.

Bye hostel, it was real.

 We made it to the airport on time and started to check in our bags.  Kevin had brought his skim board in case there was a good beach for skimming, but ended up not using it.  We weren't charged coming to Panama, but of course the airline there (Copa Airlines) completely ripped us off.  I do not do well under those circumstances.  I hate the feeling of being completely ripped off.  It didn't sit well with Kevin either.  We argued and argued, asked to talk to a manager.  Nothing worked.  They told us because it was a surf board (We kept telling them it is NOT a surf board, its a body board) that they had to charge us $140.  Oh it burned so bad.  It was the size of a normal piece of luggage.

So that did not start our journey home on the right note.

Then, while we were waiting for our flight, I waited in a 15 minute line so I could get a bottle of water. We then went to go get on the plane and we had to go through security again.  They told me I had to throw the water away, no liquids.  I told them no and told Kevin to tell them that I had bought that in their airport.  They wouldn't budge.  Oh I was so angry. 

Then, me and Kevin were not sitting together on the 6 hour plane ride home.  I do not do well flying anyways (a big fear of mine), so not sitting by Kevin would have made it pretty bad.  We had hoped that there would be kind person sitting next to us that would be willing to switch seats.  Kevin kindly asked the guy sitting next to me if he could switch him places and the guy flatly just said no.  This did not sit well with me, nerves started to get to me and I started to get a little emotional (hey, Im also pregnant).  I said a prayer that something would work out;  I needed to sit by Kevin on that flight home.  Right then the guy tried to put his headphones in the jack to the TV in front of him and it wouldn't go in.  He then asked the stewardess for another pair of earphones and they didn't work as well.  He then asked to be moved to a TV that worked.  Once they found him a seat, he got Kevin's attention and said "They found me another seat, you can sit here now," as if he had done it to be nice. Oh please.

But, I was so grateful that Kevin got to sit by me for that long flight.

They fed us two meals on that flight, and I finally obliged to eating one since I was starving from not eating breakfast.  This was then followed with In N Out in Los Angeles.  Eating crap after eating such fresh, delicious food for a week did not sit well with me.  On our small flight from LA to SLC, we luckily were sitting in the back near the bathroom.  So when I felt it coming up, I ran to that bathroom.  I wasn't able to eat In N Out for 3 months after that.

And that was our trip! 

It was awesome and we are already planning the trip next year with baby.

Panama: Day 5

Panama: Day 5

Grouper Day

We started off our morning with a long walk around the island.  

This is the old ferry that ferried from Panama City to Contadora.   A huge storm hit and beached it.  And in true form, they just left it there.

Watching the sailboats.  It was decided we needed to try that next time we come. 

Today me and Shalane stayed on the Island while the boys went to their island to fish.  I had a bad experience the day before when I thought Kevin had gotten hurt (eaten by a shark) when they had not come in on time and the captain couldn't find them in the rough waves.  My mind always goes to the worst.  I was supposed to babysit a big red snapper that Kevin had brought in earlier into one of the rock pools, but I was so worried I had let it get washed out to sea...woops.  I told Kevin that is what he gets for not coming in on time. 

So me and Shalane found the Executive Beach to hang out at.  It had a bathroom and a shower we later found out! And Europeans.  I really don't think too many Americans come to Contadora, we were the only Americans there at that time (but again, theres not many tourists there to begin with).

The night before the boys and Éric were saying how they wish they had caught more grouper on the trip.  The very next day they caught a huge grouper and two smaller ones!

Giant Grouper.  It had to have been 60-70 lbs.

Kevin's biggest catch of the trip.  This big guy made us $40.

Kevin's grouper!! He was so excited about it.  This guy made us $20.

Éric had a minor mishap when the large grouper he had speared had a hook in its mouth.  When he was trying to wrestle and kill it, the hook on the fish lodged into Éric's chin.  He had to rip it out himself.  When they got back to the island, luckily the Survivor doctor was right there and sewed him right up on the balcony of his hotel.  With his shirt off.  Oh island life.  So that is why he looks so serious in this picture.  He probably thought he was pretty bad a$# with that grouper, but it mainly hurt him to smile.

Our captain cutting up the large grouper for the man who had bought it for $60.  We noticed that he left some pretty big filet's on the fish for himself after he gave the cut filets to the man.  That is the kind of guy he was. 

Tom Sawyer carrying our dinner fish home.

The island is so small that everything is centered around the airstrip.  So if we got lucky and were still at the beach around 4-6 pm when all the Survivor crew left, we got buzzed by all the planes.  This doesn't show how close these planes were to us.  It was the coolest feeling watching and hearing them go right over us.

Same place, same people, same food.  Oh I miss those dinners.
And again, poor Éric can't smile. He kept telling us that night to stop making him laugh.

That night we went to the roof of our B&B and watched the most beautiful sunset.  It was the perfect ending to our last day on the island. 

Panama: Day 4

Panama: Day 4

Another fun-filled day

Every morning we would get up (later than dan & shalane...early birds) and go on a quiet morning adventure.  

We believe this was the Survivor ship that carried all the equipment.  They would be unloading and loading while the tide was up.

The local pet deer "Stinky".

This is where they built all the equipment needed for Survivor.

An old hotel that the Survivor crews took over.

It was amazing how many abandoned hotels there were on the island.  Big ones too.  There were probably three this size just rotting.  And of course it looks like they never got finished.  We know that one of the hotels went out of business because the dad died and left it to his sons who had no business experience what so ever. 

It could get pretty hot on the island because of the humidity.  But all you had to do was stick your legs in the water and you were instantly cooled.  It was so refreshing.  Kevin took this picture because he said I finally looked "pregnant."

After a relaxing morning and afternoon, we grabbed our lunch to go and headed to the island.

The boys were taking forever to come out and eat lunch so I had to eat half of mine before.  Those pregnancy hungers are crazy.  Don't mess. 

He caught a red snapper right before lunch.

Hearing about their adventures in the water.  They saw two sharks today.  Made me sick letting Kev go back in the water.  I'm really going to need to work on (not) worrying when baby brower comes along...

So happy.

That captain thought he was the shiz.  We, or I, hated him.  For some reason he believed that for being the captain, he deserved one or two of the best fish.  Every day.  Unbelievable.  And thats on top of his pay of $30 just to take us to the island, drop us off, and pick us up in five hours.  Im telling you...those Panamanians... We weren't willing to give him fish but Eric was "always a gentleman" and gave him one or two of his fish.

And then he felt like he could barter the price of the fish for us.   We were so happy to say Adios to him at the end of the trip.

Another delicious dinner.  We also splurged and got an amazing passion fruit juice that was $10.  So worth it.

After dinner show of Eric's go pro of the sharks.  He thought he got it of him smacking the shark away, but he sadly didn't :(

 On our way back to the B&B we stopped by the market to get treats for the night.  I needed chocolate and sadly the only chocolate they had was a bag of peanut m&ms.  Not a favorite of mine but I still got them.  They tasted like heaven not having American sugar for a week.

Panama: Day Three

Panama: Day Three

First day on Contadora

We got up early to go check out the snorkeling scene.  In March they actually get a cold current (in December it is warm) so the water was pretty chilly.  But with a wet suit I was set.  

The water was horribly unclear.  Me and Kevin just got spoiled in Mexico and have high expectations for snorkeling now.  I maybe saw 3 or so fish, and two small and one large sting ray.  When its not clear like that,  I always get scared of sharks coming out of nowhere so once I realized there was  nothing to see, I was out.  Daniel and Shalane went snorkeling a few mornings later and said it was a bit more clear.  Me and Kevin never went again.  Spoiled brats I tell ya.  

19 weeks with baby here.

After snorkeling we went to breakfast which was so good every morning.  I am usually not a huge breakfast person, but since being pregnant, that has changed.  We would get two fried eggs, ham, muenster cheese, croissants, fresh fruit and juice.  We always ate it all.  The weather was so beautiful and the view so pretty we would always hang out at breakfast for an hour or two.

It was then time to get ready to spear fish.  Me and Shalane decided to go out with them to their little island to read and relax while they were out spearing for 5 hours.  Me and Shalane have a great relationship because we will sit and talk for a while and then both get sick of talking and realize we just need to relax, sleep and read and wont bother one another for a few hours.  We are a great relaxing team.

We went and picked up our lunch to-go at our favorite spot Clarita's before we headed to the special fishing island.

And here is our secluded beach/ island.  There were some islanders on the other side of the island but they didn't come over and bother us which we were so thankful.  The boys were out in front of us for the entire 5 hours, but you rarely see them.  You see an occasional head bobbing or a fin, but for the majority of the time, they are under.

Contadora Island just across the way.

Out of the ocean first came Daniel.  He showed us these big boys and we got so excited that they had caught something!  Little did we know the actual haul they had...

The haul for the day!  There were 15 fish I believe.  The boys were so giddy with excitement and we were too.  We could not believe the size of some of the fish.  As the trip went on, we slowly got used to the big ones and expected bigger ones each time :)

Eric wanted to take this picture. 

Umm now I realize why that fish was so heavy.  Shalane was just barely holding the tail...

Photobombed by Eric. 

The boys loved Eric.  He is a very good spear-fisherman.  The boys idolized  him the entire trip.  You can see it in Kevin's face in this picture.
It was a running joke when we weren't with Eric to say "I wonder what Eric is doing now?"  "Eric would love this."  "Eric is such a manly man."  This went on the whole trip.

Now came the celebrity status.  The locals and Turkish Survivor crews would come and gaw-gaw over all the fish the boys caught.   The boys loved it.  Every day we would sell all of our fish and keep the best one for dinner.  Me and Kev made about $100 from selling the fish this trip.

Thats our secret island out there!

We always looked forward to dinner at Villa Romantica.  Our fresh catch of the day would come with french fries and delicious vegetables.  We stuffed ourselves silly every night.  The conversation was always hilarious.  Me trying to speak english and the little french I remember (he didn't understand a word of my french), Shalane trying to speak french to him, Daniel speaking his dumbed down english with lots of hand gestures, and Kevin speaking Spanish to him.  But by the end of the trip, it didn't feel like we all spoke a different language.  We were still able to communicate pretty well and looking back, it seems like we just had normal dinner conversations.
He was a pretty funny frenchman.  He made fun of the french and fat americans.  He told dirty jokes even though he said he's "always a gentleman."

Drooling just remembering how good this was.

We would stay at dinner every night until it was late and dark.  We would walk back home in the dark, quite neighborhoods and walk the airstrip back to our B&B as a shortcut.