Mud

Yesterday we went to the "mud volcano" the mud volcano is a hill that you can climb to the top of and then float in a jacuzzi sized mud bath. It is so hard explain, but I will try my best. You float in the mud, and you can't sink at all even if you try. I could only dunk my head if I leaned forward, or if I grabbed the edge and pulled myself down. The mud also presses in on you much harder than water. It was a really neat experience that is impossible to describe. Also a neat fact is that the mud we were floating in went down 2000 feet.

Last night we had a interesting event. It happened like this: I decide to get a drink of water, so I get out of bed and walk to the kitchen. While I was walking my foot came in contact with a container of screws and bolts creating a huge sound. My dad instantly leaps out of bed, my mom thinking somebody has climbed onto our boat screams louder than I thought human vocal cords were capable of(Heather compared it to a rooster). And I fearing for my life quickly said "Its me, Its Me!" I feel kind of bad about that, but I won't say who left the bolts on the floor.

We visited the Fort again...

We visited the fort again, and found a tunnel into the fort we didn't find last time. This tunnel was the longest of all the tunnels, and seemed to go on forever with endless passages and tunnels. We went on untill there was about a inch of water on the ground, then we turned back. I had my camera with me this time, so I took some neat photos of our trip.

I'm testing the image upload system... and it works! Fast too.

The Circus Was Neat

We made it to the circus, and the circus was pretty good. There was a few clowns, a tiger tamer, a couple horse riders, a elephaunt trainer, a few motorcyclests in a sphere, a gymnast, and a group on the flying trapese. Oh yeah, and there also was a few kids on a trampoline. It was really neat, and I got to eat cotton candy. I also managed to go into town without being pestered by a sales person. My mom went to a ballet instead.

We dedided to go on a walk yesterday to get tickets to a Mexican Circus that is in Cartagena. We accidently took a wrong turn and ending up walking for about three hours on a walk that would normally have been much shorter. We got the tickets and walked back in 15 minutes, the right way. We are going to the circus today, It better be worth it.

Following my campaign for Picasa, I will provide a image of Picasa's simplistic layout.
Dowload Picasa by clicking the button that says "Get photo software from Google" in the box to the right.

Picasa, which I recommended earlier in this blog can know be downloaded by clicking the link to the right. It is rated the best photo organizing program by many websites and magazines, and is entirely free. It is a small download. I see no flaws with Picasa, try downloading it, no harm will be done if you don't want to use it.

Oh yeah, please comment on my blog to make me feel like people exist beyond this screen that read my blog.

Cartagena

We went into the old town of Cartagena a few days ago. The old town had a variety of old historical buildings, and plenty of people trying to sell us stuff. The street venders are so persistent. THEY DRIVE ME MAD. "Would you like a hat?"I say "No, thank you" they respond "Here, try it on,... see it looks good on you" I say "It looks, ... okay" "So you will buy it?" "No thanks, I don't need another hat" "No comprendo senor" I now have a new hat and glasses, the glasses are falling apart. We went to a really neat fort, with tunnels and caverns that go underneath it. I am trying to get more photos of the San Blas in the photos section, but the connection is slow and unreliable.

We have entered Cartagena

We Left the San Blas and made it to Cartagena. Cartagena is a large Columbian city. It has many interesting forts and old buildings, next to high-rises. We are pretty happy, because there is grocery stores here that are US quality, and well stocked. The internet from our boat, is sadly not reliable enough to put many photos online, but I somehow managed to get one photo into my album. Follow the link in the bar to the right, dubbed "photos" or "photo album" or something along those lines, and you can see one photo of a man with his "ulu" and a kuna hut in the background. Sorry for the weird layout of the previous updates, but I don't know how to fix that. Expect more in the following week.

The Kuna Festival

I saw an interesting Kuna festival today, it was a girl's coming of age
festival. It involved most of the village going to the "Chicha Hut" and
drinking "chica". Chica is a alcoholic drink that the Kunas drink
container after container of in the festival. We stood outside the hut
peeking in occasionally through the holes between the walls to see what
was happening. Many of the Kunas were drunk. Later today the dancing part
of the ceremony will occur.
When we were in another area of the San Blas we met a family, and Heather
gave the daughter a stuffed animal. Well when we came here we discovered
that the family lives on this island. They were happy to see us, and
showed us their house. They gave us some beautiful shells, and a coconut
for each of us to drink. The family had quite a few pets including a dog,
two parakeets, and a baby tortoise. We have left from the place we were in
the last update, and moved on to the place where the festival has taken
place.-9/2/06

We have left the swimming pool, and checked out of the San Blas in
Porvenir, the Kuna capital. We left Porvenir the same day and came to the
Chi Chime keys, which are still in the San Blas. When we got to the Chi
Chime keys, before we even anchored we were bombarded by Kunas in their
ulus(canoes) trying to sell us molas, sell us fish, sell us lobster, and
sell us crab. After we told them "barco no liesto", which we think means
"boat no ready", we anchored then let them try to sell us things. For a
few hours we looked at what the steady stream of ulus had to sell us. The
Kunas here have better molas than in the rest of the San Blas The designs
of the molas are more intricate and traditional. We bought a bunch of
molas and crab, partially so we could keep the Kunas happy, and partially
for the food and art. One of the Kunas was very nice, and gave us a fish,
which divided among us amounted to about one bite per person.
Yesterday us and some people from another boat went to a tiny island,
with about five palm trees squeezed onto it. The island looked like the
type of island that occasionally goes underwater. The island will probably
suffer the same fate as Atlantis in about ten years if the predictions
about global warming hold true. Anyway, we built a little fire, that
occasionally would be splashed by the spray of a wave crashing. We put the
fire out by splashing it with water from the beach. I am really regretting
that we didn't buy marshmellows before we left the US. We've made tons of
fires, and yet we have no marshmellows so the fires never quite feel
complete.
We plan on heading to Cartagena next, then we have no clue what we are
doing. Some of our friends are staying in Cartagena, and we told them we
would meet up with them. I am told Cartagena has interesting old ruins,
and yet is a big city with plenty of stores. I hope we can get
marshmellows there. I am also told we can get ice cream there, which I
really really want. I never realized how much I would miss things like
that until we left the US. We should also be able to get fast internet
somewhere in Cartagena, so I can frequently update this blog with photos
and such. I have lots of neat photos of the San Blas that I want to put
online. We should be leaving for Cartagena in a day or two, but the
weather is slowing us down.
I do not like the weather. BOOOOOOMoooom rooom
OOMoooommm. As I write this thunder rumbles not-so-quietly in the
distance. Its tough surviving the heat down here, but it doesn't help that
whenever it rains we have to close the boat, limiting air flow. Every day
it rains ( owwww...... my ears… that last boom was LOUD) at least once
usually accompanied by thunder and his close friend lightning. ( I'll
resume this update later, I am getting too nervous to continue with all
the lightning, okay I'm back, ten booms and ten flashes later, or about
half an hour) Honestly, the weather down here is annoying.
Here is our GPS coordinates, for anybody trying to locate us on Google
Earth.

"09 35.220'N 078 52.969'W"

The San Blas islands may appear as a few smudges. That’s it for this
update, Adios!-9/1/06

Holandes

We are still in the San Blas, but we have left Coco Banderos. At first we
went to one of the San Blas's biggest towns, Nargana. Even though this is
one of the biggest towns there is still no running water. The houses were an
assortment of tin roofs, and thatched roofs made from palm fronds. Many of
the house's walls are made from cane. There was one store we bought from
that even had a baby fawn wandering around the store. The fawn was the
perfect likeness of Bambi. We only stayed in Nargana about one day, until we
left for the Holandes. The Holandes took only two hours by boat to get to.
The Holandes is more sheltered from wind than Coco Banderos where we had a
few storms. During one storm six of the eight boats' anchors let go, and
they had to struggle to re-anchor or get their engine started before they
blowed onto a reef. Lucky for us we were one of the boats that stayed still
We have been in the Holandes for about a day, and have already gone
snorkeling. The reef we went snorkeling on had a variety of fish in all
shapes and sizes. The fish ranged from small triangular yellow fish to a
nurse shark. I myself didn't see the nurse shark here, but I did see one in
the Coco Banderos. Another neat fish was the jewel fish, which was a small
black fish with purple spots that appeared to glow like jewels. The coral
wasn't colorful, but was often large and reached out across the reef.
Unfortunately we don't have a underwater camera case so we won't have any
photos of the reef from below the sea. We may be able to get one when we
leave the San Blas. Where we are now is peaceful if you consider the number
of Kunas we have had trying to sell us molas. Molas are embroidary with
multiple layers, that are created by the Kuna Indians. Most other places we
would have women come out in conoes at least two times a day attempting to
sell us there work. Here we have only had men trying to sell us crab and
lobster. We will continue to explore the San Blas once we leave the
Holandes.

San Blas Islands

We have entered the San Blas, and have visited two of the islands so far.
The San Blas Islands are a group of islands with Kuna Indians living on
them. The Kuna government strives very hard to preserve the original
culture. The result? Thatched roof huts, dugout canoes, traditional
clothing, and many other interesting customs. The people here are very
anxious to sell us things, and everyday we have someone come out in their
canoes offering to sell us things. The women come out to our boat selling
heaps of colorful molas, bracelets, masks, and some of their other
creations. It is tough to say "No, we already bought some molas," and every
time they come to the boat we purchase more molas. They want $1 or $2 per
photo we take of them. The men come out selling crab, lobster, and bread.
Kuna bread is very good, and I have consumed far more than I should have
rationed myself to. I'm eating Kuna Bread as we speak. The San Blas look
like the scenes on travel brochures, except without any civilization. The
water is crystal clear, and is great for swimming. The sea floor is littered
with starfish. I accidentally stepped on them a few times.

About to Go

We are about to leave, we are saying goodbye to everyone.

We are leaving Colon today, because we have had our engine repaired. We are going to island hop to the San Blas.

Tadpoles!

Our tadpoles we adopted are becoming frogs! We have had them for around a week, and one of them has become a miniature frog (or toad, we don't know which) while the rest are still tadpoles. We have seen what they will grow up to be, and their final form is huge!

Photos

I recently updated this blog with a million photos. I regretted that decision, because it made this blog very unorganized. Now I have removed all the photos and put them here.

Here is a list of programs I think are neat:
Google Earth-useful
Picasa+Hello-useful
Google Web Accelerator-useful
StarLogo 2-fun

How I organize my photos.

Picasa is what I am using to manage my photos. Picasa is free, and even icludes some basic editing tools. I use another program "Hello" to upload my photos to my Blog. Picasa and Hello work very well together. Both are free.

I made this my backround on my computer for a while. It is of one of our friends boats leaving Providencia. This Photo was taken a few weeks ago.