A Panamanian Adventure

So it has been quite some time since I've had anything blog worthy, but I recently went on vacation for two weeks with my Dad and Sister to Panama.  It was awesome, the following is a rough outline of the activities and adventures that we got up to.

Week 1

We spent our first week in Panama City, Panama.  I met my sister and dad in the Panama City airport and we took a cab out to the hotel that we would be staying at for the week.  It was located in a beautiful cove called Playa Bonita.  I didn't realize that my sister had booked us in at a resort type place and I up until now had never had that experience.  It was really relaxing.  Spent a lot of time laying in sunshine and swimming in the ocean.  Slept in quite a bit and also went on some cool adventures around Panama.  

Casco Viejo

We took a taxi into Old Panama city (actually the second Panama city) and got to check out a lot of their old architecture and buildings which was really interesting.  We went by a historic monument that had a long arch that was build hundreds of years ago.  According to history, this was the sign that Panama was the place to build the canal since clearly since the arch is still standing, earthquakes were not too bad in Panama.

Panama Canal

Richard Halliburton swimming through the Panama Canal

We also made a trip out to the Panama Canal which was awesome.  I learned all about the Canal and how it was built, not to mention some interesting facts about it.  For instance:

The cheapest toll ever paid to go through the locks was 36 cents paid by a man named Richard Halliburton in 1928, when he swam through the locks.

New Years Eve

We went to the Causeway in Panama and spent the evening eating great food, listening to live music and watching Panamanians salsa to the live band.  They make it look pretty easy.  We then enjoyed all of the fireworks (which there were many) on our way back to the hotel.. and at the hotel.  We arrived back at our rooms just in time to hear / see people pouring out of the bottom of the hotel playing drums, blowing horns and lighting off fire crackers.  Everyone stood on the beach as our hotel put on its own New Years Eve fireworks display (Awesome).

Week 2

The second week of the trip was filled with a lot more adventure than the first.  We decided to fly from Panama City to David ( Northern Panama) and see what that portion of Panama had to offer.  We flew out early in the morning and when we arrived we took a taxi to our town called Boquete which was in the mountains at the base of a Volcano (Volcán Barú).  Boquete was beautiful and had a lot of exciting adventures and excursions to go on.

Coffee Tour

The first day in Boquete we went on a coffee tour of one of the local organic coffee farms.  It was awesome.  we learned all about the history of coffee and its origins.  Took a tour of the actual farm grounds and took a look at the coffee plants.  We got eat the coffee fruit which is actually very flavorful and surprisingly sweet.  We also learned that evening that eating the green coffee beans (i.e. inside the fruit) leads to increased heart rate and slight paranoia.  My sister being a lover of pure science came to the same conclusion by accident and was feeling the effects for the rest of the night.  #Learning



After the tour of the coffee farm, we came back and I got to roast the coffee for our tour.  I'm happy to be in possession of 1 of the six bags of CJAM's signature roast.

After roasting the beans to perfection, we took a moment and actually tried some various roasts of coffee.  I also learned many interesting things about coffee that I had often wondered.  For instance:

• Coffee only needs to steep for 4 minutes
• The ratio of coffee to water to be used when making coffee should be 1:16 by weight. (i.e. 1 gram of coffee to 16 grams of water, weird I know)

Hot Springs / Horseback 

Papa Felix

The next day we went on a horseback ride / visited some natural hot springs in some rural area outside of Boquete.  Very relaxing.  Except my horse, Papa Felix, loved to run; don't get me wrong.  I also love to run, but i'm not used to running on a horse.  Near the end of our ride, our guide took us into a field and let us open the horses up for some serious running.. I was not prepared... but it was a lot of fun.  My horse was definitely the fastest of the bunch.

 Zip Lining / Waterfall Hike

The next day, my sister and I went zip lining through the canopy in the mountains of Boquete.  Wow.. that's all I can say.  I'd say the pictures do it more justice than I can.  The only thing I can say that the pictures might not tell you is that we were wearing a leather hand brake on our right hands which we would use to pull down on the cable as we were whipping through the trees... can't say I've got to work the breaks on a zip line before.  Awesome.  I took a video of me on the last zip line which was across the valley about 300 meters.

Zip lining across the valley

The hike to the waterfall was also pretty amazing.  Me and my sister went pretty quick as we were running out of day light but they were nice waterfalls and I enjoyed walking through the muddy jungle to get to them.  Plus the view from up there was spectacular.

Boca Chica, Seagull Cove

Dining Room at Seagull Cove Lodge

The next day we left our digs in Boquete and headed back to the Pacific coast to the outskirts of a small town called Boca Chica.  We stayed at a place called Seagull Cove Lodge and it was amazing.  All of the staff there were incredibly helpful and the grounds were incredible.

My dad wasted absolutely no time when we got there and booked us on a fishing boat to go deep sea fishing.  Another man checked in shortly after and asked if he could join us the next morning to go fishing and it couldn't have worked out better.  Why you ask?  Oh well, you know.. my sister and I aren't very good with the motion sickness thing and being on the open ocean (although calm) proved to be more difficult then we could handle.

Deep sea fishing

Although I may have been sick for a better part of the whole day, I did take a short break from being nausous to reel in a Durado (Mahi Mahi) that hooked himself on one of the lines.  My dad caught a Durado and an Amber Jack and the other man caught an Amber Jack and had a couple marlin bites.

If you would like to see the photo album it's located here:

Panama Trip Album

Well, that pretty much does it for my adventures in Panama.

Great trip, thanks Panama.

Hasta Luego!

CJAM

When in Texas, do as the Texans do...

So a few weeks ago I took a small trip back to Victoria to spend some time at work there to get back in touch with my colleagues, and to visit my friends for a few days.  While at home I was asked all sorts of legitimate questions from my friends and colleagues:

Do you have a Cowboy hat?

Do you ride a horse to work?

Do you own a pair of cowboy boots?

Much to my chagrin, I had to admit that I did not yet own a legitimate cowboy hat, or any boots for that matter.  I also took the opportunity to explain that Houston is a large city, and there aren't a lot of horses around for riding, and definitely not riding to work.

I returned to Houston refreshed and recharged from my visit with friends and decided to ask one of the guys at work and see if he would like to go do something that every Texan loves to do.....

Shooting Range?

He excitedly agreed. So we made plans to go to the shooting range that Saturday afternoon.  Saturday rolled around and he swung by my place to pick me up around 1:30 pm.  He decided it might be good to show me the ins and outs of his gun so that when we got to the range I wasn't a total Noob waving his loaded Glock around like a Hollywood Gangster.

Not that there is anything wrong with holding your gun sideways... but I'm not at that stage yet.  Anyways.  We got to the range around 2:15 and proceeded to sign in and figure out what we were going to do.  It was quite the place.  Guns everywhere, people shooting guns holding guns, concealing guns.  And for some reason... I couldn't help but feel oddly safe with all these weapons around me.

After some deliberation, we decided to just shoot my friends Glock .... annd ah we'll try that nice looking AR15 up there while we're at it.  Yea you might as well give us 80 rounds with that.

AR 15

We started off shooting the glock.  First we started with the target from 3 Yds away and shot a magazine.  Then moved it back to 7 Yds, shot a couple more clips.  Then moved it back to 12 yds and tried to hit the target.  Here are the results from our efforts.  I highlighted the spots that I was aiming at in the picture below:

I was aiming at: The head at 3 Yds, the shoulder and wrist at 7 Yds, and the throat at 12 yds

I think 3 Yards is my range.  Anyways, we moved onto the AR15 which.. was a blast.. no pun intended.  The results from that were pretty good considering we had the target at the very back of the range:

Results from shooting the AR 15 from 15 yds away.

All in all, it was a really fun experience.  I plan on getting my cowboy boots and hat sometime soon as well.. just for the record.   I placed the pictures from the shooting range in the following album:

Shooting in houston

Anyways, this is Colter.  Signing off,

Keep your earmuffs on and your gun down range.

First NFL game, check

So I've been down in Houston for a few weeks and i'm starting to get settled in to living.  I decided that I would refrain from posting about me doing nothing.. and that I would wait until I had some interesting things to throw on here.  What have I been up to for the past few weeks?

Well I recently went with the small team that I work with to one of the divisions in Denver for two days to give some training and have some meetings around some new upgrades and rollouts that are coming their way.  The flight was last Tuesday at 8 am.  Once again I had the joy of being on a plane / airline that managed to find a way to delay leaving the ground for an additional hour.. I have terrible luck with flying.  (Well... I guess since I always manage to land back on the ground safely... not terrible luck)  Anyways, we got to Denver and everything went pretty well.  Had a pretty interesting chat with my colleagues about the controversy surrounding the Denver airport.  Didn't really quite know what to think until I saw the strange murals.. and well.. I couldn't quite figure them out.  Maybe someone who sees this post can help me out.  Here are three of the murals that they have greeting you at the Denver airport:

The first one really took me off guard.  I'm not really sure what they were going for here... ah well.  interesting none the less.  A colleague and I had a pretty good conversation about some of the weirdness around that airport.  Anyways.  So yea, the trip went pretty well.. then we were supposed to come back to Houston on Wednesday at 2:30 pm.  Then I got an email saying the flight had been delayed til 3:30.  Damn.

*Bing*

You're flight has been delayed til 4:00 pm.

*Bing*

You're flight has been delayed til 4:30 pm.

wow.. ok.  You think they could've held off on the first couple and just sent me the last one.  Ah well, waited in the luxury United Club area with my manager as he has one of the cards you need.. so that was nice.  Free snacks and CNN.  I was mostly into the snacks.. but the CNN is ALWAYS entertaining.. wow.  It was all about Ted Cruz's all nighter to try to thwart Obamacare.. sweet.  And to follow up, there was a nice segment on how a mall in Narobi was attacked by terrorists and how the states was looking into what it would take to secure all of the malls in the nation.

*Bing*

You're flight has been delayed til 5 pm.

Damn.  We finally got on the flight and home by 9 pm.  Exhausted.

The rest of the week was pretty good, it kinda felt like a short week because the mid week trip made it feel like I just got back from a weekend.  On Friday I decided to take a look and see if there were any tickets left that were reasonably priced for the Texans vs Seahawks game on Sunday.  Woh.. that can't be right.  A reasonably priced ticket in a pretty good spot.  Done.

*Click*

Purchased the ticket on a whim and went to the game on Sunday solo haha... A little weird.. but maybe not for me as I don't have any friends down here (not complaining, just saying).

I got to my seats early, which was awesome because the stadium filled up pretty quick.

When the stadium was full I was finally seated next to a die hard Texans fan there with her husband and two children who throughout the game struggled between swearing at her team when they were screwing up and not "Cussin" in front of them kids.  It was pretty funny.  To my left was an extremely talkative and slightly (more than slightly) drunk woman who had brought her son to the game.  As the game went on, and the drinks went down the woman to my left formally introduced me to her and her son and informed me that she was a Senior Accountant with the Houston Texans franchise and knows all the players and cheerleaders.  She even showed me her cool badge that apparently can let her "sit on the roof if she'd like to".  With that said, after the game she took me along with her and her son and showed me around where the locker rooms were and got to see some of the players coming out.  Those guys are huge.  I couldn't imagine trying to catch a suicide pass across the middle and meeting one of those guys.. yikes.  Anyways, we strolled around the bottom for a while and then went our separate ways.  Made a pretty sweet connection and got to see some cool stuff that I wouldn't have seen other wise.. great day.

This is CJAM,

Signing off

Houston, we had a problem...

Wow, so I just looked and it's been almost two years since I posted anything on this blog.  Well, no better time than the present as they say.  For those of you who don't know, I have moved to Houston recently to work for six months and I'm going to try and keep this blog while I'm her
e for those who are interested in what I'm up to.

But lets not put the cart before the horse, you might be wondering how my trip down here was...

My flight from Kamloops was originally scheduled for 7:35 am on Monday September 2nd, the Labour Day holiday in North America... whoops. (Probably shouldn't travel on those types of holidays next time, noted)

Monday September 2nd:

5:15 am 

Woke up to the great smell of fresh pancakes and fruit prepared by my loving mother.  Man I love coming home to visit.


6:30 am

Made it through air port security in Kamloops and into the waiting berth for my flight which was scheduled to depart at 7:35 am.


7:10 am

The staff at the Kamloops air port informed me and the other Air Canada patrons that our flight was cancelled due to mechanical failure and that we would not be leaving to Calgary until 9:15 am.  No big deal, I can reschedule my connecting flight to Houston when I get to Calgary.

Asside: I have flown out of Kamloops 3 times in the past 5 years.  2 out of those 3 times I have had my flight cancelled due to technical / mechanical difficulties.  I'm not sure what's going on with the planes going to Kamloops.. but I might start flying out of Kelowna.

9:25 am

Fly out from Kamloops air port on route to Calgary International air port.


11:35 am 

Arrived in Calgary international airport.  At this point I had missed my connecting flight to Houston, so I had to re-book my ticket.

"Just stand in that line over there and we will re-book your ticket" the Air Canada rep says.

"Oh you mean that line full of angry people waiting for the one and only woman trained by Air Canada to re-book tickets?  Sure, that sounds nice."


1:30 pm

After standing in line for about an hour, I got my ticket rebooked for 5 pm and got a free meal... well... $10 towards a meal.  I think $10 will get you the bun of your burger and a glass of water.

So I went and had something to eat and proceeded to customs... a little nervous as this is the part everyone at work had been talking up for so long.


3:00 pm 

I round the corner of the customs hall to see the line up for customs is completely empty.

"My lucky day", I think to myself.

I get to the customs agent and let him know that I would like to apply for my TN Visa, he looks at my paper work and escorts me to the secondary screening room.  So much for the short line up...

So I sat in the waiting room for about 45 minutes as I got to watch the border guards grill people and escort them back out of customs.  There were four people in there with me, and I watched one by one as 3 out of the 4 were refused whatever request they were looking for... oh boy.. didn't anticipate this.

 "Colter McQuay!" The lady behind the desk shouts

I proceeded up to the desk and listened to the woman tell me that it was necessary that I had a letter from the company that I was to be working for in the USA.  I explained that our company has sent multiple people from Canada under the same premise with the same documentation and pleaded for her to go through her regulations again to be sure.  She said she was quite sure and had an escort come get me from customs.  She said I would not be flying today.

4:40 pm 

I rebooked my flight to Houston for Friday September 6, 2013 @ 1 pm (fingers crossed I can make it)

4:45 pm 

Called the office in Victoria and explained the problem.  They instructed me to get a flight back to Kamloops and that they would look into the matter from their end.

8:15 pm 

Departed from Calgary on my way back to Kamloops.

8:25 pm 

Arrived in Kamloops, short flight eh? (The flight is about one hour long with an hour time change)

9:30 pm  Played night bocce on Sun Rivers golf course with my buddies to try and unwind, it definitely worked.

Tuesday:

The next day I went golfing with my friend Jim and around 3 pm my work called and explained that the letter that I needed would be at an office in Calgary by Thursday night, so I would be able to catch my flight on Friday down to Houston. 

  

Thursday:

I left Thursday at approximately 2:30 pm for Calgary.  I arrived in Calgary at 4:30 pm, I spent the night in Calgary at a friends house.

Friday:

8:00 am 

 I took a taxi to the office for 8:30 am to pick up the signed letter of endorsement for my visa. 

9:00 am 

Checked into my flight and went immediately to customs to try this all over again.  This time I had an older man with glasses who seemed to know what he was doing.  After spending some time reading my application he called me to the desk. 

Shaking his head while reading the documents, he looks back up at me and says:

"Not sure why they couldn't give it to you the first time, this letter is nice... but its not necessary"

Nice.  Really Nice.  

10:30 am 

Had breakfast in the airport diner.  Food wasn't actually as bad as I thought it should have been.

1:00 pm

 Lift off!  On route to Houston!

5:50 pm 

Arrive at the Houston International Airport.  I collect my bags and go find a cab when a cab driver approaches me and asks me if I need a cab.  Perfect.  Little do I know that this cab driver was actually out here to pick up some dignified business person and he got his times wrong and was really supposed to be there at 5 am the next day.  So I got to ride in style on my way into town:

I wish I could have put a Canadian flag on the front corners of the car.


6:30 pm -  Home sweet home.  The furniture has already been delivered so I have a bed and couch and things.  Awesome.  But no bedding.. darn.


8:30 pm - Having eaten some dinner at the pub next door and having nothing else to do with myself.  I decided to retire... to my sheetless bed where I soundly slept under a pile of my own clothes for the night.


It wasn't quite how I anticipated the journey being, but in hind sight.  I'm glad it was a story that could be used to start up this blog again.  I look forward to writing more about things that I'm up to down in Houston and wherever else I go to.

Christmas Eve From Gigante

Well it's been almost a full year since I was last in Gigante and it feels great to be back.  I had a pretty good trip down here however my flights were knitted together in a pretty interesting itinerary.  I flew out of Vancouver on Tuesday December 21st at 8:25 so I was up at 4:15 am and got to the airport at around 5:15 am.  I checked in and hopped on my first flight which left on schedule to Dallas Fort-Worth.  I slept pretty much the whole way so I was pretty sore when I got to Dallas, to say the least.

My flight to Dallas was delayed a bit from it's original departure time so we ended up landing in Miami at around 8:40 pm.  By the time I got my bags and grabbed something to eat it was about 10 pm.  I was hoping to check in that night to avoid having to sleep in the ghetto part of the Miami airport however no such luck.  I ended up finding a pretty good little nook that hadn't been taken and I posted up for the evening.  I had all of my bags so I took out my blow up sleeping mat and set it up.  I was in it for the night, I might as well be comfortable.  I managed to get posted up by about mid-night, which left me plenty of time to get some shut eye before my flight at 10:30... theoretically speaking of course.

I had to battle for any time that I got to spend in my unconcious oasis, battle what you ask?  Well first there was the PA system which luckily was able to tell me the time every fifteen minutes throughout the night, just in case I was wondering how much sleep I wasn't getting..  Next was the fire alarm test which consisted of a woman's voice letting us know that they would be doing fire alarm testing in the airport and not to worry if the alarm goes off.  Next was the afformentioned test which consisted of 3 sets of 3 bleeps of the alarm (along with a flashing strobe light), followed by a very informative man explaining  that the fire alarm had been set off and that the proper athorities had been notified, which we already knew to be false since it was just a test.  Luckily the test was pretty quick... un-luckily, the test happened every half an hour all night haha, oh boy.  I had my fair share of people walk by and laugh at the fact that I had straight up set up camp in the Miami airport... my parents would've been so proud.

"But why not just stay in a motel CJAM?",

Ah good question, I'm glad you asked, I'm cheap.. there it is.  The cleaning crew swept through at around 2 am in their squadron of zamboni type machine.  Not so bad, they only did maybe four or five passes right beside where I was laying..

"all right, all right, i can take a hint.. I'll stop trying to sleep".  I finally gave up on the sleeping project at around 3 am and found that a girl had posted up in the uncomfortable airport chairs next to where I was laying.  I sat down next to her and she woke up.  We then got to chatting and she had just come from Nicaragua from a place not 45 minutes north of Gigante.  We had a ridiculous delerious talk with lots of laughing for no reason which was exactly what I needed at that point.  I went for a walk and got a cup of coffee and mosied around the airport until I could check in.  I'm at approximately 2 hours of plane sleep at this point and it's starting to get to me a little bit.

I got on my flight to Managua and passed out before we left the tarmac.  I woke up just as we were landing and had to rush to fill out my customs and immigrations forms.  My cousin and his girlfriend were waiting at the airport for me and we headed out for Gigante immediately.  My cousin ended up stopping and buying a new trailer for his truck which was awesome.  He was on the fence about buying one until the nica man went and fetched a trailer that was almost identical in color with his truck.  Knowing my cousin and how much he likes stuff that looks awesome, I knew he was in.  He saw the trailer and immediately backed his truck up to see how it looked with the potentially new purchase.  Wow, the set up looked like something a boss would drive.  SOLD!


We finally made it home, after filling the trailer with some interesting stuff, including a bamboo hammock, at around 5:30 pm just after dark.  To our surprise, we had no key, so we spent the next hour or so breaking into the house using whatever tools we could find.  After breaking in, we celebrated the journey and went for a miander around Gigante to say hello to the locals.  It was really cool seeing everyone down here again, such an interesting feeling.  It feels as though I was just here.  After the miandering, I came home and passed out.

The next day we went up to the property and all I can say is, WOW.  It's really starting to come together, there is a roof and a floor on it.  A parking spot has been made for the truck and a fence has been put up around the lot.  Everything is looking amazing, I'm really impressed.

I have a bunch of pictures that I will upload when I get to some internet that lasts longer than a couple minutes, but for now it will just be text, sorry, boring I know.

I've just been taking it easy trying to acclimatize to the weather which has been really hot and humid because it's been raining so much.  I've gone for a few jogs and enjoyed some sun sets.  Went out on my surf board yesterday however there wasn't a lot of cooperation from the ocean and the waves, so I just paddled around the ocean for a bit to get some exercise.  Last night we built a nica christmas treepee which I will show a photo of when I get a chance to put some up here.  It's pretty stellar.  Anyways, today is Christmas eve and we are going to a potluck, my cousin and I are in charge of the sweet potatoes.. which will be made out of squash, potatoe and carrot with some brown sugar since they don't have any sweet potatoes down here.

That's all for right now, I will hopefully make another update in a few days to talk about all of the festivities.  Hopefully get some pictures up as well!

From Gigante,

This is CJAM

Home again

Hello everyone,

So I suppose this will be one of my last posts on here.  Not officially... but it might be.  My mom came down here on Monday so that she could see Ahne's path and spend a week closer to her where her sister had been for so many months.  We managed to finish tidying up the property by Saturday February 26th and finished packing all of the valuables into the bodega where they will live for the next few months. 

We left Sunday morning at 6 am, via our trusty cab driver Blandford, for our 2 pm flight in Managua.  The trip to Managua is only about 3 hours, however, we left early so that we would be able to stop in a town called Caterina so that I could buy some Hammocks.  It was lucky that we were with our cab driver on this day since his car was severely overheating and he seemed to be unaware that cooling fluid was necessary to remedy the problem.  He thought that we would be able to make it the remaining 10 km's to Caterina.  Seeing that the car's temperature gauge was redlining, we managed to get him to stop at service station so that we could get some coolant for the car.  We luckily got some coolant into the car and the temperature steadily made it's way back to a normal state of operation.  *Phew*  We left the service station and headed down the road toward Caterina.  We were passing a small rural area along a straight stretch of the Pan-American.  A small boy and his bigger sister were playing along the side of the road in front of their family who was walking behind about 10 or 15 feet.  Suddenly, the small boy jumped out into the lane that were driving in just before we passed them.  Our driver, like a cat, swerved to the left at the same time that the young boy's sister pulled the boy back over to the side of the road.  The car missed the boy by mere inches, at best.  Our driver stopped the car and took a few moments to collect himself.  I have never been in a situation like that before.  It was a terrifying experience.  Luckily... our driver had an amazing reaction time and the little girl pulled her brother just in time.  What a morning...

We made it safely to Caterina and had breakfast.  I bought two hammocks and two hammock chairs which I plan on installing in my house when I get back.  We proceeded on to Managua and successfully made it onto our flight at 2 pm.  I was originally supposed to leave on March 3rd, however since my mom came down for the week she managed to change my flights so that I could come home with her to make the traveling process easier on the both of us.  Unfortunately, as a result of the last minute flight alteration, our new itinerary now included 4 flights instead of 2.  We flew 2.5 hours from Managua to Miami and spent had a 4.5 hour layover until our flight to New Orleans.  We made it to New Orleans at about 12 am and had  a 6 hour layover.  It was an interesting layover.  Unfortunately the designers of the New Orleans airport worked very hard to make an airport that is as close as you can get to a place in which no quality sleep can be obtained by the patrons which frequent it.  It was a funny situation, all of the individuals with the overnight layover all trying to sleep in the same lobby area in the same awkward benches.  It reminded me of that scene in Men In Black where Will Smith is and a bunch of other candidates are trying to write a test in the most awkwardly shaped chairs.  It was funny to watch all of the different people try to sleep in these abnormally uncomfortable chairs during their layover.  After the layover we proceeded to Dallas-Fort-Worth and then from there to Vancouver to finish our interesting milk run of a flight home.  I proceeded from the Vancouver airport to the Victoria harbor via the sea plane and took the bus to my house in Victoria.  All in all, I got home at 5:20 pm on Monday.  Approximately 36 hours of traveling time.  Not too shabby.  I'm going to catch up on some sleep for the next few days.  But I am thinking of starting a new blog for publishing new music that I make.  I'm not really too sure if that will happen, so let me know what you think by leaving me a comment on this post.  I thank everyone who took any interest in this blog over the course of my trip and I look forward to seeing everyone now that I'm back home.


From Canada, this is CJAM.

Running around...

Hello again,

So it has been quite a few days since my last post.  I've been pretty busy for the last week and half since my cousin went back home to be with family.  The vehicles both broke down and I have spent much of my time physically running around town from the property to Celle Palmado's, to the surf lodge back to the property.  Rinse and repeat.  It's been pretty wild.  My Spanish has been getting a little bit better and I have managed to have some discussions with the workers and the mechanics regarding the work that was being done.  But don't get me wrong, by discussions... I mean I can ask them a few questions and understand one or two words of the response that I get.  It's a crazy feeling not being able to communicate with people... I really took that for granted before I came here.  Anyways, so I've been running a lot lately.  I've been running around town for reasons stated above and not to mention I've been involved in two separate evening foot races on the beach.  The first foot race that I was a part of was against a female american tri-athlete ( I forget her name, but lets call her Lisa for the story) who we met at the hostel on our friends last night in town.  We were all sitting around making interesting conversation when my friend Dave ( the owner and operator of Celle Palmado's ) decided to instigate a foot race between me and Lisa.  She was apprehensive at first and asked me if I thought I would beat her in the foot race... not wanting to lead her on I said

"It's quite possible."

So Lisa and I meandered with all of the other people in our group down to the beach for the foot race.  Dave paced out 60 yards and Lisa and I proceeded to the starting line.  Dave counted to three and dropped his hand.  We both took off, but my second step landed me in a hole full of soft sandy mud and I almost went down.  I got one hand down for my balance and looked up and saw her in the lead.  But it was 60 yards, so I wasn't phased.  I got to my feet and did what I do best, ran fast.  I managed to beat Lisa by a sizable margin and winning one for Canada.

Canada  1            USA  0

The next foot race that I was a part of was against Dave's best friend on the beach outside of Celle Palmados.  This time we picked the solid part of the beach so that no slippage would occur.  This contest was a very even match and we decided to have two races.  I managed to win both races, however this man was also very fast and forced me to bring my A game.  Luckily, I hate to lose.. and managed to get another two wins for Canada.

Canada   2          USA   0

So I'm currently the unofficial foot race champion of Gigante which is pretty sweet in a nonsense sort of way.  Awsome.  Anyways, I've mostly just been working hard for the last week and half so I don't have much to talk about from down here.

From Nicaragua, this is CJAM, thanks for reading.