P A N A M A !

This year to escape winter Amanda and I headed South to Panama! Panama is a beautiful little country in Central America. It is one of the most diverse countries on earth and we got to see just a little of it's diversity during our 10 day stay, We got to see Toucans, Alley Cats, Sloths Howler Monkeys, and huge number of birds of every colour of the rainbow and maybe...just maybe... we got to see the elusive Resplendant Quetzal Bird... You shall have to read on to find out! 

Did we find the elusive Resplendent Quetzal?

Enduring a five and a half hour plane journey with no food was a small price to pay to avoid the polar vortex although we were ravenous and hangry when we arrived! In fact the first day was a bit of a disaster, Not only did we not get any food but we booked a private room for the first night in a hostel instead of a hotel because I am cheap and because it happened to be called LUNAS castle! This turned out to be a bit of a mistake, having arrived very hungry and very late we were greeted by the beats of the many nightclubs that seemed to be attached to the hostel - one on the roof, one in the basement, one in the garden and I am pretty sure there was one in the pipes as well. This mixed nicely with the... Ehm... Very creaky bed in the room next to us to create a quite wonderful cacophony of noise. Luckily Amanda, always prepared (:D) pulled some earplugs from her bag which morphed all the noise into a rather soothing gentle boom, so all is well that ends well!

Our First Toucan!

How many Toucans can you spot?

Lunas castle did have a redeeming feature, the best free walking tour I have ever been on. After waking up to hear the beats replaced with the honking rush hour traffic we sat out on the pretty veranda, resplendent with tropical flowers to enjoy our free pancakes and fresh coffee and get ready for our walking tour. The tour took us from the old town up the Ancon hill where stunning views could be had over to the canal on one side and the city on the other. Ancon hill was the center of operations for the American canal zone when they were based here and it looks and feels like suburbia, an uncanny resemblance when you realise you are in the middle of the tropics. Once you have left suburbia you end up in dense jungle, right to the peak of the hill which is topped off with a huge Panaman flag, dominating the skyline. This was where we saw our first toucan, right at the top of a tree at the top of the hill enjoying the view! The walk got even better on the way back down through suburbia when our guide pointed up and there were 5 toucans! In the same tree! We saw a cute little sloth, all curled up asleep and not moving much before heading back down into town to explore the old city some more. The Casco Viejo (Old City) is a curious place, a mixture of beautifully restored colonial and crumbling colonial buildings which make for a great base to explore Panama City. It is clearly booming, with construction happening on almost every corner.

There are many obstacles to avoid in Panama City like this toilet seat.....

......And this hole! It is very dangerous for a clumsy person like me!

Looking out towards the new Panama City

One of the many crumbling colonial buildings

While in the old city we got to try a bit of a treat. The Casco Viejo is home to Cafe Unido, a small coffee shop inside the best and most expensive hotel in Panama City - The American Trade Hotel. One of the treats on offer is a Cafe Geisha - The worlds most expensive coffee. It sells for $40 a cup in New York and $68 a cup in Dubai so we got it for a snippet at $9 a cup! Is it the best coffee in the world? I couldn't say. It is a very 'herby' coffee, almost like a really strong herbal tea which the locals drink with honey not milk. I thought it was very nice indeed and I am delighted I tried it yet in future visits to the Cafe Unido we opted for the good old regular coffee with a dash of milk at a much more reasonable price!

The most expensive coffee in the world at the Cafe Unido

You cant talk about Panama City without mentioning the canal and this blog will be no exception although I do have a confession to make... We never went to visit it! We did however visit the museo canal where we learnt a ton about the canal and really about the history of Panama as well as for better or for worse the two are inextricably linked. Panama is a thin strip of land bringing the two Americas together but also separating the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It had long been a dream of many nations to unite the two oceans through Panama and many had tried and failed. The french wasted millions, nigh on bankrupting their nation trying to build a canal before landslides, floods and the dreaded yellow fever caused them to throw in the towel having wasted wasted close to 300 million dollars in 1890s money and completing just 30 percent of the canal. The biggest problem for the French was that they insisted on building a sea level canal with no locks which is not a easy feat when there is a mountain range in the way. The French weren't the only ones to try as even the Scottish established a small settlement in the Darien gap with the goal of building a canal. Needless to say this was a abject failure with our great king eventually giving up on them and cutting off all their supplies before the Spanish came along and turfed them out for good. The Darien gap really is the definition of a impenetrable forest as even now a hundred and twenty years later there is no way to cross the Darien by road, either North to South or East to West so the Scots and their pick axes were clearly up against it. Other ideas aside from a canal were floated as well, check out this idea of a container ship carrying train from the 1880s! Can you imagine!

A ship on wheels!

'Quel Panama!' which means a insoluble mess is the term the French used to describe their misadventures in Panama and I may start using it to describe certain current events, Brexit and Donald Trump perhaps! I discovered the term Quel Panama in John LeCarre's novel 'The Tailor Of Panama' which is a wonderful tale of espionage set against the backdrop of a tailor shop and the canal which I highly really recommend! After the French gave up on the canal it it didn't take long for the Americans to move in. They defeated the Yellow Fever, built a dam and a couple of locks(no sea level canal like the French insisted on) and were laughing the rest of the way. American ingenuity at its finest. Now 5 percent of ALL maritime freight traverses the Panama Canal.

The ferry over to Taboga Island

We weaved our way through all the ships waiting to pass through the Panama Canal, like this one...

..... And this one!

I know I said earlier that we didn't visit the canal BUT we did catch the ferry over to Taboga Island, a gorgeous little island about a 30 minute boat ride from the city where Paul Gauguin once lived! The ferry ride was fabulous, the boat weaved its way through all the huge container ships queuing up to enter the canal, it was a amazing sight seeing so many huge vessels as far as the eye could see. Taboga island itself was beautiful with a apparently fabulous beach. Anyone (especially Mum, remember Savannah?!) who knows Amanda and I knows how we get along at the beach.  we love it for about 5 minutes before we get crusty, salty and sandy and cant leave soon enough. Even just that 5 minutes of sitting there leaves us crusty and sandy for days, I am still coughing it up and picking it out my ears now. A week later, at least unlike Britain the sea was warm. Overall a miserable experience. Luckily the island had many redeeming features including a wonderful beachfront restuarant Calaloo where I got to eat the freshest and best Ceviche in the world! Ceviche is Panamas national dish and it is delicious, raw fish in citrus juices with some veggies thrown in for good measure... YUM!

There are magnificent flowers blooming all over Panama City

A little rum on the beach! All the fried Plantains were not good for my belly!

I don't believe you!

Panama City was a ton of fun made funner by its army of cute alley cats who deserve a blog all to themselves so you'll have to look out for that next! Soon I shall also post about the second part of our adventure - A trip deep into the jungle in search of the elusive Resplendant Quetzal bird!

Enjoying a heavenly cookie at 'Royal Cookies'

Nom Nom Nom

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Let it snow!

Just a quick post with some pictures in the snow. It is minus 16 degrees here today, Luckily this time next week we shall be in Panama where it'll be a balmy 31 degrees :)

Stay Warm!

Literary Brilliant Britain

I'm going to start this off by talking about one of my favourite things - cheese! Certainly it is one of the things I miss the most about Britain, When I come home one thing I have to do is buy a block of cheddar (unless my Mum has already got some for me :D)  and take a bite, that first bite is always heavenly good and leaves my mouth tingling from the taste before I turn round to Amanda with a glint in my eye saying 'Cor blimey, you have got to try this cheese!' Half of you (my American audience) will be confused by this, as cheese in the States really lacks any type of kick at all and it is certainly not something you'd race to the supermarket to eat, you probably think I am pretty weird for doing that. When I first moved to America I was gutted by the blandness of the cheese, it just tastes so rubbery and really lacks that bite that makes cheese cheese. Even the really expensive 'extra sharp' cheddar's here barely pass as a mild in my book. People often tell me that I am wrong, that if I go to Amish country or the market I can pick up a really great cheese and believe me I have tried. I have spent a fortune to try and find the equivalent of a 2 pound slab of value cheddar from Tesco yet to no avail. I was starting to think that maybe it had something to do with the cows out here? Well I now know that I am not wrong, you cannot get a good cheese in the States and the reason is pretty simple that the cheese in America has to be pasteurized. A process that kills all the enzymes that make a cheese taste like cheese and leaving behind this plasticky, rubbery substance that resembles and tastes more like an eraser as much as a decent slab of cheddar. At least now I don't need to waste my time hunting about hunting for cheese, in the States you are much better off sticking to something Americans are brilliant at - Peanut Butter and Chocolate! Yum :) 

New York

A Rainbow over Boston

As you may have guessed from the paragraph above I recently got to come home to Britain. This was because Amanda bagged herself a new job! In the daytime! with no night shifts! With tons of money! Congratulations :D We took a couple of weeks off before she started her job and had a fabulous trip,we gave it a bit of a literary twist by visiting a few places relating to British authors and started by going to London to visit Charles Dickens's house with my Dad. Charles Dickens lived in the heart of London, Oliver Twist territory where you have to be sure to hold on to your belongings for fear the Artful Dodger may spring out from behind the postbox and nick your snotty hanky! Only kidding - he lived in a large Georgian terraced home which is now surrounded by smart cars and hipsters and a rather wonderful pub on the corner 'The Calthorpe Arms' from the 16th century which I am sure Dickens himself would have loved to frequent. Inside the house it was neat to see the desk he wrote Oliver Twist on and I particularly enjoyed the letter (pictured below) he wrote to his Clock Smith to get his clock mended, It would be wonderful to be able to write with such wit on a whim.

Dickens letter to the Clock Smith.

The said clock.

Dickens used to keep a Hedgehog in the house to eat all the icky insects.

It is unusual for letters like this from one from Dickens to survive from this from Victorian times. The Victorians valued the speed and efficiency that corresponding by letter offered but generally hated the fact that their intentions were recorded on paper, So it was not unusual for people to burn their correspondence. Dickens himself sadly burnt 20 years worth of his correspondence up on Gads Hill, remarking afterwards that "It rained very heavily When I finished (burning the letters), I suspect my correspondence of having overcast the face of the Heavens."

Continuing the literary theme, this is the line to have your picture taken with the trolley at Platform 9 and three quarters! No Thanks!

Curry Time with Dad and Cousin Guy. They say the Curry in Brick Lane is better than in India itself!

I have been away from Britain for 5 years now and a lot has changed, I need a new map book of London as every other tube station seems to be new, there is a building even taller than Canary Wharf and the England football team are pretty good. Yet despite these changes some things always stay the same, I had a blast with my friend Tim for a couple of days and my most endearing memory has to be Tim losing his train ticket mid journey and having to buy a new one for $15 to travel about 20 miles! It made me chuckle, Tim was convinced he had left his ticket at the customer service counter at the station earlier in the day so before buying a new one he returned to the said counter to see if he could retrieve his ticket. Tim warned us that the guy he spoke with earlier at the desk was not the most genial and so it made me chuckle when we were 'greeted'  by way of a grunt by a gentleman who bore a uncanny resemblance to one of the Gringotts Goblins from Harry Potter. The Goblin informed Tim with a rather satisfied grin that he absolutely categorically had NOT left his ticket there, this was despite the fact that there was a stray train ticket with what, from a distance looked suspiciously like it had the word Edenbridge printed on it, teehehe! Exhorbitantly high train ticket prices is something else that has not changed in Britain.

Inside MarchPane - A wonderful Shop specialising in rare children's books right in the centre of London, they even have a copy of Alice in Wonderland in Farsi!

A Dorset Cream Tea, just look at that clotted cream! Mmmm!

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The delightful Abbotsbury Tea Rooms

Amanda and I have recently had the pleasure to discover Thomas Hardy, we read 'Far From the Madding Crowd' and loved it so much it left us with a hankering to visit his home country and the setting of Bathsheba's great adventures and misadventures - Wessex. What a county it is! From the most idyllic villages to the most traditional of pubs to some awe inspiring scenery Dorset really does have it all. One of Amanda's favourite things about Britain (except for me of course) is the legendary cream tea and the county of Dorset (Hardy's Wessex) does it better than most. For those not in the know a Cream Tea consists of the sweetest of sweet scones, some wonderful homemade jam and a healthy dollop of scrumptious clotted cream served with a steaming pot of tea.  Our first night in Dorset we stayed in the lovely Abbotsbury tea rooms where we got to enjoy a beautiful sunset walk along the beach as well as a cream tea for dinner AND breakfast :) Abbotsbury sits on the coast so we enjoyed a day hiking the astoundingly beautiful cliffs around West Bay, the setting of TVs Broadchurch where Amanda and I took a Broadchurchesque selfie which you get to check out below below. 

Broadchurch Selfie

The Cilffs at West Bay

Amanda enjoyed our clifftop hike so much she resorted to crawling :)

Hi!

We also took the opportunity to visit the Thomas Hardy cottage (a beautiful thatched cottage where he was born) and Max Gate which was the rather imposing house he built for himself and his family in Dorchester. I reckon the Ghost Adventures crew (infamous TV ghost hunters here in the States) would have a field day at Max Gate as this old house has it all - a wife who dies forgotten and alone in the attic, an old druid stone found in the garden and Thomas Hardy himself who had his heart removed in the living room. This came about because as he was considered a national treasure the powers at be wanted Thomas Hardy buried at poets corner in Westminster Abber, however Hardy himself had expressed a wish to be buried in his local graveyard so a compromise was reached and following Hardy's death his body was sent to Westminster Abbey after first having his heart removed and placed next to his wife in his beloved Wessex. Interestingly his heart is now nestled between both of his wives, I wonder how they feel about that! Hardy's second wife Florence went down in my estimations after it came to light that after the death of Hardy's first wife Florence had all of Hardy's first wife Emma's cats killed! Back to the ghosts I for one certainly wouldn't want to spend a night there!

Walking through the real Egdon Heath, do you like our matching bags!?

Hardy Cottage

Reading Thomas Hardy in his conservatory at Max Gate. Can you see a ghost?

A wonderful local brew 'Palmers Gold' enjoyed in the Acorn, Thomas Hardys favourite pub!

a rare 1st edition menu from The Leicester Arms pub in Wessex seen next to the 2nd edition, printed after Thomas Hardy had taught them how to spell!

Wessex also lays claim to the Cerne Abbas Giant. The giant is just that, a giant of a man with a giant.... boasting a rather impressive erection carrying a club and a shield who was 'erected' into the hillside behind the village of Cerne Abbas. No one really knows a whole lot about him, the first historical reference to him is from the 18th century when a local parish paid a little money for his upkeep but there is no mention of him earlier. Some people believe he has the ability to aid fertlity which made him rather popular with wannabe parents so now sadly they have restricted access to him by means of a barbed wire fence. Others believe he was 'erected' as a political mockery to Oliver Cromwell while others think he is a Celtic representation of the Greek God Hercules. Currently he is rather worn and quite hard to spot from a distance and even from up close, I personally thought the best view of the Cerne Abbas Giant (with sheep!) was found on this rather wonderful painting in a local tea room!

The farmer who owns this hallowed land always seems to have the best lambing season!

A great view of the Giant form up close!

Here he is in all his glory.

Back in Kent a couple of miles away from my mum's house and my hometown of Edenbridge you will find a little village nestled in the woods called Hartfield, it is not just nestled in just any wood but a very special wood, Winnie the Poohs One Hundred Acre Wood! Its a beautiful spot surrounded by stunning countryside and right in the middle of the wood you'll find the original pooh bridge, where you can spend many a happy hour attempting to play pooh sticks, I say attempting because there are now so many twigs stuck underneath the bridge that the chances of your twig making it out the other side at all are pretty slim! You have to be sure to take your own twigs to play with as none of the trees in the vicinity of the bridge have any twigs left to use! When you visit be sure to stop off at the tea rooms as well where you can partake in another cream tea :)

A Winnie-The-Pooh style cream tea with honey!

Pooh Sticks at Pooh Bridge!

Of course no trip back to Britain is complete without a trip to the hallowed turf of Loftus Road, home of the mighty Queens Park Rangers! Amanda loved watching her beloved Hoops bag a one nil win against Aston Villa on a cold and blustery night in West London. The tickets were quite expensive at $25 each but well worth it as the crowd reminded us with a chant of 'it is just like watching Brazil'!

One of Villas umpteenth corners that they couldn't capitalize on.

Even ducks are QPR fans!

Graham enjoyed watching some decent football for a change, he said it made a change from the usual drivel he gets to see (or would get to see, if the ticket prices at Upton Park weren't so astronomical!) at West Ham.

We returned to the States just in time for the holiday season which happens Luna the cat's most hated time of year, We haven't even passed Thanksgiving yet and already she has started on her relentless annual holiday season of destruction. It was the lamp that took the brunt of her last attack and I'm sure it won't be the last. She has been so good all year, does it have something to do with the cold or does she just hate Christmas this much?

Luna up to her usual holiday season antics!