So...Got a couple of
days surfing in while in San Juan del Sur. Waves were small, and I actually feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it...a little.From there, I headed straight through Costa Rica ended up in Bocas, Panama only a couple hours before Collin and Cheri flew in. Perfect! Had a night of swilling wine and catching up before we met Nick and Mike (who owns the neighboring
property where Nick has been hanging out for the last month) the next morning. 
We had a morning of shopping for supplies for the week (2 pineapples or 4?...4. 2 cases of beer or 3?...3, of course. 
Decisions, decisions). After that, we headed to Bastamentos. The property is about a 30-40 minute boat ride out to the far side of the island...completely secluded and insanely beautiful. The rest of the week consisted of hanging out, making amazing blended fresh fruit rum drinks, hiking to deserted beaches, cooking crazy meals and pretty much having an incredible time.
The day before we left, we visited Lily's beach. Walked the whole length reminiscing about great times and adventures that we have shared with her. She was there with us.
After a week of being on the island, Nick, Cheri and I flew to Panama City. Said goodbye to Cheri the next morning and Nick and I continued on to San Blas.
San Blas is an archipelago of 350
island on the Caribbean side of Panama. It has been on the top of my travel list since I went to Panama the 1st time...needless to say, I was pretty excited to actually be going. We flew into El
Ponvenir on this tiny plane that acted as a colectivo (shared taxi). The plane landed and took off at 3 different landing strips on tiny little island picking up and dropping off people and packages along the way before we made it to our destination. The 'town' of El Ponvenir had a air strip, one hotel, 5 locals and a few drunken sailors...all you need, right? After a couple of beers and a couple of hours we had hooked up with Captain Peter, and his girlfriend, Paola who owned a 54' sailboat and were willing to take us around. So, on a boat with nothing more to do than relax, swim, and visit beautiful island after beautiful island...guess I can deal. The water was insanely blue and the islands were of the of the picturesque kind, white sand and coconut palms. 
The local Kunas are really friendly and we had the luck of spending a morning with a family who invited us into their home and treated us to food and good conversation along with dressing me up to look like their long lost tall Amish cousin...just look at the picture...looking good.After 4 days on the boat, we were all packed up and ready to catch our 6am plane out the next morning. While drinking with Peter and Paola on our 'last night' we thought we should check the date...What!... today is Thursday?...our flight's on Saturday...um...guess we have an extra day. So, on the boat for one more day. Until...at 4am when Nick got woken up by an attacking swarm of sand flies. The wind had died down and brought in a storm of sand flies like I have never seen. No skin was off limits to these guys...we tucked ourselves into our clothes and covered our heads with my sleep sheet and drank coffee...sleeping was not an option. After a few hours of that, it was decided we had to take refuge on the island and get a hotel for the last night.
We caught the plane the next morning back to Panama City and caught back up with Collin. Had a dirty night of dancing at a sweaty gay bar...got no sleep...and caught our plane the next morning.
The End...for now...
