Bananama

Hello from Bananama,

Hope you are all enjoying your summer so far.

It’s a perfect day to finally get an update out. It’s raining, thunder, lightning and doesn’t look like it’s going to let up anytime soon. YAHOO!

Celebrated Wayne’s birthday on the 22nd. Our original plan was to go to the Auto Lava for a car wash, Cerviche (marinated seafood) and Cervesa (beer). I know what you are all going to wish for for your next birthday. It’s hysterical. All over the place you can pull in, get the car washed and vacuumed for $3 while enjoying an ice cold beer and cerviche. We ended up only at a place with beer and rum while you waiting. You can buy the whole bottle of rum for $2 (a small bottle). You bring along your own mixers and have a good old time! See, there are some things in this country that make sense!

We are spending our days looking at land. It’s pretty apparent if we are going to get screwed over by anyone, it will be a gringo. So we are trying to talk to locals instead which means there is a lot of grunting, drawing in the dirt, etc. Met one rice farmer who brought us back to his place. Amazing how simple they live. Met his wife and son and got to see his small rice production (Pictures attached on blog) As far as land, the prices are all over the place. No idea yet what we’ll end up buying.

Another farmer/bar owner we met showed off his crab harvest to us. Yummy! He gets them in the mangroves. Also while we were there an old man and woman showed up to sell their turtle eggs. Highly illegal to do. It kind of sucked to see it since the turtles are endangered. (pictures of crabs and eggs on blog). I guess they cook the eggs in tomato, garlic and onion and then suck the insides out. They claim it’s incredible. I think I might have finally found something I won’t eat!!!

Met with an attorney the other day. We knew immediately that he was going to be the attorney we use. He began by welcoming us to Bananama. Ain’t that the truth! He is 100% Panamanian. There are a few professions here that only Panamanians can hold, attorney being one of them. Then we noticed an autographed picture of Metalica on his wall. He got so excited when we mentioned it. He said he was a METAL lover. AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Kiss, etc. He even managed a band that covered Kiss and they won some kind of big award. When he goes to see AC/DC he dresses in a kilt. Yes, this will be our attorney, no doubt! We hear AC/DC will be coming to Bananama after their US tour. Excellent and we’ll probably go with our attorney.

Any way, found out good news. We don’t need to leave the country until November. A new law was passed giving tourist 6 months instead of 3. He also recommended that we don’t bother trying to become residents. Says it’s expensive and no need. As long as we leave every 6 months for 72 hours, we are fine. AND if we don’t really want to leave for 72 hours, he will give us a name of a guy at the Costa Rican border who will go ahead and stamp us in and out in a matter of a few minutes. I said ‘so we just ask for him and tell him who our attorney is’. He said ‘OH NO, NO, NO don’t give them my name!!!’

Went to a tuna lab the other day. Very cool. They do all kinds of research on tuna. They’ve got a huge tank with 15 tuna in it, the largest was close to 200 pounds. We wanted to bring our fishing rods as a joke but decided against it. (Pictures and video are attached on the blog)

We witnessed crocodiles being lassoed (pictures and video on the blog). At the tuna lab there is a pond and the crocs find their way there. They aren’t welcomed guests. The day we were there, they were trying to catch 2 of the bigger ones to move off the property and let them loose about an hour or so away.

Wayne has got almost everything he needs for the boat mooring. That only took about a month. I guess the biggest frustration here would be trying to get stuff and stuff that isn’t crap made in China.

So all in all, nothing too exciting these past 2 weeks.