Cerro Santa Lucia

An Oasis of calm in the city of 6 million (of 16 million in Chile). Cerro Santa Lucia was a "barren" rock outcrop that was ignored in teh center of Santiago for centuries. The base of this hill was the site of Pedro Valdivia's officially declaring Ssntiago a town in 1541.

Cerro Santa Lucia sat ignored until 1872 when the mayor, in a well established colonial Spanish-style act, set 150 prisoners to work transforming it with plantings and major landscaping.

The Capitol of Chile

Santiago is a city surrounded by the Andes Mountains, containing about a third of Chile’s population with a huge five million people, it is a very big city.
The center of Santiago is mostly all historical buildings built around the 18th & 19th century, the Vegas hotel witch our family stayed at was located in this part of town (photo). Tough it was only about a block away from the main street it was in a very quiet neighborhood.

Santiago is a very pedestrian friendly city. I would say that it is a cross between Las Angles & Paris. It is clean, has nice sidewalks and has allot of pedestrian walkways. These are big roads reserved for pedestrians only.

In Santiago all of the people are very friendly even though their spanish is a little hard to understand. For example on our first day in Chile an old man stopped us and told us that we should put sunscreen on so we would not get skin cancer, so we walked rite into a pharmacy and bought some.

In Santiago there are lots of old sculptures, fountains, parks and plazas. Some of these parks are on hills or Cerros. Since some of the hills in and around Santiago there are these lifts called Funiculars. They are set on a slant and they have multiple cars.

After spending 6 days in Santiago we caught one of the comfortable buses out to a town called Valpariso. More on that soon!

Posted by Lily Johannessen

In Chile Now!

We did make it down to Chile--arrived late on Jan 18.

Been seeing Santiago and Valparaiso since then, and as I had to send my fancy new laptop back to the USA for repair (3.4 lb Samsung, failed LCD screen), we could not get photos off the camera. But tech stores do exist down here and we are back up to speed w photos, if not my work laptop.

Four nights in Santiago and now most of a week in Valparaiso--great places. The port city here that seemed very seedy to our quick-to-judge son has now turned into a place of great interest and charm (that ¨chipped paint charm¨ as the Rough Guide puts it) with wild hilly geography, art almost everywhere, and ships coming and going in the bay.

More on that later..

N of Panama City--Sobriana Rainforest

Guillard Cut - the one that caused the French to fail on their late 1800s attempt at the Panama Canal, now clamly allows passage of ships form one ocean to another. The gringos that took over soon after 1900 tool on the mightly mosquito first, then the engineering second. And tens of thousands of Barbados and lesser numbers of Jamaicans did most of the actual work. this is just 15 mies north of the City.



Rainforest Discovery Center....

Panama Jazz Festival

Another nice surprise in sometimes cosmopolitan Panama City. A fine line up for the 4th? annual Panama Jazz Festival. We all came back to the city a day early so Tracie, Libby and I could go see one of the headline shows of the 10 day long festival. That was the Wayne Shorter Quartet (of Miles Davis quintet fame from the 1960s--one of the only guys to write a bunch of songs for the band), with opener of Luba Mason and her band Kava--mostly from Costa Rica, She is from California, and married to Ruben Blades, who did a guest appearence (along with Hubert Laws).

A fine theatre from about 20 years ago with very good acoustics. Wild improv form the Wayne Shorter band. 

panamajazzfestival.com

The Highlands of Central Panama

El Valle de Anton is a small town located in the highlands of central Panama. It is located in the crater of an extinct volcano witch is about four miles across. Though the town’s real name is El Valle de Anton most people here simply call it El Valle (The Valley). Because of its higher elevation it is significantly cooler in temperature than the rest of Panama and the wind also blows stronger. It is surrounded on all four sides by mountains and is about 30 miles away from the Pacific Ocean.
The protected forests in the mountains surrounding El Valle have lots of wildlife, including tree frogs, butterflies, brightly colored birds, colorful amphibians and cute small mammals.
On Monday the 12th we went on the Canopy Adventure zipline. In case you don’t know what a zipline it is a couple wire cables strung between trees with little platforms in between the cables. At the Canopy Adventure ziplines there were four wire cables. Each cable was set at a different angle. The third cable was my favorite, it was a very steep trilling ride rite over the waterfall. This was the only cable were you did not have to stop yourself. They would stop you in the middle and since you were so high you could see the mountains, the waterfall and the forest.
The outdoor Sunday public market has a wide range of local produce, arts and crafts and beautiful orchids.
We are staying at a hotel called Los Captitones meaning The Captain. This hotel is owned by a retired German sea captain. There is a restaurant at the hotel with lots of German food. My family and I like it here very much so we are planning to stay here for the rest of our time before we have to go back to Panama City to catch our flight to Chile.
Written by: Lily Johannessen

More Caribbean - the Search for the Perfect Palm Tree

All good things take time--especially along the little developed Costa Arriba of northern Panama, including this post. Some things there take a lot of time. From the house on the Carib shore (there for a week) it took some time just finding a really nice beach--all that cool reef and nice swell was in the way of just getting into the water on a hot day. After that we clued in to hiring la launcha out to several of the small islands outside the cool mangrove and reef shore. You know they are going to come back in the afternoon at the designated time (pretty much) as you pay them after you get back to the mainland.

Another time we were off to drive to the ziplines-a new operation out there, and got turned back by the lack of a passable road for our little rented Nissan-and the road work going on. So we turned back for Playa Langosta, a spot without a reef. After a fine lunch of whole fried fish and other goodies, Miles gets in the water first--and bingo, instant double jelly fish stings to the legs.

More days out via private launch--Chillaxing, as Miles puts it. Some launches funkier than others. One day the 2 guys (teenagers) were shaking the gas can for the outboard on teh way back to see how fast they could go. After we paid them and sat eating another fish and chicken dinner, back the younger one comes lugging a very heavy gas can.

The nicest part--breeze was usually up, swell with it, still god snorkling on the protected south sides, and fine fish. No photos of the reef fish here, but Tracie and I had a quick short swim back to the shallows after hearing both kids howling due to the howling of the howler monkies in the trees nearby. . .

So Isla Lame (top 3), Puerto Frances (w kids in bay), or Playa Blanca at Playa Grande (w Tracie)....which has the best palm tree scene--certinaly better than the Microsoft desktop image?? Well, they are diff views with v different levels of effort, so it goes down here. The heat, the cerveza, the little coral burn........

Panama's Outback

Out on the Caribbean where the trade winds blow a wild shoreline stretches as far as the eye can see. This is the outback of Panama. Further north (west), near Costa Rica, lies Bocas del Toro, a fully developed tourist meca for surfers and sun seekers. Most travelers to Panama that want to visit the Caribbean fly from Panama City to Bocas. East of Colon lies the Costa Arriba, a place of old Spanish ruins and neglected tiny towns that feels a world away from Panama City, although only about a two hour trip. We rented a house with a reef front shoreline where we watched little blue and yellow crowned night herons forage daily. Osprey were regular visitors, too, and howler monkeys frequented the forest nearby.
People here still don’t take much notice of the few tourists that make it out this way---not enough to make a living from---although the local fisherman provide launches to a few remote beaches on outlying islands. Looking back toward the mainland coast you can imagine the days of the Spanish forts and the British pirates that sacked them all in the lust for Inca gold. We’ve enjoyed lots of great snorkeling in the clear turqoise waters. Further east along the coast lies the Kuna Yala, the semiautonomous homeland of the Kuna people. We see them in the craft markets in the towns selling their molas, a traditioal art from made from many layers of colored cloth. Favorites from our time in the Carribean included drinking milk from fresh coconuts bought from roadside stands and enjoying delicious fresh fish.

Panama City Scenes

Isla Taboga, from a resteraunt terrace - nice place to visit, could have stayed a week.


This is no small or 3rd world city. High rise heaven and they are still building like mad. 9% growth rate last year. But other parts of the country are plenty stagnant.
Miraflores Locks - if you wait, the ships will come.
This is the lower of the 3 locks dropping down to the Pacific.

PANAMA CITY: The Prelude to the Prelude

Or, the Curving Path to Chile

Months in the making. The family plans, researches, packs, and deals with things like work and school to prepare for a bit more than 2 months in Latin America. Mix in some Christmas with our Washington family, nice diversions around town on cross country skis, gathering old and new gear, and anticipation for the flight south.

Years in the making. The long planned, “long family trip” to set out on before the kids were true teenagers with teenage attitudes took a lot of brewing. Almost 20 years ago when Tracie and I returned from our own “legendary” almost 2-yr long trip teaching and travelling in Africa, we vowed to return in 5 years. That became 10 years, and longer. We had kids and then thought we would return to Zimbabwe, which we loved so much, after they grew up a bit. Not now tho. But now was the time to come. Miles entered teen-land a few weeks before Christmas and is showing plenty of signs of really knowing everything—as he assures me is his job. So it seems we made it just in time. Yes, then there was the saving money part--for years indeed.

Building a business up for the last 15 years to a point where I could mostly disappear for 9 weeks also took a long time. Well I did disappear a bit in the first few years, when expenses were low and work was still building, but that too has changed. The buz has now 3 employees besides me and I am grateful that they are keeping it all going now.

Then there was the school window. Lily is still in elementary school—her last year, in 5th grade now. No problem slipping out for the winter there. Miles decided to try home schooling this year in prep for being away—and managed to conveniently miss that awkward 7th grade year at middle school. Eighth grade would have been a whole different thing to drop out of for that long—the last year pre high school for both school and friend preparedness.

We bought the plan tix way back in August or so, before the US economy started its rapid melting. Ticket prices were going up back then, and of course later they dropped. Never thought of changing course tho. This was and remains the time.

Panama City is the Prelude to the Prelude as Panama is the “chill” prelude to Chile, where we are headed for most of the time away. And the stay on Caribbean next is the real prelude. We are checking out the history and sights around the city such as the Panama Canal and the Miraflores Locks for 4 days before we are able to use the house on the Caribbean that Tracie found on the internet. It was booked up to Jan 3 and the kidz had 2 weeks off at the Holidays that we did not want to all slip by without us being on the road.

A nice hotel near the water with a pool and luckily a room on the 15th floor with bay view has been fine to us. Mucho fireworks last night—but not enough explosions (ie as loud as a real war) to wake Lily up! Off to Isla Taboga for the day tomorrow.

Nice different type f New Years Day!