I appologize for how boring the last post was. I know that I promised to keep my posts short, insightful and funny. I struck out on all three. My use of vocabulary was pretty pathetic as well. Did I really graduate from college using words like, "stunning", "beautiful", and "amazing" to describe everything? How did I pass college? Thats not possible. Ah well. So, instead of writing about Baruca, Ill give some funny antecdotes about my travels in Costa Rica and Panama.
-My travel companion, Theresa, accidently washed her hands in a urinal in Corcovado. If you know Theresa, that makes perfect, perfect sense.
-I was accosted by a drunk English guy in a bar in Panama, who thought I was a witch, was convinced I stole his money, kept on talking about cutting his kids legs off with a machete, and finally claimed to be close personal friends of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Needless to say I got the hell out of dodge.
Shoot, I cant think of any more. Maybe thats why my post was so boring. So, once again, I appologize for the dullness of the last post. Trust me, the Barucan post will be much more exciting. I just need a lot of time to write everything that I did. Ill just give a little hint of what happend: Drunk guy wildly swinging a machete in a crowd full of people. Dont worry mom and dad, I was safe. Hope everybody is having a good new years. Dont do anything I wouldnt do.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Monday, January 7, 2008
Back by popular demand
Due to the unprecedented amount of requests to update my travel blog (2), I have decided to introduce a two-part mini series entitled, ¨Jon Warner: still doing only semi-interesting things since 1985.¨ The first part will deal with my life after my TEFL program, and the second one will deal with my week in Baruca.
PART ONE: Traveling Costa Rica and Panama
After the course ended, I decided to take a couple weeks and travel around Costa Rica and Panama with two of my friends from the course, Thomas and Theresa. Thomas is 24 from New York and Theresa is 30 from Australia-both good people. Our first stop was the Osa Peninsula in Southern Costa Rica and Corcovado National Park. Corcovado is supposedly the most bio-diverse place in the world. This little park possesses almost 4 percent of all the wildlife in the entire world. It´s crazy. We made base camp in the largest town on the peninsular, Puerto Jimenez. When I say base camp, I really mean we found a cheap hostel to stay in. Our first full day after arriving in Puerto Jimenez we took a collective taxi to the park entrance. The park entrance is about two hours away and the taxi is more like us sitting in the bed of a truck. Still, the ride was beautiful and actually kind of relaxing. After reaching the end of the road-literally, this was one of the more isolated places I´ve ever been to-we had to hike about 3 km on the beach to actually reach the park entrance. Before entering, we decided to stay at a tent lodge, which is basically what it sounds like-a lodge with tents. It was actually a really cool place, only 20 dollars a night and the tents are very big and spacious with cots. There´s no electricity in the tents but there is in the main lodge. The view of the ocean in front with a virgin jungle in the back was spectacular. After staying a night there we decided to get up early in the morning and do a day hike into the park, as we didn´t have the necessary gear to actually camp. The hike was absolutely stunning. All along the beach with the jungle to our right, we walked in about 7 or 8 km until turning back. We say three kinds of monkeys, snakes, a ton of birds, an anteater, and Thomas saw a Tapir when he was out in front. After the day hike, we took the collective taxi back to Puerto Jimenez. For the next few days we hung out on the beaches and just relaxed.
Our next destination was Panama, and so we took a day to travel to the boarder. Once we actually arrived at the boarder, we had some problems actually getting in. In order to enter Panama, you have to have a ticket, be it a plane or bus ticket, that says you will exit the country at some point. Since I had neither, I was faced with two options: one, buy a ticket, or two, bribe the guard. Now, since I have never bribed anybody in my life, I figured this would be a good opportunity to do so. Plus, it was actually cheaper than buying a ticket. So, after deciding what to do, I slipped a ten spot in my passport, handed it to the guard and said I think everything should be in order. It was awesome, I felt like a bad-ass. Once we reached Panama, we stayed in the absolutely gorgeous town called Volcan. There, we stayed in a hostel run by an adorable 70 something Cuban refugee. This place had one of the most beautiful kitchens I had ever seen and so we did a lot of good cooking. In Volcan, we decided to hike the two national parks close by. The problem with getting to these national parks is that buses only drop you off in the general time-zone of the parks and people in Panama have no understanding of distance and time. Needless to say, we were given bad information and a couple of times dropped off about 5 or 6 km away from the entrances. As fate would have it, each time we said aloud we need to hitch a ride, a truck would pull up, the driver would signal us to hop in, and off we would go. It was amazing. The drivers would not accept any money either. The parks themselves were stunning. Pristine cloud/rain forests where you would actually be enveloped by the clouds as you hiked. Amazing. I´ll try to post some pictures later if I feel like it.
After a few days of hiking the parks around Volcan, we decided to hike from Volcan to another town, Boquete, across some mountains. This trail was a trail in name only, as it actually was a river. It was a wet trip, yet a beautiful one. And, once again, we were given bad information about distances. After the trail, people told us it´s about a 2 km walk on the road from the trail end to Boquete. It was more like 12 km. Luckily, once again, we hitched a ride with some very nice people. I used up a lot of good karma on this trip. Boquete was a very lovey city with a very cosmopolitan feel. A ton of coffee shops with delicious coffee and strawberry shakes, since they grow a lot of strawberries there. We spent some very relaxing days in Boquete.
After Boquete, we headed back into Costa Rica where I split ways with my friends on my way to San Jose. There I stayed for a week with my old host family from a couple of years ago and it was really nice to see them again. I really didn´t do much in San Jose, as I was pretty tired from my travels. I did make tamales there, and they were delicious. A very time consuming process I must say. Saw some movies, went out with my host brother, and just slept a lot. All in all a very nice week. On the 20th I went back home to the states for Christmas which was amazing. I wont bore anybody with those details as I saw a good many of you.
Well that wraps up part one. Stay tuned in the next couple of days for part two.
PART ONE: Traveling Costa Rica and Panama
After the course ended, I decided to take a couple weeks and travel around Costa Rica and Panama with two of my friends from the course, Thomas and Theresa. Thomas is 24 from New York and Theresa is 30 from Australia-both good people. Our first stop was the Osa Peninsula in Southern Costa Rica and Corcovado National Park. Corcovado is supposedly the most bio-diverse place in the world. This little park possesses almost 4 percent of all the wildlife in the entire world. It´s crazy. We made base camp in the largest town on the peninsular, Puerto Jimenez. When I say base camp, I really mean we found a cheap hostel to stay in. Our first full day after arriving in Puerto Jimenez we took a collective taxi to the park entrance. The park entrance is about two hours away and the taxi is more like us sitting in the bed of a truck. Still, the ride was beautiful and actually kind of relaxing. After reaching the end of the road-literally, this was one of the more isolated places I´ve ever been to-we had to hike about 3 km on the beach to actually reach the park entrance. Before entering, we decided to stay at a tent lodge, which is basically what it sounds like-a lodge with tents. It was actually a really cool place, only 20 dollars a night and the tents are very big and spacious with cots. There´s no electricity in the tents but there is in the main lodge. The view of the ocean in front with a virgin jungle in the back was spectacular. After staying a night there we decided to get up early in the morning and do a day hike into the park, as we didn´t have the necessary gear to actually camp. The hike was absolutely stunning. All along the beach with the jungle to our right, we walked in about 7 or 8 km until turning back. We say three kinds of monkeys, snakes, a ton of birds, an anteater, and Thomas saw a Tapir when he was out in front. After the day hike, we took the collective taxi back to Puerto Jimenez. For the next few days we hung out on the beaches and just relaxed.
Our next destination was Panama, and so we took a day to travel to the boarder. Once we actually arrived at the boarder, we had some problems actually getting in. In order to enter Panama, you have to have a ticket, be it a plane or bus ticket, that says you will exit the country at some point. Since I had neither, I was faced with two options: one, buy a ticket, or two, bribe the guard. Now, since I have never bribed anybody in my life, I figured this would be a good opportunity to do so. Plus, it was actually cheaper than buying a ticket. So, after deciding what to do, I slipped a ten spot in my passport, handed it to the guard and said I think everything should be in order. It was awesome, I felt like a bad-ass. Once we reached Panama, we stayed in the absolutely gorgeous town called Volcan. There, we stayed in a hostel run by an adorable 70 something Cuban refugee. This place had one of the most beautiful kitchens I had ever seen and so we did a lot of good cooking. In Volcan, we decided to hike the two national parks close by. The problem with getting to these national parks is that buses only drop you off in the general time-zone of the parks and people in Panama have no understanding of distance and time. Needless to say, we were given bad information and a couple of times dropped off about 5 or 6 km away from the entrances. As fate would have it, each time we said aloud we need to hitch a ride, a truck would pull up, the driver would signal us to hop in, and off we would go. It was amazing. The drivers would not accept any money either. The parks themselves were stunning. Pristine cloud/rain forests where you would actually be enveloped by the clouds as you hiked. Amazing. I´ll try to post some pictures later if I feel like it.
After a few days of hiking the parks around Volcan, we decided to hike from Volcan to another town, Boquete, across some mountains. This trail was a trail in name only, as it actually was a river. It was a wet trip, yet a beautiful one. And, once again, we were given bad information about distances. After the trail, people told us it´s about a 2 km walk on the road from the trail end to Boquete. It was more like 12 km. Luckily, once again, we hitched a ride with some very nice people. I used up a lot of good karma on this trip. Boquete was a very lovey city with a very cosmopolitan feel. A ton of coffee shops with delicious coffee and strawberry shakes, since they grow a lot of strawberries there. We spent some very relaxing days in Boquete.
After Boquete, we headed back into Costa Rica where I split ways with my friends on my way to San Jose. There I stayed for a week with my old host family from a couple of years ago and it was really nice to see them again. I really didn´t do much in San Jose, as I was pretty tired from my travels. I did make tamales there, and they were delicious. A very time consuming process I must say. Saw some movies, went out with my host brother, and just slept a lot. All in all a very nice week. On the 20th I went back home to the states for Christmas which was amazing. I wont bore anybody with those details as I saw a good many of you.
Well that wraps up part one. Stay tuned in the next couple of days for part two.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
On the off chance people are reading this
*************************************WARNING***********************************
The following paragraph has nothing to do with my actual travels, just what I believe about travel itself. If you don't care what I think about travel and just want to know what I've been up to, skip to the next paragraph.
Ok, I must admit I've had a really hard time writing on this blog. It's not that I haven't done anything exciting. It's just that I don't want to bore people with long winded stories. That, and I realize that I view the concept of travel itself differently than how some people view travel. Personally, travel is not necessarily a means to self-discovery or self-enlightenment. If I truly wanted to "discover" something about myself I would join a monastery or meditate for a few years or something like that I guess (I don't even know what it means to discover oneself). I just like to travel, have a good time, and meet new people. It's pretty self-serving in the end and I'm aware of that. But, honestly, I think that travel to everyone is a self-serving, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. So, when I was thinking of what I should write on my travel blog, I could never come up with anything deep or inspirational. I mean, the highlight of my trip thus far is (and this is taken out of context so if you keep reading this I just might explain what that concept is) walking around an indigenous village at two o'clock in the morning drunk with two indigenous guys I just met, talking about nothing in particular. What did that teach me about myself? Well, here's the answer, I guess. If some guy I just met buys me a forty after I've already had 7 beers, I'll man up, drink it, hang out with this guy the rest of the night drunk and be hungover in the morning. Honestly, did I need to leave the country for that? Nah, I could have found that out at home. But at least I had a good time, and I have a memory. Whether you (rather, the person reading this) believe that I'm just another stupid American who travels just to party, it doesn't really matter to me. I've got that experience, but in the long run it's really not that important to who I am. Sorry, this is way too bullshity even for me. I'll stop with the rant and go into what I've actually been doing here. Sorry if I offended anyone.
I've been here for almost three weeks and I must say that I've been enjoying myself much more than I originally expected. The area itself, Quepos/Manuel Antonio, is quite gorgeous and the beach is just amazing. Unfortunately, we're still in the tail-end of the rainy season which means that for the past two weeks it's rained basically every day in the afternoon. Fortunately, the past 5 days has seen much nicer weather with sun and I've gotten in a few quality beach days. The problem with beach days is that my TEFL course is much more demanding than I had originally foreseen. For the first two weeks, we were in "school" Monday through Friday from 8:30-4:30/5:00. Since the sun sets here around 5:30, there really wasn't much time to go to the beach after school. Ah well, I am learning a lot. I'm learning more about teaching methods than actually teaching itself, if that makes sense. Like different types of learning styles, teaching scenarios, class room management, teaching philosophies, etc... It has all been very interesting and all the information is applicable to any teaching that I do in the future, not just teaching English. This past week we have actually been teaching classes with actual Costa Rican students. Teaching students is a lot harder than it looks. Believe me. I have a much greater respect for all good teachers at any level now. There is so much material to prepare that when I'm not teaching, I'm spending the whole day lesson planning or preparing materials. It's all worth while work, since I know that when I "graduate" from the program, I will be well qualified to teach anywhere.
As far as living in
Other than that, I've just been around Quepos/Manuel Antonio and it's been fun. My classmates are absolutely amazing and they are so much fun. We all have a good time together. Well, I'm tired of typing and I'm sure you're of typing. If you want, I'd love to hear from some of you. I know I do a bad job of communicating but I'm sincerely curious to see what people are up to. Let me know. OH!! I will be coming back to
Con mucho amor, Jon
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Hey
Hey everyone, this is my travel blog, where I, Jon Warner, will be posting various notes, observations and other such tomfoolery that occurs in my travels. The blog title is my all-time favorite Simpsons quote, and if you don't understand why I chose it as my travel blog title, you're just not deep enough. Sorry. Maybe if you bug me enough, I'll give away the big secret when I get back. But only then! My motto is give the people what they want, which is what I do. Anyhoo, I'll try to keep posts funny, short, and definitely not self-indulgent, because, let's face it, probably the biggest reason I'm doing this is so I can get into a better graduate school and gain kick-ass Spanish skillz (Notice the hilarious misuse of the 'z'. That's only a tenth of the comedy in store for you if you continue to read this). But seriously, I am excited to teach English and travel around Central America. For those of you who don't know, I'm going to be in Quepos, Costa Rica for the first month, getting my TEFL certification (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), and then I plan on just traveling around and teaching. I'll be there for probably 6 months, but who knows for sure. So, if you want to keep in touch I will not have a phone nor a writing address, but you can always e-mail me, it's nice to have mail. Well, that's about it, really. Con mucho amor, Jon
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