Panama City, Panama

For our third and final Costa Rica visa renewal,* my husband and I went to Panama City for 4 days. Our immediate impression was that it was a lot like Costa Rica, except much, much cheaper. The weather is similar, beaches are similar – although of course Panama has much higher ratio of coastline to inland. Costa Rica is so touristed that prices keep going up, but I guess Panama doesn’t get as many visitors, other than to the canal.

Panama CanalSpeaking of which, we did the partial canal cruise – I would have liked to do the full, but it’s only offered twice a month by every single company I checked with, and all pretty much the same days. It’s just as well, as the half day was more than enough. To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed by the canal. Yes, it’s huge and an amazing feat of engineering and the locks are tremendous, but, well, it’s just not that exciting, you know?

*Upon entering Costa Rica, Americans (I don’t know what it’s like for citizens of other countries) get a stamp in your passport that allows you to stay for three months. You have to leave the country for at least 72 hours to get it renewed, and apparently there are people that have been doing this over and over for years. The government is cracking down a bit though – they say that they start looking at you a little suspiciously the third time you leave and return, but we didn’t have any trouble.

eBook Reader

Well, I did it – after reading dozens of reviews (both good and bad), and thinking about how convenient it would be to have 200 books hidden in a portable device, I bit the bullet and bought Amazon Kindle. Unfortunately, it’s on backorder with no delivery estimate, so I don’t even know if I’ll get it before I move in March. Just have to wait and see.

Morocco

I lived in Casablanca, Morocco for exactly 2½ years, from September 2000 to March 2003. My long-time fiancé was teaching English, and I was already a full-time freelancer. After a year, we went up to Gibraltar to get married, in large part because I had to keep leaving the country to renew my visa every three months. We were in Morocco on 9/11, and we left Morocco – coincidentally – the day before the war in Iraq began. (About a month later, several bombs exploded at places we’d been to: a restaurant near our apartment which we loved, and the Spanish cultural center.) Morocco is a beautiful, diverse country filled with extraordinarily generous people.

Costa Rican Weather

We’ve been living on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica for 7 months now – enough to experience both the rainy (or green) season and the dry season. We arrived in mid-May, and from then until mid-August the weather was perfect: 75-80 degrees, with a few hours of rain at least 3 or 4 times a week (including a number of truly spectacular thunderstorms). In August, it started raining a lot more – in fact, a friend from New York was visiting and unfortunately it rained nearly every day. The moment she left, the skies cleared and the weather was again gorgeous until late September, when it started raining more and more. For about 3 weeks in October, it rained almost non-stop, then it gradually died down. Now, in early December, it’s been dry for a couple of weeks. However, it’s also really hot – 85-90 degrees, and will just keep getting hotter and drier until April.

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