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When I arrived here there were no horseback riding tours readily available, although there are a significant amount of cow farms and horses being used throughout the nearby islands (now there are a couple of horse tours).  We are in the process now of training several new horses for tours in Dolphin Bay for our guests beginning in September.  The tour will be through pasture and private nature reserves as well as farms and will probably include some basic work with the calves, which will be a cool experience for whoever wants to participate: moving them from pastures or helping to wrangle them for vaccinations.  Dolphin Bay is a beautiful setting and I was able to get a couple of great looking, light-weight Criollo horses for a little over $100 a piece and a local partner there to train and keep the horses on pasture, and guide the tours.

The main catch here with the purchase is that these are stallions which have never even had ropes around them, they are almost completely wild.  There were four of us yesterday with one on horseback that chased a new stallion through pasture and jungle until we got him through a gate into a smaller pasture that unfortunately also connects to the local village.  He was going completely ape-shit and broke through the school fence (school was out) kicking everything and truly throwing his weight around, I mean it’s a big animal.  My lasso skills suck, but the older dad there got a good rope around him.  Once they get heated up like that they are very dangerous and definitely unsafe to try and hop on, which is the first goal in the breaking process.

The plains Indians used to jump on horses and bite down on their ears to make the horse run full speed, they are unable to buck well running and they just run until exhausted and are broken that way.  Most of the guys yesterday did not have a good set of teeth, so that was not a good option.  What they do here is drag them out into the water to a sand bar to cool them off and relax them, and it’s also a safer place to ride.  The horse can’t buck and kick as effectively in chest deep water.  This horse threw himself head over hoof off a 40 foot cliff into shallow water, it was a disaster, but he did get into the water at least.  At one point we were there wrestling with this horse and a pod of dolphins past 20 yards behind us, it made me take a breath and look around.  He was in mud and it took a long time to “coax” him out, but I was able to get on his back then and we got reins on him.  He is tied up now and the next step is to get a saddle on him and stay on as long as possible…I’m scared, I have to say.  We learned yesterday he is a powerful kicker and throws himself onto his side and back when he’s pissed.  I do not receive kicks well, nor do I land well on my back under things.

My computer and business skills have thus far not transferred well to horse training, but I’m excited about being able to offer the tours and the process is a lot of fun for me personally.  I could never afford to have and house a horse in the US and living here gives me that opportunity and I’m always happy about taking advantage of the positive differences in location.

The volcano is usually covered in clouds, but last time I was there we were able to get a great view of the whole cone for the two days we spent and actually saw glowing lava flows at night while we soaked in the thermal pools at Tabacon.  The thermal springs area is very impressive, but man the water is really hot and it seems like every time I leave there I have some kind of rash, that could be from any number of activities though and I would still go back.

To stay one night we paid $200 for a really nice room, a delicious breakfast, and access to the hot springs for the two days and night that we spent.  Tabacon has to be one of the few places in Central America where you have a king-sized bed with big down comforters, and the bathroom is like a mini pleasure palace.  We took our own wine to save a little money and ate nearby at an outdoor grill that I would recommend but which did not appear to have a name, it was the last restaurant on the right before reaching Tabacon.

La Fortuna Waterfall

The morning after some of the best sleep of my life we went on a horseback riding tour through a large cow farm to the La Fortuna Waterfall.  The tour was with Alberto’s Horses just before you get into La Fortuna; tel. 2479-9043 email albertoshorses@gmail.com.  We spent about 4 hours on the trip for $35 each.  The destination is a beautiful waterfall with swimming pools, the hike down there is not so bad, but coming back up is literally the opposite.

Visiting Arenal is one of the most worthwhile attempts in Costa Rica even though odds aren’t great that you will actually see the cone and/or eruptions.

Jon and his stand-in production crew, which consisted of a buddy with a clipboard and some sort of mixed drink, were only at Bocas Villas for a few days. The first was rainy and the forecast didn’t look good. Brown says the Ngobe Indians throw a cat in the water when they need it to rain, but didn’t have any ideas about calling out the sun. We did get some great weather, though, and had a couple of good days to send Jon on some tours that we do. Their first day they went (in the rain) to Redfrog Beach on Bastimentos Island to look for some surf and got the shot you see in the video of a poison dart frog.

The next day, when the sun came out, they did another full-day tour, going through Dolphin Bay to Coral Key and the Zapatillas Islands in the Bastimentos Marine Park. That’s really a great day. It’s about 45 minutes to get there, but you go through a lot of the mangrove islets, see really unique sand beach islands, and get to do some great snorkeling. We also did a quick trip to Starfish Beach and Bocas del Drago. That’s one of my favorites because its so easy and close and has everything I like in a beach: sand, shade and a bar. Jon ended up getting some excellent raw footage and then he needed to interview me for the information.

I was in my own house, talking about something I talk about every day, was in a good mood, but, man, talking on cue for the camera really freaked me out. The interview was well edited, but I can hear in my voice in a couple parts that I start to lose my shit a little bit. Jon is a good sport, though, and produced a great video with some beautiful weather and my spotty performance.

The video is a nice feature for guests to view and learn what they are getting into. But we also want to use it as a marketing tool, to get people to see our website and make a reservsation. I don’t know the real details of how this happens, but that is Blake’s professional focus  and his blog has some helpful information on how to use features like this. We are also going to track as precisely as possible the impact this video has on traffic and conversions, and both Blake and Jon will be able to provide details about that. Assuming this goes well their services are available.

One of the basic reasons that I came to Bocas del Toro and made the decision to begin development is the proximity to the US.  There are short,  cheap flights from many major cities throughout the US and Canada, as well as Europe.  I just took a direct flight from San Jose, Costa Rica to Madrid late last year.  Check for flights into either San Jose, Costa Rica or Panama City; Panama City is easier, but there is sometimes a significant price difference.

The local airport has expanded to receive direct international flights sometime in the future.  Copa Airlines is talking about this and the plan is to get direct flights to Bocas from Miami, New York, Los Angeles and wherever the hell else will send a flight to a cow pasture.

From Costa Rica:

From Costa Rica you can fly http://natureair.com/ direct to Bocas, but will almost definitely have to spend the night in the shit-hole known as San Jose on both ends of your trip.

There are buses every couple of hours from the Caribenos bus terminal to the border, about 6 hours.  And there is one Bocatorenos bus everyday at 9am from the “anitgua Copa”/Bocatorenos bus stop that makes it into Panama.  In both cases you will get a 30 minute taxi to Almirante once the bus eventually stops and catch a boat taxi from there to Bocas, those are running constantly.

From Panama City:

From Panama City the bus ride is a horrible 11 hours, but can be done overnight from the Albrook bus terminal.  The domestic flights are from the Albrook Airport and http://aeroperlas.com/ and http://flyairpanama.com/.

As a big food lover one of the things I have had a problem with living in Bocas del Toro is the inability to get a variety of different foods and flavors. I can’t get crispy duck in thai curry takeout or pork slouvaki. This is a place though where if you accidentally stick an indigenous twig in the ground you get a fruit tree. Vegetation and high nutrient vegetables grow with no effort. Fruit’s great, but I prefer pork, and chicken and goat, duck. There is nothing easier here then to raise a pig or any other domestic animal with the cheap feed available.

My full-time and reliable employee Garibaldo Brown is an indigenous member of the autonomous Ngobe Bugle tribe in Panama. The common thing for them is for the family to stay on the finca in the autonomous state and for the men to leave to find work. They grow gname, gnampi, daichin, plantains and bananas for all their carbs and starch with very little effort, Brown goes back a couple times a year to take care of the farm. Men out of work and the young children catch small fish daily for protein.

There is no reason living here in Bocas that you can’t eat high quality organic foods even if its not in the store, but you have to take a little clue from the local people.After seeing a cooking show I began raising a flock of ducks…it was a program about roast duck. We’ve raised pigs on coconut meat to pit roast. With the vegetation and constant plantain canoes going by, it’s a cheap and easy way to get alternative meats.

street food - Cartagena

For Easter we got some goats to raise and one to celebrate. Nobody on the farm was willing to kill and butcher so I talked to some friends and locals here. Everybody said to kill a domestic animal was easy, you hit it on the head with a hammer and then cut its throat. Somebody said they would do it for me, but I eat a lot of meat and thought I should be able to do it and also thought I would feel like a girly-man if I couldn’t. It is not easy to kill an animal. Maybe somebody can hit a goat once in the head and put it out, but I sure as shit can’t. It was a long brutal process and I’m not sure about the rules exactly, but it was definitely non-kosher meat by the end.

The final product was great though. We slow roasted a 15 pound goat with a Jamaican jerk rub (substituted curry powder for allspice) and had some cheap domestic beers. It’s hard to miss the Greek Kitchen when you’re drunk on the beach eating well-spiced goat by the handful.

Here is a great jerk recipe by Jinx and Jefferson Morgan, this makes a lot of sauce and the quantity of meat would be about 10 big chicken pieces (or 15 lb. goat). Blend all the spices and marinate.
2 green onion bunches, chopped
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons ground allspice
2 jalapeno chilies (or less of traditional scotch bonnet)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg