El Valle

IMGA0251, originally uploaded by Mudd and Bones.

El Valle from Gaitel Mountain. It was a great jungle hike and an amazing view once we got there. The town is in a huge volcanic cauldron, long extinct.

Panama City

We made it to Panama City! The flight was long and exhausting and getting to our hotel was a little chaotic but after about 12 hours of sleep we were feeling up to some exploration. It turns out that our hotel isn't in the best part of town. After taking this photo a police officer stopped and told us "muy peligroso" and gestured that we shouldn't be taking pictures or someone might grab our camera. Later another person told us to be careful in this part of town. It does seem a bit dodgey, bars on most windows and a lot of crumbling buildings, but it doesn't feel any more dangerous than some areas of Portland.

In a different part of town called Casco Viejo, there was a mix of old colonial buildings, packed markets, and a lot of crumbling buildings. It was amazing!

Casco Viejo

IMGA0122, originally uploaded by Mudd and Bones.

This is what Casco Viejo in Panama City looks like. Though the photo doesn't capture the ambiance of the old colonial area.

Panama City

We made it to Panama City! The flight was long and exhausting and getting to our hotel was a little chaotic but after about 12 hours of sleep we were feeling up to some exploration. It turns out that our hotel isn't in the best part of town. After taking this photo a police officer stopped and told us "muy peligroso" and gestured that we shouldn't be taking pictures or someone might grab our camera. Later another person told us to be careful in this part of town. It does seem a bit dodgey, bars on most windows and a lot of crumbling buildings, but it doesn't feel any more dangerous than some areas of Portland, though there was actually a fire burning away in one old building.


We did see some really interesting stuff in the area of Casco Viejo. There was a mix of old colonial buildings, packed markets, and a lot of crumbling buildings. It was amazing!
There was a little park where people put out cat food and there were several cats all lounging around watching the birds and napping. They looked pretty content, although the birds were eating more cat food than the cats were (they probably would have preferred eating the birds).
We are excited to get out of the city and see some wildlife, enjoy a slower pace of life, and some fresh air, the pollution in Panama City is pretty bad!

Dos Dias -Two Days!

Only two days to go! Our apartment is almost empty, we dropped off an entire truckload of stuff off at Goodwill yesterday, and a bunch of stuff in storage today (Thank you Elizabeth, you rock!). We've still got a lot of tedious work to cram into the next two days, but I think we'll make it... Stay tuned to find out...
We've got a few places in Panama lined up, we can't wait! We're starting out by spending a couple of nights in Panama city (Hotel Marparaiso), then we're moving on to El Valle. It's a small town in the crater of an extinct volcano. It looks like we'll be visiting the family of one of our Portland friends there. And we found a really fun looking hostel near Boquete and David called "The Lost and Found". Then we'll be moving on to Costa Rica to visit our friends at Verdenergia.
We'll be trying to get a couple more posts up before we go. We'll see...

Epic Night

Our going away party was an epic night.

There were a ton of our friends and Artichoke family there to see us off. There were so many surprises including Jim Morris premiering his first ever performance of his first original tune, Mike's 10 year old guitar student Maya Vigil and her dad Ken performing a Latin American tune together. Frank Stovall brought a spread and played some fiddle. A jam session happened at the end of the night, so it went pretty late. We brought some homebrew, we made some new friends, it was phenomenal.

Thanks to everyone who made it such an amazing experience, we love you all.

We've got some more videos posted to the web, and have some more on the way when we get some more free time.

The Wind -with John Sabestinas and Samantha Mudd
Uploaded by Mike_Mudd

Below -with Paul Edward Sanchez
Uploaded by Mike_Mudd

Dos dias

Only two days to go! Our apartment is almost empty, we dropped off an entire truckload of stuff off at Goodwill yesterday, and a bunch of stuff in storage today (Thank you Elizabeth, you rock!). We've still got a lot of tedious work to cram into the next two days, but I think we'll make it... Stay tuned to find out...
We've got a few places in Panama lined up, we can't wait! We're starting out by spending a couple of nights in Panama city (Hotel Marparaiso), then we're moving on to El Valle. It's a small town in the crater of an extinct volcano. It looks like we'll be visiting the family of one of our Portland friends there. And we found a really fun looking hostel near Boquete and David called "The Lost and Found". Then we'll be moving on to Costa Rica to visit our friends at Verdenergia.
We'll be trying to get a couple more posts up before we go. We'll see...

Artichoke Music Sendoff Party

 The send-off party at artichoke music was amazing! There were great performances by a bunch of talented musicians. And many of our best friends were there to share the fun. We'll miss our Portland "family" so much while we're gone!


More to come on that epic evening!

Good Times

The send off party at artichoke music was awesome! There were great performances by a bunch of talented musicians. And many of our best friends were there to share the fun. We'll miss our Portland "family" so much while we're gone!

Dos Semanas -Two Weeks!

Two weeks?! We've been sooo busy. We've got our passports and are almost done with immunizations.

Dos Semanas -Two Weeks

Two weeks?! We've been sooo busy. We've got our passports and are almost done with immunizations.

Mike did his last Science Museum set up, which was putting together dinosaurs.


Check out our new Flickr account where we'll be posting photos of our adventures. Right now there are a few dozen pictures of the dinosaur setup.

Goin' South

We're packing our bags and heading South. We'll be on our way to Central America in three weeks! We'll be traveling by bus across Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize (Give or take a couple of countries). There are a several awesome places we'll be visiting along the way. We'll be blogging the trip as we go. We should be compiling some great video and pictures as well as some interesting stories.

We've been planning our adventure for a while but now the clock is ticking down. We're in the process of selling most of our stuff and consolidating down to our backpacks. Our departure date is February 24th.