More of Puerto!

Since we have been here we have found some places to go for those days when you just want a little piece of home :)

A delicious coffee place called Momentos with real coffee and real lattes and real frappicinos 

An actual Costco! It's called price smart but it is definitely a Costco :) 

Piña coladas in the piña!! 

 Yummy fresh coconut! 

  Beautiful beach except....

 For the bridge to get there...

red snapper fish for $5 

  View from one of the restaurants here in puerto :)

 Attempting to map out the territory with no road signs or house numbers. 

 Couple sisters visiting from Volcán helping us with our territory. House with guard ducks :)

  Brother from Newfoundland! Serving here with his wife in volcan. Trying out some weird fruit, it was like a sour lychee. 

 Colin found this cute little girl that spoke English :) she convinced him to try the rice and milk pudding cup, he later regretted that haha. 

When there's no more room in the car we make room. Haha Luke using a plastic chair in trunk of the car out in service.

  Rainy service days here too! 

Got my sunscreen and umbrella! No sunburn for me! At a study, either Colin's pants shrunk or he got taller? 

At a study, either Colin's pants shrunk or he got taller? 

This study was so cute, he speaks perfect English from working with the Chiquita banana 

Company when they were here in puerto. He has the best stories. 

One study Colin said they were discussing making bad decisions and how it doesn't help that we are under the influence of satan. So Andreas, the study, precedes to tell Colin about the time he was drunk and the minister asked him to drive his car to get new shocks. So even though he shouldn't have been driving he took the car. So while he was driving he thought to himself, " I wonder what would happen if I turned the car quickly to the right and then quickly to the left, like I'm zig zagging!" So he says he could hear this little voice in his head saying " do it!" do it andreas!" hahha So he does and he goes back and forth across the road driving like a crazy person then he said next thing he remembers was being upside down with his arm skidding on the road! So after this story he says to Colin, that must have been satan. Hahaha how rediculous is that! 

He is an amazing study though, he always says how he can't believe how many lies he has been told in church. 

Another time we were there It was really cool because we were explaining the resurrection and he thought that was cool but he felt that even if he wasn't going to be resurrected it wasn't going to bother him, he was still gonna give his best to God. So we asked him what his best years of his life were and he sat back for a minute just thinking and then all of a sudden he got this huge smile on his face and he says "ah, my 30s, some of the best days of my life" and it was so cute because you could tell he had all these memories running through his mind. So we explained to him that was what the resurrection in the new system was going to be like going back to being young, healthy and fun forever! And all of a sudden his eyes got real big and he said " reeeeallly??? Wooow! You mean I will be able to climb trees again??" Hahaha it was the best feeling sharing that with him. Now He can't wait to be 30 climbing trees again haha. 

He gave us some bananas from his yard :) 

Here's some more crazy fruit a lady gave us out in service, it's very hard to go hungry here with a this yummy fruit! :)

One meeting Colin did the sound and watchtower, while I read the paragraphs and another sister and I commented on every paragraph haha. It was just 3 of us and 2 studies, I convinced one of the studies to read all the scriptures :)

 

Here's another meeting picture of Colin doing the bible study :) lots more people at this one thankfully 

As most of you know Colin and I got a motorbike, a little 125 Yamaha perfect for getting to our studies and the beach :)

 Haha here is Colin on our way to a study!

Random things happen in panama all the time, here's a few pics of what we have found here in puerto.

Luke found some Panamanian weights haha

50 cents to charge your phone, 50 more cents if it falls in the bucket of water haha 

Big creepy poisonous bullfrog! 

 The cat climbed to the second story of the house and really wanted in, was just hanging off of the screen

A big grasshopper, has pink wings! I will get a pic of wings next time I find one of these :)

 Pet squirrels! 

 Rice fields

Colin bought me a new car! Haha just kidding some guy drives this around puerto

 Found some yummy piña coladas just outside puerto at fishing resort

Good view of puerto from the mountain

That's it for puerto for now, more fun adventures to come I'm sure! 

Volcán Volcano

After toughing out a month and a half in the heat of puerto, living amongst an abundance of bugs we decided we needed a little break. Colin, our friend Ariana and I headed to a small a town in the mountains where we could escape the humidity and give our shorts a break as we brought pants and sweaters!

The trip started out good until we got to the frontera ( the border town between panama and Costa Rica) when Colin looked at me with a guilty look... "I maaay have forgotten my passport..." To everyone back home that might not seem like a big deal but here they will do one of two things if they catch you without it.. Hold you till someone gets it for you if your lucky or arrest you. Haha. We got off the bus and began to strategize, the best we could come up with is pay one of the kids from our hall to bring it to us, so Tyler took an hour bus ride to meet us with Colin's passport. From there our friend Tom who we would be staying with picked us up and took us to volcan, Tyler hopped in the car with us since he was already halfway there :) after about 5 minutes of driving we hit a checkpoint and the guards asked for all of our passports :) So a potentially horrible situation turned out just fine! 

The ride up the mountain was nice, lots of green!

Coffee farm for sale :) 

Toms yard 

Toms house 

More of toms yard 

We had a quick lunch at toms and then headed on our excursions :) 

One of many sketchy bridges

Haha I look blind here as I am nervously hanging on to the thin wires haha

The cabins in the pictures above are ones that you can rent out and have a whole bunch of people stay in them. They are run by a company called Eco treat. You can either hike up a mountain to them or you can rent a horse and go up that way. The higher up in the mountain you go the nicer the cabins :) would be a nice little getaway, some of the doors were open so we snuck in and they have everthing you need in there plus they give you a list and they will bring any type of food up to you, pre made or stuff to cook your own, there's wifi too haha. 

At the bottom of the hill was the town called Guadalupe. There was a little restaurant/ hotel where we played some ping pong, had a coffee and played giant checkers. 

The next day started with more scary bridges

And a morning $3 horseback ride haha.

Cute little house on a walk we did around a town called Cerro Punta 

We got a fun ride back down the hill after a hike in the back of a pick up :) 

We went to a coffee farm and had one of the most expensive coffees in the world, it's $80 for a small bag of it so we split a small 4$ cup five ways just to say we tried it :)

 We also had yummy coffee milkshakes

 

Here's the coffee on the trees

 And the bean inside the red berry

Here's all of us drinking our expensive "geisha" coffee 

Then we went to some random house that had a mini zoo in their backyard. Colin loved the sloth! 

So did Ariana! 

There as also an otter on a leash that Tom walked around with haha.

And monkeys 

That took a bite out of Tyler's finger... Vicious little monkeys

Then we stopped in at a bothers place and played some music :)

More hiking the next day, we found a little Ngöbe village, a family lives in behind each of the doors in a tiny little one room place.

Cute little Ngöbe kids :)

Volcan was beautiful and a nice little break from the heat! We will definitely be back there soon :)