Sunday 28 May 06 - El Valle

Hi all, we spent the weekend in El Valle, famous for it´s golden frogs (ranas doradas).

This place has a nice little waterfall (Chorro El Macho), thermal springs (Pozos Terminales) where you can plaster yourself in mud (good for the skin) and some nice little places to get large amounts of meat for dinner.



There is also a small botanic garden and zoo called El Nispero, which houses the golden frogs and a weird variety of other creatures... e.g. iguanas, farm animals, an ostrich and numerous macaws, tapirs and hawks... all in cages much too small.

Thursday 25 May 06 - Panama Canal

Panamanians love their canal. Boy, do they love their canal. Everything has an element of the canals, the locks, or something to do with the construction, the development, the politics, or something! The canal was first attempted by the french who then gave up after money ran out... it was then adopted by the USA late last century, who´ve had political and military control of the canal and the canal zone (an area about 40 km either side of the canal) up until 2004 at which point they finally relinquished control to Panama.

In only one year, Panama has reduced accidents by 40% and increased efficiency over that achieved by the USA.

The average toll for the locks is $US65,000, which needs to be paid in total at least 48 hours in advance. The highest tolls are about $200,000 and the least was $0.36 paid by Richard Halliburton who swam through the Canal.

In the photo, foreground, is Miraflores Locks (each stage raises the ship 27 ft), in the distance is Pedro Miguel Lock which raises the ships another 32 ft. To a total height of about 86 ft above sea level for the transit through Gatun Lake which comprises the majority of the Canal.

At the north end is Gatun Locks which are a 3 stage lock, which, of course, lowers the ships back to sea level on the Atlantic side. Or all vice versa depending on direction.

Friday 26 May 06 - Sloth Day

Hi all,

A quick request first up.... please comment!! Could you please let us know any news from back home.... we just heard about troops being sent to Dili, E. Timor, what else is happening??

Today is Sloth Day - no, we weren´t really lazy! We just saw heaps of sloths (perezoso).... in the morning it was a walk through the nearby Parque Natural Metropolitano where we discovered our mosquito repellant sunscreen doesn´t cut the mustard...itch, scratch, itch.... but we did come across an Agouti (rabbit sized ground-rat thingy), an adolescent crocodile, heaps of turtles, a few frogs and monkeys flying through the trees.

Then we got put into an unmarked minibus, which we were told was a bus across the nearby causeway to the local Marina. Here we found a Smithsonian-run marine park, with a very helpful guide and SLOTHS!!!! (We know sloths aren´t aquatic, but they were the highlight of the day!) It certainly beats seeing Ronald McDonald play electric guitar for the kids in the nearby Shopping Mall!


By the way, if you didn´t know, unfortunately our volunteer work with bats fell through last minute... so Phil´s off on a mission trying to tee-up some volunteer scientific diving with the Smithsonian instead.

Tuesday 23 May 06 - Panama City

This morning we landed in Panama City, a busy, noisy place full of traffic, full of people and with plenty of Subway, KFC and McDonalds for all. Despite the smog and the drivers NEVER stopping (or even slowing) for pedestrians, the city has a certain charm that grows on you...



It´s really humid, it´s hot and it doesn´t get cold at any time at night.. definitely weather for sleeping under a sheet...

Monday 22 May 06 - Museum of Natural History

A few days to catch up on..... so here goes....

Today was Hayden Planetarium (saw Cosmic Collisions narrated by Robert Redford). The building itself is a huge 26.5 m sphere - quite awesome.


The Museum was full of fantastic fossils, dinosaur skeletons and a hell of a lot of taxidermy. There were quite a few stuffed animals from all around North America and all over the place.... once again though, as with the Met, it was a fantastic building and an awe-inspiring exhibition.

Sunday 21 May 06

Today, Karen and I found religion!!

We spent our Sunday morning attending a full gospel service in Harlem on 136th St.
The Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church yeah, we weren't exactly sure what denomination they were trying to represent either!

Like a scene from the Blues Brothers, the all-singing choir included one young kid that sang a solo in an incredible operatic voice, the sermon delivered by the Reverend was uplifting, upstanding and just plain righteous!


Harlem is having a lot of money pumped into it... there's a Harlem Urban Redevelopment doing some good work. It was quite comfortable walking through on a Sunday, seeing men in their church suits and elderly women in their hats and Sunday best like a scene from the 30's, although the barbed wire and high fences around places suggests Harlem still has a way to go yet.

Karen and I then went on to Rockefeller Centre for a look - a lot of Art Deco from the 30's with some impressive statues/buildings - it's also where NY puts their huge Christmas tree that you see in all the movies. Then back down to Times Square to see Da Vinci Code at a 25-cinema complex - complete with religious protesters declaring the movie "Hate Speech" and such....

A great time so far... both doing well... off to the Museum of Natural History tomorrow....
Talk soon

Phil (and Karen - who's still asleep)

Saturday 20 May 06

Today, we first went to the USS Entrepid Sea Air Space Museum. This was an aircraft carrier docked at Manhattan which had first served in WWII, then refitted for jets and served in the Cold War as anti-russian submarine support, as Primary Recovery Vessel for astronauts from the Gemini 3 mission and on during Vietnam before becoming a museum. It was then used as the FBI Headquarters during the 9/11 Investigations.

The highlight for me was seeing (and touching!) a Blackbird SR-71 - high altitude reconaissance aircraft. This one was clocked at Mach 3.6 at 95,000 ft altitude.
Also, the original Iwo Jima statue of marines raising the US Flag. Not bad.

We did a 2hr cruise today around the Southern half of Manhattan, including Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Had a very entertaining cruise guide Dave, who provided a good historical perspective as well as modern developments of most of Manhattan. Well worth the cruise if you get the chance!

Friday 19th May 2006

Today we walked through Central Park to the Guggenheim.... it's wet, drizzly and we found the odd peculiarity of New Yorkers to wear gumboots everywhere, with either dresses, suits, around Museums or pretty much anywhere!

The Guggenheim itself is an impressive building, but it's undergoing renovations, and the exterior is scaffolded. It was also having a change of exhibit, so there was just two galleries open for viewing - one of which was Modern Art. The highlight for Phil was seeing cardboard boxes flattened out into different shapes and stuck on the wall - titled "Cardbirds". I'll never understand Modern Art - I really won't.

Following the Guggenheim, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) - which we both found much more impressive! Greek pottery, sculpture, european masters (Rembrandt, Botticelli, etc), Medieval Arms & Armour, American Historical Pieces including a famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware. There were the ubiquitous Egyptian artefacts all displyaed immaculately within quite an awesome building! Karen found the pick of the crop with a Punk Rock display of costumes that included a black dress complete with full-headed bird mask, complete with beak and also mannequins dressed in Punk outfits with mohawks made of cigarettes or tampons@! (I'll put the photos up soon)

This evening, we went to Cirque du Soleil (Corteo) on Randall's Island. Thanks for the tickets Mil! There's a special event bus (X80) that leaves from 125th St and Lexington Ave, where we had the weirdest McDonald's dinner ever... Not so much for the food, but for the loony woman singing Stevie Wonder and yelling at her friends across the restaurant... there's more than a few weirdos in this neighbourhood. Cirque itself was an awesome show as always, including a midget suspended in mid-air by five large helium balloons - not far away from dwarf-tossing!!

Coming home we walked along 125th St, on the bottom edge of Harlem, where we came across a "gang" of African American guys all dressed in their colours - on closer inspection they were all adorned in the 'Star of David' - turned out to be Jewish Ceremonial robes - bizarre mix of people this town.

On an aside, Melbourne and NYC have all the same radio frequencies! Is there a physics reason for this, or just Melb copying New York??

Thursday 18 May 06

We walked HEAPS today! From the Upper West Side at our hostel, through Central Park (absolutely gorgeous!) down to NYC Children's Zoo, through the Theater District (down Broadway Ave) to Times Square.

Whole buildings had their exteriors as electronic billboards! (Also a huge Cirque du Soleil - Corteo billboard). From there we walked to Empire State Building and had a good look around from 86th floor - great view! (This computer's teasing me - when I get the pictures working I'll put a few shots up... )

We lined up for tickets to the Dave Letterman Show, and are in the lottery to get tickets up until Monday before we leave.... but it is a lottery, so not holding our breath.

We then walked through:

• Flatiron Building District
• Madison Square Park for lunch (giant pretzel)
• Greenwich Village
• NoHo (meaning North of Houston Ave)
• SoHo, then down West Broadway to
• Tribeca
• out to Battery Park, where is started raining pretty heavily, then
• Wall St (which is really quite short), then crosstown to
• Seaport Historic District, down to
• Staten Island Ferry Terminal, then caught subway to
• ChinaTown for dinner.

It was during today we also went to see Ground Zero (World Trade Centre)... the site itself was basically a big construction zone, fenced off with a number of posters around the outside... we were both expecting something a little more emotional....

We walked back home through Little Italy (which is full of really cosy streets and has a lovely warmth to it)... Phil was absolutely dog-tired, and kept on falling asleep on train, or at dinner (damn Da Vinci).

Wednesday 17 May 2006

Hi all, Karen and I arrived safely at JFK airport about 1720 and after 20 hours in the air. Karen got plenty of sleep and has been fine, meanwhile I chose to read the entire Da Vinci code on the plane and have been trying to catch up with sleep patterns ever since!

When we got in, we were both pretty stuffed, so went to get a few things for breakfast, then come back to the hotel to crash. It's actually more of a hostel, on the Upper West Side, a couple of blocks west of Central Park at 106 W 83rd St, near the corner of Columbia Avenue. We've got a big room that sleeps 6 all to ourselves, but with really weird pastel colours painted on each wall and the ceiling... the view from the roof's not bad, seeing the skyline in this part of town. Very tired, gotta sleep....