Birthday Dreams

It started in Dos Brasos.

I had offered Suzanna to take care of her cabinas and dogs while she went to Panama to renew her Visa. The first night I enjoyed the place for myself, the second night Zeph joined me and the third night Suzanna came back unexpectedly so we had a night at Raouls (the only shack in town where you can get a beer and comida).

While laying in Zephs arms on our night together I told him that we knew eachother exactly one year. 'Yeah,' he said 'and I thought it would be cool to celebrate this past year and cheer to another fantastic one while camping somewhere on a beach.'
Suddenly I woke up out of the doozing mood: 'Really, we're going camping?'
'Mmm, maybe we should leave Sunday with the motor and sleep that night somewhere in a cabina on the beach. And then the next day we go with a boat, maybe do some snorkeling and they can drop us off on a beach so we can camp and have another fun night like one year ago. And this time I will know it's your birthday too.'

O my god, I got so excited. The only thing I had hoped for to get for my birthday this year was some time with Zeph, we had been surrounded by friends and activities that our time together started slipping between the boards. We had only small conversations, were tired at the end of the day and especially Zeph had enough people and occupations to get lost for hours.
And here he told me, while I was in extreme doubt if he even would REMEMBER my birthday, that we would go on an adventure for three days together.
Yeahaaaa, Butterflies Exploded.

Guillaume & Susanna

On the fourth day in Dos Brasos we managed to call Guillaume too and with three people that knew everything about French food and one person who has watering teeth just thinking about the wine and cheese, we made a super French diner.
Champagne as apparative.
Foie Gras with fresh baked bread as a starter, Foie Gras de Canard for the main course and Mathu-ramisu (fruits instead of Chocolate and Coffee) for dessert. Ok ok, the wine was from Argentinia, but that didn't hold us back from finishing three bottles.

Zeph & Mathu

So, there we went, a big backpack on the back, my arms around this new biker and our heads into the dust.
Zeph and Guillaume had bought those motorcycles a week ago in San Jose, by luck they had encountered a promotion of buying two and getting the second one half price. Never had they expected to get an expensive Yamaha, but this way they were in the desired price-range and they signed before testdriving. It's a 110CC motorcycle and the most ecological motor on the market, with one tank (8L, 10 dollars) you can drive 500km.
The boys took three days to drive from San Jose, along steep and unpaved backroads, to here; a super trip.

The motors prooved very worthy and teeterd the boys up every gravel road and down every incline, but with 80kilo's extra the challange became a bit more difficult. The last part of our 80km drive was pretty steep up and down and we both had to lean forward in order to keep the front tire on the ground. Changing gears was most difficult: if it did not go smooth, we would go too slow or slip on the loose gravel and sand so the motor would sway in all directions and Zeph had to straign all muscles to hold us up and from sliding down.
Once we stalled, slid back, I hopped off and again the gravel made Zeph slip back so that he had to put the motor slowly on the ground. We couldn't stop laughing.

The road was super fun, with river crossings, strange bridges and lots of pretty views and little houses.

We arrived in Bahia Drake around 5pm, looked around for a cabina and found one to our liking, the hammock infront was joined by Zephs and so we swung into the night with a bottle of wine.

A birthday; I still think it's a strange day and I wonder who invented the fact to celebrate it. Must have been a party-hero. It's sometimes difficult on this day, cause it's like every other day in paradise, to feel more special and more unique than everyone else in the street. Well, Zeph did an extemely good job, not only did I feel pampered, I also know I will never forget that although we were surrounded by Paradise, true gifts are about very different things..

So a boat was arranged, only for the two of us,

....... and we were taken to Isla del Cano (you can see it vague on the horizon in the photo above) where we went snorkeling and saw no coral but many fish and even a white-tip shark.

And yes, we were lucky enough to have six dolphins jumping around the boat for a while.

The whole afternoon was spend on the island and in the boat and when we got dropped off on our beach back on the mainland is was about 4pm.
We explored the path leading to many hide-away resorts and simple cabina's and found ourselves two nice pina-colada's.

The sunset was marvelous and the spot where we decided to set up camp perfect. Zeph looked for wood, I put up the tent, the fire was lid as well as our travel oillamp, the wine was popped and the olives and crackers with Edam cheese made it scrumptious. The sea barely touched our feet, the hammock provided the right swing, the stars were out for a while, only zeph bit my ear, I mean there were no insects and the wind blew the smoke right that way. Paradise.

The next morning.

An early morning snorkel, while Zeph swang in his hammock.

Sadly but true, we had to start the three hour hike back to Bahia Drake.
A beautiful path, skipping from beach to beach on the edge of the jungle. O yeah, a group of white-faced monkeys were on the ground and reacted super agressive when we wanted to pass, we backed off with fear and it took some courage and my strong tarzan with two big branches and a lot of monkey noise to make them step back.

The way back was faster, Zeph got ajusted to the weight and for the most hilly part I took a ride with a passing car.

We had a sugarcane- and coconut-drink along the way and arrived home in time to be invited for a diner at our friends house just up the road.

What a weekend.
So much to do, so many more plans were made with places we have to discover. This peninsula is a place of possibilities, more nature you can think of and good people to share it with.
In the month I've been here I have not slept more than three nights in a row in the same bed!!!

Have a very good birthday yourself as well, and have fun with picking the next destination.