Today My Dream Came True

For the past couple of days you have been missing us terribly, but we are back to bring joy once more to your lives. We left Bocas and took the boat to the taxi to the bus to David (Da-VEED) where we took another bus to Boquete. Boquete was a whim, we originally planned to spend a couple of days in David, but since it was only about 40 mintes further away we went for it. After six hours, 40 minutes is gravy from a jar.

We had to try a few places before we found a hostel that had rooms. We got a $38 room for $25 and for the first time had a private room, private bathroom, hot water and A/C. Oh sweet heaven, how things were going our way.

The next day (Januray 27, 2009) is the day that my title acutally refers to. And indeed, my lifelong dream came true. We started out the day with a 60 cent cup of cafe con leche and then wandered around town, browsing some of the artesian shops. We decided to go to a place called Paradise Garden, where two English expats have created a huge garden and grounds that is home to animals that needed rescue, rehabilitation and release into the wild. They have everything from birds, to cats to ocelets to monkeys. If you know me, you know exactly where this is leadinng. I freaking got to hug a monkey. (Pause to dance and sing for joy, go ahead, I did.)

We showed up and they give you a map of the grounds - the volunteer was with two ladies we had met in Bocas, so she took all of us to the first couple of enclosures one of which was two capuchin monkeys. She let us feed them raisins and nuts. It was amazing. They grabbed out hands and held onto our fingers and picked the treats right out of them. Innocently enough, I asked her if they ever let anyone hold the monkeys. She said yes and she would be happy to ask Jen (the owner) once we got through the whole place. So we went on and spent about an hour looking at all of the animals and reading their stories. When we got back up to the house, the same volunteer brought us a sloth, wrapped up in a blanket to hold. She literally just handed him to us and told us to cuddle with him. And cuddle we did. I didn't want to be annoying and ask about the monkeys again, bus she remembered and about 10 minutes later we were walking into the red backed squirrel monkeys enclosure.

The two monkeys were named Benji and Solo. Benji was the older more feisty monkey and he had a big old thing for Matt's beard. If you check out the photo link you will see Benji with Matt and Solo with me. Benji is just attacking Matt's face loving his beard. Solo is a baby, and wasn't as crazy but was definitely as curious. He kept checking out what time it was on my watch and took everything out of my pockets and threw them on them the ground when they weren't the nuts he was hoping for. We literally stayed in with them for about an hour just letting them crawl all over us and pick our pockets. It was the coolest thing I have ever gotten to do and definitely our best experience yet.

And just to top off the day we had the best strawberry milkshake in the world on the way back into town courtesy of Strawberry Mary and two U.S. dollars.

The next day we went to another garden called "My Garden is Your Garden." (There is something about Boquete and people having crazy gardens) but it was basically just a super rich family with AMAZING gardens they built and cultivated. Now they let tourists like us come in and walk around for free, which is exactly what we did. Lots of flora pictures as well. We were practicing with our macro setting so get excited for that.

This morning we got up and took the bus back to David and then got on the bus to Panama City. We have arrived in the biggest city in Central America and plan to stay through Tuesday. We also have internet in our room for the first time ever, so we'll get all the pictures up, post regularly and catch up on Gossip Girl over the weekend.