Why I'd rather be home than in Panama

"Yes Mr. Trump" and why I don't like vacations…

(In this post "another long one" I reveal a little more about Panama, Costa Rica and traveling while on a Raw Food Diet. We made MANY mistakes on our trip that you can benefit from — by not making the same ones yourself.)

We got back home from our vacation in Panama and Costa Rica last Wednesday afternoon.

It was a cold, wet and grey day and at least 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler than what we were experiencing daily in Panama and Costa Rica.

So far… 3 days later — I still haven't seen sunshine even for one minute of the day here in NJ.

At least today Saturday (wrote this yesterday and edited today) it's been dry "at times." But each day has been grey with no sunshine whatsoever.

Yet despite all of this I'm really glad to be home.

And I ADORE warm weather and sunny days too. I wish it were summer all year round. So what gives?

Well I guess I'm a little bit (very little) like Donald Trump. In fact my darling Karmyn used to say to me, "yes Mr. Trump" as a joke after I asked her to do something for me.

Apparently, Donald Trump also "prefers working" to going on vacations. So she jokingly referred to me as Mr. Trump for a while.

And while I love sunlight, warm weather and being out in nature, I don't love them as much as doing creative work that helps improve the world in some way.

The inner joy and beauty I experience from doing creative work is always more powerful and pleasurable than outward beauty.

You'll never see greater beauty than what's inside of you already.

I love going to beautiful places like Panama, Costa Rica, Oregon and Maui but I don't like all of the travel involved. If I could instantly teleport myself then I'd love it. I'd teleport in and then come back for dinner with the snap of my fingers.

Wouldn't that be great?

Imagine taking a trip to Hong Kong, China with the snap of your fingers. Spending a few hours and then coming back to your room in the United States instantly.

Now that would be the way to travel.

Someday I hope to master teleportation and I'll let you know what it's like.

Travel just gets me out of my routine and in this trip; there was virtually no routine to be had.

We were constantly on the move and dealing with one crisis after another (traveling between US, Costa Rica and Panama) and so I got little work done and got little exercise in either. I can't stand that.

Out of our 14 days, we spent 3 days flying. We spent a good part of another three days driving.

Then once in Panama we wasted another 4 days in two hotels that were too small for us and had no kitchen. The first hotel was quite modern and actually called Puerta Del Sol the same name as the last place we stayed in Costa Rica.

But it didn't have a kitchen in it and was too small, but it was ok for the night. Then we went to another place called Hotel Las Riveras.

If you like preparing food, using a cutting board, Vitamix, having dishes, bowls, utensils etc. a regular hotel room just doesn't cut it. Would work ok for doing raw mono meals but other than that it's a pain.

Plus these rooms didn't have much space to put our clothing. No closets and no dressers. So we were walking around with suitcases and bags spread all over the floor. We had many bags of food as well which were spread out on the floor.

We never unpacked as a result of this lack of space and found it hard to be productive as a result.

In fact, Hotel Los Riveras had very dark lighting and just one power outlet for the whole room. Not great if you wanted to use a laptop. Luckily they did have wireless Internet.

The hotel staff was super friendly (and spoke English - some of them) and did everything they could to accommodate us, but the rooms just weren't right for us.

We lived there in a state of chaos.

We had to rinse the Vitamix in the shower and wash the plates in the bathroom sink. That room was definitely not equipped with using a kitchen in mind. Of course, they had no refrigerator either.

And to top it all off I wasn't getting as much sleep as I'd like to get. In the morning someone across the street was doing some construction work and it was quite noisy.

And to make things worse when we arrived in Panama there were a series of holidays  (including noche de los muertes, and their independence day) going on and many of the stores we needed to use were closed for the holidays.

For instance, we wanted to buy a prepaid cell phone from the company Digicell but they were closed for at least two days when we wanted to buy it.

By the way, we eventually got the prepaid cell phone for $15 and paid $5 for a calling card which we never managed to use up after a number of calls.

They don't even have prepaid cell phones in Costa Rica. So that was a HUGE plus for Panama. Before that we were walking to the payphone a few blocks away to avoid the higher hotel charges for telephone use.

Finally after much asking around including lots of cab drivers that we were using to go shopping and looking for hotels with — we realized there were no hotels with kitchen's in the rooms in David, Panama but there were some in the mountain community of Boquete which was about a 40-minute drive away.

So we spent another day in Las Riveras hell — investigating our options there and finally got a place called Kalima Suites which was WAY better than our cramped up hotel rooms.

Finally we could relax and feel like we were at home once we got our Kalima Suites aparthotel.

Until that experience I never realized how important a kitchen and extra space was. Finally we had a place to put all of our groceries, to clean the dishes (which they provided) and we had a nice refrigerator. Plus we had much more space at Kalima Suites.

Kalima Suites cost us about $60 a night but they gave us a $12 discount (for 3 nights) because the wireless Internet was working very intermittently.

** Lessons Learned **

1. We should have arranged to get the hotel rooms we wanted before our trip, not during it.

2. Best not to travel to a country in the middle of a big series of holidays. We should have checked the Panamanian holidays and had gotten an idea if many stores would be closed. Not something I ever would have thought of checking.

3. Best not to be constantly driving around. We should have flown into Panama City directly and from there taken a flight to David. That way we could have spent 7 more days in Panama.

In the last post I discussed how much trouble we had crossing the Panamanian border and having to bribe the official to let us in the country.

We made a ton of mistakes on this trip but at least we achieved our main goal.

All it took us was one day (looking at 4 places) to find a fabulous and furnished house to rent at a much cheaper price per month than I'm currently paying in New Jersey. It includes all the utilities like cable TV, high speed Internet, electric and water included.

So we'll be planning to spend the whole winter and maybe more in Panama this year. I'm sure I'll continue to provide updates of what life is like down here.

My long time Panamanian friend from college wanted me to tell you that I didn't like Panama. In fact, this is from an email he sent me.

"Remember tell everybody that panama is ugly, dirty, 100 feet long anacondas that eat humans and dangerous and that they do not like foreigners!!! that's your bit!!!"

Pretty funny eh.

I guess he doesn't want everyone to know how great Panama really is. Once there are too many tourists and others moving to Panama I guess it won't be the same. Prices for everything will go up.

So keep this super cheap and modern tropical paradise a secrit between you and me.

If you'd like to get a more detailed comparison between Costa Rica and Panama from the perspective of a raw foodist who lived in Costa Rica for six months, then all you have to do is get on my lovely Karmyn's email list.

You can visit her blog at:

http://KarmynMalone.com and learn more about No-No Boy (her son Andrew) as well. The email sign up is on the top right hand side of the blog.

We made so many mistakes on this exploratory vacation. I'll send another email just detailing litany of our mistakes so you don't have to make them.

Of course, once we get down to Panama and get settled in, I'll like it much more than being in a cold and grey New Jersey winter.

Just as long as it's easy for me to work, do my workouts and my spiritual exercises then Panama will be fantastic.

The funny thing was that while we were in Panama and Costa Rica it was in the heaviest part of their rainy season and yet it was still much sunnier than it has been here in NJ so far since we've been back.

They had only one day in two weeks where it was rainy and grey the whole day. The rest of the time it was usually dry in the morning and early afternoon and tended to rain later in the day. And when it rained it was danged hard a torrential downpour happened almost every day.

Though a couple of times it rained earlier in the day and cleared up later on.

There were however a couple of days it barely rained at all.

And it was always shorts weather except for the evenings in Boquete.

Therefore, in terms of the weather there's no comparison, I'd rather be in Panama or Costa Rica than in New Jersey in the wintertime any day.

There's something that happens to you when you start eating nature's foods on a Raw Food Diet. You start to automatically tune in and align yourself with nature.

You become a part of nature.and want to be outside as much as possible. Of course, Panama fits the bill for that.

Plus they have loads of delicious and cheap tropical fruit all over the place. Even cheaper than in Costa Rica.

And for God sakes buying stuff is easy because they use US dollars. No more making all of these fancy calculations in trying to figure out how much something costs in Costa Rican colones.

When I visited Costa Rica in January / February I got 554 colones per dollar. At the start of this trip it was around 580 colones per dollar and when we came back to Costa Rica to get ready to fly home the rate was over 590 colones to the dollar.

I thought the dollar was deflating but compared to the colones that's nothing. I feel sorry for the Costa Rican people as they get robbed of their wealth by their country constantly printing extra money with nothing to back it up.

From what I understand 23 years ago it was 33 colones to the dollar and our dollar was much stronger back then. In 23 years their money has gone done in value over 1,700%.

Inflation is the invisible tax that everyone pays and the Costa Ricans (Ticos) are paying inflation through the nose.

Oh and I forgot to mention that somehow by going raw most people tend to like the sun even more. Maybe because the raw fruits and vegetables we're eating that absorb sunshine and are out in the fresh air 24 hours a day.

In fact, I believe we're magnetically infusing sunshine, beauty and the wisdom of nature into ourselves by eating raw.

Remember, you are what you eat.

Eat 100% raw and you magnetically inject yourself with wisdom, beauty and love. It's something you can actually feel as you're eating the food.

For instance, why not compare the way raw and fresh squeezed orange juice feels in your mouth compared to the pasteurized version that comes in a cardboard container.

There's no comparison. The fresh squeezed orange juice is alive with a tingling electrical feeling in your mouth. The pasteurization neutralizes that electrical energy and now what you're eating will actually make your body more chaotic, disorganized, diseased and afraid.

Raw foods are LIVING FOODS and contain a vibration and wisdom that is tangible if you just pay attention to how it feels in your mouth and body.

Why eat chaos when you can eat wisdom, love and beauty via nature's superfoods raw fruits and vegetables.

And certainly you'll be much happier eating this way.

Eating raw got me out of 6.5 years of depression (HELL) within the very first day of eating 50% raw. And I know many other people who have cured themselves of depression by going raw.

Ok then, that's all for now.

I hope you learned something of value regarding Panama, Costa Rica, traveling and the Raw Food Diet in this post.

To Your Radiant Health, Happiness, Fitness and Infinite Potential,

Roger Haeske The 42-Year-Old Teenager

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