As Friday comes around again, some thoughts to take into the weekend;

Now that it’s all over, what did you really do yesterday that’s worth mentioning?
~Coleman Cox

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.
~Leo Aikman

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.
~Dandemis

“To be completely honest with oneself is the very best effort a human being can make.”
~Sigmund Freud

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where — ” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
” — so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
~Alice in Wonderland

During the week, Yami invited me to spend a day with her at her clinic, in the tiny hamlet of Toabré in the hills outside Penonome. In order for dentists and doctors to receive permission from the government to work as medical professionals in Panama, upon completion of their degree/doctorates, they must complete two years as an intern, which basically involves working for the Ministry of Health in the ‘interior’ of Panama (i.e in the country, away from Panama City). New dentists and doctors are assigned clinics in which they will work, and are provided accommodation.

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Days 282 to 293 – Wednesday 28th June to Sunday 9th July 2006

I arrived in Panama City in mid afternoon, and didn’t want to travel out to Penonome that same day so I checked in at Zuly’s, the hostel I stayed at back in February, and caught up with goings on in the World Cup, before heading to Penonome to see Yami the following morning.

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I have created a new home for the blog about Latin America, to which I have added new ‘About‘, ‘Planning‘ and ‘Route‘ information pages, which summarise the whole blog and provide equipment lists and reviews. I will be adding the final chapters in the coming days, with trip conclusions to bring everything to a long overdue close.

There is also a link in the top right hand corner of the site entitled 2005/06 Latin America, which if you click on it will take you directly to the site.

All of this is being done with a view to making this the home page for the next instalment of my travels, further details of which will be coming soon.

I am in the process of updating the site and making it look pretty as I think it needed a little tlc. Let me know your thoughts on the new layout.

Days 265 to 281 – Sunday 11th to Tuesday 27th June 2006

I flew back to Panama, spent a week with Yami and returned to Cartagena. I then tried to go south to Medellin, but the buses were a little bit of a problem due to the FARC in the region, so I decided to take another route, via boat from Colombia back to Panama. The trips are organised regularly, and sailed whenever there were enough people on-board. I called the Captain of one boat, arranged my ticket, and as luck would have it, we sailed the next day (Thurs 22nd June).

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Days 256 to 265 – Friday 2nd to Sunday 11th June 2006

Where the blog left off, I had just arrived in Cartagena. I arrived on the Thursday evening and I had a flight to Panama booked for the following Sunday. For whatever reason I decided to hang around the city for the weekend, and then I kind of got stuck, and didn’t move anywhere until I took the flight to Panama, 10 days later!

I stayed in the Getsemaní district just outside the old city, in a hotel that for about £2 a night was clean and had a ceiling fan. The downside was the partitioning walls were plyboard! That and the area was a haven for druggies, prostitutes and the destitute.

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Hmm well, wow. Two years have passed since I wrote my last piece on this blog. Two years!

I have been thinking about what to do with the website for a while, and in browsing I decided that even before I can think about what to do next I have to finish the first piece and get the rest of the trip journal completed.

I don’t think it will be feasible to write about individual days anymore as my thoughts and memories look to the trip only with nostalgia. I struggle to remember my emotional state on any particular day, therefore to describe thoughts and feelings of those events would not be a true reflection of my thoughts and feelings of the time.

Therefore I will simply write about where I happened to be and when I happened to be there, adding in few photos along the way. Hopefully I will also write a little conclusion at the end with maps and favourite places etc.

There you have it, a very short reintroduction to roylloydjones. All that’s left to do is publish the rest of the trip….

Enjoy…

Day 255 – Thursday 1st June 2006

Check out was 11am. Come 10.45 we rolled out of bed and quickly tried to pack our things up and leave. I decided that I wanted to go to Cartagena and hang around there for the 10 days until my flight to Panama, so it would be goodbye to the Swedes until much later in the year when we had planned to meet up in England to take in some lash action.

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Day 254 – Wednesday 31st May 2006

Waking up again a little fragile, it was straight into the sea to clear the head. The cooling water worked its magic yet again, and that together with the fruit juices made me feel almost human again.

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