To get to Tortuga wasn’t easy, but knowing my mom she would manage. The lovely thing about Costaricans is that if you ask for something they will do everything they can to make it happen. We asked our taxi driver how to get to Tortuga (well a boat is not a taxi, but mom does stuff like that). The taxi called somebody who called another person and than we had another person picking us up in a car and dropping us off at fisherman house. And off we go! The fisherman had a boat It took us 1.5 hours to get to the paradise. On the way there 2 tortoises stuck their heads out of the water. In the port we found a craftsman who carved my name in wood.

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The Panama Canal crossing was something completely different from what I had imagined. It was quite a process and it lasted pretty much all day. In a very organized manner we moved through the first locks which took about 2 hours and than we sailed on Gatun Lake. Finally we got to the last locks and the Pacific, open gates with thunder in the sky.
I strongly recommend watching the National Geographic movie about the history of Panama Canal. I learned about Mr John Stevens and Mr Gorgas, two big names that made the canal happened. About the big scare of yellow fewer and malaria that killed thousands of workers. Great documentary to watch before you cross the canal.
While passing Panama City we saw Origami-Like Biomuseo designed by Frank Gehry with lots of happy colors.
A bunch of us made a poster for the crossing with elements of our lives, where we come from and where we live.

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Colombia welcomed us with warm hearts and warm weather. I think I swelled up from the heat. Looks like Colombians like orange colors for clothing, building, paintings and fruits, where ever you turned there was orange. Even Stella was wearing orange that day. We visited an old monastery on top of the hill with gorgeous view of Cartagena, an old fortress which was way to hot for me to climb up and of course Cartagena, city of a million colours (mainly orange). My mom was super excited watching goldsmiths making jewelry with columbian jade. There wouldn’t be a trip if we didn’t see monkeys and parrots in the end. The good news was that they were not in captivity. I finally lots my first tooth.

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