Panama City, Panama; Day 5
Today the 5 Adventurers bid adios to Central America. We have been out of the US since August but it honestly doesn’t feel like 10 weeks. We spent 10+ hours traveling to Milwaukee today, so we don’t have much to describe. There were no hassles with immigration or customs. We had some extra space on…
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Panama City, Panama; Day 4
We spent the day in Casco Viejo which is where our apartment is in Panama City. It is considered the old town of Panamá and was founded in the 16th century. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has been recognized for its historic buildings and as the oldest European settlement on the Pacific…
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Panama City, Panama; Day 3
Today we got to do our field trip to the Miraflores Visitor Center for our school’s Panama Canal Unit. The school staff/parents were more excited than the kids but in the end, we all were very impressed. There were some adjustments due to COVID-19 so we didn’t get to see the IMAX movie which was…
Keep readingPanama City, Panama; Day 2
Our big plan to tour the Miraflores locks in the morning was thwarted at the gate by a guard who solemnly informed us that the visitors center was only open Tuesday through Sunday. So no school day for the kids. Instead we went back downtown and visited the Amador Causeway which was quiet but had…
Keep readingPanama City, Panama; Day 1
Today we traversed the entire American Continent – twice! We left Playa Blanca and headed east toward the Canal Zone and Panama City. Instead of going straight to our next AirBnB we headed north toward Gatun Lake and the town of Gamboa. Our first view of the canal was as we crossed the Centennial Bridge…
Keep readingPlaya Blanca, Panama; Day 2
We were all looking forward to a Saturday without school obligations. We were also looking forward to some combination of pool and beach time (perhaps with a water slide thrown into the mix). Last night we got a sneak peek at the lagoon pool and our impressions were correct – similar to the one by…
Keep readingPlaya Blanca, Panama; Day 1
Our traveling day today took us 350 km from Boquete to a nice beach spot called Playa Blanca. We spent a little over 4 hours on our old friend the Pan-American Highway and passed through David and Santiago, two of the larger cities in the country. We packed a lunch but a couple of hours…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 23
When Mom & Dad’s bed looks like this then everyone knows that we are packing up to move on. Today was our 16th school day in Boquete. It was also our last one. Tomorrow, the Adventurers head to a new destination in Panama. Closer to the beach and closer to Panama City where we will…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 22
Today we did school and finished our first class study book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Shortly after that, Brian and Tiffany had something that felt like a rabbit hole experience. While the kids played math games at the end of school, the teachers moved to the ‘lounge’ aka the living room and struck up a…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 21
Another school day today – math, language arts and another portion of the Panama Unit. Brian continues to invest quite a bit of time in preparing his lesson including today’s 6 PowerPoint slides. Suaram’s take away was that Dad was MUCH better at slides than she’d ever realized and had some cool techniques she didn’t…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 20
No significant adventures to report today so some random updates… We did a one day weekend for school so today we did a couple of chapters of Alice in Wonderland, Writing and Science. We did Alice first and barely got it done before the afternoon deluge. Frankly we had to work a compromise with the…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 19
We made today another school day and were planning to do some light chores and errands in the morning. Brian went into town to take the reciclaje and was slightly surprised to run into Sunday traffic rather than a normal school day. The traffic wasn’t the only unusual encounter for him this morning. On the…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 18
Aside from the Spanish immersion classes in August, the 5 Adventurers also installed Duo Lingo to their devices to improve their intake of foreign languages. Tiffany and Brian have continued to dabble on the app but prefer the real world to build that language “muscle”. For the kids, however, they go beyond mere dabbling. They…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 17
As we hit October today it was mostly small administrative Adventures. For one, we are now an official homeschool according to the State of California. Part of the requirement is to send in a form some time between Oct 1 and Oct 15th. Since the timing is not the start of the year and we…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 16
TODAY WAS SCHOOL PICTURE DAY!! We’re trying so do some normal things at the 5 Adventures Academy (our name we picked for the school) and what’s more normal than sitting the kids in front of a blue background and snapping a photo for posterity. We’re still on the distribution list for our hometown PTA and…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 15
We have mentioned in a prior post or two how our weather in Central America at this time of year seems to provide morning sunshine and afternoon showers. Also mentioned is that we have oriented our school days so that we are indoors and focused on studies in the afternoon so the weather doesn’t interfere…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 14
A quiet day of school and afternoon rain. Dad got to do the first part of his Panama Canal unit. In keeping with that theme, art was making origami boats and sailing them in the pool. As school ended we had another power outage. It was only for about an hour though so it didn’t…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 13
Dad had wanted to get in two 6-day school weeks during our Boquete stay knowing that upcoming travel may make school difficult to deliver. He had thought that this wisdom had prevailed upon all of the other Adventurers when school was held on Saturday but was thwarted by the entire Road School student body which…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 12
Despite our nice setting nestled in the mountains of Panama, we’re not too far from the Pacific Ocean so today’s adventure was the Las Lajas beach. Brian and Tiffany managed to turn a 1.5 hour drive into a 2.5 hour drive to get there. We were stopped at a light and were considering whether to…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 11
Despite it being a Saturday we made it a school day so there were no big adventures today. We did finally take a few pictures of our AirBnB house and our ‘yard mates’ for lack of a better description. The house itself is one story, three bedroom/two bath and about 1,800 square feet. It has…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 10
Two adventures were noted today. Neither were particularly high on the ‘noteworthy’ scale but are shared with you nonetheless. The first took Brian to the local hardware store to find light bulbs. The rental house is equipped with LED bulbs which are of an intensity and in the color range appropriate for the Cook County…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 9
Our group went to “downtown” Boquete this morning prior to school. Dad found a charming little coffee shop while Mom took the other kids shopping for something special. She’d seen these bracelets at the shops on Tuesday and decided she wanted some as souvenirs. She let each kid pick one out- Suaram picked the green,…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 8
Today was more of our routine (with the power on thankfully). It was Suaram’s turn for a date with Mom this morning. Before the pandemic their typical date would be mani/pedis at the local nail salon but the last time they did that was in February 2020 – until today that is. With masks on,…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 7
We’ve been in Boquete nearly a week and must be settling in since we were visited by our old friend. Yes that’s right, today started with a power outage. We think it started around 3am and everything was still dead when we got up in the morning. This house has an electric stove so no…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 6
The start of the “road” school week for the kids included the introduction of a writing assignment. The kids were provided some topics and options to prepare and present their work. CreeperPuppy chose to put his work into this travel blog which you can find in the Kids Corner page. We have decided to hold…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 5
Today was a lazy Sunday here in Boquete. The sun was shining brightly this morning but we spent time inside doing some online adventures. The kids FINALLY convinced Mom and Dad to join them in a Minecraft world. It was hosted by Suaram and titled ‘Suckers’ which seems pretty appropriate. Tiffany started building a house…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 4
Today marks 3 months since these 5 Adventurers started our world travels. It feels like we’ve been traveling forever and at the same time it’s passed in the blink of an eye. We decided to go down to the Parque de la Amistad so the kids wouldn’t be on tablets all day. As it turned…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 3
Tiffany & Brian have wanted to find opportunities to dedicate themselves to the attentions of a single kid at a time. This has been difficult while traveling when we are always together in a common conveyance or accomodation. When Brian’s mom (Busha) comes to visit she will schedule time during her visit for an afternoon…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 2
Today was mostly about getting organized for our multi-week stay in Boquete. We started the morning off with breakfast at our new favorite Va&Ven. Unfortunately they didn’t have any breakfast sandwiches so instead we had empanadas again. They’re better for dinner, but at least we got a little fuel to get our day going. After…
Keep readingBoquete, Panama; Day 1
Today was a travel day from the tropical, sunny Caribbean up the mountains to a lovely house a few minutes outside the city of Boquete. We lost 15 degrees of temperature and gained 1,800 ft in elevation. We crossed the Continental Divide and said goodbye to the Caribbean since we don’t know when we’ll see…
Keep readingBocas del Toro, Panama; Day 3
We knew that there were beautiful beaches and locations in Panama, especially in this area of the country, so we decided to hire our favorite Bocas driver Julio to take us out to one of them. We had met Julio on our first day in Bocas and appreciated his willingness to meet our version of…
Keep readingBocas del Toro, Panama; Day 2
We are staying in Bocas Town which is the most populous location in the entire archipelago of Bocas del Toro. We wanted to take advantage of our central location so today we chartered a boat from town and went on a snorkel safari. Our captain today was Alberto and he took us out to the…
Keep readingBocas del Toro, Panama; Day 1
We made it to Panama! Whew! Sometimes adventures can be exhausting. We had an option to fly from Costa Rica to Panama- from San Jose to Panama City. But our first stop in Panama was planned to be the island archipelago on the northwest coast called Bocas del Toro. It’s only about 3 hours travel…
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5 Adventures Together 