Ouray Yoga™

The City, and the entire country, is one of the cleanest I have encountered in Latin America. Panama City is actually the only “First World” city south of the border. It has drinkable tap water throughout most of the country, and functioning water-treatment plants (something that Ouray is suffering for). Panama also provides public education, free health care, and I saw less homeless and litter than in L.A., or even Denver — all made possible by the capitalism of the Panama Canal. The Canal is an imperative supply chain between China, East/West US, and Europe. The Canal is so vitally important, the Chinese considered digging their own canal in a more authoritarian-friendly nation - but it proved too expensive. Which is substantive when you consider the passage fee is $1M per cargo ship. We hired a private tour of Panama through Viator . It was excellent. We walked through the Colonial old town, with many buildings still in use by the government, and many cathedrals. Two interesting t

 This will not be my normal blog with all sorts of crazy activities to brag about. No, we did not scuba, or zipline, or helicopter over the city of Panama (although we thought about it). This vacation was probably the most quintessential beach cabana retreat most one-percenters luxuriously imbibe. (But you can do all that adventure stuff, plus a monkey island and sloth reserves.)  But first, per usual, the adventure begins way ahead of our arrival. It took us seventeen-and-a-half hours to get there — if you do not include food, gas, overnight with mom, and pee stoppage time.  Casa Azul Actually, it took the whole pandemic to get there. Our trip to Panama was originally schedule for Spring Break 2020 — when the World shut-down. Our booked vacation rental (thankfully) offered us a full refund, but Copa airlines only offered us a voucher. So, we waited. We watched our children stay-at-home, we watched the Distillery close-down. And then extended due to executive orders by Polis, a

  An Interview with Award Winning Screenwriter and Film Critic  Christian D. Chapra Christian in Barcelona Christian D. Chapra has written since he was seven. The first time he was published was in high school. It was a poem. According to Chapra, “poems should be read, yes they are written, but they should be performed.” Carole Matthews, his English Lit teacher, published his poem -- by reading it to the staff and his peers. This is where his story began.   Two more poems would win contests in college, but critical recognition occurred in 2013, when he won “Best Unproduced Drama Screenplay” at the London International Filmmaker’s Awards for his screenplay: “Moving On.”  How would you describe the job of writing? CC: “Writing is an extremely tough job. At the end of the day, you are alone with a blank page. Nobody can really help you with it. You need to decide how you are going to deal with it. It is critical to any writer’s development that they learn there is no right way to be a wr

We had a day and a half in this sprawling city, the trade port for much a Spain. But, we were tired from the party, and had yet to have a full authentic Spanish meal Tapas is Life! So, we checked in to Ohla! Barcelona (the nicest of our stays — with a hotel concierge and turndown service). Its theme was faces, outside and inside the building, with sleek white, grays and black decorations (I finally felt as if I was back in Europe I found uniquely wonderful) and lots of eyeballs; located in the heart of the Gothic (Art) District.  Despite the art, the graffiti is no Bansky John ordered laundry service for his wet pool clothing (from the Mallorca celebrations), and we slipped into our swimsuits to enjoy their rooftop pool and minty mojitos, despite still feeling under the weather; the skies in Barcelona were clear (for the time being). From the infinity pool, we had a lovely view of Ottoman-influenced cupolas, the domed Cathedral de Barcelona , and the ocean kissed horizon. This area

  The next stop in our adventure was Mallorca (Catalan) or Majorca (Spanish). An island off the coast of Spain, southeast of Barcelona, and nearly halfway to Algiers. The largest of the Balearic islands, it was a major seaport during James I, Crown of Aragon, and had one of the best cartographic schools during medieval times.  Mallorca or Majorca -- either way it's a great place to hang with locals! A commerce port for Christopher Columbus, who is suspected to be of Mallorcan descent , he hid his true origins in order to favor financial support for his explorations by various nations. It becomes very obvious why the Spaniards liked California — the coastal-scape and weather are very similar. Olive groves and wineries pepper the land; palm trees are intermixed with cactus. Spain is like our Mexico but much cleaner. The Spanish take care of their coastal desert far better than the North Americans do in Central America. Man in middle lost his tapas.   We were fortunate that our hosts