The restaurants of Manhattan serve the finest cuisine south of Montreal. I've never actually visited any restaurants located between those two cities, but I believe this statement to be true and I'll stand by it. Last evening, Ellen and I dined at a little Turkish restaurant called Uskudar on the Upper East Side. I ordered ground lamb, wrapped tightly in grape leaves with yogourt on the side. Ellen ordered a mashed eggplant concoction that was covered w...

Elenka and I had initially gone to Bocas del Toro on Panama's Caribbean coast with the intention of seeking out real estate. But we didn't like the place at all and beat a hasty path for Costa Rica. There are three border crossing points at the Panama Costa Rica frontier. All have their own particular quirkiness to them. After passing through border control at the Caribbean point of entry you must walk across a railway trestle that's been converted to...

Imagine the snort of a pig. The bark of a dog. A very large dog - perhaps a bloodhound. One where the bark comes from deep inside the dog. Put the two sounds together; magnify them and you get a sound quite similar to that of a Howler Monkey. Howlers are the loudest of all land animals. Only the Blue Whale is capable of climbing to a higher decibel level. Howlers don't grow much more than one meter and their maximum weight is 20 kilograms. The first time I sa...