Sailing The Open Seas

Sunday, January 13

Being that this was our 3rd and final full day in Panama City and we had already spent some time exploring the neighbourhoods, we took advantage and had a little sleep in. By "sleep-in" we mean that we managed to roll around in bed until about 9:30 AM instead of waking up at balls AM as per usual. After breakfast we set out for our usual walk down the boardwalk in the smouldering heat, absorbing the sites and smells (of the fish market and polluted panamanian marina) one last time. We spent some time at our favourite internet cafe, booking tickets for Buenos Aires for January 23 as we had plans to meet up with our good friends Jeff and Adina. The tickets ended up costing about $1500 for the two of us, which was more expensive than we ever expected them to be. However, it was our plan to start on the south end of South America and make our way down to Patagonia before it got too cold and definitely was worth seeing a familiar face! So we printed out our tickets and made our way to the hard rock hotel for an afternoon of hot sun, pool and $4 waters. We were much too exhausted from the heat to make the 45 minute walk back to the old city, so we opted for a $3 taxi instead. Before we settled down for a much needed nap, we walked over to the grocery store to pick up veggies to make a salad for dinner and some necessities like rum, ginger ale, Gravol and saltine crackers for our big sailing excursion coming up.
 

 

After dinner we lazed around the Panamericana with a couple from Switzerland that we thought was on our sailboat! We spent the evening comparing stories that we heard from others about the trip and getting excited to set sail. We were showered, packed and in bed by midnight, as a jeep was picking us up at 5AM the next morning.

Monday, January 14

With the little amount of sleep that we got we were still able to jump right out or bed at 4:30AM when our alarm went off to wake us up. We grabbed our bags and quietly tiptoed out the door and down the stairs to wait for our jeep. Jonas and Elena (the couple from the night before) stumbled down the stairs a few minutes after us. When the jeep arrived we tossed our bags on the roof and the driver tied them down to the roof rack and we all piled in. There was already a guy in the Jeep that had been picked up before us and we had to more to pick up from Mamallena's (the place that hooked us up with sailboat tickets). It was a tight squeeze to start off, and it got even tighter as we drove throughout the mountains, twisting around the bumpy winding streets once again, to get the port. The ride couldn't end soon enough, as we were all blue in the face by the end. We think this was the worst mountain ride we've had yet, even though we thought the other ones were pretty bad! The driver must've done that drive hundreds of times in the past as he was zipping around those corners like no body's business. 

At the port we waited for almost an hour for our speed-boat taxi to show up. We realized that Jonas and Elena were on a different boat called the Nona Moane, not the Manigua like ours. We did however, meet an Aussie couple (Luke and Kirsty) that was on our boat. We got almost completely drenched on the 45 minute speed boat that took us to one of the San Blas Islands where Victor (our Captain), and the Manigua were waiting for us. We spend a few minutes meeting and greeting the rest of our 9 ship mates and Johana our crew mate. We hit it off right away with Luke and Kirsty and spend a good portion of the morning chatting and tanning with them at the front of the boat.  By early afternoon we had our first meal on the island served to us by the indigenous Kuna people that inhabited all of the San Blas Islands. The island was big enough to house 2 restaurants, a small hotel, a few houses and an a small airport. It was so small, though, that you could see right through to the other side. It was a sight to see, surrounded by pristine turquoise blue waters and soft white sand. After Victor organized our passports at customs, we were able to pile back on the boat and set sail to our first real destination island.

We arrived and anchored the boat for the night at around 4PM, with just enough time to suit up for a snorkeling expedition around the coral reefs and a sunken ship situated a few hundred meters from the boat. Unfortunately the waters were fairly murky, but were able to see several different tropical fish, including star fish, and a HUGE crab on the shore on our way back. The Kuna children greeted us by the shore with their dog that just had a litter of puppies! They must have been less than 1 week old as their eyes were still closed and they were smaller than David's hand. By 6:30 the sun was going down and Johana was bringing the dinghy over to pick us up for dinner. We had chicken stir fry and lots of rum until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.

Tuesday, January 15.

We ended up waking up at balls AM again.  We had an early breakfast on the boat consisting of scrambled eggs, toast, fresh pineapple, and true Colombian coffee.  Most people took a quick dip in the Caribbean, and then we set sail to our next destination, a group of Islands Captain Victor called the "Green Islands".

It took us close to 5 hours of sailing to get there, and we got our first taste of what sailing in open waters would be like; Choppy.  It was a nice, sunny day though, and we spent most of the trip on the bow of the boat sun tanning, and feeling the occasional wave that splashed up on deck.  We also were treated to some special dolphins visitors, who swam beside the ship for a short while.

We went down for a siesta with poor timing, as right when we fell asleep, we happened to arrive at the island.  Being that we knew we'd be there the entire next day, we decided to enjoy our sleep, and skip the dinghy to shore.  When we woke up, we just chilled on the boat, swam, and had a late lunch; Alice's favourite, Pasta Bolognese.  We also decided that we wanted to make a beach campfire later that night, and so we took a dinghy ride over to the island to collect some firewood while it was still light out.

Over dinner (veggie stirfry and rice), made by el Capitan himself, we all tried to relax and enjoy each others' company.  The reason we were "trying" was because of one particular co-sailer from California named John.  John felt as if the world, and subsequently any conversation, revolved around him, and as such, we all had a tough time talking about anything other than John and his endless fish stories.  It is difficult, however, to be in a bad mood in such a beautiful place, so we all took it in stride. 



After dinner, a small group off us (Alice, Dave, and an Aussie named Dinny) went over to the island to get the fire started.  It was a bit of a struggle at first, but eventually the inner outdoorspeople came out in us, and we were able to create a pretty roaring fire.  It was visible from the boat, so when they saw we had succeeded, our fellow sailors all came to enjoy.  We drank and sat by the fire, John sang songs, (mainly James Taylor) Luke went crab fishing in the dark (unsuccessfully) and we all had a great time.  When a couple of us were too drunk to stay awake (John), we decided to put the fire out and head back to the boat.

Wednesday, January 16.

We woke up, you guessed it, at balls AM again, despite all the drinking the night before.  Today's breakfast was omelet and toast, with watermelon.  We decided to take advantage of the snorkeling gear again, and spent a few hours swimming around a huge reef that circled almost the entire island.  We saw lots of different fish, a sea turtle, and came uncomfortably close to a stingray!  We also had the unfortunate experience of sliding bum first over what we learnt was called "fire coral", which burned quite a bit for the rest of the afternoon.

After snorkeling, we walked around the uninhabited island, and a full loop of the beach took around 45 minutes.  When we had become pretty exhausted from all the snorkeling, walking, and above 30 degree temperatures, we hailed the dinghy and took a ride back to the sailboat.  Victor and Johana had gone with the sailboat to a nearby town, while we were on the island, and sourced out a special lunch for us; Lobster and potato chips!  It was a delicious treat, and we all enjoyed it very much.  After lunch, we all hung around on the boat, and got ourselves mentally prepared for the big sail, which was to be commencing that evening.

 

We all took "Navy showers", which consisted of jumping in the sea, lathering, jumping back in the sea, and then a dousing of fresh water. We also prepared by taking our anti-nausea medication,  and departed for Colombia around 8:30.  At first, the going wasn't too bad, but it didn't take long for the boat to start really rocking.  There were 3 people who immediately became ill (one of whom, an older guy named Jim who happened to be sleeping right beside Dave), but everyone else seemed to be okay.  At one point, we hit a huge wave, and the stove popped open sending a big frying pan right into Dinny's head, but he was okay too. 

Thursday, January 17.

After trying our best to sleep, and accomplishing a few hours of it, we ended up going on deck BEFORE balls AM.  Victor had a rule that there were no passengers allowed on deck if the sun wasn't out, so as soon as the sun came up, we all wanted to get out of the cramped and very hot cabin.  The only exception were the two Dutch girls, who literally did not leave their cabin (and plastic bags) for the entirety of the journey.  Everyone else felt much better in the fresh air, although the waves were getting pretty substantial now that we were in open waters. We spent the rest of the day popping Gravols and shifting between naps and getting air. None of us had much of appetite, but there were sandwiches and fruit readily available whenever we wanted.


We were making great time as the sun was going down. Victor had informed us that if we kept our steady speed we should hopefully arrive into Colombia by 2am. The last stretch was the worst one yet. The waves were becoming increasingly bigger going from 1 meter to 3 or 4! Victor and Johana were taking turns redirecting the sails and managing the wheel. At one point the waves got so bad they were coming up over the ship and into some of the cabins! Luckily enough the two of us were switched into the middle cabin just in time to avoid having our stuff get soaked. Amazingly enough, at this point we were feeling less nauseous than ever, and were beginning to enjoy the ride. We went down for our final nap and actually slept through the worst of the waves.

Friday, January 18

Sure enough at 2 AM the cabin lights came on and we were informed that we had officially made our safe arrival into the Colombian port. What a relief! Some of us had coffee and hot chocolate and Alice scarfed down the dinner she refused the night before. We slept a little bit longer until John woke up at 5:45 AM and naturally, no one could sleep after that. By 6:30AM we were being dinghied to the dock and saying our goodbyes. Some of us walked over to the ATM together to take out Colombian pesos as we were informed that no one would accept our American dollars here. The two of us began our trek to find our hostel in Cartagena's old city and after spending a few hours trying to find it, checked in.

It wasn't long before we realized that we had left our wet bathing suits in a garbage bag back on the boat. So we made a mission to take the one hour walk all the way back to the docks. We stopped for an interesting and super cheap breakfast consisting of a cheese-stick donut and beef patty on the way, and when we got to the docks,  hailed another dinghy to drive us to the boat. Unfortunately we were unable to find our bathing suits, as Victor said they must have gotten thrown out with the rest of the trash right after we left. So we let bygones be bygones and headed back to our place empty handed. We spent the rest of the day in a comatose-like state, watching TV and barely breathing from the heat and exhaustion.
 
When we had saved up a bit of energy, we went food shopping, and bought some food to last us through the three days we'd be staying in Cartagena.   We came back and made sandwiches, and continued watching TV, reading, and falling in and out of consciousness.  A note we forgot to mention was that the boat actually arrived a full day early, due to the good timing we had made.  As such, we had not booked our hostel for that evening.  They told us it would be no problem, though, as they had extra mattresses, and would set one up for us in the large common area with the TV.  That sounded like a great idea at the time, however, when we were ready to get to bed (around 10:30, embarrassingly enough) there was a group of young Argentinians just getting their party started.  We decided not to be party poopers, and let them do their thing while we watched, paced around, and become increasingly tired and frustrated.  Around 1:00 AM, as we were about to just put the mattresses down and say "sorry, but adios", they conveniently decided to take their party elsewhere.  We put our mattresses down and fell asleep almost immediately.

 

Saturday, January 19.

We managed to actually sleep in until close to 9:00AM, and had dry All Bran cereal for breakfast.  We decided to have a lazy day, and spent most of it in the hostel, continuing to watch TV, read, and relax.  We made up our own excursion by trying to navigate the local bus system, and find the bus terminal, as we needed to by a ticket to get a bus to Bogota.  It took us a few hours, and we managed to get the ticket for the 21 HOUR ride to Bogota that we would be doing on the 21st, as we had to catch a flight to Buenos Aires on the 23rd at noon.

When we got back to the hostel, we made dinner (boiled water and added to Raman noodles), ate, and decided to go for a little walk around.  It turned out the old city really came alive at night, with tons of people everywhere, street performers, merchants selling just about everything, and lots of horse drawn carriages.  We enjoyed the sights and scenes, came back to the hostel around 10:00, and went to bed soon after.

Sunday, January 20.

We managed to sleep in again, and decided that we would make Sunday a beach day.  Despite being on the Caribbean Sea, apparently the only good beach around was a one hour boat ride away.  We had the option of taking a "tour" provided by our hostel, but it was $30/person, so we decided to head down to the boat docks and try our luck at making our own way.  When we made it down there, every Colombian and their brothers were offering us the same tour that we had been offered at the hostel, and at the same price.  We were getting a bit frustrated, but eventually told them that we just wanted a ride to beach, and worked them down to $20/person.  After each paying another $7.50 for some kind of beach tax, we were on our way.

The way there was in a speed boat, and took just under an hour.  It was a super hot day, and the beach was really crowded, so we had to walk all the way to the end where there was some room to spread our towels.  We spent the day tanning, reading, sweating, saying "no thanks" to the millions of salespeople, and swimming.  By 3:00PM, which was the time the boat was coming to pick us up, we were ready to go.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to take the same speed boat back.  This time, they shuttled many more of us over to a larger ferry.  Once it was full, we were on our way.  Evidently, we had picked the wrong row, as 3 out of the 8 people in our row were throwing up.  We, however, being seasoned sailors now, had no problem with the ride.

It took much longer to get back, over an hour, and we jumped off the boat at the earliest chance.  We walked back to the hostel, showered, headed out for our favourite night of the weak, Cheat Night!  As usual for our cheat dinners, we sourced out pizza, hamburguesas, fries/papas fritas, and this time added a souped up street hotdog for dessert! We ended off the night with another walk around the old city. This time we brought our camera and went a little picture crazy.

Monday, January 21

We had another sleep in lazy day consisting of breakfast on the balcony and surfing the net and here we are at 1:30 in the afternoon plugging in all the details of the last week for all of you. After dinner we will be getting into a taxi and heading over to the bus terminal once again for our long overnight trip to Bogota.

With love from the old City,
Dalice

 

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Panamania

Sunday, January 6.

Today we decided we'd go out and see what some of the other Bocas islands had to offer.  We ate a quick breakfast, and headed to the center of town to the boat taxis.  After having coffee at a waterfront café, we took a $1.00 boat taxi to the nearest island.  We wandered around, and at first it looked pretty rundown, but soon we realized there were a few nice restaraunts, and hotels.  We picked a restaurant that looked like a straw hut on the beach, and shared a nice lunch which took close to an hour to arrive. Unfortunately it was the only hour that the sun was out that day. But we still enjoyed our the peaceful scenery around us.

After lunch we took another boat taxi to the popular "Red Frog Beach" on an island called Bastimentos, or "Pass the Mentos", as we called it.  The Beach was really nice, (as it should be, seeing as we were charged an admission fee) unfortunately the weather would not co-operate.  We read our books, and fake tanned, for a few hours, and headed back to Isla de Cologne.  We had another home cooked meal, in the interest of both saving money, and being healthy.  There was a large crew at the hostel that night, so we spent the rest of it drinking bloody caesers, chatting with our new friends, and starring in a documentary film about travellers, being produced by one of our fellow hostellers.

Monday, January 7.

We decided to check out a different beach on Monday, one called "Bluff beach" that was on the island where we were staying.  We were told the beach was in walking distance, and should only take 45 min or so.  After walking for nearly 2 hours, in the blazing heat, we finally made it to Bluff beach.  It was worth the walk, though, as the beach was post-card-esque, and the weather was absolutely perfect.  We shared an expensive but delicious salad at the only restaurant within a 4 km radius, and decided that we should probably call a cab to get a ride back.  The cab driver, Clan, was astonished to hear that we'd walked all the way there..

That night was "cheat night".  Once a week, Dalice likes to go out and eat really greasy, starchy food, to alleviate the stress of trying to eat healthy for the rest of the week.  As such, we ate Pizza, Pasta and calamari, and finished it off with some cookie dough ice cream cones!  Thanks again to Jo and Jerry ;).  We said goodbye to our hostel mates, as we knew we'd be moving on the next day.

Tuesday, January 8 (and Wednesday, January 9.. happy birthday Esther!).

We got an early start, as today we'd have to go boattaxi-taxi-bus-bus to get to our destination; Boquete. It is a coffee plantation town, in the central mountains of Panama. The whole ordeal to get there took about 7 and a half hours, and when we arrived we really wished we had booked a hostel, instead of just winging it.  We ended up in a very small, but private, room with no other hostellers in the building.  That was okay, though, as we knew we'd enjoy the peace and quiet.

We had a lunch of fresh mahi mahi, beans, and salad, and we ran into a few fellow travellers whom we'd met in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica.  We caught up with them, and they told us that the night before, they had done a midnight climbing of "Volcano Baru", the highest peak in Panama at 3,400 m, and had watched the sunrise from there.  They said "Oh it wasn't that bad, and it was only $5 for the shuttle to the trailhead".  So we thought, "hey why not, it sounds nice, we'll get some good excersize, and it's cheap".  So we decided we'd do it.

We went to our appointed meeting place (a hostel called Mammallena's) at 11:30, even though we were already pretty tired from a day of traveling.  We had tried to take a nap before, but failed due to a late afternoon coffee.  The shuttle driver asked if everyone had warm clothes, which most people did, and water, also which most people did, and food, again, which most people did.  We realized then, unfortunately,  that we were terribly underprepared, as we had only brought two apples, and big bag of almonds while everyone else said they brought 3 sandwiches each! David also deciced he didn't really need to dress warm.  We were pretty nervous at that point, especially since we aren't.. how shall we say.. in "peak" physical condition these days.

Anyhow we were committed at this point, and went for it.  We got to the trail just before midnight, and started hiking.  The first hour was very difficult.  It was a very steep incline, and being pitch black outside (we did bring a headlamp), there wasn't much to take your mind off the pain in our legs (and lungs).  After a while, we got into a bit of a groove, having received our second, third, and fourth winds.  We started talking to other hikers, (there was a group of 10 doing it that night), and that helped as well.  Next thing you know, its 5:00 a.m., freezing, wet, and we're told by someone who'd done the hike before "We're almost there guys!".  Apparently "almost there" is a term he used pretty loosely, as we didn't reach the top until 6:15 or so.  We were completely exhausted and freezing cold (borderline hypothermic in Dave's case) but we were happy with our accomplishment, and excited to watch the sunrise.  One problem though.  We were stuck in a mist cloud.  We were a little too tired to be too disappointed to care too much though.  We rested for about a half hour at the top, and then started to head back down.

One would think that going down would be a lot easier than going up.  One would be wrong.  The incline and amount of rocks/mini boulders on the path made it really tough to get down, not to mention that the energy level was pretty low at this point.  It took us ANOTHER 6 hours to get back down to the bottom!  At the time, we were saying "worst idea ever"!, but in retrospect, we are happy that we made it to the top, sunrise or not.

We decided to give ourselves a special cheat meal for lunch that day, and had another pizza, this time accompanied with a huge burger and fries.  We slept like babies for the next 5 hours.  We woke up around 8:00, bought a few instant soups, and went directly back to sleep for the night.

Thursday, January 10.

If there was ever a day that you had to spend 10 hours on busses, Wednesday was that day.  The last thing we wanted to do was walk anywhere (other than the bus stop), and we actually enjoyed relaxing on the bus to Panama City.  We arrived around 4:00, and practiced a little Spanish by asking the first taxi we saw "Quanto para Casco Viejo", or "how much for (a ride) to Old Casco" which was where we were staying.  He originally said $12, but we've learned never to take the first price, so we worked him down to $10.  When we arrived at our hostel, we asked the lady at the desk how much it should have actually cost, and she said no more than $5.  Oh well, that's the price you pay for being a "gringo" in Central America.

Our Hostel, Panamericana, is awesome! It's a monster, housing 29 rooms, over 3 floors, with two rooftop patios, both of which have amazing views of Panama City.  Its in the old part of Panama City, which is currently undergoing major revitalization, but it is still very nice and quaint.  There are police officers on almost every corner, at all hours, so its... safe?  We walked around the old city, stopped for a soup and a small pasta at a local café, spent some time on the roof, and went to bed.







Friday, January 10.

We were woken up around 7:00 with construction noises from all different directions.  There were also a lot of slamming doors and windows, as this hostel seems to have a vacuum like quality to it.  We made an early start, and had a complimentary breakfast of PB and J sandwiches, and bananas.  We decided to walk to the new part of Panama city, for a little slice of home.  The buildings and architecture are quite nice, but much like the old town, a lot of the city still seems to be under construction.  We met a retired traveller named Chris, who told us how to see the Panama Canal on a budget.  So we did.  We took, a chicken bus (the most packed one we'd seen yet) for 25 cents each, and got off close to the canal, and walked up to the visitors center/museum.  We walked around the museum, and finished just in time to witness a cruise ship, and cargo ship, both transitting through the locks at the same time!  It was pretty exciting, but got annoying as well, as there were hundreds of people shoving one another, trying to get a better view and that's when we made our exit.

We decided to head over to the "Multicentro" a mall in the centre of the new city. We split a taxi with a couple that was on our chicken bus earlier in the day, and then took another chicken bus (much less packed) the rest of the way. When we got to the mall, we didn't see any familiar stores, but what we did see that was familiar was a Mcdonald's in the food court! D'alice has a very big weakness for all things fast food and it was the first Mcdonald's we saw that was in reach. So.... we did it. We had yet another cheat meal. After filling our bellies with deliciousness, we explored all corners of the mall. We spent some time at an internet café and then walked around the casino and ended off the evening with our first in-theatre movie, "El Hobbit" (The Hobbit).

Saturday, January 11.

We had another wake up call to construction and slamming doors at around 8am. We went down for another complimentary breakfast of PB and J sandwiches and bananas, but this time all the PB was gone and the bread was left out and a little bit stale, so we ended up having jam sandwiches with bananas, yum? We were supposed to have a beach day, as we had payed for a tour that would take us out to the pacific ocean with an all inclusive bbq, and a fun filled day on the beach.  Unfortunately, that tour was cancelled last minute, so we spent the day walking down the boardwalk, around the mall (no McDonalds this time though) and hanging around the hostel.

And that is where we are now, chilling at the mega Panamericana hostel, hoping this blog provides you all with some level of enjoyment.  Thank you again for your interest, and please note that we have now fixed the "comment problem", and now anyone can comment with ease, if you'd like.  Also, if you decide to "subscribe" to the blog, you will be sent a email whenever we make a new post.  And we like followers :)

With love from the big city,
Dalice

 

Wrapping up Costa Rica

Tuesday, January 01

At 2pm on New Year's afternoon we bid farewell to Yorle and Lynda, thanked them for the amazing banana pancakes and great hospitality over the past few days, and set out on our Jeep/Boat/Jeep excursion. The "jeep" was more like a van with it's shocks almost completely shot from constantly making trips up and down the mountain on rocky unpaved roads. The jeep ride was a 2 hour ridiculously nauseating tour down the steep and winding mountain roads, all we could think about was thank goodness we didn't attempt to get on the 8:30am tour!

When the ride was thankfully over we were transferred onto a small ferry boat that took us across a gigantic man made lake towards La Fortuna. La Fortuna is a progressive, touristy area that became popular due to the notoriously active Arenal Volcano, which has become "suspiciously quiet" over the last 27 months. It houses many flashy hotels, expensive restaurants, boutiques and a large national park around the volcano composed of jungle and wild life. Until 27 months ago, the volcano lit up the skies at night with thundering light shows of red magma rocks blasting into the air on a 5 minute basis. Our last "jeep" ride took us straight to our hostel and gave us a chance to take in all the beauty of the clouded over volcano and it's surrounding landscape. After we had had a chance to settle in, we set out on a mission to find an ATM. Finding one was an easy task. finding one that would let us take out money was another story. We walked to 3 banks and tried to take out variations of large and small amounts of American and/or Costa Rican Collones, and not one machine was willing to spew out the money! Here we are thinking, "great, stuck in a foreign country with a bank card that has gotten locked because the lady at the BMO in Toronto forgot to include the notice on our account that we would be travelling". We walked back to our place, grumpy and hungry and spent an hour waiting on hold with BMO to find out that there was nothing wrong with our card, maybe 2 of the banks were not compatible with ours, and the one that was compatible was out of money! We tried to laugh it off, but nevertheless who wants to walk around aimlessly after a long nauseating day when they are starving and tired?

 

We decided it was a good night to treat ourselves with a nice dinner at Lava Lounge. We didn't order anything too fancy, but it was a nice change from our regular local dinner food we have been getting so accustomed to (Thanx Jo and Jerry!). After dinner we had some local ice cream and parked ourselves in bed to watch a movie, and as usual, didn't make it past the opening credits.

Wednesday, January 02

We were woken up at several times from revving motorcycle engines, barking dogs, yelling Costa Ricans and other types of street noise. The windows in these countries are made of thin panes of glass that never seem to shut completely and we were right on the corner of a main street, but we didn't mind making it an early morning. We went down for our free breakfast and opted for 2 HUGE fruit plates and toast. We spent the morning hanging out reading and surfing the net.

At 2pm we left on a jungle tour to the Arenal National Park in search of monkeys! Low and behold... we not only saw monkeys, but also tucans, red eyed frogs, a three toed sloth (with it's baby) and local raccoon type creatures whose name we can't recall at this time. They took us on a guided walk around the grounds, where we learnt about the history of the volcano and some of the jungle around it. David even ate a live a termite out of a tree with some of the other people in our tour to see how spicy they tasted!



You could tell our guide was very knowledgeable and passionate about the park. He knew exactly where to look for things, stopped for every tiny little detail, he even stopped to show us crystallisation in the different rocks on the street.  He took us to a beautiful waterfall, over a hanging bridge, we hung out at the natural hot springs and ended it off with a free local dinner at "Just Good Food", which was just good.

Thursday, January 03

After another free early morning breakfast in La Fortuna we headed to the local bus station by 7am for our longest travel day yet. 4 busses and 12 hours later we arrived in Puerto Viejo, a super laid back Caribbean beach town close to the Panamanian border. It was dark when we arrived but the main street was lit up with restaurants, bars, and people selling bracelets on the street. It took us 45 minutes to find La Ruka, the place we had reserved because none of the locals ever heard of it! Apparently it was just bought over buy new people and they had recently changed the name. Our room was super cute and everyone was so excited when we finally arrived as they said they had only signed the papers for the place last week and we were their first reservation. We took a 10 minute walk down the strip to a restaurant they recommended to us called "Tasty Waves" for trivia night. We didn't get there in time to join the game, but we played along silently and ate the most delicious burrito and fish taco's ever.

Friday, January 04

A new morning in a new town with no plans was exciting for us. We set out in search of breakfast and to find the beach. We settled for eggs, toast and gaio pinto (their fancy name for rice and beans) and café con leche (coffee with milk). The beach that was right across the street from our place was full of trees and rocks, so we knew we needed to search for a better area. We heard if we walked 30 minutes down the strip we would find it, but decided to rent $5 bikes for the day instead,  and set out on our excursion. We biked for 8 km and finally reached a beach called Playa Uva and settled down under the clouds for a lazy afternoon. The water was beautiful and quite warm for a cloudy day.

When our bellies started rumbling we packed up our stuff and hit the grocery store for an easy cheap lunch and fruit for dessert. Our plan was to leave for panama the next day so we had some homework to do. We walked around to see how much the shuttles would cost to make it an easy mission verses another local crazy bus day and decided it was worth the extra $10 each. Our next step was to figure out how to fake an ongoing ticket out of Panama. We didn't want to get stuck buying another Tica bus ticket that we now decided we were not going to use, and thus wasted $118. We came back to the hostel and researched a bit, went to the internet café back in town to attempt to print out a fake itinerary and realized the info we researched was no longer valid and we were stuck! Thankfully the hotel owners brother was able give us some advice that got successfully got us our fake itineraries and our homework for the day was done. We ate leftovers for dinner and then joined some other travellers outside to hang out. The clouds seemed to have brought in the mosquito's that night and we got eaten alive, David got 6 mosquito bites around 2 knuckles of his right hand and it swelled up like crazy. Good thing for those malaria pills, but we are still scratching constantly as we type.

Saturday, January 05

At 7:30 am we got picked up by the air conditioned shuttle bus. It was us and 7 girls from Chile that made the trek across the Panama Frontier. The girls were obviously very religious, because they spent the first 45 minutes doing some kind of prayer chant thing.  It took about an hour to get to the border and an hour to get from there to the boat taxi that brought us to the Island of Colon in Bocas Del Toro. It was another cloudy day but the islands looked beautiful from the boat. We didn't have a reservation booked yet as everything online was either all booked up or out of our budget, however several other travellers told us not to worry that there were hundreds of options and we would for sure find something. We arrived to Colon at around noon and went hostel hopping. Every place was fully booked or could only offer us beds in a shared room. We continued to look around for what seemed like forever but was only an hour when we finally came across "La Veranda". It was a guesthouse a little bit out of the craziness of the main strip, quiet, cozy, with a beautiful outdoor terrace and they had a room available for us. The search was over. We ate lunch at a local restaurant and ran into some guys we met the last time we were crossing the border into Costa Rica. They joined us for lunch and talked about our travels in between. We later came back to the house to relax on the terrace. We met a lot of our fellow neighbours while outside. Two couples from Vancouver, some guys from Holland, and some people from the states. For dinner we picked up some chicken from the grocery store and made a delicious home cooked meal.

Adios Nicaragua, Hola Costa Rica!!!

Wednesday, December 26.

 

We woke up super early in anticipation of yet another travel day. This one we knew would differ from the others so far as we were going to cross the borders between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. We checked out of our place in San Juan del sur and in broken Spanish asked the receptionist to direct us toward where we could pick up the chicken bus back to Rivas. None of the streets have names here, so with a little bit of hand motioning and picking up small Spanish hints... we knew we had to head a block away from the beach and turn left. In the far distance we could hear someone calling "Rivas, Rivas, Rivas" over and over again. The chicken bus was almost fully packed and ready to go, which normally could take hours to fill. So, we quickly took off our bags and threw them up to the guy on the top of the bus and hopped on. When we got to the Rivas station we were directed to the another bus that would take us to the Frontiero (the border). This bus was also full, so full that there were no seats left. So we threw our bags into the back of the bus and sat on our the bags the whole way there. The ride was super bumpy, it threw us airborne several times but it made us laugh and kept us entertained. One of the Nicaraguans offered to fill out our passport slips for us, not realizing he was later going to ask us to pay him for this generosity. It's a little price you have to pay for not understanding the locals we assumed. When we reached the border we had to stand in line at the Nicaraguan customs and pay them to exit the country.



We then had to walk about 10 minutes to the get to the Costa Rican border and wait 30 minutes before we realized we were going to have a problem crossing as we had no way to prove that we were only travelling through Costa Rica for a maximum of 2 weeks. The customs agent asked for an itinerary, or a bus ticket proving that we weren't planning on staying forever and he wasn't going to take no for an answer! The theme from our initial border crossing into the U.S. seemed to be continuing.  So we turned around and set of in search for a place to purchase a bus ticket out of the country. The lady attending the ticket booth did not speak a word of English and we needed to make sure that it was a ticket that didn't have a specific date on it as we did not obviously have a real itinerary of our next few weeks. We were not making any progress and just as we were getting frustrated we were able to flag down some people that looked like they might speak some English to help us get over this hump. Successfully enough, we booked two $60 (American) Tica bus tickets that would take us from San Jose, Costa Rica to Panama City at anytime within the next year, and by-passed the line back to the customs agent. He stamped out passports and wished us a buena suerte (good trip). We had about 30 minutes to wait for yet another bus that was headed to Liberia, Costa Rica. All we had to eat at this point was 3 crackers each that we had brought with us, we didn't even stop for a coffee. So we purchased a hamburger for $3 at the border food court and scarfed it down passing it back and forth between the two of us, one bite at a time. The ride to Liberia was an hour of luxury compared to the chicken busses we had been used to in Nicaragua. We realized we were leaving a 3rd world country and entering a place much more resembled home. The bus had cushioned seats with recliners and air conditioning, something we hadn't felt since we left the airport in Houston!

The sites along the way were beautiful with mountainous landscapes to our left and lush greenery to our right. When we got to Liberia we switched to our fouth bus of the day that would take us to our final destination, Playa Del Coco. This ride was another local bus with no air conditioning, but it much resembled the TTC busses in Toronto so we didn't mind it much and in an hour we were there. We asked a local guy if he could direct us toward another luxury of the day, the Agua De Lechuga condo's courtesy of David Focs. The man told us to head down a rocky dirt path right in front of the bus station and turn right at the end. Sure enough, there it was, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. We followed David's directions and asked for the worker boy Herman who might have our key. Instead we were introduced to a woman named Irene. Irene was a Russian woman from Toronto who is the mother of the property manager of the complex. She welcomed us with open arms and was so excited to hear that we were sent by her sons friend David.

Being that luxury seemed to be the theme of the day, we quickly dropped our bags into our condo, threw on our bathing suits and jumped into a much needed cool down in the pool. We talked about how we were ever going to be able to afford this place and how crazy we were for even accepting the offer to stay here, discounted price and all. We therefore decided that we would take full advantage of the kitchen over the next few days to make up the money and do some grocery shopping as soon as we had the energy to go.

In the evening, we set out to do some exploring as the main strip looked like it was very happening when we first pulled in. It was a very touristy street, looking as if it could have been somewhere in Florida, with restaurants and bars, souvenir shops and spa's. We found a restaurant/bar that was offering an unlimited pizza, pasta and salad buffet for only $8 and $1.50 beers between "Happy Hour" 3-7pm (the longest happy hour of all time). So, we quickly got our grocery shopping out of the way, dropped it back off at the condo and headed back for our feast. We ate so much so fast, that by 8pm we were so full and exhausted we decided to call it a night as it had been a long and tiring day.

Thursday, December 27.

We woke up to two things that we had not experienced in our travels so far; A real television, and a hot shower.  It was a pleasant reminder of what we had left behind in Toronto.  We made ourselves a breakfast of eggs with sausage and onion, toast, and bananas, also something we would have done in Toronto, only probably not on a Thursday.  We put on our bathing suits, grabbed our towels and books, and headed for the beach.

The beach was a short walk down an a dirt road, and we found it to be similar to the beaches we had already experienced on the pacific coast; hard packed, blackish sand.  We had heard from David Focs, our gracious host, that there was a much nicer beach called Playa Blanca, that was a short hike away.  So we headed that way to see if it lived up to the hype.  After crossing some pretty rocky terrain, we did indeed find that it was a much nicer beach.  We decided, however, to continue walking for a bit, as there were some cool landscapes in the not too far distance that we wanted to see, and also, as the picture should indicate, because we needed the excersize :).

 

 

After a nice little hike, we decided to head back to Playa Blanca, and we made it right as the sun was coming out from behind the clouds.  We laid our towels down, and were just getting comfortable, when we were attacked by thousands of little sand bugs.  They were particularly attracted to Alice, as she is "sweeter".  After attempting to fight through the annoyance for all of 10 minutes, our inner snobs got the better of us, and we headed back to the condo pool.  We did, however, get a chance to dip in the pacific, both to cool off, and wash off all the bugs.

 

We spent the remainder of the day tanning by the pool, reading, and napping.  And went into our room around 5:00 to start working on dinner.  We made lemon pepper sea bass with some mixed vegetables, and garlic bread, and it was delicious.  At around 10 pm, we ran out of bottled water, and being too lazy to walk back to town, we decided to boil our own water. True backpackers.. in a condominium.



Friday, December 28.

Friday was almost an exact replica of Thursday, including what we ate, with the exception of the fact that instead of going back to bug beach, we decided to stay on the main beach, which was nice enough, and bugless.  We didn't stay for long, and ended up going back to the pool again, as we wanted to take advantage of the luxury while we still had it. 

Saturday, December 29.

Saturday was a travel day, and was one that we were apprehensive about, as our research told us that this bus trip was going to be somewhat complicated.  We were travelling to a place called Monteverde, which is a rainforest high in the central mountains of Costa Rica.  What made this bus trip complicated, was that there was no direct bus from the terminal in Liberia.  What we would have to do was make a transfer at some random intersection, and hope one of the two busses from San Jose to Monteverde actually showed up on time.  We asked a few people for help, to make sure we were getting on the correct bus to begin with, and they said we were, but that we would have to ask the driver to stop for us at said random intersection, as this was not a normal stop for him.  Thankfully, the bus driver spoke English pretty well, and was very helpful.

 

We made the right connection, and the entire trip took 3 busses, and a combined total of 8 hours.  Driving up the mountain was nice though, as the views were beautiful, and we got to witness large busses dancing around each other on a steep, single lane road.  We also ran into a nice French Canadian couple who we had met in Nicaragua, and we spent some time comparing stories.

We finally arrived in Monteverde around 5:30, and checked into our new hostel, "Sloth Backpackers".  It was very nice and quaint, and we made friends with not only the other travellers, but also the hostel keepers Yorle and Diego who turned out to be very friendly.  We also met our new favorite travel dog, Leeeenda (or, Linda), an adorable little Chihuahua.  At first she wouldn't let us pick her up without biting us, but after a few days of coaxing, and bribing with food, she would not only let us pick her up, but she insisted on coming into our room for cuddles.

We ate a dinner consisting of... you guessed it.. chicken, beans, rice and coleslaw, but also had a seafood soup for variety.  It was nice, and we took a little walk around the mountainous town.  It was a nice, quiet place, and very friendly.  The stray dogs there were even pretty civilized, as they usually travelled in groups of two or three, and would come up to you for a friendly pat.  The exception, though, was a group of seven males who were following one poor female, who was in heat and you can imagine the rest.

Sunday, December 30.

Sunday was a day we had been waiting awhile for, as we had signed up for ziplining! It was $45 per person, which was bit of a stretch to the budget, but apparently it was a "must do" in Costa Rica.  The tour included a shuttle to the "adventure park", and it picked us up at 10:30.  As chance would have it, we were on the same tour as our frenchie friends; Marie and Carl. 



After getting suited up in harnesses, helmets, and gloves, we received a quick safety lesson on ziplining, and headed for the first line.  The first couple were short, quick, and just around the top of the treeline.  |The third one gave us our first idea of why they called it "extreme ziplining".  They hooked Dalice up together for this one, and sent us on our way.  After a few seconds, we had zoomed out of the forest, and were now looking down at a valley 400 feet below!  It should be noted here, that David gets nervous looking over 3rd floor balconies.  So this was quite the experience.  They had 3 ziplines that were close to a kilometer long, and passed over the same deep valley, and about 10 other shorter ones through the forest.  They also had a "repelling line", which was more a straight drop of about 100 feet, and what they called the "giant tarzan swing".  The swing was another 100 foot drop, only you would swing, instead of being lowered down slowly.  The first half second was freefall, and the whole experience was terrifying, even for Alice who isn't afraid of heights.  The final zipline was one of the 1 km, 400 foot high ones,  but this time they sent us down "superman" style, for the full effect.  Also terrifying.. But what an exhiliriating experience.  At the end of the superman line, the guides actually hid from view, so it looked as if there was no one there to catch you as you come screaming in face first.  They did jump out at the last second though, and everyone agreed that the entire day was amazing.


We went to the grocery store to stock up for the next couple of days, and made a tuna casserole that we ate for lunch, dinner, and would eat again for lunch the next day.  We turned in early, and turned on a movie (we ordered Netflix by the way), and fell asleep before the opening credits were through.

Monday, December 31.

We woke up to the sweet smell of banana pancakes and coffee, made by Yorle. We were trying to make it a cheap day as we went over budget with the previous days excitement. So after breakfast we took a walk into town again and stopped into the bookstore for some new/used books. We spent a few hours reading back at the hostel and after lunch, set out on a hike up to the infamous ficcus tree Diego had promised to take us to. Unfortunately Diego decided not to show up to work that day, but that didn't stop us. We grabbed Sherri, one of our hostel mates and set out on a steep inclined trek toward the tree. It took us about an hour to get there, and about an hour and a half to get back as we got lost on way. But we made it back eventually, and after a little nap we started on dinner. We cooked a garlic/pepper fish dish with veggies and gathered into the kitchen with all of our other hostel mates for cocktails and champagne for a pre-celebration new years party. At 11:15pm we set out for the only place in town that was throwing a new years party, and danced in the new year there. Happy 2013!!!