9 days in paradise and it was awesome!!! I'll break the week down for you so grab a beer and enjoy the story.
*This takes place from 5:45am 4/4/09 to 6:30pm 4/12/09.
It's 5:45am and I had just arrived at the bus station in San Jose to jump onto a bus heading for the Costa Rican/Panama border on the Caribbean side of the country. I had no idea what to expect, where I was really going, but I knew at that time, that the bus would take me to some
random-ass 3rd world town for me to cross the boarder to another random-ass third world town to jump into a taxi to go to another random-ass third world town, to jump on to a water
taxi to take me to some random-ass but awesome Island in the Caribbean.
So I'm waiting in the bus line, minding my own business, when a group of 6 Gringos walk up and get in line with me. We make eye contact and it went like this, "yep, what state are you from?" We got a good laugh out of it, as us Gringos stand out like a Japanese skier on the bunny slopes at Squaw. They're studying in the city next to San Jose, (Heredia) and they had the chance to get down to Bocas too, so we decided to group together and head on down to Panama.
*By the why, quick note, their from Ohio but one of the girls was wearing a "Stay True" UNR Wolf Pack shirt. I got a kick out of that as they've never been to Nevada. I guess the program that they were with was through UNR or something... Small world.
Anyways, after a 6 hour bus ride in a hot muggy Costa Rican bus, looking out the window to a world of poverty and minimalism, we finally get to Sixaola, the border town to Panama. By the way, the towns that we drove through looked very poor, but the people looked very happy; Just to witness that alone was a big eye opener.
But now we're in Sixaola. Talk about a shit-hole.
We arrive and we all start sweating. It's hot, rrreeaaaallll hot. We're off the bus, walking to the boarder and instantly locals come up demanding to help us with everything. Rule number one, just keep walking and say, "no gracias, amigo." Now that was easy, wasn't it? So we continue, we get to the departure line to get our exit stamps out of the country and then cross the bridge/boarder to Panama. Not the best one-lane bridge to be walking on, especially when you have a diesel truck literally on your heels moving about 3 miles an hour and you can hear the bridge just creaking in agony. Good times.
We arrive to the other side, and in places like Hawaii you can
expect a lay (is that how you spell it?) family members or friends waiting for you on the other side but here we were welcomed to dirt. I wanted to take more photos but there were a lot of people that I didn't trust there. I didn't want to be flashing a camera around. I mean, I was in Panama for 15 minutes and I caught a little kid trying to unzip my backpack to steal something.
"!Andante ya!" I said, (Get out of here). The kid would end up asking for money at least 3 or 4 more times throughout the process. So we're in line, we meet up with a girl from Holland that was heading to Bocas also and we told her to join-up. She looked confussed and unsure so we were making a little entourage. (A Holland connection will ironically surface later in the story).
So we're in the line, still, for an hour and a half in probably some of the worst humidity I've ever been in in my whole life, but we're through.
We're finally through to meet up with some taxi drivers that wanted to take us to Almirante, the town were we would catch the boat taxis to Bocas Del Toro. But what a joke those taxi drivers were. Only half of us had converted their Colones into Dollars, (I was one of them) and the others had to go to a ATM somewhere to get dollars to pay the drivers. FYI, Panama uses the Dollar, it was the first time I've seen a dollar in close to 3 months. But what it came down to was, me and a buddy of mine getting in an argument with the drivers because we didn't want to split the group. Arguing in Spanish is damn tough, we got through, but we did have to end up splitting so we did 4 in each group. I was pissed but calm, you never want to make a scene in places like that -- stay low key.
We take a cab ride through some beautiful country, Panama really is beautiful, and arrive to Almirante. That town wasn't so beautiful but we got the boat taxi from there, and arrived in Bocas del Toro at 3:30pm that day, (there is an hour time difference). This is a 8 1/2 hour time frame but it was a wild time getting there. Plus, what I thought was funny, for me, was the group that I traveled with booked rooms at a Hotel about 100 yards from my place for $85 bucks a night, mine cost $12 bucks a night and it was awesome. They didn't get free breakfasts or anything and I got free pancakes and coffee whenever I wanted, guitars to play with, great people and it was real clean. It was awesome. I even had to take a photo of the bathroom because I thought it was pretty classic. I like that someone punched a hole in the wall and then someone drew eyes and pulled the paper around it off to make a bearded. Right on.
***At this point of the story, I'm settled in, I picked my bed, in a room of 10 people, and I'm home for the next 4 days.
At first, the group and I decide to part ways and plan to meet up later. I decide to stroll the town and get to know the place. Bob
Marley is all over the place and a Rasta infused lifestyle prevails on this island. It's laid back, chill, and the definition of Paradise. I mean come on, you can buy a coconut for $.60 cents and they cut it open for you with a fat machete and you just drink the coconut juice from inside. It really is one of the best hangover cures ever, seriously.
So I walk back to the hostel and I meet a guy from Africa that's sharing the room and we hangout, at that time and I hadn't eaten anything all day so we go out and get a bite to eat. We meet up with a guy from the U.K and we all decide to go get some beers.
We end up at a place called Aqua Lounge on another island that costs a dollar to take a short boat ride to and then we start partying there. I met up with my border-crossing-buddies there and we party pretty good until late in the night.
It was a damn long day.
The next day, some buddies from the U.K, Africa, and Costa Rica decided to go bike riding and check out the island. We ended up at some beach about a half mile long and not a person on the beach at all. It was all to ourselves to just kick back and relax. For about 2 hours I decided to jump in the water and just get my butt kicked by waves. I don't know why but, I just decided to continuously get beat down by waves. And then it happened, the good ol' 3 hours later water running out of your nose when you tilt your head down. It just starts running out of your nose and there's nothing you can do to stop it. The last time that happened to me, I was taking a Spanish test in college and I was looking down and water draining out of my nose went all over the test. I just thought I would through that one in there.
Later that night, we had a hooka session at one of the bars which was real cool. We decided to just kick back, do a big hooka session and hang out good times. It seemed like nothing was really going on Sunday night, so we headed back to the hostel and hung out on the top deck. The picture of us hanging out higher up in the blog is from Sunday night. Isreal, Sweden, Africa and the U.S. good times.
Monday, I woke up, made pancakes as usual and hit the boat. We did a tour of the islands, saw Dolphins, went scuba diving and went to Red Frog Beach. Another nice beach in paradise and just hung out. I ate Gold Fish crackers for lunch because I didn't want to pay $15 bucks for some caribbean food that's really not that good. Food in Panama is pretty mediocre; the food in Costa Rica is way better than Panama, and the beer is way better too. But seriously, Bocas del Toro as a whole was freaking awesome.
That night, we met up with Denise and Allisa from Arizona and we all went out partying that night and yeah, they got me dancing. Do you know how hard it is to get me to dance, it was pretty damn fun though. Trying to learn how to salsa dance is probably one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I stepped on toes but I was also wearing sandals, I got my toes stomped on too. It was a late night.
The next day we woke up and all went to the beach, again, and just relaxed, relaxed, and relaxed. I got a couple photos, and then the camera died. What a pain. The camera is good but sometimes, it just decides to go black. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on some other photos because Denise had some real cool underwater photos, her camera kicks ass. We walked though some awesome little island town too that I couldn't get photos but you know what? There's some pretty awesome photos here pretty surreal. More beach, more beach and more beach, and then more partying.
That night, we went to Mondo Tiatu, a bar on the island and they had Power hour with 80's music. They would play a minute of an 80's song and then they would stop it and you would have to take a shot of beer. By the end of the hour you're down 6 beers, it comes out to be about 1 beer every 10 minutes. We did that for the hour and we were raising hell. When "Bohemian Rhapsody" came on, we went nuts. Screaming and yelling, head banging, the works. It was awesome. We then went to the same bar from the night before, Denise got me Salsa dancing again, OK. I planned on going to sleep early that night because the next day I was going to have to wake up and get out of town around 7am. Oh well, I'll buy couple of those awesome coconuts and drink them in the morning before head out. It all worked out. And then it was the next day....... I felt fine but it was time to hit the road for Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica. Remember how I said that there was going to be a ironic Holland connection later on in the story? Well, I met a real good high school friend of the Holland girl that started with us in the Hostile and he had been traveling from Argentina, by bus, and he was heading all the way up to the states. His next stop, however, was Puerto Viejo so we decided to head on up together. They had no idea each other was staying in Bocas del Toro and it was pretty damn funny to see them meet up. But anyways, I entered Bocas del Toro was someone from Holland and I was leaving with someone from Holland, which in turn were real good friends. I don't think I've ever even met anyone from Holland before. Cool people.
So we jump on the water taxi, get to Almirante "dirty little town" and walk around until we find some beat up bus packed with Panamanians and a dude from Holland and me. Baby crying, smelly smells and a crazy driver. Oh well, we got to were we were supposed to go, but um, or bus left without us. Great, running around the 3rd biggest city in Panama trying to figure out what to do, so we finally just bought a taxi and he got us to the boarder.
Once at the boarder, guess who we ran into? The kids that I came in with. They were heading to San Jose and they wanted to leave earlier than me so I was like ok, I'll see you back in San Jose when I get back but I ended up exactly where they were and I left at least an hour after them. I really don't know what happened, oh well it worked out for me. I got to sleep in for an extra hour.... Sweet.
So, this is were it got a little crazy. We're waiting in line to get back into Costa Rica and this girl at the window starts screaming and crying and just losses it. "THEY WON'T LET ME BACK INTO COSTA RICA. AAAAAAHHHHHH AAAAAAAHHHHHH" literally. "THEY SAID I DIDN'T HAVE A VALID FORM OF TRANSIT TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY, SO I PRINT OUT MY FLIGHT ITINERARY AND IT DOESN'T HAVE ALL THE RIGHT INFO. WHAT THE #$*(& AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH." What happened then is all of us look at each other, a lot of peopler didn't have anything either so none of us knew what to do. Then I walked up to an offical, "Do you have international bus tickets?" Yes they did. For 11 dollars. So we buy some, it works out and for us it's all good. The lady though, because she lost her melon, and went about it all wrong, the offical said, "You are not welcome to our country. Please leave now." I don't know what happened to her but she had to turn around and head back to Panama. All I know is that she had no idea what she was going to do next and let me tell you, I wouldn't really want to try and figure it out. I wanted to be out of that place as soon as possible.
So, my buddy and I get through, the kids going to San Jose got through, but seriously that lady really stirred the place up. That's why I say, keep your cool and stay calm. You can work it out. But because of that process, we missed our next bus again. What a pain. Oh well, it was either to wait two hours in Sixaola or jump on a random-ass bus to take us to another random-ass town to hopefully connect us with another random-ass bus to get us to a random-ass but awesome town called Puerto Viejo. It all worked out too. I mean, on the first bus I had a tough looking bad ass not stop looking at me for the hour ride and I could see him in the reflection of the window of him looking at me. I was waiting for him to either take my stuff then on the bus or wait for me to get off. Lucky, he did get off earlier than me but even when he got off he looked at me through the window and he would never take his eyes off of me. "Just stay cool," I say as my heart is pumping a thousand miles an hour. Stay calm, mind my own business, no problem. It's done. Finally, we get to the random-ass town called Hone Creek and arrive just in time for the bus to start pulling away. We ran up, I almost knocked a baby out of a mothers arms, I was yelling " Lo siento, lo siento" (I'm sorry) but we made it just in time.
Finally, we arrive. And guess what? I pulled up on the bus at the exact same time that my tico buddies showed up into town too. Awesome! My Holland buddy and I split paths and good luck to him. We then spent the next 4 1/2 days in Puerto Viejo and I will continue with part two tomorrow. Awesome times.
By the way, people from Isreal really know how to party.
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