Halloween With Americans In Panama

Spanish word of the day: Baile – To Dance

Use: I got to dance with Dan’s wife Rilda (She’s Panamanian but has a Portuguese name) at the Halloween party, and I was having the hardest time remembering this word. I’ve put it here to remember what the word is for “to dance” in Spanish.
Baile.
I’m excited to see the Panama Canal tomorrow (from the ground – already saw it from the air flying in), and Panama City.
But we’ll leave Panama the following day on Monday November 2nd with Dan because he’s traveling to Costa Rica.
Again, as in Bocas Del Toro just a couple of days ago, I find myself disappointed to be leaving so soon.
And it’s not like we have to leave. We could stay here with Dan and Rilda in Playa Coronado (even though they wouldn’t be here) and then take the rental car back on the evening of the 3rd and stay in Panama City for an evening or two. Then figure out how to get to San Jose from Panama City (probably by Tica Bus).
But Dan is going on Nov. 2nd.
It seems like a really great way to get to Costa Rica since he’s going anyway and we can ride along, help him pay for gas, and help us get where we’re ultimately going anyway.

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Leaving Bocas Del Toro

I’m sad to be leaving Bocas Del Toro.
It would be great to spend more time at this little island paradise.
If we spent more time here, we’d love to get to know Claudio better (the owner of Hotel Angela), we would be meeting more people and shutting down the bar Toro Loco more frequently, Carrie would take Thai cooking lessons from the lady who owns the Thai restaurant above Starfleet SCUBA (where we never got to eat because we didn’t know they were only open for dinner and kept trying to go there for lunch – but it has an amazing reputation).
All of these would be part of the unique life we would experience on this tropical island that, while touristy, still seems to retain much of it’s local flavor and culture.
Bocas Del Toro will always be the place we got to do our first open water SCUBA, the place we met Kristyn and Dax, and the place where (nearly four weeks into traveling,) we finally started feeling like it was going to be alright to travel the world for a year or two.
I know mentally that there are nice places to be and that getting through the rough spots is part of the journey, but it was nice to have gotten through some rough spots and to arrive somewhere we felt like we really wanted to stay.

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Uh-Oh. Power Outage?

9:45 PM
Bocas Del Toro, Panama
Hotel Angela
We heard the rain pouring down from outside of our room, but as we have no outside windows, we didn’t know how hard it was raining. So I thought I would go out to the back of Hotel Angela to check it out. (By the way, if you didn’t read my other post talking about Hotel Angela, the back of the hotel is a dock on water so clear you can see the starfish at the bottom of the water, which is10-15 feet below you.) Carrie was with me.
We couldn’t even go out on to the back dock of the hotel, for fear that we might be battered into oblivion by the force of the rain. I have only ever seen rain like that one other time – in China during a monsoon… literally anything that’s in the rain is blowing sideways – people, trees, cars, boats, small family pets, etc.
We’re here in the off season, so tonight (Wednesday night) we’re the only guests here at Hotel Angela.
I noticed that water was streaming through a window left open by someone on the second floor in the stairwell (the hotel is just 2 stories).. I thought maybe no one else would go up there to close it, so I went up to close the window (call it my good deed for the day).
No sooner had I gotten the window closed than everything went completely black.
Power outage…

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Scuba certified and a perfect airline

We’re certified in SCUBA! We finished our last two open water dives on Monday. It was great. Now we’re really looking forward to going and scubaing for fun instead of for a class.
In fact, we like that idea so much, and this little bit of Panama so much, that we decided to stay here a couple of days longer than planned.
Bocas Del Toro is a bit of an island paradise. Who wouldn’t want to stay?
I remembered to bring the defog for my mask this time, so that made it much much more enjoyable. We got to see lots of great sea critters including a bright green eel (with yellow spots), an endangered fish, and lots more. We also did a small navigation “test” as part of our certification. We were given a compass and told to swim away from our instructor for 15 kick-cycles (just an up-down motion of kicking your feet), and then turn around and come back. We passed.
We’re even more excited to scuba now!

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Swim With the Fishies

Jonathan and I are here in Bocas del Toro, Panama – an island in the Caribbean side of Panama, not far from Costa Rica. It’s a beautiful island, though a bit touristy in nature, but at least not as drug induced as Puerto Viejo.
Back in early August, we started getting scuba certified. But, we chose not to do the open water dives (in Aurora Reservoir) since we knew we were going to be this way around this time of year. So, today we did our first two open water dives in Panama.
We’re going through a company called Starfleet Scuba. They came highly recommended to us by everyone. Anyone who knew anything about scuba recommended them. We checked them out, and quickly booked our dives. For just $30 more per person, we’re diving in the warm waters of the Caribbean rather than the nastiness that is Aurora Reservoir.

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Oh Wonder of Wonders! AC, Hot Showers, and Crossing the Sixaola Bridge Into Panama

9:30 PM (Local time – now on Central time)
Bocas Del Toro, Panama
Hotel Angela
I would say that the hotels we stayed at in Puerto Viejo – both Cabinas Guarana, and Cabinas Casa Verde, were nicer than the room we have here at Hotel Angela in Bocas Del Toro. However, there are two key differences. Hot showers and air conditioning.
Oh wonder of wonders!
I know air conditioning eats electricity, and I know that some air conditioners create environmental challenges.
Even knowing these things, it’s like heaven to be sleeping in an air conditioned room after 3 weeks of hot humid climates without a/c. The crazy thing is that in most areas of the world, including here in Panama (though maybe not on this island – depending on where the water table sits), it would be possible to construct natural air conditioning using the air 6 feet below the surface.
But I’m digressing a bit.
The air conditioning for our little room here is GREAT!

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Crossing Over…

Wow, the bridge between Costa Rica and Panama at Sixaola definitely made me fear for my life.
So, to leave Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica and travel to Bocas del Toro, Panama, we took a shuttle for $28.00 + per person. (Definitely worth the money – I’d have no idea how to get to where we were going without it.)
Anyway, I know that Jonathan already talked about most of this, but I do want to say a few things about the “bridge”.
The shuttle leaves us off to get our “stamps out” of Costa Rica. Then we cross the bridge over the river Sixaola to get into Panama.

At first the bridge is nothing to look at, but then you realize that you HAVE to look at it continuously as you’re crossing, otherwise it’s possible that you’ll fall through.

I’m not kidding on this.

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Leaving Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica for Bocas Del Toro, Panama

We’re actually not so sad to leave Puerto Viejo.
It seems like a fun little seaside town if you’re into loud parties and drugs, but with the incredible day getting to hang out with sloths yesterday, and, learning about chocolate at its source, we’re ready to move forward.
There’s the call of someplace new… and we have our Scuba certification to finish, and Bocas del Toro is supposed to have some really great Scuba adventures.
So off we go.
Follow the map again from upper left to lower right to see where we’re going.

We are very excited about arriving, though the getting there may bring some of its own stories (we’ve heard that crossing the border can be an interesting experience, so we’ll let you know when crossing the Panamanian border from Costa Rica goes smoothly).

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Sloths, Cacao, and A Waterfall in the Rainforest

6:55 PM
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica
Cabinas Guarana
Listening to re-make of “Hey Jude” played on Pan flutes, playing from a CD player here in the hotel lobby.
Today is probably my favorite day in Costa Rica so far. Between seeing sloths (so cute) watching how chocolate is made in the natural way and learning the process, going for a hike through an amazing rainforest and seeing a beautiful waterfall, and sleeping in the hammock this afternoon for an hour and a half to the sound of falling rain – today has been a fantastic day. Glad I’m feeling a bit different than I was when the day started out, since we’re headed to Panama tomorrow. Gives me hope and good feelings to leave Costa Rica with, and lets me know that there are definitely things I’ve missed seeing here which I’ll look forward to returning here to see.

I suppose if I had thought about it, I would have assumed that all plants that we get in the grocery stores in the states are grown in fields of crops, and that it would be possible to see any plant growing in the way that America grows wheat and corn, or in the way that Italy grows grapes. However, as I’ve never really had that thought until today, I was simply astounded to see hundreds of millions (billions?) of bananas growing on what must have been at least half a million banana trees. I found myself asking our driver for the day, Marcela, if she could stop so that I could get out. When I walked to the side of the bridge, I was overlooking fields of banana trees all the way to the horizon. This view is one which I’m not likely to forget anytime soon

(Just in case I do forget, I took some pictures. After all, the faintest ink is better than the best memory.)

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Scratching My Skin Off: Why Do People Like Costa Rica?

5:45 AM
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica
Cabinas Guarana
This could be limited sleep speaking, but so far, Costa Rica isn’t my favorite country. Despite all the cool critters and animals we’ve seen so far, I can’t imagine ever being here for very long. The prices are basically the same as in the US, it’s hot and muggy for sleeping, I feel like my body is one giant mosquito bite, and every morning I’m woken up before 6AM either by a motorcycle, a dog, a person talking loudly/listening to music, or a large bird. Even wearing ear plugs doesn’t seem to help that much.
I usually am able to go back to sleep for an hour or so, but this morning’s conglomeration was a dog fight, a cat fight (saw the two cats later), several roosters starting at about 4AM, a mosquito buzzing outside the net covering our bed, and a child who lives with the person who manages the hotel yelling “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama.” Maybe we’re not staying in the right places, but it’s not like we’re in the cheapest places either. Maybe we just haven’t found the right places for us. Costa Rica generally seems like a decent place to visit to see interesting and unique things, but so far I’m pretty confused as to why so many people move down here from the states and rave about how cool Costa Rica is.

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