Reunited And It Feels So Good

Okay, where was I.  I think the last time I wrote, I was up to Bocas del Toro waiting to see if my English friend was going to show up.  She did.  (I have no photos for the next few days except for a few I took from my hotel room balcony and some pictures of beer, so that’s what you get.)

I got up around eight in the morning, grabbed some coffee and worked on my blogs for a little while.  I was debating taking a water taxi into town and then there was a knock on my door.  She made it.  She had a harrowing experience getting from Panama City to Bocas de Toro.  I could go into detail here, but she could write her own blog if she wanted to do so.  Anyway, she finally got there and she was soaking wet since it had started raining while she was on the water taxi to Bastimentos.  I greeted her with some jerk chicken that was left over from the night before and I think all of her ills were cured.  Well, many of them, anyway.

Some other folks stopped by our room to say hello to my English friend.  A small group of us went back to Roots for lunch and some $1 Panamanian beers.  I really wasn’t in shape for conversation, but somehow, I managed.  After lunch, we went back to the room and chillaxed until we went into town to schedule some dives (not for me) for the next day and hung around for dinner and a few drinks.  We also got some provisions that we brought back to Bastimentos.  The rest of the night was spent drinking and stuff with us and a few other friends.  Actually, the night ended up ending kind of early.

The next day, I took a water taxi into Bocas del Toro to meet up with the people diving.  We went out to lunch and then a few of us went to a local bar with a pool table for some more $1 beers.  Before too long, it was down to me and my English friend sitting there for a few hours continuing to drink.  Ah . . . just like old times.  Afterwards, we walked around Bocas looking for anybody we might know.  We didn’t find anyone, so we grabbed some wine and hopped a water taxi to Bastimentos.  As soon as we got to our hotel, another boat pulled up beside us.  Everybody else was heading into town for dinner, so we just jumped from one boat into another and went back into town.

After dinner, we went back to the pool bar that we were at earlier.  My English friend, who still had the bottle of wine that she had bought earlier, stole a corkscrew and we ended up splitting her bottle of wine outside, talking with a few others who would occasionally come out to join us.  Our Quebecois friend made friends with the Quebecois owner of the bar and he gave us a round of shots at the end of the night.  If you’ve been following the blog at all, you could probably see what’s coming next.  God knows I saw it coming.  As soon as my English friend took the shot, I could see her mouth beginning to water.  I practically carried her to the balcony so she could throw up in a bush instead of on our fellow travelers.

 

Soon thereafter, after my English friend tried to get some jerk chicken from a homeless guy who refused to accept a kiss from her, we hopped a water taxi and returned to the hotel.  We had a nightcap and that was the end of the night.  In the morning, I was taking off for Boquete and my English friend was staying behind, so I had to say goodbye all over again.  It was good to be reunited for a few days during the last leg of the trip but it was over and it was time to move on to the final week of the trip.  We’ll continue on that note in the next entry.

Hellacious Border Crossing into Panama

After Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, it was time to leave Costa Rica behind for good and cross into Panama.  This turned out to be one of the longest, most painful border crossings I’ve ever endured.

The infamous Bridge of Death.

The bus ride to the border wasn’t so bad.  It was only like an hour-and-a-half long and we got there still thinking that we might get to our destination in Panama in time for a normal-hour lunch.  We got our stamps out of Costa Rica pretty quickly and all was going well.  Then we loaded up for our trip into Panama.  This required crossing the Bridge of Death.  The Bridge of Death is a long bridge crossing a river from Costa Rica into Panama.  It is held up by steel beams and held together by horizontal, rickety boards that don’t feel like they are able to support a human being’s weight.  In between the boards are gaps in which you can see down to the river.  There are vertical boards as well for large trucks to use when they cross.  I crossed with all my stuff, probably around fifty pounds of it, on my back or in my arms and I had to concentrate with all of my might on each step to make sure that I wouldn’t fall into the river.  The whole trek probably only took three or four minutes but it seemed like an hour.

Once across the bridge, the ordeal was just beginning.  We ended up standing in line for over ninety minutes in the hot, midday Panamanian sun while the folks at the border tried to figure out what to do with a group of eleven tourists trying to come into Panama.  In retrospect, we probably would have gotten through much quicker had we just gone through immigration individually, but instead we sweated through the process until, finally, we were allowed into the country.

After the border crossing, things got much easier.  Ostensibly, we were heading to Bocas del Toro, an island on the Caribbean coast of Panama.  We drove about ninety minutes to the closest part of the mainland to the island but when we arrived, we learned that we instead were staying on a different island – Bastimentos.  Don’t get me wrong, Bastimentos is a charming little island, but there’s not really much to do there.  We checked in to the hotel and, after a while, my new Australian friend and I walked around looking for something to do or eat.  We did come across this bar/restaurant at the end of a pier that looked reasonable.  We went there for lunch and some $1 beers (Balboa) and it was a good enough time.  But there really wasn’t much else to do or see.  There was a beach that I later heard was beautiful close by but I thought I’d have time for that later.  I didn’t.  After lunch, I headed back to the hotel.  I had a double room to myself, for now, because my English friend was going to make an appearance and I had an extra bed for her to crash in.

Shortly after dark, we took a water taxi to the island of Bocas del Toro.  It isn’t a huge island, but it still was considerably more bustling than Bastimentos.  We had dinner there, I finally had ceviche and it was delicious, and then we stopped off for supplies before returning to Bastimentos.  (I wish I had a picture of the ceviche but it was too dark in the restaurant for my iPhone to take a photo.)

That night was jerk chicken night on my balcony along with a bottle of Argentine malbec wine.  I still hadn’t heard from my English friend, but that wasn’t too surprising.  I was hoping that she was getting into town late and that I would meet up with her the next morning.  Was I right?  We’ll find out in the next post.

Heat and Humidity in Puerto Viejo

The fourth leg began with a trip from San Jose to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca.  This trip involved about five hours of riding on public buses and ended on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca is a seaside town that has much more of an island-feel to it.  We kept referring to “the island” even though that reference was incorrect.  There’s a single ATM, a few supermarkets, several restaurants and bars and several shops for diving, snorkeling and the like.  On the afternoon that we arrived, we got a rundown of the activities that were available in Puerto Viejo and then sort of went our separate ways.  I got some money, stopped by the biggest supermarket and then went to lunch with a few friends.  I had already determined that friends in this group would be hard to come by because of the small group size and the various personalities (diplomatic?) of several of the new members.

In the evening, there was a group dinner but I avoided that and took refuge in a bottle of wine and the internet at the hotel.  The most memorable point of the evening was when the new creepy Canadian dude in the group was carried in and dropped off in his room (across the hallway from mine) at one in the morning and I listened to, “Is this your roommate?” as his roommates tried to disown him.

In case you're wondering, this is Rikki.

 The next day, the entire group went out for a tour of the nearby jungle and wildlife.  It was Rikki’s Tour, coincidentally led by a guy named Rikki, and we saw some spiders and learned a lot about the vegetation in this part of Costa Rica.  We also saw some Howler Monkeys, but I’ve seen so many Howler Monkeys on this trip that I’ve become sort of jaded.  The tour was a lot of fun, though, except for when I stood on an anthill and noticed that my feet were getting eaten alive.  Other than that, though, I enjoyed it.

After the tour, I walked around town a little bit, though I expected to do more of that the following day, and went to dinner with a couple of people at a restaurant that turned out to be pretty good.  Later in the evening, I enjoyed some jerk chicken and that was pretty much the second day.

The new gang.  You know you're scared.

On the third day, I had decided that I was going to walk around town and see if there was anything else it had to offer.  I started at around ten a.m. thinking that it would still be cool and I would enjoy the walk.  I was wrong.  After about forty minutes, it was already in the mid-80s, with humidity in the 80s, so I was hot, sweaty and tired quickly.  I went back to the hotel and lied down in a hammock when my new Australian friend (not to be confused with the Australian friend that has been written about at length in this section of the blog) came by and asked if I wanted to go with her and scooter around the island.  It sounded good to me, so that’s what we did.  Well, almost.  We ended up getting a four-wheeler and going around the island on that.  It was a lot of fun.  We went to the beach for a little while.  We also stopped by a restaurant and got more chorizo sausage than two people should ever be served (part of it ended up being my breakfast the next day).  We had decided to start a gang – the Pasty Devils – but could find no other members in the current group.

That night, we went out on a group dinner and ended up going back to the same place to which I had been the night before.  I had something different and it was a fairly tame evening.  (This final leg of the journey was proving to be much more tame than the previous three.)

That was pretty much it for Puerto Viejo de Talamanca.  It was three days worthy of only a single, albeit longer than normal, entry.  Fun, but boring at times – and very hot and humid.  From there, it was off to Bocas del Toro, where I’ll pick up in the next entry.

The Way to San Jose

On March 28, we made our way into San Jose.  We were there a couple days in which we ended the third leg and started the final leg of this trip.  I wish I could tell you something about San Jose but I really didn’t see much of it.

 When we arrived in San Jose, I got a room to myself for the first time the entire trip.  It turned out to be the executive suite, at least by the standards to which I’ve become accustomed.  I had my own bathroom and it was the only room in the hotel that had a balcony – and it was a damned good-sized balcony.  It also had a queen-sized bed.  After my arrival, somebody (sometimes up to three people – but not in a good way) was in the bed pretty much non-stop until I checked out.  So much for having a room to myself.

By the time we arrived, it was almost dark.  Also, just after arriving, we learned that somebody from the new group was almost mugged at gunpoint less than two blocks away from the hotel.  Okay, I get it – not a good neighborhood.  The people from the present group were going to a farewell dinner at a Chilean restaurant but I have skipped the farewell dinners all along on this trip and didn’t see any reason not to skip this one.  Instead, I walked a couple blocks away and lived the dream – I had Taco Bell in Central America.  Something else to scratch off the bucket list.  As I ate, I sat in my room and watched television for a little while.

After the group returned to the hotel, I went downstairs and met up with everybody.  Since I had the big balcony, the party eventually moved into my room with the usual suspects.  My English friend had the upper-half of a bunk bed with an older woman with a snoring problem so when she passed out (not an uncommon occurrence for her), we just dropped her in my bed and then I hung out with my Australian friend until around 4:00 am, when she left and I fell asleep.

I woke up around 8:30 am and my English friend had left.  Around 10:30, I finally made it out of bed and downstairs.  There, I found my Australian friend asleep on the couch and my English friend drinking coffee.  Their trip ended here in San Jose, so they had already checked out of the hotel.  Since my bed was empty, I let my Australian friend come up to my room so she could sleep up there.  She had a headache, so we plied her with more medicine than anyone should ever take for a headache.  She was out for a while.  Meanwhile, my English friend and I had some jerk chicken and beer (and possibly rum) and went and brought back some lunch.  Around this point, my English friend was tired again and also went to sleep on my bed.  For a while, I was there as well, lying at the foot of the bed.  My Australian friend finally came to and the two of us went to the bus station to pick up tickets for the two of them to go to Panama City.  We had to make two trips because we needed my English friend’s passport and that ended up in my pocket.

After we returned, we had a dinner with both the old group and the new group.  My English friend was still passed out and we couldn’t wake her so we just let her sleep.  After dinner (tortellini carbonara that was delicious), we returned to the hotel only to find our English friend in a panic because she thought that she was late for her bus and couldn’t find her passport.  Soon, we were able to quell her fears and then my best friends for the past month were on their way out of Costa Rica and my life, at least temporarily for one of them.

So you see, I didn’t really get a chance to see all that much of San Jose.  Just a few blocks around my hotel and a little bit more of the city as we took a taxi to and from dinner.  The third leg had ended and the fourth leg had begun and I wasn’t all that excited about the members of the final leg.  We’ll start on that in the next post.

White-Water Rafting in La Fortuna

Next up after Monteverde was La Fortuna and it was another great time in Costa Rica.

We arrived in La Fortuna, like we arrived in a lot of places, after a long, arduous drive across Costa Rica.  Upon arrival, we checked into our hotel and then went to a tour shop to try and plan our activities for the next day and a half.  The activity that most people were interested in was white-water rafting.  I’m not big on water and it was expensive, but I opted in anticipating that it would be fun and safe enough.

We went to get some food after our meeting at the tour shop and there were a few beers downed.  (My favorite Costa Rican beer turned out to be Pilsen, though I ended up with an Imperial t-shirt because it has a much cooler logo.)  We went back to the bar at the hotel and had a few more drinks until everybody met for dinner.  Not being able to pass them up when I see them on a menu, I had some hot wings and more beer.  On the way back to the hotel, we purchased some wine and, ultimately, we ended up with the usual suspects back in the girls’ room passing away the evening.  It was all pretty mellow until one person in the group decided to hurl an empty glass of wine off of the balcony, at which point everybody sobered up immediately.  End of party.

The next morning, we went white-water rafting and it was amazing.  (I wish I had photos but I couldn’t bring my camera and the tour shop wanted way too much money for the photos that it took.)  A few people were disappointed because we spent too much time stuck on rocks and the water level was a little low, but it was my first time and I really enjoyed it.  I went into the water twice unexpectedly – the first time was when my English friend decided to dive in and horse-collar me into the water backwards and upside down; and the second time was when I fell out of the raft and got pinned in between a large rock and the raft.  I never let go of the rope on the raft, so I wasn’t in danger, but as the raft kept moving perilously across my chest and got closer to my neck, it was a tad daunting.  Even that experience turned out to be fun, though.

We mostly separated after the rafting trip and then met later to go to a hot springs resort.  This turned out to be rather disappointing, in part because the hot water was wreaking havoc on the sunburn that I had incurred during the white-water rafting earlier in the day.  I just wasn’t feeling it and it really wasn’t my type of place.  I only went because I knew the group only had two more nights together, but in retrospect, I should have just avoided it completely.  The food was okay, though.  And at least it wasn’t my clothes that were stolen.

After the hot springs, I went to bed.  It wasn’t in a good mood and I was ready to head out of Dodge.  We weren’t leaving until around noon, though, so in the morning, after flooding my room with the shower, I headed over to a Costa Rican coffee place and got the specialty, which ended up being poured through a little bag and finished as one of the best coffees that I’ve ever had.  I bought some souvenirs at a nearby shop and then went back to the hotel to prepare to head to San Jose, where the third leg of the trip was to end and the final leg was to begin.  We’ll talk about that later.

Ziplining in Monteverde

The next day in Monteverde was the day to which most people in the group were looking forward.  It was ziplining day in the Cloud Forest.  At least, I think it was the Cloud Forest.  We were told it was the Cloud Forest but I didn’t see many clouds.

As I stated in my prior post, I had to get up early and get ready for the adventure.  It took a 45-minute van ride to get to the area in which we were going to do the ziplining.  After getting our tickets, we got harnessed up and then went out to where the fun was to begin, where we received instructions on how not to die or lose any fingers.  Always good advice.

The ziplining consisted of thirteen platforms connected with steel cables at various heights and angles.  We were harnessed to the cables and just rode along at various speeds, depending on the angle of the lines, from platform to platform.  It was far from a high-impact workout, but some of the zips over the rainforest were pretty fun, especially the longer, faster trips.  I don’t have a particular fear of heights, though I do have a healthy respect for gravity.  The whole trip, however, was pretty fun and there was no real sense of danger at any point along the way.  (I wish I had photos to share but I was afraid to bring my camera and dropping it in the rainforest.)

At the very end of the ziplining, we had a Tarzan Swing.  Basically, this was getting harnessed onto a rope and holding on while jumping from a platform about 40-feet off the ground and then swinging until people at the bottom were able to stop you.  Generally, your body tells you that jumping from this height is a bad idea but once you’ve seen a few people do it, it’s difficult to be but so frightened.  As I swung across the forest and returned near the platform, all I could do is look at the person next in line and say, “Awesome.”

After the ziplining, a group of us did a walking tour of the park and the hanging bridges.  This was a little disappointing since there were very few photo opportunities.  There were a thousand shades of green in the rainforest but very little of any interest on the trek.  The hanging bridges were interesting, I suppose, but not particularly comfortable for me.

After the trek, we went out to a pizza place for lunch that had surprisingly good pizza and pasta (I had Pasta Mexicano) and then I returned to the hotel for a little nap.  That evening, a handful of us went for a night tour of the rainforest that was pretty fun.  The highlights for me had to be the armadillo and sloth that we were able to see during the walk, as well as a handful of tarantulas, though rather small tarantulas.  Unfortunately, again, there are no photos since my iPhone doesn’t really perform well at night.

After the walk, a few of us had dinner at a sushi restaurant and then went out for a few drinks.  Upon my return, I had another run-in with my English roommate (It’s always the fucking Englishmen!) and I went to the girls’ room with the “bad kids” for a few drinks, though not nearly as many as the night before.  I ended up crashing there again on the spare bed and getting up early again for our next trip, this time to La Fortuna.  I’ll pick it up there in the next entry.

Monteverde - Easy Come, Easy Go

After Ometepe Island it was time to move on to Costa Rica and Monteverde where I intended to test my boundaries. I ended up testing even more than that.

We left early, as we always seem to do, from Ometepe Island in order to catch a ferry and then a bus or two to the Costa Rican border. The trip was painless enough, though getting through Nicaraguan immigration was a little bit of a pain in the butt. To counter that, getting into Costa Rica was pretty freaking easy. It was so easy, in fact, that one of the people in our group got in without even getting her passport stamped. About thirty minutes after we left the border towards Monteverde, we were stopped by police who wanted to check our passports. The person in our group who didn’t have a Costa Rican entry stamp and a few random Dutch were forced off the bus in order to return to the border and go through the immigration process. Over the next half-hour, we ended up getting stopped two more times by the Costa Rican police for passport checks. It seems to me that they could save a lot of money and just check people’s passports at the border like every other country does, but who am I to say?

We arrived in Monteverde late in the afternoon and just hung around until it was time for dinner. We took cabs to a restaurant in a nearby town and I had a steak with chimichuri that just made me miss Argentina that much more. I also had my first Pilsen, which has turned out to be my favorite Costa Rican beer. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to drink because we still had quite a bit Flora de Caña rum leftover from Ometepe.

There was a table and some chairs outside of my room at the hotel, and it was still quite early, so the usual suspects gathered outside of my room to drink. At around 10:15 pm, one of my roommates, the Englishman – it’s ALWAYS the fucking Englishmen – came out to shout at us that we were too noisy and he was trying to sleep. Then he slammed the door. It didn’t quite close, so he had to come back to close it again. It didn’t help that he came out in his underwear and he is about 60 years old and 70 pounds overweight. This produced images that none of us will forget no matter how hard we try.

Being the nice people that we are, we moved the party into the girls’ room next door. Eventually, the “bad kids” left in the order in which they traditionally leave and two of us were left outside drinking and smoking cigarettes. As she was passing out, I saw one of my friends in an unconventional way (don’t worry that you don’t understand the reference – this is just to remind myself of the incident in the future) and the two remaining characters in this drama spent a few hours outside enjoying the rum and each other’s company.

Afterwards, instead of facing the wrath of my overweight-scantily clad-anger management needing roommate, I crashed in the girls’ room since they had an extra bed in there. After seeing some other things that I won’t soon forget and a quick game of Easy Come, Easy Go (again, probably not what you’re thinking but it’s still a reference I’ll remember in the future), I fell asleep around 3 am. We had a big day of ziplining the next day, so I had to get up at six and head over to my room to shower and get ready for that. That’s what I really wanted to write about regarding Monteverde, anyway, so I’ll get to that in the next post.

(It occurs to me as I write this that I probably have no photos to go along with this article. I’ll go ahead and apologize now and maybe I’ll just throw up some random photos from the trip to make up for it.)