Panamaniacs

I told myself I’d write these things frequently while I was traveling and since I just got done sailing for a week off the coast of Panama (more to come on that later) I consider this a free pass for this once.  After finally saying goodbye to Riley and Steve it was back to our two-man Team Denver crew.  We did a little shopping in San Jose before boarding a bus for Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean coast; which consisted of us taking a taxi to Walmart and going nuts… Ryan has been trying to grow a beard for a while now so he needed some grooming tools.  

I’ve been waiting all this time to go to the Caribbean of Costa Rica side to see how it compared to the Dominican Republic.  Well, the water is clearer, the people are darker (lots of Jamaicans and Haitians), and there are no waves, but other than that it is still the same Costa Rica I’ve been exploring for the past month.  Ryan and I were up in this tree house sorta thing Skyping and using the internet at our hostel one night and watched some people hanging out under the canopy below.  Everyone was sitting around speaking English, but not a single one was a native English speaker.  As fun as it has been refreshing my Spanish and interacting with locals I’ve loved meeting all these interesting Europeans and other travelers along the way.  Rocking J’s is a sweet hostel with a ton of tile artwork and you have the option of sleeping in a tent, hammock, tree house, or bunks.  We choose the hammocks and I can’t tell you how quickly I crash when I hop in one of those things.  I finally got to do a little snorkeling there which was pretty decent as well.

We have been hearing all this time since coming to CR about Bocas Del Toro, Panama and how it is “The Vegas of Central America.”  It may not have flashing lights, big buildings and casinos but it is definitely the city that never sleeps...I’m not a big Vegas fan but I loved Bocas!  You have to take a water taxi to get there as Bocas is just a series of large inhabited islands off the Coast of Northeast Panama.  We were having a good time for a few days there and then the inevitable happened.  While lying on a beach at some random island near Bocas the travel bug officially infected Ryan.  Outta nowhere he jumps up and says, “we have to go to S. America… let’s go to Columbia!”  So, the next day we woke up, hopped back on a boat out of Bocas, and jumped on a 12 hour bus to Panama City looking for a sailboat to take us through the San Blas Islands and eventually to Cartagena, Columbia.

Since I’ve had a few days on the ship to catch up on my blogs you can actually enjoy these pictures from Puerto Viejo and Bocas now instead of having to wait for my next post.

Mucho Amor,
-Bryan

 So much amazing tile-work!

Crossing the border to Panama by foot