Bocas & beyond...
Our last day in CR was kind of a bummer for me, as I got a little sick. I feel all better now, and I don't know if I just had a little 24 hr bug or what. I spent the whole day sleeping, reading & drinking EmergenC. All better now!
The next day we had one last breakfast at our favorite little Pan Pay and said goodbye to our wonderful friends who had housed us the whole time. We hopped on a 9:30 bus to Sixaola, at the border with Panama. It was an interesting drive, mostly through banana plantations. There were bananas as far as the eye could see, and lots of little villages with shacks built for the banana workers.
At Sixaola, we got off the bus, went through immigration to leave Costa Rica, and then headed on foot across a very rickety looking old United Fruit bridge. This brought us into Panama, where we had to go through immigration again & get more stamps in our passports.
At this point we were inundated with pushy Panamanians trying to get us to take their taxi, shuttle, bus, etc to get us to Almirante, our next stopping off point. As we excited CR we met 3 other guys from NC. We shared a shuttle with these guys, since we were all going to Bocas Del Toro eventually. Man, can they pack you into these shuttles. The shuttle was the size of a van, and they insisted on getting 13 of us in there (and all our luggage tied on top of the van) before they set off. The first things we noticed about Panama was that it was hotter & way, way dirtier. In CR they are really good about keeping things pretty clean. They care deeply about their environment and have put so much land into conservation. The roads in Panama were better than in CR, but right away we saw trash everywhere.
The drive to Almirante was beautiful, nonetheless. More banana plantations, and then up into the mountains where we had beautiful views down into valleys & into the Caribbean. Once in Almirante we hopped on a water taxi to take us out to Bocas. Bocas del Toro is made up of many islands, but we were all headed to the main one, Isla Colon. Again they packed us & our luggage into the boat like sardines, 5 per row. It was a beautiful 40 min boat ride to Bocas.
We had a reservation at Casa Verde hostel, which was right around the corner. We bid our NC friends adieu and promised to meet up with them later for dinner. After settling into our air conditioned, tiny room (the first AC we've had on this trip) we were off to explore. We found our way to the beach and took a swim, since it was pushing 90!
Right away we both got the feeling that Bocas was not for us. It is lovely, but super touristy. The streets are jammed with restaurants, hotels and lots of shops selling junk for the gringos. If we were into surfing or had lots of money to spend on snorkeling, it would have been a good destination.
We had dinner with our good ole boy friends and then wandered a bit more. Our hostel was a big disappointment, especially since I had really liked the looks of it online. It was dirty, there was only 1 working women's bathroom (and 1 even dirtier men's) for the entire hostel, and in the morning it reeked of sewage. Our neighbors were some Italian college boys who partied late and appeared to love every bad American song written from 1988 to 1995, played at the loudest setting their stereo could bare.
We were supposed to stay at Casa Verde for 2 nights, but 1 was plenty, so this morning we made new plans and headed back to Almirante where we're taking a bus to David, on the Pacific side, and then back up into the mountain town of Boquete. We've had enough beach time for a while, so now we'll try the mountains for a bit now.
It was fun to read your description of the trip from CR to Bocas--In 2003 (?) Naomi S. and I did that same trip. Of course Bocas was probably really different back then, and we were visiting friends who lived there, so that part was different. I had an idea for an adventure for you all--boats that pass through the Panama Canal need a certain number of crew on board to handle lines in the locks. It is common practice to hire people to as crew for the two days it takes to go across the country and then pay for them to catch a bus back to the start point. I have been away from the boating world for a while, but it is worth checking out. It might lead you to a spectacular view of Panama. Happy, Safe, Adventurous Travels.
ReplyDeleteMcNeill