Coconut milk, reggae music, and thunderstorms.....the Caribbean at last

As sad as it is when there is no new blog post to read over coffee in the morning, consider it a good thing when I fall off the face of the earth for a week.... (Case and point: Bocas Del Toro)
This place was amazing. We arrived early (7am?) on a Wednesday morning, and dropped our bags off at one of the hostels we had read and heard about. There were no rooms available yet (again, it was 7am) so we grabbed some brekky, walked around town, and came back a few hours later to check in to what turned out to be the best hostel thus far. We met so many great people, and basically formed our own little family as we woke up next to eachother, cooked on top of eachother (small but nice kitchen), showered while talking with eachother...you get the point.
We had a great first night out, which included running into our friend Ryan AGAIN and the two sweet Swiss girls whom he's traveling with. It's always quite a riot hanging with them... as the pictures will tell.
Thursday morning I woke up to the sound of rain pounding down above and around me. So THIS is what they were warning about the weather on the Caribbean coast.... After about 30 seconds of being bummed about the day's plans being ruined (biking a few miles to the beach? i think not), I noticed a wonderful sweet smell permeating the air...
Still in my "pj's" (which differ from my day clothes in that I don't wear flip flops), I made it downstairs only to find:
a) it was valentine's day (yes, i had forgotten, and yes i am a girl)
b) a girl was shredding coconut (hence the sweet smell) to make a valentines day cake for everyone
c) a group of 4 boys had made some delicious israeli dish for breakfast and made a plate of the extra for me just as i sat down
d) the hostel offered FREE COFFEE ALL DAY again
Basically it was the coziest, most unexpectedly amazing valentine's day ever.
The rest of the week was great too...a lot of trips to the beach which entailed a 30 minute boat ride and a 45 minute hike through mud (both entirely worth while).
We are in Puerto Viejo now, have been here for a few days, and leave for San Jose tomorrow (ONLY to get a bus the next day, since San Jose is not a place we would otherwise do twice.)
Then its off to Nicaragua on Sunday!




Hopping on the boat after an amazing day at Wizard Beach


Delicious bbq FEAST for Ryan´s birthday!


Bike riding in Puerto Viejo









Coffee and the Caribbean......my two favorite things

Panama Cityness

Downtown Panama City, as seen from the nearby island of Flamenco....reminds me of Manhattan, no?



Ok, look closely. This is a city bus, decorated in the most AWESOME manner. It´s basically an old US school bus which is then repainted to look like a party bus from the 70´s. Some even had streamers attached to the wheels.


I love this picture...in the foreground is a tower from the ruins of Panama Viejo, which was the original Panama City before it was destroyed (BY THE WELSH HENRY MORGAN IN 1671 - just for you, "Roman"!.)...and in the background is one of the modern highrises of downtown ´new´ Panama City, which is the most developed city in Central America.



Old church next to old colonial buildings in the area of Casco Viejo, where our hostel was.



Our street, which we WERE allowed to walk down....as opposed to others.
On almost every corner, there were at least two policemen, telling us which streets we could walk down and which we should avoid for safety reasons. They said if there is no policeman on the next corner, we shoud not even walk down that block!
(Sorry parents!)

The Canal!!!!!!!!!

I´m in Cuba........with a broken neck.

(Or at least I feel like I´m in Cuba... and I feel like my neck actually may be broken.)

Jen and I arrived late last night in Panamà (Panama City) and took a taxi straight to our hostel in an area called Casco Viejo, which is an old colonial district with narrow, cobblestone streets and old churches, salsa clubs and plazas at every corner. All the Panameños here wear the typical Panama hats (creatively named "Panamas"), which paired with the cobblestone plazas makes us feel like we are walking through the streets of old Havana. (Not to mention that we took up cigar smoking today.)

Our hostel is actually in an old colonial mansion, which ALMOST makes up for the fact that my bed is
1) totally broken....hence the broken neck
2) in a dorm room with not one, but seven boys (and jen)
a. one of whom does not deem it necessary to at least throw on a towel on the way to the shower at 8 in the morning (first sight in the morning: stranger´s white bum running in front of your face across the room)
ahhhhhhh dorm life, right?

It´s pretty hot out compared to the perfect cool breeze of Boquete, which is why Jen and I have decided to seek refuge in the airconditioning of the internet cafe. (Although... I struggle with calling this place a ´cafe´, when it could be more accurately labeled ´chilly internet dungeon with frightening bathrooms´). Although we´ve heard some negative things about Panama City, I am pretty excited be here. This city has so much history, which makes walking through its various districts that much more interesting. The area we are staying in is where the city basically had to be rebuilt after being completely ransacked and destroyed in 1671, leaving only the ruins of Panamá Viejo (which we will be visiting tomorrow). And duh, the city also holds one of the world´s greatest engineering feats...the Panama Canal.

One last thing before I reimmerse myself in big-city-heat-and-sun-and-noise-and-traffic....
the quality of our life as travelers just improved 10 fold, as we just purchased....crappy plastic ipod speakers!! (No, seriously though. TEN FOLD.)

I lied. ONE more thing....the guy next to me is frantically clicking around on a site called "Cyber Cupido". He´s about 65 years old. Ok thats it for now!

An ode to antibiotics and gingerale

I´ve been there before. We all know I´ve been there before. After enduring all the symptoms of malaria every 3 days for a month in Southeast Asia, I´m pretty much a travelers-sickness afficianado. (Not to mention I think my stomach now has a steel lining....let´s hope for no repeats.)

Jen, on the other hand, is just a spring chicken when it comes to getting deathly sick in a third world country. Not anymore! Poor girl woke up at 3 in the morning on Thursday not feeling so hot, shall we say. I´ve been more than extatic to run mini errands as her private doctor, since fetching 7up is pretty much all one can do to help. After a full day in bed yesterday, she finally made it out into the sunlight TWICE today. (And trust me, that´s a big day!)

This morning on my way to pick up a pedialite for my little invalid, I stopped in the local fruit and vegetable market which you would never know existed as it is hidden in an old, unmarked building with two hidden, unmarked entrances. Once I finally made my way inside, I was overwhelmed by the number of vendors selling pretty much the same thing: fresh fruit and vegetables. Once again the only gringa in sight, all eyes were on me to make my pick of vendors. I first opted for a small vendor in the corner where I bought a ginormous bag of green beans for $1. With my extremely limited spanish, I asked the older man behind the counter if I could take a picture, and with the smile and si, si, si goahead...kindof had a field day with produce pictures!














Since I was standing there looking like an idiot for so long, playing around with the color settings on my camera, zooming in on random vegetables, etc.. I wanted to show the woman behind this counter what I was doing. I think she was a little confused at first, because she looked back at the vegetables (probably to make sure they all had color, not just the red cabbage). She loved seeing all the pictures, and she called her husband over who then yelled for their little boy who had been chillin on the ground working on half a watermelon the whole time. He could NOT get over the pictures, and we ended up playing a game where he´d have to find the colored item and shout the color....it was probably the cutest thing I´ve ever seen. And it definitely made me want to learn spanish even more, since all I could manage to say was "uhh errr guapo!" (uhhh errrr handsome!) after taking his picture.




Just striking up some convo with our neighbors...you know.

El Mercado

Cooking and Cockfights! (definitely separate events)

This is the (interestingly) decorated kitchen in our hostel, where Jen and I spent many laborious hours cooking....aka chopping up some fresh vegetables from the local market and boiling some water for pasta.


Hmmm. I think this picture deserves a bit of explanation...So this past week was Carnvial, which is only really celebrated in certain cities (like Panama City, for example, was completely booked for over a week!). However, on the last night of celebrations, Jen and I ventured into the nearby town of Dolega, where we were told there would be tons of festivities. (Translation: there would be a cockfight.)
We stood out just a little bit (picture two gringas in spring dresses amidst 60 year old panamanian cowboys), but it actually worked to our advantage as we were treated like royalty and ushered right into the arena to watch the fights. But first, we had to chose our lucky bird, hence the picture!


The big fight!
(Ours won, by the way)

Beautiful Boquete, Panama

apparently its normal to put a cactus this size in one´s front yard....anything goes in Panama


one of three rivers flowing through Boquete


strangely reminds me of Tahoe?


me?


Coffee plantation!

Rainforest and Pacific Coast....I love you, Corcovado.

Fending off pumas with machetes in Corcovado National Park...

....orrrrr just hiking through it. Same thing.
The moment we arrived in Costa Rica was the moment we began hearing about Corcovado National Park. I mean, when National Geographic labels a place "the most biologically intense place on Earth"...you can prettttty much assume its going to be, well....intense. If only we had known just how intense...




On Saturday morning, we got a 5am wakeup knock from the totally endearing four foot seven inch Costa Rican woman whose house we were staying in right outside of the park. Bright eyed and cheery (read: totally suffering from lack of sleep), Jen and I hopped on to el collectivo, which is basically the bed of someone´s truck, covered with a tarp. After a two hour ride consisting of bumps, ditches, rivers, a cigarette break for the driver, and some more bumps...we finally got dropped off about a mile away from the park entrance and so the journey began... we walked along the most pristine strip of pacific coast line ive ever seen for about one hour to reach the entrance station, and then from there they told us it would be about six hours of rain forest/beach hiking, and river crossings to get to the Sirena station where we had reservations to sleep. The ranger warned us in broken english to plan our trek around high tide, when apparently the bull sharks swim up into the rivers, and the chance of encountering crocodiles increases significantly. I´m sorry.....what?? Bull sharks? Crocodiles? Uhhh....



Stopping a few times, it did end up taking us close to 7 hours to reach the station, but MAN did it feel good once we did! We took nice hot showers, put on the terrycloth bathrobes they provided, put our swollen feet up and watched a little Entourage that happened to be on HBO, and then ordered some room service...
And by that I mean we took freezing cold "showers" with our flip flops on, squirted some blackbean paste type thing into a can of tuna, put on some dirty damp clothes from our dirty damp backpacks, and laid down on our pee-smelling mattress-looking thing at the modest hour of 7 pm.
The next day we got up at 6, left at 7, and did the same trail for the way back, with one hour of rain which actually ended up being quite surreal. (Hiking in the rain in the rainforest...who would have thought?)
All in all...........coolest experience. ever?

ever.

La Playa beckons.........

Now, I briefly mentioned that we got robbed in Santa Teresa. Fortunately, when the little buggas broke into the house, they were out of luck when it came to MY electronics and important things...my passport was hidden, my new ipod nano (courtesy of lily!!) was with me along with my wallet, credit card, camera, etc... my LIFE basically. HOWEVER...they did take my backpacking backpack, and my one, single, only, solo article of clothing providing warmth: my sweatshirt (not to mention it was my favorite one from Vietnam, which you may remember appearing in almost every picture from my last blog). So although I am extremely thankful for still having the things which were not stolen, and extremely sympathetic towards the other girls (mainly Emma) who got entirely ripped off, I had a bit of a situation. BACKPACKING for 3 months with.....no backpack. And...no sweatshirt. What to do?
Solution: Borrow humungous bright orange beach bag from Emma's mom, and purchase oversized-old-man-sweater from the supermercado. Problem solved.
After the cloud forest breeze of Monteverde, Jen and I were itching to return to the beach. (Or were we just itching in general? Both with over 35 mosquito bites per appendage...)
We took a bus to Domincal, a quaint beach town farther south on the Pacific coast. It was no Santa Teresa but we did manage to have a great time...sunset walks on the beach sans romance, lots of reading, and researching our next move...








When in Costa Rica...........try Guaro? (just once though!! bleh!)

And then there were DOS....

After an absolutely fantastic month in Santa Teresa, it was time to part ways. Jen and I said our goodbyes and instead of joining the girls on their trek (and I mean trek) back to the San Jose airport, we hopped off the ferry and literally ran onto the bus that was leaving two minutes later for Monteverde. Although cramped and hot and long and uncomfortable (and and and and), the bus ride up to Monteverde was quite stunning...green and mountainous, go figure! We had already made reservations at a recommended hostel called Pension Santa Elena which turned out to be amazing in that it served coffee all day. For free. ALL DAY. Oh and the staff was really helpful, and we met a few good people, and our room was decent enough for 7 bucks, and there was a kitchen we could use and free internet all day. (But the highlight was still, obviously...free coffee. Did I mention they served it all day?)
Anyway, Monteverde is known for its cloud forests, and thus its canopy tours. Since Im completely terrified of heights, I decided to try this ziplining I kept hearing about, which consists of strapping yourself to a rope and flinging yourself through the tops of trees in the cloud forest. Wait, what? That doesn´t sound fun.
But it was! I didn´t even cry. Jen and I both felt like we were little kids on Disneyland rides, as neither of us could wipe the ridiculously big and childish smile off our faces as we soared through the air. Embarassing, yes. But totally worth it. !



off to go hiking!

98259382 hours of uphill hiking later...we made it to the top

feeling a little dorky at this point

...and nervous