Journey to Panama

The 4 Germans and Jess

On the water taxi going through the canal on the way to the open water.


Please forgive the errors in these emails. The keyboards are different and it´s hard to find some of the correct keys.

In the spirit of embracing opportunity. I had a crazy adventure getting to Panama yesterday. I am now in Bocas del Toro, Panama. It´s an island on the Carribbean side. There are so many stories to tell, but I´ll try to get the highlights.

I left San Jose a day early. I just need a change because the place was bumming me out. So my new friend Jess and took a taxi to the bus stop to catch a bus to Changuinola to catch a water taxi to Bocas. Seems simple enough right? Well, we made it to the stop in time (barely) and no just as we get ourselves situated in line there was some comotion and we find that someone had grabbed her backpack that was on the ground. Luckily nothing irreplacable was in it, but so far everyone I´ve met has had some huge incident happen. It´s a good reminder for me to be on my guard. We get on the bus and start our 6 hour treck to the Panamanian border. We get there and we have to get off and get a stamp and then walk across a narrow bridge and get some sort of paper and then immigration. It was silly. So far all was well. Jess spent 3 months in Bocas so I felt comfortable trusting her and traveling. Nice to have someone else with a plan for once right?

Anyway, we continue on to the next town. We get off and she says its close to walk so we talk to some Germans traveling on the same bus if they want to walk with us. We start on our way and my intuition just didn´t feel right. She didn´t really know the exact way. We started down this path that was all boulders and into what looked like dense forest of some sort. I just wanted to double check so I asked a couple of people and they said, ¨no, no this isn´t the way. it´s very long to walk. it´s about 1.5 hours. yikes! i felt inclined to trust them. one older man said, ¨i live here trust me. he was very concerned about us.¨ so we agreed we were not on the right track.

So we agreed to take a cab. So we went back to the road and I flagged one down. The other cab drivers who were there to take us when we got off wanted $2-3 each for the trip, that we thought was close. He said he´d take us for $4 for all of us. When I say ALL OF US. I´m not kidding. In a small Geo metro type car we had 4 germans in the back, and Jess and I in the front. All of our luggage in the back. Tied with a rope. Jess was super sweaty and super smelly. The cab driver wanted her as far away from him as possible. She was on my lap.

It was about a 20 minute treck down a dirt lane through banana plantations. We had to stop a couple of times to check the tire, which was making a horrible noise with all the weight. It was a long slow treck. We finally made it. Phew. We made it in time for literally - the last boat out. We waited on a nice dock next to a playground for about an hour. It was just getting dark and was a lovely in a speed boat with about 16 people. I have a few photos I´ll share later.

Anyway, we arrived in Bocas and walked to this hostel which is a 20´s boys club. It´s owned by a bunch of guys in their 20´s and has a bar attached. It´s called Mondo Taitu. Jess stayed there 3 months and knows them. It´s like a rundown frat house. A good adventure but then we were also sharing the room with 2 smelly guys who had their stuff all over the room. We both had terrible headaches. I took the best cold shower I´ve ever had. It felt amazing. So then we went out to eat at the Plank and had a fallafel wrap..ya go figure. It was really good. I just wanted to sleep. But it was Martini Monday at the bar below and then there were these people outside our door hanging out and complaining about everything. I finally found my earplugs and fell asleep. So that was my day yesterday. How was yours? Today is looking up for sure. I am getting used to the heat and humidity. We´ll see how the week goes. There are some great beaches and I hope to go snorkeling. Love ya all.