Travelling alone in Costa Rica and Panama? No, thanks!

Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica (the town where my new workplace is) is about 240 km away from Boquete, Panama. However, it took me about 7 hours to get there: quite normal for Central American standards.
Luckily, the first 180 km I could hitch a hike with my boss from Isla Verde. She and her friend were going to Bocas del Toro and they dropped me off in Almirante where I waited for the bus to Changuinola. However, I had forgotten that the tiny bus station of ugly Almirante is full of little annoying boys who are just too happy to help you with your luggage (for money, of course) and how are there to persuade rich-looking tourists to take the taxi instead of the bus. I hated the fact that they always went really close by my luggage and wanted to carry it for me because in two of my three bags I carried quite a bit of money. The rest was hidden somewhere on my body! :-P However, I was stubborn and waited for the bus. When I arrived in Changuinola I paid $1 extra because I had such a big suitcase. I think that was quite unfair because all the Panamanians carried huge bags of oranges, rice or potatoes, but none of them paid extra. Why do people here always think that blonde girls are super rich? And when I tell them that I just earn as less as they do because I get an Panamanian salary, they don’t believe me!
From Changuinola I wanted to take a taxi to the border of Costa Rica. I read in my travel book that it should cost about $5, but I also know that I always get an extra (high) price for looking like a tourist. So, when I asked a taxi driver he wanted $8. I tried to get him down to $6, but he didn’t want to. But instead he told me about a bus to the border which would only cost $1. I thought that was very nice of him, so I smiled, thanked him and looked for the bus. It turned out the bus was even less than $1!
At the border it was a hard fight with my luggage. Since I’ll be travelling for nearly 2 years in total, I have a lot of stuff. The first challenge was to get up the stairs. But only a second after I tried to lift my heavy suitcase myself, I had a Panamanian guy helping me. I looked at him and asked in Spanish: “Is it for free?” But he just grinned. However, once we were up the stairs, I grabbed my suitcase really fast and told him that now I would not need any more help. I, of course, didn’t give him any money. As I told you: I only get a Panamanian salary and that is not enough for paying extra tips! After I had my stamp from the Panamanian side of the border, I went into the direction of the Costa Rican side. And just before I came to the bridge, there were a lot of people yelling out that it would only cost $5 for me to let them carry my luggage over the other side. I very soon found out why they offered that service: The bridge consisted out of a few wooden blanks which were pilled on top of each other and pulling my suitcase over them turned out to be nearly impossible. On the very side of the bridge there was a little sidewalk which was made out of rusting metal. I couldn’t quite decide which one was less dangerous, but decided to take the rusty side (although nobody else did) because it was easier to pull my suitcase there. However, I nearly ripped my jacket open at a rusty part that was sticking out from the fencing!

But once on the other side, I got into Costa Rica without problems. Now I only had to wait for another bus. Both border towns, Guabito (on the Panamanian side) and Sixaola (on the Costa Rican side) looked exactly the same, except for the fact that the Costa Rican side only had a gravel road and not a paved road like in Panama. The bus took much longer to get to Puerto Viejo than I thought. (It looked so short on the map.) However, once I was in Puerto Viejo, it was easy to get a taxi to the hotel and there I was greeted by two very friendly Costa Rican receptionists. One of them, Raymundo, brought me straight to my apartment which is in the middle of the jungle (I can hear the holler monkeys every morning and I check for scorpions before I put on my shoes.), but not too far from the hotel. I turned out that half of the employees of the hotel live in my block of apartments and I feel a bit like being in summer camp.

Some Thoughts about Panama:

Since I have now left Panama, I thought I jot down some things that are weird, different or special about Panama:

- It’s OK to walk along the street with an uncovered machete in your hand. (Try that in Germany and you’ll end up in prison right away.)
- You always have some extra inhabitants in your house, may it be cockroaches or lizards. I myself shared a room with my colleague, a lizard (I have never seen it myself, but heard how it was making it’s specific sound and I saw how the cat tried to catch it.), some really big spiders and a lot of other big ugly bugs. In Bocas del Toro my sister and I also had a lizard as a roommate and once he walked over my bed sheets while I was sleeping under them. Although I’m not scared of lizards, it wasn’t exactly a nice experience!
- The closer you get to Costa Rica, the worse are the streets. (The presence of the Americans in Panama until not too long ago helped the infrastructure quite a bit. However, the Americans have never occupied Costa Rica.)
- Daily electricity blackouts were normal; mostly just for a few minutes though. If there hadn’t been one in two or three days, you would start to wonder what was wrong.
- And I think due to those many blackouts, the electric devices started to go crazy. Because in quite a few roundhouses of the hotel and also in the main house, the TV’s would suddenly turn on although there hadn’t been a blackout right before. Sometimes that scared me quite a bit!

Location, Location, Location

I've just realized that most of you probably don't know where exactly in Panama I am or where I'll be living in Costa Rica. So, that's why I stole a map from Googlemaps and highlighted a few places.
Boquete is the place where I have worked for the past two and a half months. Las Lajas and Bocas del Toro are the places where I spent my vacations. And Puerto Viejo is the place where I will work for the next 3 months.

Time to Go!

A break-in at one of the hotel apartments, floodings in Boquete and partly of our house and continuuous rain: time to leave Panama and go to Costa Rica!
Well, those are, of course, not the reasons for me to leave. The real reasons are having to do with
- my boss with whom I live together and I don't have a good relationship with
- the fact that the house I live in is the hotel reception at the same time and I have the feeling that I can never relax
- not having my own room
- having too many rules in that house....
I simply feel too restricted. I like the work here, but I just don't feel comfortable here and I can't be myself.
I have lived together with many people and families and so far I've never had problems. But I know that some people just can't get along well and if there's no chemistry, then I think it's the best to change location.
Of course, not everything is bad. Boquete is small, but you always have somewhere to go to on weekends. I love the two dogs and the cat. And I found out that the Rottweiler is just like me: we both can be very dramatic! :-P
I'll be going to a super expensive hotel close to Puerto Viejo and close to a beach. I'm excited to see who and what is awaiting me there!

Our own Coffee

Richard, a friend and neighbor of Isla Verde, invited us to his coffee tour. And his tours are special because you can roast your own coffee. I still don't know much about coffee although it was my second tour already, but I can tell you that much: If you barely roast your coffee, it will taste a bit more like lemon. If you roast your coffee really dark, it mostly just tastes bitter. So, we decided to do a medium roast and Ina, my sister, did the roasting. That and what I already wrote in my older blog entry about coffee is about as much as I know, so enjoy the pictures! :-P

Surrounded by Water

After Las Lajas we went to Bocas del Toro; probably the most touristy place in Panama. It consists of several islands in the Atlantik.
Although it's only about 200 km away from Boquete, it took us forever to get there. To get to the other side you have to take a bus that goes over some very high mountains and for only $7 you get 5 hours of excitement because the bus doesn't slow down because of tight curves. It was like a rollercoaster ride without the safety precautions.
However, the fun was not over after the bus ride. To get to the islands, you have to take a speed boat from Almirante. My sister really wasn't a fan of it, but I loved it! :-P By the way, Almirante (the town where the boats leave from) is the ugliest town I've seen in Panama so far.

When we arrived on Isla Colon during the early evening hours, we were a bit surprised to see Bocas Town so empty: we even saw vultures. However, we later found out that Bocas is a party town and before 9 pm at night nobody is out on the streets.

The hotel room we had booked surprised us in a positive way though. My boss had said that found it too sterile. But to be honest, if I have my own computer, a fridge, a flatscreen-TV with English channels, hot showers with good water pressure (Have I told you that so far I haven't had a hot shower at the hotel where I work? On good days, the water is luke warm. But of course, our guests always have hot water. :-/), and airconditioning in a room, it can be as tasteless as cardboard and I will still enjoy it. Especially when it's as cheap as this room was.

In general I really liked Bocas although it's very hot and humid, pretty run down in some parts and everything is even slower than in Boquete. There was just one big downside: There are no good beaches close to Bocas Town. You always have to take a bus or water taxi to the beaches and they charge very high prices for tourists. (That was the one beach that was close to Bocas Town, ugly and full of garbage. But wait: The nice beaches will come.)

On our first day we decided to take a water taxi to the small island of Carenero. It's the closest to the island of Colon and we were hoping to find a good beach there. Although the taxi driver of the boat told us in which direction the beach is, I prefered to at first look around the island. However, it turned out that this island is only pretty on one side. On the other side you are walking through slums where the huts don't have a sewage system. But some of them had electricity and an antenna for TV on the roof. But once you've crossed the slums, you came to very rich houses built by an US-American firm and very beautiful places. We found out that you can't walk all around the island. So we had to go back through the slums to find the beach. I like walking and discovering new and sometimes not so pretty places, but I think that my sister didn't really like our little trip into the slums and the jungle! :-P

On our third day we went on a snorkeling trip. And surprise, surprise: There was a really cute Panamanian snorkeling guide with us! :-P At first we went to Dolphin Bay and were looking for some dolphins. We even saw some, but it turns out: taking pictures of fast-moving animals is not easy. I think I got one picture where you can see a tiny bit of a fin! Snorkeling was fun though. They still have really nice reefs...and some dead ones already. Unfortunately, the first snorkeling ground was full of jellyfish and although most of them didn't sting, it was still a bit of a pain to avoid them. The next place where we snorkeled was without jellyfish and also very pretty. There was just one thing that bothered me: Right after I had jumped into the water, something really big passed by me. Since I can't wear my glasses in water and had forgotten to take my contacts with me, I couldn't see what it was. But it might have been a shark; one of the not dangerous ones though. Nethertheless, t did unnerve me a bit! And one of the stops on that tour was at a very pretty beach. But there was a downside of it, too: sandflies...ouch!!! Unfortunately, I don't have an underwater camera, so no pictures from pretty fish! :-(

Later that day we decided to go out. There are always bars on the island that have ladies night. And at the first bar which was built over a sunken ship, we met the cute snorkeling guide. It turns out that he is from Boquete, has lived in Germany (Berlin) before and will go back there in August. He confinced us to go to another bar on another island which also had ladies night. The water taxi right in the dark and in a way too full boat was more adventurous and safe. The other bar was full of US-American marines and the snorkeling guide felt kinda out of place. However, I fixed my sister up with some of the marines and went somewhere else with the cute guide! :-P
The next day my sister was so hung over that on the ride to Boca del Drago, a beach on Isla Colon, she got sick. I was doing fine though! :-P Boca del Drago is full of starfish...really cool!

Our last day we finally spent at the beach of Isla Carenero which was a very good choice because it barely had any sandflies.

All in all, it was a very nice trip with lots of mosquito bites. On our adventurous bus ride back we had a flat tire, but Panamanians are so used to it that it was exchanged quickly.

Windows are Good!

My sister came to visit me in Panama. And our first stop was Las Lajas, a 13 km long beach on the Pacific side.
Eva, my boss, recommended that we stay with a German couple that has a bar at the beach. The rooms are very cheap, only 5$ per night per person. And since I didn't want to spent much money, I liked the idea. However, when we arrived we were a bit confused about the definition of "a room". It was on top of the bar and it didn't have any windows. I didn't mind that it only had a mattress and otherwise very simple furniture. But with the location being directly at the beach, the "room" was incredibly sandy. The sand was just everywhere: in the bed, in our bags, on our skin.... The owners of the bar also didn't have any windows in their room. I mean, it was kinda fun to live so close to the nature and beach for 2 nights, but I doubt that I would like to live like that for 2 years.

Well, the view was georgeous though, the Pacific warm and the beach empty. So far I haven't seen a crowded beach in Panama.

During the weekend we were there, the German couple had organized a Oktoberfest with tyical music and food. The food was absolutely delicious, especially after not having had German food for nearly 2 months! And since my sister lives in Munich and has been to the Oktoberfest many times, she taught me the funny dances to the typical music: the dances are so easy because you also have to be able to do them after 4 litres of beer. However, the Panamanian guests of the bar were quite shocked when they saw us dance. I guess, they don't know what fun is.