All good things must come to an end...!
Trip Start
May 31, 2011
1
10
Trip End
Ongoing
David, Panama
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Spent today lounging around the hostel waiting for night so that we could catch an overnight bus up to Bocas Del Toro. Got on the bus at 8.30pm, smashed back a cocktail of sleeping pills and hey presto woke up 10hrs later in some dusty town on the coast ready to catch the boat over to Bocas.
24/08/11
Woke up on the bus, took a boat over to Bocas and decided to stay on a smaller island next to Bocas, Checked into a hostel called 'Aqua Lounge'. This hostel is pretty cool it is built up on stilts over the water. After checking in myself, Dan and 2 new friends we met on the bus Arja, a chick from Holland and Eli the funniest Israeli guy ever, organized a boat trip for the day. First off we cruised over to an area where there were a lot of dolphins, which we watched for a while while they were jumping around and playing. Next we went over to some coral and then spent a while snorkeling and I spotted a huge crab which was cool as I've never seen one this size in the ocean before. Finally we went to an island which has a beach called 'Red Frog Beach' because there are a lot of poison arrow red frogs that live there. On the beach we played volleyball with a large group of beach goers but my highlight of the day was seeing a young Sloth and it actually being active unlike the one I had seen previously in Panama City. Enjoyed a pretty wild party back at the Aqua Lounge that evening and well into the morning.
25/08/11
Spent the afternoon relaxing on a small beach close to the hostel. Rather stupidly we decided to go for a walk around the entire island at sunset. As it was sunset it got dark rather quickly so we spent 2 hours in the darkness navigating our way around back to the Aqua Lounge.
26/08/11
Decided to change island and stay on Bocas so we checked into a hostel over there called 'Mondo Taitu. Caught a bus to the other side of the island to go to a beach know as Starfish bay. This was really nice and there were dozens of starfish that choose to live very close to the beach, giving it its nickname. Laying on the sand however was unbearable due to the shitty little sand flies and their irritating bite.
27/08/11
Got a group together and payed a local guy called Andreas 20 bucks to take us out on his boat all day so that we could fish and try to catch our dinner. We were promised we'd catch fish, so we set off trawling with very basic homemade hand reels, made from old soda pop bottles, line and a hook. After a couple of hours with no bites we headed to shallower water with the hope of netting a bunch of small fish to use as bait for a larger catch. Finally after a couple more frustrating hours Andreas netted a large quantity of small fish for us to use as bait, let the fishing begin! With the bait now on our lines we started trawling back to where we had started hoping to hook dinner on the way. Finally Chris felt a big bite and we all got excited as he started to real in his catch, a little to eager to land the fish in the boat as he had it 1ft away from being our dinner it snapped the line and swam away! Disappointed we carried on heading back with daylight starting to disappear, then, bite, Andreas had hooked something, so excited again we watched as he brought it aboard the boat, yay, dinner, or so I thought. Unfortunately Andreas explained that he'd caught a needle fish and these are too complicated to eat, so he took the hook out of its mouth and threw it back into the ocean to swim away full of life. Things hadn't gone so well and with about half an hour left of sunlight all of a sudden I felt my line go ridged. Extremely excited and not wanting to disappoint, I had to real this fish in carefully and slowly so that it wouldn't snap the line and escape its fate. After fighting with it a few minutes I got it to the boat and then, hey presto, in the boat. Relived that it hadn't got away I was overcome with excitement as I had just caught my first proper fish, ever! (I don't think the tiddlers I caught as a kid should really count as fish) A mackerel which was good enough for dinner and the only edible fish of the day. I was beaming all the way back to the hostel and incredibly happy with a smile I could not hide. Once back Andreas cooked up a storm using the mackerel, some veg and spices, and honestly my fish supper had never tasted so good.
28/08/11
After celebrating my catch last night I ended up getting rather intoxicated and spent the most of today sleeping off a hangover. Spent the evening partying again which seems a pretty standard affair in Bocas Del Toro, Why not when beer is 50 cents!?
29/08/11
Decided to go and check out Playa Bluff, which is touted as the island most beautiful beach. Me and 2 Canadian guys from the hostel hired bikes and rode along the coastline to our destination. It was indeed a beautiful beach, where jungle meets golden sand and then the ocean, with only a handful of people on it, it felt incredibly isolated. After a couple of hours on the beach we rode back to the hostel. Back at the hostel I was happy to see Courtney had arrived bringing with her a group of new friends, I knew we'd have a fun couple of days.
30/08/11
Again today we hired bikes and rode to Playa Bluff, there were 8 of us in total and Chris who wanted to stretch his legs and walk. Spent the afternoon there again enjoying the sun, sand and sea and then took off back to the hostel. We all decided to go out for a decent feed and went out for dinner at a nice Indian restaurant before heading back to our hostel for an 80's theme party. They had an 80's power hour which was basically 60 songs, 60 minutes and 60 shots of beer, with a shot being consumed every minute when the song changed. It was a lot of fun and fairly messy with a few people having to leave the table to vomit fairly soon into it and Courtney ending up more pissed than I've seen her in the 3 months that we've known one an other.
31/08/11
After a week of beaches, triumphant fishing and alcoholic debauchery on this popular island me and Chris decided it was time to leave. With only a week of our trip left we wanted to visit a couple more places in Panama. I felt a little sad saying goodbye to Courtney who I've shared many good memories with in the past 3 months, traveling together on and off in 6 of the 8 countries me and Chris have visited. Headed inland up into the jungle to a forest reserve to a place called 'Lost and found hostel' where we would spend a couple of days. On arriving I became quite nervous noticing that they have an angry looking white faced capuchin monkey on a chain, which didn't appear to pleased when ever I walked past him. I'm now gonna be on edge during my entire stay here as this little fella is inconveniently located next to the showers and toilets.
01/09/11
The plan was to do a treasure hunt in the jungle which the hostel has set up. Unfortunately it started to rain as we got ready to leave and continued to piss it down the entire afternoon so we called it off and I caught up with a few days of writing and watched several films in the dry. One film in particular is worth a mention 'Black Swan' a great movie and definitely worth watching. The hostel has a rescued mammal called a Kinkajou which is named 'Rocky' these are also known as honey bears. Rocky is so cool, he is nocturnal so you have to visit him in his cage at night in the dark. He loves attention and was great fun to play with, I think he is as close of a real animal that you'll ever find that seems like a fictional teddy bear. After playing with Rocky we had a foosball tournament in the bar, happily I came a very close second with one goal in it and got rather drunk in the process. The owner of the lost and found told me the next morning that on my way back from the bar to the dorms I fell into the monkey enclosure, which would explain the cuts I had in the morning, I didn't remember this but thank the lord the creature was sleeping and didn't wake because I have a feeling it could have ended badly.
02/09/11
Got up at a decent time and decided to give the Indiana Jones style treasure hunt a go before the rains came. It was a lot of fun, hiking through jungle, crossing rivers and figuring out riddles hidden around the jungle. We spent several hours doing this and on our way back to the hostel after finding our final clue the rain came, heavy, and didn't stop causing to to get soaked! Back at the hostel we cracked the final puzzle and won a bottle of wine, which went down nicely with dinner.
03/09/11
Deciding with only a few days left of our trip we'd leave the lost and found and head to island Boca Brava. I'd read that this was a nice relaxing island in the pacific, close to the mainland with a hotel that gave a good opportunity to mingle with other travelers. We payed a guy to take us to the city of David, caught a bus to somewhere else, then a cab and finally a boat to the island, taking just a couple of hours. As the only advertised accommodation was the hotel Boca Brava we had to stop there. This place is quite like a small resort with various lodging options from expensive to ultra budget and clearly very relaxing as we appeared to be the only guests there, mingle with other travelers we would not! On deciding we'd probably be best to leave tomorrow so that we didn't feel like we were on our honeymoon, we explored some of the island, had a good feed and got ourselves to bed for the night. Of course taking the cheapest of the lodging options, half a dozen mattresses on the floor in a part windowless room, which somewhat resembled a prison cell.
04/09/11
We left Boca Brava and made our way to David, the second largest city in Panama, where we would spend our last few days relaxing before we made our way home. Whilst staying at the lost and found we met one of the owners friends, a guy called Gregg who owned a hostel in David called Bambu so we decided to stay there. His hostel has a swimming pool, TV room, computers and a kitchen so we thought it the ideal place to kick back for our last few nights.
05/09/11
Having hammered it fairly hard last night I spent most of the day in bed feeling rather rough and surfaced in the late afternoon to cook up dinner before heading back to bed.
06/09/11
Woke up feeling much better and the sun was shining bright so thought I'd make use of the swimming pool, as it was the main reason we'd came here, to relax before making our way back to Canada. Spent a good part of the morning around the pool working on my tan as it will probably be the last bit of sun I see for a while unless there is a miracle in Whistler when I return. Having spent a few hours in the sun I turned to the computer to write this final installment of my blog. Tomorrow we will be catching an early bus to San Jose in Costa Rica taking around 8hrs, sleeping in a hostel near to the airport, and then on Thursday we'll be boarding 2 planes and arriving back in Seattle sometime in the evening. We're gonna stay in Seattle for the night and catch the greyhound bus back to Whistler on Friday, bringing an end to this amazing trip!!!
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So that wraps up my trip nicely, 100 days, 8 countries, a million memories. I've experienced new cultures, activities and friendships, I've been happy, sad, scared and excited but most of all I've had the most amazing time here in Central America. Anybody that's reading this that has been a part of my trip, thank you for being a part and making it so special! The only thing left to do now is decide where to go next...!!!
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