We have officially passed the 1/3 mark of our trip. This also marked the time that we had to leave the country to renew our visa. Panama beat out Nicaragua as the destination of choice mostly because we heard good things about the spot we ended up heading to. Our itinerary was to leave at dawn on Saturday, drive the 7-8 hours to Panama cross over, drive to the harbor town, leave the car in a secure lot, ferry over to Bocas del Toro, Isla Colon stay three nights, return to Costa Rica and stay one night close to the border then make the long drive back returning home before it got dark so as not to have to drive at night. Nice plan; we wish it had worked out that well.
First of all, Although we bought the car weeks ago, we didn't receive the title. On Tuesday before the trip we asked the lawyer if it had arrived and after much searching we were told it hadn't but we could come back on Thursday. On Friday we went back and the lawyer was out of town until the evening, Friday was full of fun. This was the day we found out that we actually needed a gov't permt to drive our own car out of the country. Not in the plans. Friday was also the day that Sidne decided to come down with some sort of infection in her throat. Nothing like going to a new country (without a car to use), isolating yourselves on an island with a sick child especially not knowing what was wrong with her. This wasn't going to happen, so Laurie with lots of help from Isue, took Sid down to a private clinic to get her checked out. It cost about $20.00 to see her at 6:00 pm on a Friday night if you can believe that. They were back at home with antibiotics in hand within an hour. Meanwhile I had procured the title and asked what could be done about the permit we didn't have to drive across the border. The lawyer and folks at a hotel close (but not very close) to the border suggested trying to take it across without the permit and if we couldn't we would be able to find a spot where someone could look after it. As you can imagine, at this point I and probably everyone else was thinking: Damn! this trip is looking like a lot of fun.
Well, what's worrying gonna get you (besides a restless night and an upset stomach)? Isn't funny that three adults can toss and turn all night and still over"sleep"? We did. So instead of a 5:00 start we got a 6:45 start. Oh it gets much better. Ten minutes into the trip we are no longer miving becasue for some reason someone thought it would be a good idea to route a road race on the one and only true freeway in Costa Rica. Once we made it past the bottleneck, we had to dodge rummers for the next ten miles (16 km) or so and each runner seemed to have their own attendant vehicle driving beside them. We finally made it to the first cutoff toward the Caribbean coast and missed the exit. All this meant that we were just as unsure of how to get to the next main road as if we had not missed the exit; we were just further down the road. Three stops later asking for directions we were on the correct path. Being this the land of no streets having names makes it tough, but when to road signs point out upcoming turnoffs but not exactly where to turn, really frustrates the already stressed and weary. And believe me some of the turns we passed up really looked like dead ends rather than entrances to major connecting roads, which is why we passed them up (and maybe they really were dead ends; we will never know).
Once we finally got to where we knew exactly where we were, we found ourselves in the midst of another road race, this time it was bicycles that we had to share the road with for another 10-15 miles (16-24 km). Once past them we started our climb through the mountains that separate the two sides of the country. There were many curves, no passing lanes in our direction and to top it off lots and lots of rain. Not a very fun stretch to drive, but on the bright side the temperatures were quite pleasant (cool and cooler but I still haven't found cold here yet even though the natives keep telling me it is out there somewhere.)
Nearing the border, we found ourselves in the midst of banana country. Imagine Midwest corn or wheat fields. It was bananas as far as the eye could see; each tree having its own blue bag protecting the fruit. According to our map, the road was supposed to be undeveloped, but Chiquita or Dole must have put a little money in improving them. A little, not a lot, because there were stretches where the nice beautiful road would disappear into something out of a war zone. Imagine Beirut. Sometimes there would be a warning sign and sometimes not. And then we were at the border.
We found out within seconds that we were not going to be driving across. We were however conveniently introduced to a man who told us he could be our everything in the border crossing process. It turns out that indeed he was. He found us a lot to park our car, took us through the immigration line, (even cutting to expedite the process; time is money when dealing with tourists) walked with us across to Panama to more lines and finally put us in a taxi. I am sure he gets a kick back for each non-governmental contact along the way, nevertheless he was worth the $10 we gave him. His advice and guidance actually saved us at least $64 in the legal border scam that Panama runs. The taxi was expensive compared to finding a bus, but at this point these tired, stressed, frustrated gringos were willing to pay for the taxi rather than spend who knows how long looking and waiting for a crowded bus just to save some money. That might have broken us.
Ninety minutes and a water taxi later found us on Isla Colon in Bocas del Toros. We spent the next three nights in a strange third class tourist destination. Other than the surfer type with rich parents, I am not really sure who this place caters to. The town itself is a bit run down with not much to offer other than scuba/snorkeling tours.
The first full day was spent swimming off of the hotel dock. Leif was too scared to snorkel as he seemed to have trouble breathing out of his mouth and the mask covered his nose. There were a good number and variety of fish under the dock and my mon and I swam out a ways and got to see a little more (nothing much to write home about and barely enough to mention in a blog). The next day we hired a boat to take us snorkeling and dolphin watching. We saw a few dolphins which was fun but nothing like the mental image I had prior to getting on the boat. We snorkeled for an hour or so and Leif eventually got brave enough to ride piggyback on either me or my mom. Laurie dropped her watch in the water but I was able to dive in and wrestle it away from some vicious
We did eat some good food and rediscovered hard liquor althought even that took some working at. We had an interesting experience (actually more than one or two) with the restaurant in our hotel. The wait staff was very green to be polite. They were nice enough, they just had no idea how to work in a restaurant. The food was okay, not always what we ordered but who is perfect. We ate our complimentary breakfasts there (the kids shaaring most of theirs with those fish under the dock which explains why there were so many of them) and the first dinner but had to find other place for all our other meals. The end of the first full day we came back from checking out the town, passing up many happy hours because our hotel offered a two for one special. The only problem was that the lady working the bar didn't know how to make any drinks. More beer. We finally did get some tequila in us but I am not quite sure what they used for margarita mix.
It's not to say we didn't have fun, especially the kids, but in the backdrop of all the stress, real and imagined, the trip as a whole wasn't whaat we had hoped it would be.
The trip back across the border should have been easier but it wasn't. We were lacking some info which we had to retrieve and print out via internet at the local pharmacy down the street. Incredibly we were allowed to drop our bags off at the car, which was still there, without them ever being checked by anyone (probably because there isn't any drug smuggling going on in this part of the world.) Fortunately obtaining the needed info was not very difficult at all except having to pay three dollars for the two pages we printed out. Luckily all the info was in a group and not individually otherwise it would have been $15. The unfortunate part was that upon our return to immigration, there was a line. It was only six people deep and five of them were a family from Paraguay who needed the same paperwork done, but it took nearly an hour and they had to replace the lady who didn't know what she was doing before we made it through.
All in all it was not the nightmare others have lived to tell about but it was bad enough that Laurie does not want to walk across another border. For our next visa renewal, we bought tickets to fly into exotic Boston in February. Our friends the Martins thought that by sending us a boatload of chocolate for Halloween they would have done enough but now they have to host us as well. Talk about tough. Believe it or not the tickets to Boston were the cheapest we could find going anywhere. I can't understand why flying into Boston in February would be so inexpensive. The laws of supply and demand must not apply in this instance.
I would be amiss if I didn't mention the drive home from Panama. No races, we didn't get lost (at least not until we got back across the mountains and had to change roads), traffic was light, the weather was perfect and there were plenty of passing lanes through the mountains. Except for the twenty minutes of sheer terror (driving the curviest, hilliest [up/down] and car strewn road, through very thick wet fog, not knowing whether to slow down and get hit from behind, move over and hit someone else or to plow on through chancing missing a curve and falling off the mountainside, the entire time thinking we were going to die) it was a nice drive. Needless to say we made it home safely. We even had enough daylight to spare so that we could stop and enjoy a Price Smart (Costco) dog and ice cream. As a sidenote it should be mentioned that this particular route was suggested by our friend Karoy and when I recalled the drive to him, he let me know that it was the most dangerous stretch of road in the country with people dying on it all the time. I am not really sure to make of his suggesting we drive that way.
It didn't take us long to fall back into our Costa Rica groove. The kids were back in school the next day (Thursday) Leif for half of it anyway and neither of them had school on Friday. The Duck game was on t.v. and we had a pork rib dinner. The weather is in the high eighties and we have been regulars at the local pool. Yep life is good and it is good to be back "home".
As a side note this is the third time I have typed this out as the blog page kept saying it was saving it but it really wasn't, hence the reason for the delay.
