beaches beaches and food

I LOVE PANAMA!

But lets start from the beginning. Took the local bus to the border. Funniest border I have ever seen, it is just a rickety bridge with offices on each side. I have an unreasonable fear of falling so I'm terrified crossing, locals are zooming by on bikes with babies. Then taxis to the coast. Taxis here are funny, they keep picking up passengers and dropping people off who are going in the same general direction... like a shuttle service.

Anyways, I water taxi to BOCAS! Bocas is an archipelago and is basically a backpackers party paradise. There is the main island where I and everyone else stayed, and then other islands with various beaches / snorkeling sites. I was hoping that there would be some surf, but the Caribbean was flat at this time I think if there had been surf I could have stayed a whole week here. As it is, I got bored after a few days. There is nothing to do here but drink at Hostel Mondu Taitu, and visit beaches and snorkel. I'm not the type that likes drinking all vacation. Many people go on vacation and love to drink every night, spend the day hungover on the beach, and then repeat. Mostly Americans, English, and Australians . . . the rest of the world likes to keep it classy. I like being active during the day and doing things, but to each his own.

Typically, I get there in the morning and am bored so decide to go snorkeling. My big guide hahaha.. bet you never wanted to see that! So I get into the water, it's a little murky so I swim around looking. Then I see a jellyfish! Ahhh! Images of finding nemo flash through my head. I turn around and swim back, and there's another jelly. I am TERRIFIED.

Then my guide sees me flapping around and tells me that they don't sting. I don't believe him. He starts swatting them through the water at me. Not funny, I still am terrified even though he's touching them. Finally he grabs one and puts it into my hand. They feel really funny, like firm jelly noodles or something.

The next day a bunch of us go on a tour. First stop, dolphin bay. There actually were a ton of dolphins! Me being the spoiled California girl, I'm the only one not impressed as I've seen dolphins before. Anyways, I was going to jump in and try to swim with the dolphins, but there are a ton of jellys here and they sting. These ones have the long stringy things that wrap around you and HURT. Apparently you can touch any part of the jelly with the pink part of your hand (the palm mostly). Anyways now my terror of jellys is back.

It's funny, before this trip I was terrified of spiders. But they are everywhere in hostels, so I got used to them. Now I am irrationally terrified of jellyfish. I have this un-googled, unprooved theory that the electrocuting part of the jellys make a clicking noise in the water. Whenever I heard a clicking noise after that, I would freak out and swim around in circles and sure enough there would be a jelly.

Next stop, playa zapatillos. Even though the sky is overcast, it's sooooo pretty. Clear light blue water and white sand. Beauty is over rated tho, after a while we get bored and try to eat coconuts. Funny story, we run into some people who said that if we go into the forest there is a guy with a machete that will open coconuts for you. Anyways, when our boat comes later to pick us up, they say we each need to pay $10 for a "beach entrance fee". Obviously trying to scam us, and $10 is not a lot but that is $70 in profit for them and we are all tired of being cheated by locals. I'm the only one that speaks passable Spanish, so I look confused and say, "what do you mean, we already paid. There was a guy with a machete that came out of the forest and said he was there to collect the beach fee, so we paid $10". The guide looked a little mad but everyone else was yelling some variant of "we're not going to pay!" in english and there was nothing we could do. HAH. Stupid ladrons.

I decide to jog around the island. Yes I am that active while traveling. I'm like a different person, I would never jog around anything in California.

We discover this crazy tree growing parallel to the water!

There are thousands of tiny fish in the water here. You know how there are spas in Asia where you dip your feet into a pool and then the fish exfoliate your feet by eating? Yeah, they started to nibble my feet here. It ticked

Next stop, Hospital Point for snorkeling. Great snorkeling here, a lot of fish (and a few jellys!). My favorite moment = seeing a rainbow fish! When I was a kid there was a book with a rainbow fish shining on the cover, I was so excited to actually see the fish haha.

Was supposed to take a bus that night to Panama City, but it was full so I stayed another day. Went to Red Frog Beach, prettyyyy.

There actually are a lot of red frogs. They're yummy. Just kidding. Hermit crabs too, and look at those crazy tree roots!

Good thing I went with friends because after hiking a bit through the forest, out comes a guy with a machete. I thought people were joking about machetes. Look at those weird fruit trees, the green things are the ugliest fruit i've ever seen. The orange ones were yummy.

And that ends Bocas del Toro. I have a love-hate relationship with Bocas. It was fun, but too many of the people there wanted to do nothing but drink. My favorite bar in the world is there though. It sits along the waterside, plays an awful mix of reggaeton (and occasionally electronica when I asked the dj!), and has a weird mix of backpackers and creepy locals. But the best part is that it has a dock in the back, so after everyone was sweaty from dancing they jumped in the water!!! Clothes and all, and then went dripping back to their hostels haha. There need to be more bars in the world like that, where you can go in a dirty tshirt, shorts, and flip flops, dance a little, and then go swimming.

Made it to the Caribbean side. As everyone promised, there was less humidity and no rain! Unfortunately the waves were flat. Great thing about these tiny countries is that one of the coasts will be dry, and the other coast will be wet with waves. Ditto with blue skies - at least one coast will have them at any given time. White sand only on the Caribbean side tho

Spend a night in San Jose, which is the transportation hub. Miserable city. It's large and urban, but without the charm / glamour / food of all the large cities I love (Buenos Aires, New York, San Francisco). The ubiquitous long-distance bus ride... banana plantations

Then bus down to Panama. Planned on breaking up my trip by spending a night in Peurto Viejo, which everyone raved about, but ended up getting off in Cahuita which somehow seemed quiet and more appealing to me. Joined a group of Isralis and stayed in an Israli hostel (because of the sheer number of them traveling, they often get great deals).

As promised, it was beautiful!

The last time I played with starfish was when I was a little kid. My legs are all bruised up from surfing. Cahuita is small and sleepy, which was what I wanted at that point.

Food is better! The Caribbean influence = coconut milk cooked into things, which I loooove. Also by this point I remember that not all fish has the nasty fishy taste as in America, and I'm enjoying the local fish. Also the smoothies (batidos) here are amazing. They are rich and thick, not watery and synthetic. Basically whole pieces of fruit, ice, and a tiny bit of sugar. Heaven. Unfortunately and disappointingly, CR does not have a large variety of exotic fruit - but I am in heaven eating mango and pineapple every day. I don't even like pineapple in the states.

1 week of my 3 week CR trip done. Instead of 3 weeks in CR, looks like I'll spend a week in Panama. Up to this point I was really really torn about going to Nicaragua vs. Panama. Nica was supposed to be cheap with great surf, while Panama was supposed to be fun and stunningly beautiful. Everyone I met kept telling me different things. At this point, Cahuita was pretty enough to make be very happy with my decision.

Traveling is a dream. My hardest decision in a week (I actually agonized over this quite a bit) was which tropical paradise I wanted to go to.

I thought CR was humid, but Manuel Antonio is humidioso! Guess I should have figured a rain forest would be humid...

3-legged hostel dog trying to herd the horse and donkey

Anyways this hostel - Backpackers Manuel Antonio - was a lot more fun. Jaco was empty, past its glory days. In terms of surf, there are only small waves and because of the tide, only a couple surfable hours. This place is packed and was my first intro to the typical backpacker types. Lets just say that you can Google this and get pretty funny and accurate descriptions of the typical people that backpack.

And then there are the rest of us. lol.

Anyways, a group of us go hike the park. Plan was to make it through at least to the 2nd beach, but we got a little distracted.

By a trail to a waterfall! So green! We decide to see if we can climb up the slope to the top.

Yep!

On the way down, we are distracted by monkeys, which is what animal enthusiasts love CR for. These are brave guys, apparently sometimes they steal cameras. They also posed for us for a while until they got mad and started screaming at us to leave - about 20 monkeys screaming, showing teeth, etc at 10 humans on the trail.

There are also sloths! These guys are soooo slow! We cracked up for a minute watching them, then got bored.

Then we made it to the beach #1, which was gorgeousss

hahahhaah, raccoon stealing a sandwich out of a girl's bag! don't sleep on the beach in CR, your stuff will get stolen, either by a local or an animal

And we bodysurfed until the park closed.

After that, I wanted to hike the rest of the park but I was soooo sore and tired from hiking and attempting to surf (there is a crazy undertow here, definitely not waves for beginner surfers or weak swimmers) that I decided to take a bus back to San Jose. I wanted white sand, blue water, and everyone was raving about Panama, so I decided to head there! Costa Rica is more a place for package tourists or forest / animal people. Also I was sick of the sticky humidity in the rain / cloud forest.

That's the part I love most about traveling alone - the independence. Every day I can wake up and ask myself what I want to eat, do, and see. Am I happy where I am? If not, or if i'm tired / bored, I can decide where to go next. I started this trip with only the vague idea of going to Panama, and heard so many great things about it that I decided to go. I had the independence to choose my trip depending on my mood, but thanks to hostels there was always a group to travel with to the next place. Most solo backpackers I met similarly loved being solo. I met only one girl who was having a miserable time, she wanted an easy relaxing trip with no transportation nightmares and no itinerary decisions. Most people are afraid of being lonely, or in danger, but honestly its up to you. Most people at hostels are friendly and extremely open to making new friends and travel buddies - if you're alone, it's because you didn't make the effort to socialize. Most people traveling are also conscious of danger - if you get mugged walking home drunk at 4 AM from the bar, that's entirely your fault. The same if you get your stuff stolen while looking for drugs. Or "hey guys lets go to the beach after sunset!" haha

Landed in San Jose, Costa Rica in the morning after a nice 6 hour flight. I'm so worn out from my banking internship that I literally slept the whole flight - fell asleep right after takeoff and woke up as the plane touched down. Kinda scary to be woken up by the plane bumping around, but funny once I realized the plane was already on the ground. Best flight ever?

At the point the only thing I have planned for my trip are the flights and the 1st night. 3 weeks in and out of Costa Rica. I wanted to get to the beach as fast as possible, closest beach I can find in the Lonely Planet is in Jaco, 4 hours by bus from San Jose. Supposed to be a seedy surfing town, whatever. Anyways, I need change for the bus to downtown SJ and then to Jaco. ATM has an English option, lovely. Uhhhh no maximum amount? I have no idea what the exchange rate is or how much the local currency is, so I try 10,000. Later I regret being slammed by BOFAs ridiculous foreign ATM fees for such a small amount.

Walk out of the airport, give the dirty stare down to the taxi drivers that swarm me. "No, gracias" is probably my most used phrase on this trip. I'm a typical backpacker, scruffy clothes, head in the Lonely Planet trying to figure out where I'm going. Luckily someone from the tourist agency manages to convince me that he's not a taxi driver, and points the way to the bus stop. At this point I feel completely lost in life and am laughing at myself. How the hell did this happen? How on earth did I turn into this crazy solo backpacking girl? I like long hot showers and AC and heated rooms. I am not a naturey person, or a hippy, or a wild risk-taking person... and yet there I was with 1 week of clothes in a backpack, bank cards, a Lonely Planet and nothing else.

I'm the only tourist at the bus stop. I'm also the only asian (of course) and get funny looks. A young worker (he looks like he's 15) makes jokes about me as I try to get onto every bus. Every friggen bus says aeropeurto - san jose, which one do I get on? Finally he stops laughing when I ask him in Spanish which one goes into Downtown SJ and he gets me onto a bus 20 minutes later (even though 5 busses with the exact same route pass by? No idea)

Anyways get onto the bus and into SJ, get lost immediately trying to find the bus to Jaco. Thank god I know Spanish as I have to ask 5 different people for directions. The downtown area is seedy and I immediately hate the city.

Jaco IS a gross surfing town. There's no other way to describe it. The first hostel that I have a night booked for online is closed. Great. I walk through the town in burning hot sun and humidity (tho I love the humidity, immediately cured the cough I had for the past month) to find another hostel. I don't trust taxi drivers of course and I wander into random shops asking for a hostel. Apparently the word doesn't translate into spanish. "Hotel barrato?" gets me into a beachfront luxury villa. Thanks guys. Finally find an American-owned surf shop and they point me to the other hostel.

My first experience of hostelling: cold showers. Unless the hot water tab doesn't work here. I'm still hopeful at this point about the hot water situation in this country. A little explanation of hostels, they're like college dorms except it's in a 3rd world country. Normally 6-8 beds mixed gender, everyone has a personal locked safe for passports and whatnot. They're cheap, dirty, and I LOVE HOSTELS. Travelling solo, hostels are the reason why I felt safe and surrounded at all times - there is ALWAYS someone who wants to eat, who wants a beer, who wants to hike, who wants to surf, who wants to go to the next place with you. Through my 3 weeks I was NEVER ALONE unless I wanted to be!

It's about 3 pm and I'm bored. I check out my room, there's another dude in there and we introduce ourselves. "Hablas castellano?" he asks. I'm so excited! He's Argentine and recognized my accent. We greet each other again, the proper argentine cheek kiss way - no handshakes and "vos", the lovely slurred "ch" sound. He's about to go surfing, so I check out the beach with him.

(not surfable waves, obviously. Downside to surfing is that you never get a picture of the nice waves because you're always in them)

The water is WARM! The beach is grey and overcast, not the prettiest. Nice small beginner waves. I'm bored so I book a lesson. Last time I surfed was maybe 7 years ago in Hawaii. I lie to the dude and tell him I've gone a few times, so he takes me out through to the big green waves.

I get absolutely clobbered and have an amazing time. I LOVE the water, I love being tumbled and tossed around. Unfortunately my arms are as week as noodles and it is impossible for me to catch any nice waves. We move into the white and I have more success standing up.

Pretty much how I spend my first 2 days in Costa Rica - surfing and sleeping. The food in CR is pretty boring, but healthy and filling - I ate "casados" (big plates with rice, beans, and chicken or fish) the whole time. I never liked beans but they're great here. The guys I met here complained about the pushy prostitutes, but as a girl I never had them bothering me. A tip for future travelers, DONT go to the KFC at night unless you want to order something that's definitely not chicken!

Eventually I'm too sore to surf and decide to head to the national park close by, Manuel Antonio. I spot another backpacker at the stop - a French Canadian. He's heading to the same place and decides to stay at my hostel (which I decided to stay at because a guy at my hostel was heading there)