Panama

While studying abroad in Costa Rica, I had the amazing opportunity to visit Costa Rica's two neighbors; Nicaragua and Panama. Although my experience in Nicaragua was definitely one of the highlights of my entire trip, Panama was definitely a great way to spend my last full weekend in Latin America. I started the trip at approximately 2:30 in the morning on Friday when I left my house to walk to school. We were to catch the bus at 3:00 am. Petty theft is definitely the biggest worry about living in San José, and many of my friends and acquaintances in the international program had been mugged. Luckily, despite having to walk more than a mile to school everyday, several times a day, at odd times of the day and night, I managed to avoid getting mugged. At 3:15 am, our bus pulled up to the school, a full forty-five minutes later than it was supposed to be there. I figured this was just one of my last opportunities to truly experience tiempo tico or Tico Time. Tico Time means that Costa Ricans can be extremely late without any consequence. The culture is so laid back that no one really cares if a bus is forty five minutes late without a valid excuse. You may plan to meet someone for coffee at 2:00 in the afternoon, and they may not walk in until 2:30. As a Costa Rican, your response would be the same as if an American had arrived at a Starbucks five minutes later than expected. The time blocks are just different here. 

Due to the time, my group and I spent the next five hours sleeping on the bus as we drove west to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica to the capital city of the province Limón, Limón. We ate a typical breakfast at a restaurant in Limón that consisted of huevitos con queso, jugo horchata, gallo pinto, platanos fritos, y muchas frutas. (scrambled eggs with cheese, a popular Latin American drink called Horchata that consists of milk, cinnamon, and rice; rice and beans, fried platains, and a variety of fruits. 

We drove on through the province of Limón, past the BriBri indigenous lands and Puerto Viejo to the Panamanian border. Just as it was with Nicaragua, it was actually much more difficult to get out of Costa Rica than it was to get into Panama. The lines were not nearly as long to get into Panama, and the security was not as thorough. Instead of getting out passports stamped and then just driving across, we were forced to walk across a rather rickety bridge over the river that is at the border. It was an unforgettable, and a bit unnerving experience. I can clearly remember the smell of mothballs that were used to clean the vehicles crossing the border to avoid an invasive animal and plant species being spread between the two countries. I also remember wondering how the tractor trailers and our bus were going to make it across the bridge when I had doubts about its ability to hold my own weight. 

This is the bridge from the Panamanian side.
There were many times when I was able to look
down and clearly see the river 60 or so feet below.

We drove for a couple of hours through Panama. I had hoped to see the Panama Canal, but we were informed that it would have taken 25 hours of driving each way to get to the Panama Canal from San José in comparison to the eight or nine hours it took to get to our destination. Our destination was Bocas  del Toro, a group of islands off the eastern, Caribbean coast of Panama. Bocas del Toro translates "mouth of the bull." There were a number of different islands that make up the chain, and the only way to reach them from the main land is by speed boat. Of course, Panama's idea of a speed boat is very different than my idea of a speed boat. Basically, they put a very strong motor on a very ordinary boat built to transport about fifteen people at a time. The waves were pretty rough which made the ride extraordinarily bouncy and uncomfortable. Before the bouncing really got frightening, I was able to snap this photo of a Chiquita banana barge in the bay. I had seen a number of tractor trailers hauling Chiquita bananas while driving through parts of Panama.

Chiquita banana barge. 

This was my first view of Bocas del Toro from the speed boat. There were a lot of houses and businesses that were built literally on the water. As you get closer to the islands, the waves do not overly crash on shore due to the barrier islands and coral reefs. Therefore erosion is not a problem except for the occasional hurricane.

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Once we were on the island, I noticed a very different culture than in the different parts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua and even the parts of Panama that I had observed from the window of my bus. There was a very diverse mix of ethnicities with a strong Jamaican, indigenous, and asian influence. I did not see a plethora of Nicaraguan immigrants like I did in Costa Rica, but I did notice a culture that matched the Caribbean culture in Costa Rica as well. Everyone was very laid back. The picture below was taken from the porch of my hotel in Bocas del Toro. The tree in the middle was absolutely incredible because its roots reached at least ten feet above my head! It was a perfect center piece for the town. On this road, there were a number of wonderful places to get good seafood and to experience the Panamanian night life. I found that at all of the restaurants and shops, I had to use American currency, but I did not always get American currency back. The official currency of Panama is the American dollar. However, the coins you receive in change are often a mixture between quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies, as well as the Panamanian Balboa. The Balboa is the same size, color, and is worth as much as its American equivalent. However, the two sides show a famous explorer, the Panamanian crest, or an environmental scene instead of a United States president and landmark. 

The center of town in Bocas del Toro.

This is the hotel we stayed at that was also a
supermarket in the center of town.

After checking into our hotel, we headed to the famous gruta or sea-cave on the other side of the island. The drive to the other side was interesting to say the least. Our guide told us that most people would rather take a boat to the other side than brave the unpaved roads. For the rest of our trip, we took the boats... La Gruta is not only a natural phenomenon that would interest a science-oriented person like me, it was also a religious site for the strict Panamanian Catholics. There was an outdoor worship area there as well as a few statues of the Virgin Mary and other saints. A miracle was said to have occurred there. We were able to see the stalactites and stalagmites as well as some cave wildlife.

This picture shows one particular nest of bats that was in the cave.
 There are at least a dozen bats in that tiny place.
There were also bats flying around while we were walking in the cave. 

This was the sign at the enterance to La Gruta
which is the word for sea-cave or just cave in Spanish. 

This is a picture of me at the entrance to La Gruta.
 The nice tan has already significantly faded...

After our tour of the cave, we were met by another speed boat to take us to a beach on a different side of the island. We planned to have a Latin American barbeque on the Star Fish beach and watch the sunset. Of course, the sunset on the Carribean side is not as good as the sunset on the Pacific side, but this place was without a doubt, one of the most gorgeous places I have ever been. We rode up to the shore and were able to see dozens of large, fat, orange starfish just hanging out on the beach. We were able to pick them up and take pictures with them too. It was so unreal to see all of those starfish and just ocean and sky for as far as the eye could see.

This is a picture of some of my AIFS friends at the starfish beach.

This is one of our covered speed boats and people enjoying the beach barbecue. 

One of my more artsy pictures of the starfish on the beach. 

They told us the starfish were friendly... 

Emily and I

That night we had an opportunity to explore the town. This was around the time that the conflict in Libya was occurring. Emily and I finally had access to a television, and found the Spanish CNN. We spent part of the night trying to figure out exactly what was going on which was made all the more difficult because we were trying to translate everything into Spanish. We woke up early the next day to go for a boat ride in the bay to look for the dolphins. We got a close-up of the wetlands and the mangrove forests while searching for the dolphins. After an hour or so, we gave up and moved on to our next destination. We stopped at a remote "village" where we ate some world class seafood before having the opportunity to snorkel for a few hours. The seafood was incredible and included crab, shrimp, different types of fish, and octopus. The snorkeling was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. I was really able to take my time to explore and go out on my own which I had not done when I snorkeled in Egypt. This is where I finally got to see the dolphins. We first saw them while we were eating lunch, but later I actually saw two from the water! I saw all kinds of tropical fish including clown fish, flying fish, puffer fish, sting rays, etc. The coral was stunning too!  

These are some of the tamer fish that hung out right near the dock.
People will often feed them their shrimp shells. 

Some AIFS friends and I getting ready to jump back in.

One of my friends had an underwater camera!

The picture does not do the clarity of the water and the
 Brilliant colors justice. This was one of the more sparse
 regions, but she was afraid to take the camera
 out too far into the currents.

We left the next day and spent some time on the mainland before crossing back over the border. Panama had been an amazing trip, but I was definitely exhausted by the time I got back to San José late Sunday night.

Panama just after sunrise.