Bocas, Boquete, Bryan and byebye Panamá

Hello from rainy central America! Hope you're all well and putting on plenty of pounds to survive the winter (or summer if you're reading this in Australia, in South Africa or in some other upside-down part of the world)!

Bocas del Toro was as touristy as can be. Pretty, but completely americanised, and you would've known you were in Panamá if they didn't tell you so. I took a boat to the closest island for a dollar and rented a bike to visit the beaches on the main island (2 us$ per hour). Without the Chilean reggae dudes in my dorm and their concert followed by a nice nightly jam session the day before I left the island I would've have felt at home. Seeing sea stars right under the hostel terrace/quay and hundreds and hundreds of crabs running around the whole island was pretty neat though.

I got off the island on the same boat (4$, 3€) with a middle-aged German man also on his way to Boquete, and fought our way to the bus station without paying the gringo price 1$ for the 50c collective taxi ride. 50 cent would've have made any difference to either one of us but accepting the 50% skin colour tax didn't suit my mood.

After the 4 bus ride (7$, 5€) where the temperature of the bus went from freezing cold - when the ac was on full speed - to hellishly warm - when the windows were open, we got to David and took another humid bus (1,5$, 1€) to Boquete less than 2 hours away. I gave my COOL friend Bryan a call and he came to pick me and my two backpacks up with his motorbike. In the pouring rain of course.

The weather didn't get any better during the next two days when I got to enjoy Boquete and Bryan's COOLness, but I had to good time anyway eating our delicious home made sandwiches and trying local sea food. Seeing Bryan's COOL house project and some pretty landscapes from his bike would've been cooler if it wasn't pouring the whole time, but hey - next time!

Then I was off to Costa Rica: first the same bus to David and then another one from there to the border (2h). After being convinced that the 1$ passport stamp I was asked to purchase at the border was not only a tourist rip-off, or at least not an unofficial one anyway, I managed to leave Panamá. Since it was only midday I figured it wouldn't do any harm if I queued to the only working cash machine to get some local currency instead of getting ripped off by dollar exchangers. That, and then being left behind a big group of Panamanians travelling together without a passport on some sort of joined visa, took about an hour and by the time I got off the bus at Ciudad Neilly bus terminal my last bus to Dominical had already left.

After some more walking in the rain (for a change) with my backpacks I managed to find a cheap, but judging from my later skin reaction, bedbug infested room in the centre (Villa???, 4000 colons, 6€) and after trying unsuccessfully to find a place to call Mexicana and checking out the local food prices I decided to settle for some DIY tomato & cream cheese sandwiches before reading myself to sleep.

In the morning I took a bus to Dominical (4h?, 2000 colons, 3€) and had to ask around quite a bit before finding a cheap bunk bed at Hostel Piramys(3000 colons, 4,5€). The place was VERY basic but would do for one night.

Then it was time to start stressing about my flights. I had called my airline Mexicana several times; first right when I heard about their flight cancellations for over a month ago and then nearly every week like they asked me to to get the exact details on how I was going to get home. Every single time I was ensured that if Mexicana would not fly me home, they'd get me tickets on another airline - there was no need to buy new flights!

So I waited and waited and finally now after trying without success to call the Costa Rican toll free number I was given earlier, struggling to find a place to make international calls in and finally finding a place that sold international call cards to avoid paying 4$ per minute for my call to the Mexicana U.S. call centre, I got the information I didn't want to hear: I was stranded in Latin America without any flights home at all.

Thanks to the hostel wifi, and the comfy bed and the good signal in my new room at Hostel Antorchas (5000 colons, 7€), I spend the next day searching for the cheapest flights home. And finally, with the help of the world nominated online flight deal searcher Andrew (the guy I travelled with in Cartagena and Taganga), I got brilliant tickets: Guatemala-New York-Reykjavik-Helsinki with two days in the Big Apple for 413€! Now I just hope these flights don't get cancelled and that my travel agency STA travel would start replying to my emails and tell me that they'll pay back the money I paid them for the previous flights.

So far I haven't been the least bit impressed by Dominical which is a village full of Americans. Prices are given in US dollars and everything costs the same as in the States (according to Jonathan, a backpacker from Texas - for me, just pricey enough to go on a noodle-soup-diet). Everything is provided by Americans to Americans - I wonder what they did to the locals...? The fact that it rains constantly doesn't make the place more attractive.

p.s. My Finnish sim card doesn't work in Costa Rica or in Nigaragua, but my Swedish number (+46737068412) seems to be receiving texts. Last night I woke up to that familiour beeping sound and got up to see that Lindex was offering me a discount. I had hoped it was from YOU...

p.p.s. did I tell you that Bryan is really COOL? He wanted to make sure that the readers of my blog are aware of that, and I'm only here to serve - "a la orden"! ;P

How to get to Panamá - one way or another

I found a flight from Cartagena to Panama for only 150 US$ so I figured that it would be a better option than taking a 3-4 day boat cruise for 300-400 US$. Now I'm not that sure anymore.

This is how it started:
*bus from Taganga to Santa Marta; 1h; 1200cop
*bus from Santa Marta to Cartagena; 4,5h; 20000cop
*bus from Cartagena bus terminal to the airport; 1,5h; 1500cop
*flight from Cartagena to Bogotá; 2h
*two hours of blog writing at the airport
*flight from Bogotá to Pereira; 1h

I left Taganga at 8am and arrived to Pereira at 9pm. Having had only one arepa, a local egg pasty, on the way I was hungry and tired. There was no tourist information at the airport, I had no idea where I was going to spend the night and had only 30000 cop (13€) left 'cause I was planning to leave the country the next morning.

I had figured I'd take a local bus to the centre only 5km away and walk around to find a cheap hotel there, but at the airport I found out that the buses had already stopped running and there were only taxis left. So I had to use 10000 for the taxi ride, during which the driver told me there was no way of finding anything for less than 20000 in the city: I wouldn't have any money for food or for the bus to the airport the next morning. The taxi driver's idea of a cheap hotel in Pereira would've set me back about 50000 cop.

When I got to the centre, however, there were plenty of cheap places around and I got a clean, private room with my own bathroom for 12000. Next challenge was to find food for the 6000 I had left reserving 2000 for the bus to the airport the next day. I walked around asking people in bars and on the streets and everyone said everything was closed, but my growling stomach wouldn't let me give up.

After four blocks I came to a burger stand with tasty huge burgers with all possible fillings for 3500. The next morning I took the bus to the airport for 1500 which left me the total of 3000 for breakfast: one papita (a fried ball of mash potato and mince) and two empanadas with a 100 discount from the nice lady selling them was more than I needed. Mission accomplished. I thought.

I got to the check-in counter and was told I wasn't allowed on the plain without some sort of an exit ticket from Panama. I had read about before, but didn't think they were really going to require a physical one, and though saying I was going to take a bus and showing my Mexico-London ticket would've been enough. After googling like crazy for a half an hour with airport wifi searching for any sort of escape, perhaps an online bus ticket I could book, I had to return to the check-in helpless.


This time the guys at the counter decided to be really nice to the “blond gringa” and made me an unpaid reservation with their airline for a return ticket which they could print out for me to show to the officials in Panama but which I would neigher have to use nor pay after I got into the country.


Flirting my way out of trouble isn't really me, but I've suffered enough of my sex during this journey and it was about time the latin macho culture gave something back. Value of the gift: 153,10 US$, the price of the cheapest return ticket available. Time spend giving puppy eyed looks to the boys with my pink lip gloss shining: 15 minutes. I feel cheap.

After a very thorough luggage check with x-rays and all, I was finally off to Panamá. When I got to the hostel after 3,5 hours of wondering in the rain with my all too heavy backpack I met a Dutch girl who faced with the same situation I was in earlier this morning panicked and ended up buying a 300€ flight to Costa Rica when the journey with a bus would've cost her 35 US$.

So maybe, and just maybe, it was worth it after all.

Caribbean sun in Cartagena, Santa Marta and Taganga

Arriving to Cartagena centre from the bus terminal took ages in the pouring rain that turned streets into rivers and the bus dropped me off at the opposite side of the city I was heading towards, but for some reason I liked this city from the start. Maybe it was the pretty narrow streets, maybe Erik's raincoat that made me look like Hunchback of Rotterdam, but kept both me and my two backpacks dry.

I headed towards the cheapest Lonely Planet accomodation option, but asked around on the way like I usually do. By the time I got to Hotel Holiday I couldn't be bothered to return to the hostel cheapest dorm bed (13000cop, 6€) though and stayed in dorm for three sharing only with one girl for 15000 cop (6,5€). A cold shower could not have felt any sweeter after carrying my backpack for over an hour in the 70% humidity and nearly 30c heat.

I was soon joined by an american called Andrew just starting his year long around-the-world journey and who ended up keeping me company for my whole time in Cartagena and Taganga. A total bitch, but hey, you got to help the newbies out (ha, ha – I knew you couldn't keep away! ;D)

We had lunch in the town's only(?) vegetarian restaurant, walked around the beautiful streets of the old town and met a monkey in the public park on our way to the hotel. When we told a girl working at a near-by tourist office about the monkey, she said that unfortunately the park was really badly kept, like wild monkeys would be a terrible pest to have around!

When we went back to the same park on the following days we also met two iguanas and about half a dozen other monkeys. Without the prostitutes and thug looking characters strolling around our park in the evenings it might just have been the coolest park ever.

My old Erasmus friend Toby from London had reached Cartagena on his whole continent long electric car race just in time to go for dinner and an overpriced drink with us. Although other, non-touristy and cheaper, options are not easy to find, they do exist even in the old town which me and Andrew went trough pretty much street by street searching for them during our three days there.

The plan was to visit the mud volcano (you read right) El Totumo on Thursday, but after getting wrong information about how to get there, a sweaty bus ride from the wrong market place to the right bus terminal and realising that the little money we took with us being warned off about getting robbed on the way there wasn't going to be enough even for the bus ride there, let alone for the food for the whole day.

So we went back to the city and ended up finding “our private” sandy beach right next to the old town walls before sharing a bottle of rum and making friends with the very few other travellers staying in our hotel.

The slight hangover on Friday morning was cured by another dip on “our beach” which gave energy for a whole day of walking around the city in exhausting heat that made me take about cold five showers per day and still feel like a sweaty pig for about 23 hours each day.

On Saturday it was time to head towards the scuba diving mecca of Taganga supposedly four hour bus ride away from Cartegena. I haggled the bus tickets to Santa Marta down to 20000 cop (8,5€) and was pleased with myself for about three and a half hours when we arrived to Barraquilla, situated only half way to our destination, and were told we'd have to pay 10000cop (4€) more for the rest of the journey. I explained, wanted to contact company's office, then added a few exclamation marks to my expressions, took my backpack starting to walk away and finally told the guy asking us to pay more to fuck off. And all of the sudden we got seats on the bus without paying another peso for it! Don't fuck with a bitchy Finn, I'd say.

When we finally got to Santa Marta nearly three hours later, we missed the bus terminal and had to take a taxi to Taganga (7000cop, 3€) and to the only hotel the driver was familiar with, La Casa de Felipe. After getting a big laugh as a reply to their offer of a double room for 70000cop (30€), they said they might have dorm beds for 20000cop (8,5€). I decided to ask a smaller hotel, Casa de Maria, next door before deciding and we got a nice and completely empty dorm there for 10000cop (4€) each.

The beautiful little village of Taganga was a disappointment because even though it was pretty it could not have been any more touristy: pizza places, hotels, diving schools and bars one after another. Our escape to Santa Marta next day to find cheaper sun screen and bug repellent – both very much needed in these parts – turned into a long boring trip to the bus terminal since the bus driver decided to be an ass and not to let me know when we reached the centre, perhaps because I had only asked him three times on the way.

Back in Taganga the walk from the dirty and overcrowded main beach to the second one didn't make things much better, but offered beautiful views over what one day was a quiet little shore and must have seemed like a paradise to the ones who first set their eyes on it, and that still looked picturesque from a right distance.

After a dip in the warm water we walked back to find an affordable diving course for the next day and to have some super cheap (1000cop, 0,5€) and delicious portions of chicken for dinner.

Yeah, chicken is not really a vegetable even though many here don't consider it meat either. I'm definitely not planning to abandon vegetarianism for good, but I've noticed I can't stand being hungry either. So during the rest of my journey I will eat meat, preferably fish or chicken, when nothing else at least half-decent is available on my budjet range.

My one month try period was a success in a way that I didn't miss meat at any point and don't see it a necessary part of my daily diet in the future, but circumstances seem to bit too tough to continue being as strict as I have been right now.

The reason why I wanted to come to Taganga was to go scuba diving for the first time in my life and on Monday it was time to do the minicourse including two dives in the open water (at Vida Marina 120000cop, 52€). I had always imagined diving in the Caribbean to be something wonderful, peaceful and colourful, but after my first dive, or perhaps more accurately my first attempt to dive, I was ready to give the whole thing a pass. Getting salt water in my eyes, my ears and in my throat wasn't really the idea, but I couldn't get the hang of the right technique for breathing and equalizing my ear pressure and the terrible pain in my ears made me panic under water and start trying to breathe through my nose, which is impossible with the diving mask on. I was dying to dive and see the pretty fishes so I gave it a few tries which all ended up in panic and feeling I was going to die. Good thing tears don't show too much when you're in the sea.

After a lunch break on the beach I decided to give it one more try, this time entering the water from the beach instead jumping right into the depths. The wonderfully professional and nice diving master held my hand the whole way and guided me little by little to only 5 metres' depth – and I learned to equalize the ear pressure and didn't panic! We followed a small coral reef and were surrounded by beautiful fishes and amazing plants in all the colours of the rainbow, and I was happy scuba diving didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth after all.

I was too busy to take pics with our underwater camera, but see here to see what it looked like.

Will I try it again? Maybe if someone else is paying...

Bus horrors in Bogotá and flying in Medellin

Getting from Armenia to Bogotá (8h, 28000cop, 12€) was interesting: Armed military stopped the bus every now and then to search the vehicle and check everyone's ids. Like usually the views were even nicer than the men in uniforms.

After arriving to Bogotá I got my first taste of the local transport system which seemed very efficient when taking the TransMilenio. I could not have been more wrong. The few last blocks to Linas place in a taxi took longer than the bus across the whole city and the normal city buses we took during the next few days were a total nightmare: incredibly bad drivers who have never heard of economical driving accelerating like madmen and then having to brake hard for junctions or traffic jams and whenever someone wanted to get on the bus (every 10 metres) were only one thing. A city with over 7 million inhabitants but without any kind of metro system reads constant traffic jams to me.

I had met my CS hostess Lina several times in Sweden and it was nice and at the same time weird meeting her again in Colombia. After a quick visit to a local language exchange meeting and a CS football practise I was totally ready to hit the bed.

On Tuesday we visited the city centre, some posh Colombian coffee places, a gold museum and enjoyed Lina's yummy vegetarian food which was a nice change to my current rice and beans diet.

The next day went to blog writing, nearly getting into an amusement park that closed already at 5pm and strolling in the huge Simón Bolívar park.

On Thursday it was time be cultural again and we educated ourselves in a slightly boring science museum and had more fun in the CS thurdays meeting the same night.

My overall view of Bogotá is pretty lame. It seems like a city with little very Colombian character, filled with European and North American type of restaurants, shops and bars, the kind I can find in Stockholm too. Add the horrors of the local traffic to that and this city won't be on my list of places to visit if I ever find myself on this continent again. But who knows, maybe I just missed all the good bits...

My Friday started with witnessing a potentially dangerous situation as a lady was nearly ran over by a motorbike getting off the bus I took in the morning to get to the main bus terminal. Both the woman and the biker got up pretty quickly and seemed to continue their day unharmed but I'll be sure to always look to my right before getting off a bus from now on.

Lina told me that a bus from Bogotá to Medellin would cost me 70 000cop, which is more that a double of what the almost equally long journey from Armenia cost, and I had a hard time accepting even the official price, 48000cop all bus companies offered me in the main terminal a day before my journey. But when I got to the terminal five minutes before the bus would take of, the price was 40000 and the dude who sat next to me on the bus got his seat for 35000. From 70000 to 35000 is quite a difference. If you travel in these parts, never accept the first price you're offered even though everyone would claim that to be the only one available.

After 9 hours on the bus I arrived to Medellin and took a taxi to Diana's house. We had spend the Easter together in Guatemala and now it was time for me to crash her and her family's couch. The couch came with her parents, her one to two sisters and her sister's two kids – lots of life.



On Saturday we walked around the city admiring Bolero's arts, having lunch in another Krisna temple, who seem to offer the best vegetarian treats everywhere, and looking for a pair of trousers for me to replace the one's who had had enough of travelling.




On Sunday Diana took me for a lovely field trip to the village of Guatape two hours bus ride (11000cop, 5€) away.

Her friend Greg, who had moved there from the lake Atitlan in Guatemala, showed us around the lake and the picturesque streets and I felt at home. (Can't have anything to do with the lake surrounded by forest can it?).

After having enough strawberries dipped in chocolate, we headed home keeping Greg at his future hostel, Hostel Finca Verde Guatapé, in mind.






On Monday I thought I might go paragliding but the weather was against me so I walked more around city instead, bumping into this strange pipe jungle for example.





After a rainy Tuesday morning I got a call from Hector the paragliding organiser: his guys would pick me up from Diana's place in half an hour if I felt like flying today – YEEEEY!

I didn't feel nervous on the way up to top of the hill 1000 metres above the city, not when putting on the tandem gear nor running towards the cliff where I flight begun, and the glide was beautiful and peaceful, only my tandem Pablo doing pirouettes and my shouting “more, more, more!!!” disturbing the serenity around us.

But after a half an hour I happy to hit the ground even though the landing was a tiny bit muddy, with my head spinning slightly for the next couple of hours. 80000 cop (34€) well spend – bring three friends and the price will go down to 60000 cop!

Saying bye-bye to Diana and her family the same evening felt weird, especially carrying the gifts her mother had sent to my family (!), and even the 13 hour night bus to Cartagena wasn't that bad with the spare seat next to me so I could put me feet up to ensure a good night sleep, though I wasn't able to haggle down the outrageous price of 98000cop (42€).


I'm now in super hot Cartagena and need to go soak my sweaty ass in the sea to cool off, but I'll leave you with these two cosmetics brands that should not be exported to Finland:

('vittu'=pussy, 'sika'=pig, pork)

Papaya in Popayan and Filandia in Armenia

Popayán is a pretty little city with cobblestone streets, whitewashed buildings and a lush river side. I stayed in Casa Familiar El Descanso hotel (15000cop; 6,5€) and met three cool Dutch travellers there. We talked, debated, played cards and drank Piña Colada, and I had to admire their positiveness and patience when meeting curious locals stopping us everywhere we went. They never got tired of explaining where they are from, how long they are here for and how they like Colombia, playing English teachers to complete strangers or being polite to persistant beggers.


I had to stop to think of what I've become as a traveller; a rude, unfriendly, inpatient and suspicious gringa. Not exactly the person I'd like to be. As much as I enjoy travelling alone at times, I've become very much aware of how having to be on your guard at all times changes you. But is this just an excuse?



I'll always believed that getting hurt by one person is worth it if you've given the benefit of the doubt to hundred others, who've proved to be worth your trust. Here, the percentages have turned around and the few times of putting myself in extremely unconformable or even threatening situations, because of believing in the goodness of people around me, have made me more careful to play a game I don't know the rules to.

I want to believe the best in people, trust them, so desperately, but don't want to loose something more precious to me than my wallet. At the same time I still haven't learned to accept the cultural differences where not telling the truth is not considered a lie or invading you personal space not an insult. How to learn to be more patient, more open-minded and more understanding?


At least Minna's birthday cake made me feel a bit better, even though it looked nicer that it tasted. Now that I've started blaming others on what my failings, could I put that one on the bday girl only a few hundred thousand kilometres away? ;)

I left the Dutch to suffer from a massive, non-cake-related hangover in Popayán, took a bus through Cali to Armenia and picked to random hotel next to the bus terminal for the night.


The next day I went to visit the botanical garden (read: jungle) and butterfly farm, Jardín Botánico y Mariposario del Quindío, in Calarcá an hour bus ride from Armenia, even though finding my way there took asking advice from about fifty people. I got to know some Colombian prison culture on the way though walking past a local low security prison that would be considered something else on Finnish standards and talking to a lady selling fruit cocktails in front of it.

The garden entrance (14000cop; 6€) included a 2,5h guided tour which I took with a big group of senior citizens who had dificulties understanding that I'm not from the near-by village of Filandia but from a North European country no-one's ever heard of.




We walked across bridges, through labyrinths and did some easy-access bird watching from a little hut with glass walls surrounded with tables of fresh fruit for our feathery friends. For an hour or so I forgot I was in a city and not in the tropical jungle.






A climb, or in my case a race against a 12-year-old, up to an observation tower offered nice views and much needed exercise.



That's it for today, but still some pics left for all you buttefly enthusiasts out there: