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
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