Wow. This past weekend was surreal. I cannot believe I am lucky enough to see the places I get to see. I had no idea what I was in for when I got on the boat to Bocas. I want to move there, it was just amazing. We got on the bus Thursday morning, we skipped class because the travel is about 10 hours to Panama and we wanted at least 2 full days there. On Thursday I traveled with Marlous, Paige, Imogen, Bryona, and Rachel. Friday afternoon two more of our friends joined us, David and Rafael. The bus was long but it wasn’t that bad, we got to drive through the mountains and along the coast of the Caribbean again. When we got to Sixotola we looked around and immediately said this is not somewhere any of us would want to be stuck. It’s a run down town that is a border town with no real structure and a lot of interesting meats hanging in the restaurant windows. We made our way to the border, which was an intense process. There were people trying to confuse the tourists and they told us all these lies and basically we lost 5 dollars each to pay them for their help. I was at the point that I would have paid them to leave and let us figure it out on our own but I guess they did get us a taxi. We then crammed into a van originally made for 7 that was now a 15-person taxi it was also pretty intense. During that ride of 45 minutes I met 2 people from Jerusalem that spoke Hebrew which is so awesome and they wrote my name out and explained to me all these crazy things about the language. The next step was a 45 minute boat ride to the main island of Bocas across the sea in our first boat taxi, I still cant believe we had to travel on a boat to get to our hostel! When we pulled up to the main part of the island they told us we still had one more boat to go at this point we could see our place on the other island and were dying to get there. Once I stepped on the deck of Aqua Lounge I forgot how upset I was at being ripped off and completely relaxed. The whole weekend was amazing it was just totally for relaxing. We rented half rooms and half hammocks to save money, hammocks are 5 dollars and beds are 10. As soon as we got our bathing suits on it was into the pool and from then on we didn’t really do much. Pool to bar to deck to pool to bar to deck. Diet cokes were only 1 dollar and the food was super cheap as well but so delicious! We got to know everyone at the hostel really well and became friends with world travelers. There was one group of people staying at the hostel that were really crazy, my first night I had someone come up to me, drop clothes in my lap and say don’t tell the boy looking for these where you got them, that is how we first met our new friends at the hostel. They were kicked out the next day because of fighting, one boy tripped and split his hand open and Aqua lounge is way to relaxing of a place to have fighting going on. So we had a blast getting to know the other people at the hostel that weekend. On Friday when our friends joined us we told them the plan was to do nothing all day again, so we didn’t do anything except get dressed up for dinner in the town and late night swimming. Saturday we decided it would be a good idea to see more of panama than the deck of our hostel so we booked a tour. We went on a little water taxi to dolphin bay where wild dolphins swim the most and they actually came and were playing around our boat, then off to two different locations for snorkeling, one was for fish and one was for live coral, then off to Red Frog beach. The beach was beautiful and on a different island that took us 30 minutes to get too. I cannot even explain how beautiful the boat rides are, the water is shallow, there are mangroves all around and you have to drive between islands and mangroves to get to the beach. When we got there we say a baby sloth climbing a tree and the red frogs the beach was famous for. The village children would run by with leaves show you the frog, tell you to take a picture, then charge you a dollar for it. We ended up paying for our photos with food because the children were starving. The beach was wonderful and the water was so warm, I love love love the beach. That night we got dressed up because everyone on the islands come to Aqua lounge for dancing on Saturdays. We had a blast and met even more people! I love traveling. Then Sunday our return day it rained so we were happy that our weather had been perfect and didn’t rain until we left. Returning to Costa Rica was something we worried about because of the problems we had on the way in with the locals. It was not bad at all, we literally walked across the very sketch bridge to the other side, crossed to Costa Rica, were told by a policeman that we didn’t get the leaving Panama stamp and had to return. So we trekked back across and waiting in line to get the stamp which put us with 20 minutes to get across and on the last bus to San Jose. We made it of course but only because the people we talked to at the border helped us cut in front of the line at the border where we encountered many angry people but made it! The bus ride home was becoming normal and I actually enjoyed it for the 4th time now. I have decided that I might do my trip abroad in Panama in Bocas. I was talking to the people at the hostel and they said that I could stay in a bed there if I worked on the weekend and I could have one meal a day for helping clean up. That sounds amazing to me and it gets better, I was talking to someone doing something similar there and he works for a non profit on the main island with children and fixing the community up, its definitely on my list. I think I love poor and beautiful places. The weekend was perfect. I am living a dream.
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