Panama

Bumble bees, frogs & dolphins

After a 32-hour journey, I arrived in Panama City with nothing but my daypack (see Costa Rica). Having ¨bussed¨ in my clothes for 32-hours, I was in desperate need of some shopping… Unfortunately for me Panama City is slightly less appealing than the song. Not really finding some decent clothes, I decided to go for the cheapest options and basic necessities. A 3 dollar pair of trousers, some cheap shirts, flip-flops, toothbrush & stuff….. That should do the trick right? Oh right, underwear maybe & some pyama´s for when sleeping in dorms. Somehow the options for these basics were limited. The only pyama-option in my size was a pink glittery balloon, frog-fringed thing and underwear was either extremely big or ridiculously small… So if the pyama´s will not keep me single forever, my new purple-green bumblebee-ed, yellow dotted thong will definitely do the trick! (yeah I know, you wanna see pictures – but hey, some things really are better kept private ) With my new trophy´s, I am know officially a plasticbacker!

With the emergency shopping done, we did some sight-seeing of Panama City, but I have to admit that apart from the pretty sky-line & the lovely, but unfortunately in very bad state, old town, Panama City is not one of the most enchanting towns I´ve seen.

The visit to the Panama Canal, however, is a different story. Even though the locks didn´t seem that much bigger to me than the ones we have back home, standing right there watching a ship passing through the Panama Canal was worth the trip to Panama alone! It bringing back sweet memories of visits to the locks with my Grandfather, made the experience even more amazing.

But that was about all we needed to see of this city, so off to more enchanting places… Isla Bocas del Toro, up near the Costa Rican border seemed like a good place to chill for a few days, before doing some more sight-seeing. The problem with Bocas del Toro is, that the chilled-out island life will easily get to you, so one day easily turned into five days of relaxing, reading, having a strawl… or a margarita or two For a nice party-night you start on one little island, hop on a boat to a party on the next island and end up getting kidnapped by some Frenchies to finish the party on a very questionable (buoyancy- and otherwise) discoboat, from which you then hop on a little taxiboat to drop you off at the backterrace of your hotel. Island life at it´s best!

To break the chain of laid-back days, we did take a boattour visiting several little islands (during the day this time). With plenty of dolphins showing up the trip started great, but after some decent snorkeling and some pretty sights, the relax time on Red Frog beach was pretty boring once the rain started & our lift wasn´t gonna be there for another 2 hours After passing our time with modeling for stupid pictures and building sand-castles, the weather cleared up on our way back, so like more days here in Bocas we just laid-back & enjoyed the ride!

Island life past by so easily that before we knew it, we were heading back to Costa Rica on a tiny little empty plain, before we knew it – so much for seeing Panama