Only a week since our last blog but lots to write about. We spent 2 nights in Punto Sirain in the Bahia Azul near Bocas del Toro in Panama with our friend Mel the Peace Corps Volunteer. It was amazing. Her village is very small with only about 300 people and very isolated from any other communities. You have to take a speed boat to get to any major city or a canoe to get anywhere in the bay. We pretty much just hung, washed clothes in the creek, talked with the local children, and watched a few baseball games between nearby villages. They row over as a team to play on the field at Punto Sirain and they take baseball very seriously. It was fun to watch.


On monday we went down to the docks to head towards bocas del toro but that boat didn´t come so we took the boat back to Chiriqui Grande and made our way to Costa Rica. The border crossing was painless at Sixaola/Guabito but interesting because it was our first land crossing between foreign countries. You could just freely walk through if you wanted, no one would stop you until you reached a checkpoint. We made it to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast in a day and spent the night at a hammock hotel. The town had kind of a US Spring Break vibe but it was fun anyway and absolutely gorgeous. We spent the second night in our own room at a little quiter place. We hitched a ride from a Canadian lady and her Tico driver down to a beach called Punta Uva and it was just stunning. On the way back we saw howler monkeys before hitching another ride back to the city from a rasta man. Back in town we ran into a friend of Jessa´s from Hillcrest, Jaime, who used to live in a town about 20 minutes away called Manzanillo and she was back visiting. She invited us to dinner with her and then to stay a night in Manzanillo the next day. We got there without hithching this time and it was stunning. The road ends here and trails continue back to Panama. We took a long walk to some deserted beaches and then came back to town to join the locals for a little black sand volleyball. It was a ton a fun.


On thursday we caught the 7:00 am bus on our way to La Fortuna. It took us 9 hours but we made it in one day. La Fortuna sits next to Volan Arenal and its stunning. We did a hike yesterday up Cerro Chato and just about died of exhaustion, then we woke up this morning and had a 3 horseback trip that was free but took tips if we enjoyed it. We definitely did. It was across fields, up rivers, through mud, over hills. We ran with the horses as much as we wanted and are now exhausted.

That´s all for now though. Tomorrow we are off to Nicaragua and Isla de Ometepe. Should get more and more adventurous.

Ciao,

Blake