Another week, another country.

Shalom!
After a brief hiatus, I am back to regale you all with stories of adventure and deception, of success and defeat, of Panama and Chirripo. Well, maybe not so much Chirripo, more like San Gerardo de Rivas. Which is maybe one of the nicest little towns I have had the pleasure of visiting.
Anyhow, as most of you know, this past week was Easter week. In Central America, it is known as Semana Santa (holy week). So all the people down here pretty much shut down and hit up vacation, and all the beaches and such are full of not only gringos, but Ticos as well. It makes it a great time to leave the country, since school is also out. In addition, the visa that I am traveling on down here is only good for 90 days, so I had to leave the country for 72 hours in order to get it renewed on reentry. ISA was good enough to help us schedule a trip to Bocas del Toro in Panama for 4 days. So off we went!
ISA has 52 students in the program, and 36 or so of us decided to do this trip to Panama. So for the first time in several weeks, it was going to be a gringo central kinda event. Which actually wasn't all that bad, since I hadn't hung out with quite a few of these folks in some time. The bus ride was decent, 8 hours or so with a 1.5 hour break in the middle which was generously provided by the Costa Rican border patrol. I guess we looked too cold from the air conditioned bus, so they let us stand in the sun and bake for 90 minutes while they took their time stamping our passports for exit from the country. Mighty nice of 'em, I'd say.
As we walked across the bridge from Costa Rica to Panama, we found ourselves in a kind of limbo... stuck between 2 countries, between 2 time zones. To be honest, I felt like an immigrant crossing the Rio Grande. Except that I had an iPod. Hahaha
Well we made it to the ocean, got off the bus, and hopped on a passenger ferry to head out to the island of Colon. Where they don't accept colones. Which struck me as funny, but maybe it's just me.
That first night was cool, a bunch of us found our way to a little bar called Barco Hundido. It looked like it was straight out of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The bar had these walkways that extended out over the water, in big arcs that created pools that were lit at nighttime to showcase the shipwreck underneath. Not to mention that it's all good if you care to swim amongst the pillars, just remember to heed the sign that says "Swim at own risk. Everything cut you." Which proved to be a true statement, grammatically correct or not.
Well we had a few at Hundido, and then caught a small water taxi across to another island, which housed among other things the Aqua Lounge. This bar also had a system of docks that created a little lagoon, except this bar also had a diving board off of it's roof. Apparently Panama hasn't heard that drinking and swimming don't mix. But nobody was seriously injured the entire time that I was there, and there was no shortage of people partaking in the random water events, so maybe there's a small lesson there too. I won't dwell.
The next day couldn't have gone any better for me. I woke up briefly at 8:30 when I heard a bunch of people walking around and planning their days. Please recall that up until this point, I still hadn't slept past 9 or so. Those who know me should know what happened next... I rolled over, and slept peacefully until noon. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Much better. I followed that up with a 30 minute shower with high pressure and hot water, the first of it's kind since I left Canada. Next, I sat in a chair on the balcony of the hotel and read a book for 2 and a half hours. The only reason I stopped was because I was really hungry. So I went and got some pizza and a beer.
Seriously, I'm tempted to stop writing. This was the best day I've had yet.
But it was still good after that. Ran into some friends at the pizza place, and we decided to venture down the island to a beach. We found a nice one, played in the water for awhile, then went back to town for some delicious dinner of a caesar salad (I'd been craving one for weeks) and some pasta. Then we went down to a little hole-in-the-wall with 50cent happy hour. After a few of those I let myself be talked into drinking a "Flaming Amnesia" - similar to a Flaming Lamborghini, for those who are familiar. For those who aren't, your livers are better for it. Essentially it's 7 ounces or so in a martini glass, lit on fire and chugged fast through a straw. Deeeeeeeelicious!
The rest of the night saw us back at Hundido, this time swimming around the shipwreck, the majority of us being cut somewhere by that jagged reef (I took it on the arm). We also started walking around and throwing people in (mostly just people we knew, so no worries).
Next morning a bunch of us signed up for a tour that promised dolphins, 2 snorkeling times, and a visit to red frog beach to look at some little red poisonous frogs indigenous to that area only. Well the trip was alright, it was a whole lot of just sitting around getting sunburned. But we did see some dolphins, we did snorkel (only once, and they didn't have enough gear for everyone so we had to rotate), and we went to the beach (just didn't happen to see any frogs). But despite it all, it was still a pretty decent day on the water. Tough to have a bad day in Bocas del Toro, I reckon!
We came back on Tuesday, the trip back across the border went wayyy faster for some reason (I guess Costa Rica likes people coming in, but not leaving). T'was Pescadito Tuesday night, and a good nights sleep. Wednesday morning we got up early, hit the grocery stores for some supplies, and headed out to try to climb Costa Rica's highest peak - Chirripo.
The attraction for me is that it is said to be a tough hike; 8 hours is the average to make it up to the hostel on the mountain. They need a hostel, because it's still another 2 hours to the summit from there. Most people do the trip in 3 days: 1 day up to the hostel, next day to the summit and to hike around and look at stuff, and the last day to climb back down. Probably the coolest thing about it, however, is that on a clear day from the summit it is possible to see both oceans. That's right, Pacific and Atlantic at the same time. It's rare, since most of the time it's too cloudy. But it is possible.
Trouble is, the hostel isn't all that big. And you can make reservations (it is always booked a couple months in advance) but they leave 10 spots open every day for the first people that make it to the ranger station in San Gerardo de Rivas. Or so we were told.
We got out to San Gerardo on Wednesday night, and got a hotel room right up the street from the ranger station. Figuring that it was Semana Santa and a popular spot, we decided to get up bright and early to be first in line Thursday morning for the 6:30 opening. Kinda like camping out for concert tickets, y'know? Well I guess nobody does that in Costa Rica... we got out front of the ranger station at 3am. Yep. Care to guess when the next eager climbers arrived? A nice British couple sauntered up at 6:15. By that point, we were laughing at ourselves. But better to be too early than to be too late, right? Turns out it wouldn't have mattered either way.
The ranger came out at 6:30 and said without preamble "no hay acampar, no hay espacio." Basically, "there is no camping. There is no space." He went on to tell us that 10 people had come in the day before and reserved it all for the next 2 days. Forget the 10 spots per day thing, they changed their minds or something. All that mattered to us was that we weren't going to be able to climb until Saturday, which was way too tight to make it back Sunday evening for classes Monday. And we didn't really have it in our budget to last that long anyway.
So we spent Thursday and Friday at the nice little hotel in San Gerardo, playing in the river, and hiking around the area. It was still a lot of fun; as I said in an earlier post when we were there to hike Cloudbridge, it is likely my favorite place in Costa Rica. It's so rural, backcountry, jungle style that you can't help but feel relaxed.
We made it back on Saturday night, after spending 3 hours in McDonald's in San Isidro while waiting for a bus. It's the longest amount of time I've ever spent in a Macka's (Aussie slang, always loved that nickname for it).
All said and done, it was a heck of a week. Not much time left now, we are heading to Manuel Antonio with ISA next weekend (supposed to be a ton of monkeys there... I'm stoked). After that, school ends, program ends, and I head back to the sleepy little town of San Gerardo de Rivas in hopes of climbing that elusive mountain. Wish me luck!


Thanks for reading!