It's been a while.

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MONTEVERDE

We left San Jose, leaving behind two hot Panamanians we met at our second night of partying, destination: Monteverde, a beautiful little village up in a cloud forest.
After long bus rides, in a normal bus and the fabled chickenbus,a cheap converted american schoolbus used by police and bus companies here in Middle America we arrived in the cloud covered Monteverde.
This is where we took on the Extremo ziplines, cables suspended through rainforest and between mountains, the tarzan swing: jump off a ledge freefalling for a few seconds after soaring on a rope through the jungle, and of course the superman: a 1km zipline, suspended between two mountains hundreds of metres in the air, you go flying while a harnass on your back lets you fly (like in a dream) through the air. A REAL adrenaline rush!

PUERTO VIEJO

After the adrenaline rush we ( Me, Raymond, Lisa & Alicia) set off to Puerto Viejo (still in Costa Rica), a little beach town on the Carribean side, filled with redneck american settlers. Looking for a hostel took us to a few expensive shitholes we just had to refuse. In the end we stumbled upon the cheapest hostel we could find and were offered a palace for the four of us, only 8 dollars a night! score! This is also were we met Matthias, our german buddy who gave us the amazing drinking games we still hold close to our hearts, Hannah Montana! (based on the deck of cards we learnt to play with) I cooked an improvised pasta or everyone and learnt to cook shakshuka with Tom. This was a lot of fun and saved us a lot of money! We took a trip down to the beach as well, where we played some coconut baseball,snorkeled and i teached the guys to juggle (also with coconuts).

BOCAS DEL TORO

Next stop: BOCAS DEL TORO!
After walking across a rickety bridge, the border to Panama, we set of on another bus towards Bocas, bbut only after Matthias almost got us killed bargaining the price of a minivan to the boat :P
10 dollars? no 5! oke oke... 10 *gets in car* so 5 dollars?
After the ride we caught a boat from mainland Panama to bocas del toro, a beautiful carribean island with clear lightblue water and houses on the water.
We checked into our soundproof suites( Fear and Loathing anyone?) We started to enjoy bocas : good partying, nice diving and playing Hannah Montana in the clubs 😊
One night turned into a bloodbath when we did some swimming at one of the beachclubs, Matthias cut his foot open on a pole in the water and after turning the sea and the dancefloor red was rushed to hospital, helped by Tom who carried an unconcious Matthias into the hospital to get 7 stitches that he payed 2 dollars each for (only in Middle America, dont forget service costs for the nurse).

PANAMA CITY

After all the thrills of Bocas we left for Panama City, the capital of Panama.
The nightbus, equipped with icecold airconditioning gave us all a chill and the asshole busdriver would not turn it of. This is also where i lost my phone after waking up too fast, SHIT!
We stayed in 2 hostels and looked round the city before we moved into our couchsurfing appartment we were offered after Tom talked for 5 minutes with Rachel, the sweetest girl ever.
2 Days at Panama City and we took our second trip to the Mall, we got a lovely steak dinner and sat down to enjoy when i noticed my bag, that was in between my and Ram's (an Australian friend we met in Bocas) was gone, we notified police, security and went looking in the mall but the bag was gone together with my and Raymond's passports, my 2 camera's and Ray's wallet.
After a lot of hassle getting everything reported at the police, who let us wait hours and repeat everything a hundred times we finally got sent to the right station and get everything reported. We set off to our Embassies and got great news: the passports and wallet were returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs!, sadly not my camera's :'(. Luckily most of my pictures are safe on Tom's laptop.
Independence Day arrived and we took to the streets, watching all the schools and their parade bands. Lots of colourfull uniforms, dancing girls and international schoolgirls smiling and looking at us.
The night of independence day was a disaster, the nigtclubs were empty and the taxi's decided to take us to a stripclub after asking for a good party in town, nice! We did meet some cool Isreali girls, Noy and Chen. They came to have the shakshuka Tom taught me how to make in Puerto Viejo and Chen took me to get ingredients for the chocolate fondue she was craving. After eating on the roof we cleaned Rachel's appartment, thanked her for letting us stay and left for Portobello to look or a boat that will get us to San Blas islands.
On the way Tom was wounded, falling into a drain, and we rode one of the many pimped out chickenbuses, listening to spanish music and with flashing neon all over the bus.

PORTOBELLO

After the chickenbus ride we caught a sleepy taxidriver who almost killed us twice by zigzagging across the road, driving on the wrong side and falling asleep twice we arrrived in Portobello to the sound of partying and got a good night's sleep, now we are looking or a captain to take us to San Blas islands.

Bored already?
Next time i wont make it so long!

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