Bahia Drake to David, Panama

---

Travel day. Ugh.

Up at 3:20am. Finished packing. I walked down our stairs just as the bus pulled up to Geoff. Yikes. Talk about on time bus service here.

This first bus only drove us 1 hour & cost $10 total. Whoa Costa Rica, too much. Although the driver did have to cross about 7 river/creeks that were pretty full. I imagine it's an impossible drive in the rainy season. But it did dump rain on us last night so maybe they fill up quickly?

We changed buses in the middle of nowhere because a local guy told me he was going to the same town as us so we just had to follow him. That always makes it easy & takes the worry off of missing our next stop. We waited at this junction for an hour where I learned all about Hilberth's life. Our next bus took us to Neily which took 2-2.5 hours & cost $4. Sometimes I really wonder how fares are decided. (However, along the way to Neily our entirely full bus switched buses with another entirely full bus on the side of the highway. Why? Nobody knew.)

In Neily we promptly caught a bus to the border town of Paso Canoas where we spent more time than we had hoped. This was primarily due to the fact that it's the beginning of a holiday weekend where all of Latin America travels , it's a super busy border town, & we waited in long lines. We also walked back & forth about 8 times between borders because there wasn't any obvious signage to tell us which way was which. So, we walked to Panama's border first & had to turn around & walk all the way back to Costa Rica's border. It was also around 10:30 am now, we'd had a teeny tiny snack at the bus station, & it was about a million degrees with 100% humidity. Not the best combo for a busy & confusing border crossing. We waited in a long line to get our stamp out of Costa Rica. We then walked all the way back to Panama where we waited in line only to get pulled out of line so they could "search" our bags first. The search consisted of us unzipping everything & the guy just feeling around the outside of our bags. Then back in the long line to enter Panama only to have the really unfriendly border dude tell us we can't enter Panama without proof that we're leaving, aka a bus ticket out of the country. My theory is that this guys family owns the bus company because it is apparently very hit or miss that you have to actually provide this proof at the border. It probably depends on if you go through on his day off. After walking around & asking 5 different people where I buy this stupid bus ticket, I find the very poorly marked ticket window & am only allowed to buy one type of bus ticket known as the "proof of return to Costa Rica ticket," fishy right? It cost $15 per person. Bye Costa Rica! Shesh. By now, I was becoming very irritable & I know I wasn't much fun to be around. Geoff was keeping it together thankfully. Back in the long ass line to get into Panama, which I cut in because I was annoyed & didn't want to wait again. I pretended not to understand when the guy asked me why I cut in front of him. It worked & we were done with that business. I'm really glad all the border crossings weren't like this one.

We walked across the street into Panama & promptly caught a minibus to David, Panama. By the time we made it to David it was 2:30pm. We had been traveling for 10.5 hours already & knew we couldn't catch the last boat to Bocas so we stopped here. We were beat. It was already a long day.

We found a cute little hostel called The Purple House, where literally everything was purple, everything: sheets, dishes, couches, walls, all of it. The dog, Cutesie, was black, that was it. We paid for our first dorm room here which worked out quite well actually although I still prefer my own sleeping space. We walked to the grocery store & bought some food for dinner & breakfast. We made our first baleadas & they turned out really well. The evening was spent chilling, blogging, & actually watching the tv that was always on in the front room. Some silly wedding movie was on, I can't remember what it's called but I've already seen it about 5 times, that I could not look away from. TV is so all consuming when you aren't used to watching it. So, I watched the rest of the movie & then went to bed. Amazingly I didn't wake up at all when all the other dorm-mates came to bed. There were 6 beds in there & I slept through it all. (I did put earplugs in to help). Up early tomorrow to continue on to Bocas del Toro! Excited!

---

Photos

Somebody's not having any fun.
Kassandras says "The Costa Rica-Panama border sucks!" Geoff says "I guess it's a good thing I don't speak Spanish."

Chickens for sale!
This was at the bus terminal in David.

They were all soo cute.
But like kittens, they eventually grow up.

Our dorm room.
Yep, everything is purple.