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Published: February 25th 2008
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Ed and the girls in Bastimentos
Veronica and Isabel, we have met them in our hostel on Bastimentos, Bocas del Toro we're in Panama. The bordercrossing was by far the easiest and cheapest of them all. 5 minutes and we were through and we didn't have to pay a penny! We were amazed.
Once we were through, we flagged down a taxi to get a boat to Bocas del Toro. Obviously we forgot that we never wanted to arrive in a new place on a Saturday and we didn't manage to get a decent priced room at all! We forked out $30 for a skanky room and the next day went straight to Bastimentos. We should have gone there straight away. Our hostel (Hostal Bastimentos) was great! $18 for a double with great views over the Carribean. We have met a lot of people there and Ed could play Poker with them...he was happy 😊
We went on a day trip snorkeling and chilling at a beach with 2 argentinian girls (Veronica and Isabel) that we have met in the hostel. The snorkeling was a joke, not worth it at all and the restaurnat where the boatsman brought us to for lunch was extremly expensive! After that we went to Red Frog beach where we were greeted by a bunch of kids
holding tiny little frogs. The beach itself was amazing but the currents are very strong and we didn't really swim. We have heard that a few days before a tourist drowned there.
After Bastimentos it was on to the Adventure of trying to find Hostel Lost and Found. Thank god for laser eye surgery and I spotted the miniscule sign on the road side with my eagle eyes. The hike up to the hostel was a pain in the butt but well worth it. The hostel is set right in the middle of the cloudforest inbetween David and Bocas. The national park is right at your footstep there and the views are amazing. Also a lot of wildlife knocking about there, mainly nocturnal marsupials called Kinkajous, Olingos and another that I can't remember the name of (something like cacklemistle). One of them was adopted by Andrew the owner and comes out every night to be fed and to play. There is an amazing atmosphere in the place and the people that we have met there were really good fun as well. After 3 nights we had to say goodbye though and off we went to Panama City.
When
we arrived at the bus terminal a lady came up to us to ask if we wanted to stay in their hotel. It sounded good, $20 a night with hot water and a free lift to the place. When we got there it wasn't the hotel she talked about (Marparaiso) but a place called Residencial Texas. Doesn't matter, we only wanted a bed and what a bed we got. The matress was humongous and plastic covered. They also had one DVD channel which turned out to be porn on demand, we discovered that one day flicking through the channels, hehe! Also there were a huge number of couples arriving every day without luggage! No need to say what type of hotel we ended up in. Ah well, it was reasonable priced, clean and had hot water though 😉
We arrived there right at the start of Carneval and it was great fun. The festivities lasted for 5 days with a parade and concerts every day. It's so much funjust hanging out. Everyone is throwing confetti at everyone or spraying foam and god knows what at you. Lots of live music, music from every stall and booze...what else do you
need? We stayed for 2 days and then went to San Blas for a couple of days chilling on the beach. We booked the trip with one of the hostels in the city but it was not worth it. We stayed with the family of our host and we were basically carted off to the beach every day and that's that. The food was horrible and we missed the Kuna carnival festivities because our host didn't pick everyone up in time. The beaches can only be reached by boat and are amazing but the islands are so small,you can't really do much. There's only so much sunbathing and snorkeling you can do the whole day. It was nice to see it but if I would do it again, I would try with a different agency.
After San Blas we stayed in Panama City for another night and went to see the canal. Before that I needed to go to the hospital because I had a massive throatinfection. I only needed to pay $2 to see the doctor and he even spoke english!
Unfortunately we couldn't get a transit anymore but just seeing one of the locks and seeing those massive
ships transit was amazing! We had a ticket for the film and the museum as well but to be honest you could easily skip that, it's not that great.
Well, that was our last day in Panama and Central America and we were off to the airport to catch our plane to Venezuela.
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