Panama....
Yet another early morning to travel from CostaRica to Panama. I awoke to find my thongs had been stolen right outside our door. Silly me for leaving them there, but who steals thongs, really! So the morning had started well! The bus trip would have been seamless had we not had an Irish girl that had forgotten her phone. Luckily some of her travelling companions had stayed behind in costa rica and could pick the phone up for her. What I loved most, was that there was no phone reception on the road we were on going to panama, but the bus drivers mums house was just up the road so we used her phone to call the hostel about the lost phone! Dramas... And this was not the first drama we had with the Irish!
The border crossing was rather seamless, as it usually is when you have an Aussie passport. I don't know what it is, every time we have done border crossings, the immigration guys may not be able to speak English but they all know how to say kangaroo, then they start making actions like a kangaroo at us, every time without fail! Someone even mentioned skippy the other day. I take great enjoyment telling them that we also eat kangaroo and watch as they stare at us in horror!
So we arrived at Bocas del Toro, the islands in the north west of Panama. Stayed at a cool bar/hostel/club called Aqua Lounge. We arrived on a big national holiday, Bocas Del Toro Day... A bit like Canberra day, where only the people in Bocas celebrate it and get a holiday for it in Panama. Loads of celebrations on the streets, drums, bands, all dressed up for the big event. We immediately knew we would love this place! It also happen to be their party night at the hostel we were staying at, where everyone comes from the different hostels by boat to party. We had a few drinks in the afternoon, had dinner, got back to the hostel thinking there would be a huge party going on, but alas it was dead about 9.30pm. We went to our room and ended up falling asleep, we woken at about 11.30pm to the base of the music thumping in our heads.... Went outside and the party was pumping. We had no other choice but to join in the festivities,there was no way we were going to be able to sleep, and we got drunk for the second time of the day with our new Irish friends (5 crazy girls) and their Aussie bodyguard/travel companion.
The next day we took a boat out to one of the islands, Wizard beach, where there was some surf of course. Surf was ok, waves were rideable and had some small barrels for chad to play around in, but the beach was gorgeous, completely secluded and surrounded by rainforest, and we had to travel there by boat for half an hour to get there. We made a time with out little boat man and he came and collected us in the afternoon. Bumped into the Irish girls again and Tom that day. They were arriving on the secluded island as we were leaving.
Due to the lack of waves we headed in to the La Buga dive shop that afternoon and we traded in the trusty surf board Chad had bought in El Salvador for our advanced dive course! Sweet deal!
The Swiss lady's we met in Guatemala were in town, it was on of their birthdays! A big frilly white cake was made by one of bakeries for her birthday and we had a few drinks with them that night which was fun.
The next we day we started our dive course with La Buga dive school. And who should be doing it with us, two of the Irish Irish girls, Alanna and Jill. Like good Irish they loved their booze... And everyday on our dive course they were late, hung over, forgot their fins, or did something silly!
So we finished our dive course and we are now..."advanced" divers! So look out Galapagos her we come. We got to do 5 dives on our course and then they gave us 2 additional dives as freebies which was fun! We also got to do a night which was amazing. A wee bit scary being under water in the dark but also a lot of fun. When you turn off all the lights the plankton glows in the dark, it looks like a little plankton city all around you. The colours are also a lot brighter when you are under water with your torch. We saw loads of lion fish, massive lobsters, fish everywhere, manta rays, giant puffer fish, squid etc.
Another big party was on the Saturday at our hostel, this time we were slightly more prepared for the late start, we also bumped into the notorious Irish girls and Tom the Aussie for a very fun night.
A slight oversight by myself with our plans made our exit out of Bocas sooner than we thought. It was Sunday morning, and I realised that I had made a mistake and the boat actually left on Wednesday from the other side of panama.... Whoops. Plus we had booked two more dives on Monday morning...Whoops. We had to act quickly and make some decisions. As you can all imagine, by traveling companion wasn't too impressed by my error of dates. We changed our bus ticket, managed to fit in our two dives on Sunday afternoon, and left Monday morning, only to arrive in to Panama city to be told that the boat had delayed the travel date and was in fact leaving on Friday. Well, a lot of fuss for nothing!
Stayed in the old city in panama city, Casco Viejo. A stark contrast to the big city area with big high rises, all very modern. The old city is the original city was abandoned and had been left to slum dwellers, but in recent years a lot of work had been done to restore the area due to the beautiful old buildings and history.
We headed out to the panama canal locks on the first morning we were there. For those who don't know what the locks are, they are essentially points were the boats go through the panama canal, water is used to raise these massive container ships and cruise ships from sea level to the lake level then back again to sea level through these locks that are opened and closed to lock the water. The huge ships sometimes can be literally 60cm distance from each side of the locks and there is these boats and trains that keep in place so they don't hit the sides. Amazing engineering to watch it in operation. (sorry for those big engineer types, that was definitely a laymens way of describing it).
We did try and find the old 'Jorge' car that the boys tried to sell in panama after their central america trip at the start of this year, only to be ripped off by a fast talking American, but sorry guys, he was nowhere to be seen!
Also headed down to the causeway/esplanade area of panama and hired some bikes road around and ate a big lunch, as you do on holidays! Found an old fav to have dinner at. It was called the cocoa cola cafe, before you judge hear me out. It's an old diner type place, very typical panamenian food. Full of locals hanging out, very cheap. It had tacky old 70s cocoa cola signs and local old men just hanging out all day. The next day we got ready to sail to Colombia....

Sailing through the San Blas islands to Colombia
We caught the scenic train from Panama city through the canal to get the caribbean coast and our final chicken bus to get us to our departure port, puerto lindo, for our sailing adventure to Colombia.. Met up with our captain and the rest of the crew. Our departure wasn't until the next day but we were able to stay on the boat that night so we could have an early departure. We were lucky enough to have 2 captains, Rengin and Tahsin, A Turkish couple that have been doing these back packer trips for about 4 years now. The name of the boat was called Ilean, a 60ft ex racing sailing boat. Fernando was also part of the crew, an Argentinian guy who had a boat of his own but wasn't running at that time and was helping out. We met the rest of the backpackers on our trip, 2 austrian guys, 2 Belgium guys, 2 Danish girls, a Swiss girl and a German girl... The southerners were outnumbered by the Europeans! Quite cosy sleeping arrangements, it was one large room with 13 beds, some double beds and single bunks that hung above the double beds, very cosy indeed, plus they also had a big red ginger cat called gatito aboard the boat. Food was included but we had to stock up on alcohol and snacks, so we sorted that before we jumped aboard. The trip would be a total of 5 nights, including 1 night in port before leaving the next morning. The reason this is such a popular trip is because the boats sail through the San Blas islands in Panama. An archipelago of about 340 little islands inhabited by a the native kuna people. White sand and plan trees, most of the islands take about 10 minutes or less to walk around... So basically we had 3-4 days just hoping islands, eating lobster, hanging out with locals, snorkeling and sun bathing! It was amazing. However, something always has to happen. On about the 3 day my skin decided to freak out and broke out in a rash... Puffy face etc, really attractive. Great thing to have when there is no shower on board the boat. It seemed to be exacerbated by heat, so the cosy little cabin at night wasn't particularly great for it.
A few nights we had dinner on the islands. Basically you can buy lobster off the Kuna people and they cook it for you along with coconut rice, so you can have a feast on their islands. We bought about 14 big lobsters and 1 big crab for about $70... So cheap!
The final leg of the trip was 30 hours of sailing across open water to get us to Cartagena. No sea sickness, Chad and I both coped very well with the swell. Particularly big swell and a few rainy patches on the 2 days travel to Cartagena, we all seemed to fair well. So... Colombia here we come... This is where we will be reunited with Tristan and Amber, should be a bit of fun!