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Last weekend we had to renew our visa for Costa Rica. To do this you have to leave the country for 72 hours. So, we went to Panama! We spent the weekend on a nice chain of islands off the eastern coast of Panama called Bocas Del Toro which means “mouths of the bull.” We left Friday morning around 7:30 to wait for the bus. We took the bus to the border. It took about 4 ½ hours to get there. From there, we walked across the border and got our passports stamped. Then, we took a microbus taxi ride for about an hour to the boat dock. The boat ride to the island was only suppose to be a half hour but turned out to be a long, scary, and eventful ride that took two hours! When we left the dock, it was dark and rainy. Our little boat with about thirty people on it smacked into wave after wave and a few times I flew into the air! After a half hour we slowed down and I thought, we must be coming up on the dock. No, I was wrong. Our boat driver was in fact lost at sea. In the dark and the rain he had no idea where we were. Everyone started whispering in Spanish and the many other languages of the people in our boat and eventually they called from the front of the boat to see if anyone had a compass! Someone passed one up but after a few minutes we had another problem. The engine started to make weird sounds. It either broke down or we ran out of gas. Luckily, just then another boat came to our rescue! Not sure what all they were doing by the engine but we smelled gasoline for a very long time and at one point they asked if anyone had a knife so Patrick handed back his. When we got it back it was covered in oil. But then we were on our way again and we eventually made it to the dock. From there we crammed all seven of us in a pickup truck taxi's seats and arrived at our hotel. By then it was almost 9pm. What a day!
The next two days were great though! Saturday we caught a boat for $5 a person that took us to a tiny island where we snorkeled for almost an hour and then it dropped us off at the main beach where we hung out the rest of the day. Sunday we rented kayaks for $10 a person for half the day and the guy gave us snorkel gear for free! It was nice being there in the off season with all those great deals:) We took the kayaks to a little island where we found a little cove. We ate lunch and snorkeled all around the beautiful coral. There were so many fish and huge sea urchins! It was such a nice time!
The next day we spent traveling back to Costa Rica. Luckily this time our boat ride was only a half hour! Panama was beautiful and we would definitely go back someday!
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