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After meeting and chatting to a few people, we decided to skip through Costa Rica (due to it being very touristy and very expensive) and bus it all the way to Panama.
From Nicaragua, we caught a bus to ``the most difficult border crossing in Central America`` - which we got through in about 10 minutes! (without proof of onward travel, just our golden South African smiles!) The whole day was spent catching buses and we landed up in San Jose (the capital of Costa Rica) late at night - in the worst part of town! We walked out the bus terminal and walked to the closest hostel ... which is one of ``those`` hostels where you can ``pay by the hour!`` What a noisy night!!
Early early the next morning we caught some more buses to the Caribbean surf town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca and spent the night there.
The next day more buses to cross the border into Panama - first stop = Bocas del Toro!
Bocas del Toro are a group of islands in the Caribbean sea - we caught the river taxi across (accompanied by some dolphins) to the island of Bastimentos (a less touristy island with ``wilderness beaches``) and it did not disappoint! Spent the next day trekking across the island to the famous Wizards beach and walking around the island. We then headed for the main island, Colon and back to the main land.
From Bocas del Toro we headed south and stopped at a hostel called Lost and Found - this magical piece of paradise up in the cloud forests of Panama was incredible! We spent our first day there doing their Treasure Hunt, which is a tough 4-5 hour hike up in the cloud forest, finding very cryptic clues, crossing rivers, walking alongside rapids, inside caves and finally deciphering the final riddle - most epic hike ever! Lost and Found also has a white faced monkey called Cloud, that has got to be the most intelligent monkey I have ever seen, and should without a doubt start his own circus! They also have a kinkatou (which is a honey bear) that is tame and every evening you can go into his cage and play with him -- too cute!! They also feed the hummingbirds with sugary juice in proper feeders, so there are constantly hummingbirds around, and lemurs around at night!
From there, we headed to the cool hills of Boquete - which has world famous coffee farms, so we went on the most awesome Cafe Ruiz coffee tour, and decided that we were going back to South Africa to start our own coffee farms! :)
From Boquete, we headed to Santa Catalina - a surfing town on the Pacific coastline - and we ended up staying in the most awesome little cabin right on the beach, renting surfboards and attempting to surf for 2 days (some of us did a whole load better than others!!) ;)
Awesome little town, not to forget some legendary nachos and a very friendly French guy :)
From Santa Catalina we headed into Panama City!
What a cool city - we stayed in the ``old havana like`` part of the city, very close to the water. Our first day there we caught the panama canal luxury train with a glass roof, from Panama City, up next to the panama canal, through some thick jungle to Colon - most beautiful train ride of my life! From there we went to watch the biggest set of locks (there are 3 sets, this set, the Gatun locks, lift the boats 9m into the Gatun lake) and watched a couple massive boats come through the canal - very impressive stuff!
The next day we just walked around the city, and waited for our flights.
And now to start some new adventures ......
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