Pura Vida Costa Rica!

Thursday, March 22, 2018
Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Limón Province, Costa Rica
Time to leave Tortuguero! We liked it here, but not as much as La Fortuna. 
Breakfast at 7.30 and we had to be checked out and at the boat dock by 8.50am. We had now been with this group of people for 3 days and had enjoyed their company. But...time to go.
We departed as a group on the first leg of the journey which was the 90 minute boat trip. The luggage goes on one boat - and the 40 odd passengers on the other boat. There are quite a few lodges in the area although Mawamba seems to be the best, but the place where buses and boats meet is crazy. There must have been 15 coaches doing changeover when we were there. 
We then boarded our coach back to Guapiles. Everyone had lunch together and we departed on our separate journeys. Tim & I, and a family of 4 from Switzerland were heading south so shared a minivan. We have had amazing weather to this point - in a country with huge rainfall - but then this changed. Torrential rainfall ensued but since we were in a van for the next few hours this was fine! 
The Swiss family were heading to a jungle retreat for 4 days before heading to Puerto Viejo - but we were heading straight there.
On the whole, the organization of everything here in terms of our tours, pick ups, transfers has been very impressive. Tourism is clearly important and everything runs very smoothly.
But omg - our driver today was awful. At one point Tim wanted to get out in the rain and get a Taxi the rest of the way. He thought she was all over the road at one stage and falling asleep. He asked her if she was tired but she couldn’t speak English so we started to create some distractions.
Puerto Viejo is an interesting place. Perhaps comparable to Snooky in some ways in that it has some very loyal followers. Puerto Viejo is a surfing town, with some famous surf breaks. It is also “vibey” which means that drugs are plentiful, there are lots of beach bars, and Bob Marley T-shirt’s are everywhere. Oh...and reggae music. It also has a bad reputation for being unsafe. 
Today (Good Friday) is also the biggest day of travel in the whole year in Costa Rica. Everyone has time off (probably why we got a bad driver today) and they head to the coast. The traffic here was ridiculous. There were police everywhere. It was bumper to bumper crawl for 30 minutes each end of town. This only happens for 2 days every year apparently- today and tomorrow. And today was the busiest locals have seen - ever! We drove through the town...and it was vibey...and would have been great to head back in for drinks and dinner. But, it became apparent that with the traffic, a Taxi in and out of town from our accommodation (2 kms out) was not feasible today. Had the rain not been torrential, we could have walked the 30 minutes in (and back out). Having said that, walking around here late at night is not that smart.
Our resort has a very jungle feel and a swim in the beautiful pool with a swim up bar would have been nice except for the rain! Our room was a treehouse style but had a tv, air conditioning and hot water.
The restaurant had a good selection and was very busy so we just ate here. 
Overnight we could hear the howler monkeys. They really howl and are considered to be the loudest of all land animals. If you didn’t know what they were, you could easily think someone was being murdered in the jungle!
Fun fact:- Michael Crichton had set Jurassic Park (Isla Nublar) on a fictional island off the Costa Rican Coast. However Spielberg chose Hawaii as the film set instead of Costa Rica (as there were tax incentives offered). 
The howler monkey was also used as some of the dinosaur sounds in the movie.
As a wrap up, we loved Costa Rica - Pura Vida! So beautiful, so clean and so organised!
Anyway it was time to commence our over land journey to Panama. We took off for our hotel in a nice mini van with WiFi towards the border with a family from England (a couple and their two small girls) - who have been in Costa Rica for 2 months on holiday.
We got to the border and that is when the mayhem started. It was raining (thankfully only lightly), and we had to get out of the van with our luggage. And then line up to pay some cash ($8 US each) at a dodgy looking office.
We then had to carry all our bags up a gravel track and line up for another 40 minutes or so(this can sometimes be for hours in the hot sun) for customs.
We then had to walk our bags over a bridge to get to Panama. And then lug our bags through dirt and mud to fill in a customs form and line up to hand that it. And then we realized we still didn’t have our passports stamped so had to ask a few questions - so we then lugged our stuff through more mud (and across the road) to lineup and get our passports stamped. And show proof of our departure from Panama. There were no signs anywhere to assist.
Then we found our van transfer. We squeezed into that whilst they tied our luggage into the roof. And covered it with a tarp. And off we went. Our observation was that Panama is less clean and has more poverty than Costa Rica. At about the point that Tim began to wonder if we were to be robbed, we pulled into a car park near water, told to exit the car, and retrieved our bags whilst fobbing off all the locals who wanted money. And then we were loaded onto a dodgy looking boat and passed by some areas which looked incredibly poor. This trip took about 30 minutes and then we arrived in Bocas Del Toro. What a relief! But that’s what travel is all about! It will give us something to remember!
The whole journey was done with the family from England - unfortunately they are heading back to Costa Rica after their stay in Panama and have to repeat that experience. We however, fly out of Bocas Del Toro. They said “lucky you!”.
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