01/19/12 1530
We are now sitting on a small beach on the island of Boca Brava, after driving to Boca Chica and paying a fisherman $6 to take us across the bay, plus he's charging me to park my car. Who says Panama's capitalism isn't thriving in todays economy? So we checked into Hotel Boca Brava, but early, and found our room dirty so they pointed us towards the beach path. We threw our suits on and wandered up the path. We quickly found a pebbled lined beach but kept going. Finding another down the path, we decided there was another further down the trail. We were wrong, but what we did find instead was a large group of howler monkeys. The first group made all the noise, but it was the second group that let us watch them care for a little bambino. Gina was mesmerized. After about half an hour we finished our loop back to the larger beach. After a swim, I am sitting in the shade of a mangrove tree watching about 12 people total hang out on this stretch of beach play frisbee, drink beer, suntan, from all over the world based on the conversations we can hear. The sand is hot, the kind of heat that burns your feet, but the water feels refreshing. Gina soaks it up, but we have started to realize this wonderful trip is coming to a conclusion. Couple of days and we are back to colder temps, and Gina was foolish to look up what is back home. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.
10:20pm
Sitting on our balcony at Boca Bravo, the only hotel on this island. It is dark out and we are 6 feet from the canopy of the forest, a few stars peaking through the leaves. Lots of different sounds going on around us. Watched two mammals scurry up a tree branch in front of us, assumed they were monkeys, but later had two raccoon looking things appear on the ground in front of us. Quickly shooed them away, but they've stayed about six feet away, digging in the ground for food, watching us like hey, you're the ones in our home. Great digs on the outside, but on the inside: a continuously leaking shower faucet, loud rattling ceiling fan, smell of sewer in the bathroom and a loud hum to the a/c that doesn't really cool things off. Oh, and lots of bugs trying to share our room. Guess that's what happens when one of the window panes is missing and it's wide open to the jungle.
01/20/12 1630
Same beach on isla boca brava. We just hiked through the canopy and as we approached the beach opening we came across the howlers again. The babies make a wimper sound, kind of like Gizmo on the Gremlins, and Gina spotted them quickly. She's been looking up the whole time since we arrived on the island. We even had a little mono outside our balcony before we left on this hike.
We've mostly been spending our last full beach day with another couple from Vancouver on a snorkel trip to two outer islands. It's so beautiful here, every direction we look there's little empty islands with long stretches of sandy beach. We met Richard and Lavona last night during dinner, a very cool couple who are on a two month scouting trip of Panama for possible retirement, considering liquidating in 5 years and moving here. Our boat ride was about 20 minutes to the first snorkel spot, not much coral but great colors of fish of all sizes. And we moved on to another snorkel/swim beach/island. Actually it was a sliver of sand and palms no wider than 40 feet connecting two larger pieces of land. We anchored and watched giant tortugas swim back and forth feeding in a deeper channel for another hour. We returned about 1530 and here G and I are, laying back on another beach, soaking up vitamin D. Yet we are starting to come back to reality and as our friend Tami tells us, soon our brown tans will turn red from frostbite. Reality bites.
1/20/12 10 pm
Have spent the last two hours in panic mode. Went to dinner, checked our emails and had an email from Delta to check in. "Weird", Michael says, "we don't get check in emails until 24 hours in advance of our flight. Why does it say that our flight leaves on Saturday?". They must have changed it on us and Michael was ready to go at it with Delta... or... We remember having a debate back in October about returning saturday or sunday??? Our brains registered Sunday, but the tx now says Saturday. Ummm, we're on an island close to the Costa Rica border, still several hours from Panama City and absolutely no way to get there by 9:20am tomorrow morning!!! These are the options we have.
1. Water taxi to mainland, Michael driving our rental car the 8 hours to Panama City, overnight, strange roads, as we've been warned, our little Kia Picanto car could easily get swallowed by a pothole, and after a full day in the sun and a few beers. Then there's the rental car issue that has to be returned to David and not Panama City. Bad idea.
2. Water taxi at this hour back to the mainland, jumping in the rental car immediately, driving to David and dumping it somehow at the closed terminal and jumping on the midnight bus to Panama City. We were about to frantically throw our stuff together and go, but realized there's no way to make the midnight bus (7 hours) from David to Panama City, because we checked the bus schedule and "the midnight bus" actually leaves at 10:45 pm. Geez, glad we figured that out before we got there. Scratch that. Also checked flight schedules out of David and no early flights to PC on Saturday.
3. Our original plan: returning the rental car to David and a flight to Panama city from there leaving at 5:30pm tomorrow and catching a flight on Sunday.
4. After two hours on the phone to Delta and desperate internet searches telling us that there's no open flights to catch on Sunday, we have to change our flight to Monday, for a price of course, and have an incredibly long travel day (leaving at 6 am and hoping to be home by midnight).
The irony is that we talked on the beach today about how glad we were that we chose the Sunday flight rather than Saturday, to stretch it out as long as possible. However, after talking to Delta, we vaguely remember that there wasn't a flight available on Sunday and way back in October when we booked, we knew it would be nice to have a day at home to regroup before going back to work on Monday.
It's Saturday afternoon now... Working our way to David. It's funny how yesterday I was kind of sad that our trip was coming to an end, and now I'm a little teary that we're not on our flight, 3 hours from MSP right now. Lesson learned, check tickets, we won't make this mistake twice. But, we keep thinking, if this is the worst thing that's happened after traveling for 3 weeks through two Cental American countries, so be it. Thanks to everyone for helping out with our jobs, cats, house, and Zeus, and for following along. Home Soon. Much love.
Snorkeling, howlers, and one mucho grande mistake
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Boca Chico, Chiriqi, Panama
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tami peterson
2012-01-22
No es la verdad!!!! I am on to you scammers! Flight problems? Have to stay another day in the warm weather? Hmmm..... My clue was Gina checking temperatures and weather here. Conveniently things get better Monday noon. Coincidence? I am glad you are safe and on your way. See you soon
tami peterson
2012-01-22
p.s. I wish I would have thought of it
Pam Aul
2012-01-23
OMG, I would be so panicked! But you are right, if that is the worst thing to happen you are ok. So you squeezed a couple more days out of it! Safe travels and hope to see you soon. Love you both, Pam
the howler monkey
2012-03-31
you are all pussys better than being in a city right?