Category: Backpacking Centeral America 2022

Day one went to ecological museum, art deco very cool, Scotland joined UK as derian attempt failed. Saw Panama canal, went for a fancy evening meal got free champagne and desert for sitting on the road.

Day two very long walking tour, poor people live there they have water and light. Went to the molar museum very interesting

Got to fate at airport and there was a whole dance as it seemed to be a brand new route to Europe, plane was delayed for an hour.

Please stay seated until we meet our fucking position.

Panama City was our last stop in Central America, we had two days here before we flew home. On our first day we decided to go to the famous ecological museum we had heard it was really interesting giving information about the ecology of the whole of Centeral America.

It was a really cool museum, the building itself was art deco and very interesting to look at built by a famous architect Frank Gehry. The content of the museum was also really fascinating it was one of the best museums we went to, it detailed the history of the formation of the land bridge between north and south America which we now call central America, with displays about the different types of rock formations. Which I can’t say me or Grace were super interested in but we did have a fun time jumping in front of a seismic activity/ Richter measurement device. Somehow tiny grace seemed to make bigger waves than me. More interestingly we found out about how each area looked before the connection and what the bridge allowing movement between the two areas meant for the different species that had evolved there.

For example they believe giant sloths from South America (who I can confirm really live up to their name after seeing a lifesize model!) Were driven to extinction by sabour tooth tigers from the north and that the south had its own sabour tooth tiger of sorts that had evolved independently, however it had a pouch for young like a kangaroo. We also learnt about lots of cool species of Central America still alive today including some frogs that live their whole lives above ground in trees, they don’t even return down to lay eggs, instead laying eggs in pools of water caught in leaves of trees. We also saw a jaw of an extinct Megladon shark, which could have swalloed me whole while standing up with no issue!

The museum also had a section on human history in Central America detailing the native people and their way of life, the conquest by European invaders, including the Scottish who put a substantial about of money into trying to conquer and control the Daren area of Panama, now know as the ‘Daren gap’, they were unsuccessful and te endeavour almost bankrupt Scotland leading to them agreeing to join the UK. It also had a section about the building of the famous Panama Canal. How the French had tried to build the canal originally, but had tried to make it all at sea level and had gone bankrupt, selling the rights and equipment to the US who completed the project using locks. It also detailed how Panama came to eventually own the canal itself.

So after spending most of the day in that very interesting museum we headed outside to see the one thing we couldn’t leave Panama without seeing. The Panama Canal itself! The official museum for the canal was still closed after Covid but the ecological museum was right next to part of the canal and we had a beautiful view of the bridge of the Americas crossing the canal. We sat in the shade for a while watching some ships sail along it before eventually heading back to our hostel.

As it would be our last evening meal before heading home tomorrow evening we decided to dress up and go somewhere fancy, or at least get as dressed up as you can be while living out of a backpack! We had booked a fancy restaurant for 7:30pm but decided to go to a bar overlooking the city for sunset beforehand. It was a very pretty bar and we drank cocktails and talked about our trip highs and lows while the sun set. After finishing our third round of drinks we decided to walk to the restaurant while we could still walk! We ended up arriving 15 minutes before our booking and the hostess apologised profusely. I’m not sure why she felt it was her fault we couldn’t keep time but she seemed very relieved when we didn’t shout at her and told her it was fine and we would wait outside.

There didn’t seem much point in heading anywhere else for the sake of 10/15 minutes so we walked around the side of the building and sat on a curb to wait, this sounds worse than it was as the curbs here are several feet high, so it’s basically like sitting on a bumb high wall. While we were sat there, some police on bikes came and in broken English made us promise not to go any further down the road as we ‘looked too expensive for the area’ and may attract trouble. Turns out we do scrub up well after all!

The restaurant hostess had come to check on some of the alfresco diners along the side of the restaurant on the road we were waiting on and seemed absolutely mortified by the fact that we had been ‘reduced to waiting by the curb and had been harnessed by the police’ in her words. She again smothered us in unnecessary apologies before bringing us to a table and providing us with free glasses of champagne. I can only imagine what sort of people she has to deal with daily as again she was visibly relieved that we weren’t shouting at her or going to complain to the restaurant. So relieved in fact that she gave us free champagne all evening and a free desert too! It was a delicious meal (even the parts we had to pay for) and very fancy which was a first on this trip! But even eating in the fanciest restaurant and leaving a 25% tip, how could we not for the wonderful hostess, the meal came to £25 each! We kinda wish we had gone fancier earlier now…

Our flight the following day wasn’t until 6pm in the evening so we still had some time to explore until then. We decided to do a free walking tour of the town. The tour was pretty awful but as there were only two other people so we couldn’t sneek off and leave. Instead we were dragged around the town and taken into churches where the ‘guide’ and I use that term very loosely ready information to us from information plaques mounted on walls that we could already read for ourselves and didn’t really provide any insight of his own. Except for one point in a church he pointed to the floor and said ‘come look, dead people’ to alert us to a sign about catacombs in a church and another time when we asked his thoughts on the gentrification of the city forcing poorer locals out, as there were signs protesting about it, and he pointed across to a far off block of flats and said ‘we put poor people there, we give them daylight and water what more do they need’. Which is a line I now use on Grace whenever she complains about anything.

Although the tour guide didn’t really give us any meaningful local insight, some of the places he took us were at least a little interesting we saw 6 or 7 churches all with huge nativity scenes that took up a whole room which was pretty cool, although less so after the 4th one you’ve seen… We also saw some weird modern tech in some of these churches including LED prayer candles and a electronic holy water dispenser which felt very strange to see.

After we had given our tip for the tour we decided to do our own exploring and came across a weekend craft market which was cool we saw some Guna people selling their handmade fabrics known as molars alongside some more contemporary crafts. Grace decided to buy a glass necklace pendant of a sloth and the seller showed us how he made them himself by hand. He then made us two smaller matching sloths on string bracelets that he gave us for free.

After a late lunch we decided to check out a museum about the indigenous Guna people and the molars they make. The museum was free but really interesting especially after our visit to a Guna community in the San Blas Islands. The museum explained their traditional molars used in clothing and what different patterns and symbols meant, spirals to trap evil spirits, zigzag patterns to harm and ward off bad omens etc. Beads on their arms and legs to protect them, a line drawn down the nose to eccentricate a long thin nose which is the height of beauty to the Guna. It was really interesting to see how such a traditional unchanged art had been passed down for hundreds of years, it was especially cool to see the traditional methods used to capture things in modern day life such as mother’s making their children traditional shirts but with Spider-Man on the front made in the traditional way. Very surreal and an interesting way to end our day and our time in central America.

After collecting our bags we headed to the airport, but there was one last suprise in store for us, (well two if you could a bottle of water costing $10 USD in the departure lounge!) We had picked a Lufthansa flight home that had a stop over in Germany rather than the standard stop in the US most flights do, as we wanted to avoid having to apply for a visa waiver and getting a PCR test.

What we didn’t realize was that our flight would be the first direct flight from Panama to Europe that airport had offered so at our gate we got to watch an opening ceremony that involved traditional dancing and a live band. So a good send off for us!

But don’t worry it wasn’t too sad flying home, we got to see our family and friends for the first time in three months! And besides,y we were only home 8 days before heading off to Asia! But that is another adventure for another post!

Can’t wait to tell you all about it soon! Love, Alice x

P.s. we had a German Piolet with a strong accent and when after landing he tried to say ‘stay in your seats until we reach the final position’ it came out as ‘stay in your seats until we reach the fucking position’ which amused us no end as we initially thought he was just having a bad day and was sick of people getting up to early ?

From El Valle we took a long bus to Panama City, we would be back after San Blas to check out Panama City properly, but for now we stayed one night before being picked up at 5am ready to make our way to the San Blas Islands.

The San Blas Islands are an archipelago comprising around 365 islands, of which 49 are inhabited. The area is home to a tribe of indigenous peoples known as the Guna. The Guna are self governing and decide who is granted entry into the islands. Tourists are only allowed on certain islands that are not inhabited by Guna families.

We started the day by driving four hours in a jeep along a potholed road through dense forest to get to the coast, from here we were greeted by Guna boats that would take us on another hour to the islands. We had been told that nothing is set on the islands, you could be placed anywhere, some days you get a trip, some days you don’t and where you go is random and never to schedule so you just have to go with the flow.

This was the case on our first day, we arrived with our small backpacks full of clothes and snacks for 3 days along with a big barrel of water to be told we were going on a trip straight away and wouldn’t be able to drop anything of first. So we arrived at ‘little dog island’ with all of our stuff and had to take it exploring with us.

The island itself was beautiful, golden soft sand and crystal blue waters. We got to relax here for a few hours, apparently there is a shipwreck in the water you can snorkel around, but we didn’t find out about this until after we’d left.

We got our first island meal here of deep fried fish, salad and potatoes (it would become our standard lunch and dinner meal for the next few days). Before lugging all our stuff back on a boat to explore some ‘natural pools’.

These natural pools were areas in the sea where sand had built up so that the sea was very shallow, it was interesting to see. We also saw some locals in a traditional boat and some star fish which was cool.

After a few hours swimming here we were taken back to the island we would be staying on, it was also beautiful and much quieter than the one we were on today. We were staying in a dorm which was basically thin weaved walls and a thatched roof all made from dried coconut leaves and branches.

That evening the family taking care of us on our island asked our names but after struggling with Grace and hearing it as ‘rice’ decided to rename Grace as ‘Arroz’ the Spanish for rice. There were also two Dutch girls Maude and Annabella, and Maude also got renamed to mouse. That evening we spent chatting with the girls and watching the sunset on the island before getting an early night, we were knackered after getting up at 5am.

The next day we were woken by someone blowing into a Conch Shell which is how we were called to every meal. So we got ready for the day. Today we would visit big dog island, this was another beautiful island this time slightly larger and with a lot more tourists, we watched as a group of American women took several hours to get the perfect ‘candid’ shot! We were more concerned with snorkeling the reefs surrounding the island.

At lunch Mouse mentioned it was her birthday and so the locals gave us all lots and lots of free alcohol and put on music, they also made her a cute fruit basket shaped like a bird.

We were also taken on a second trip but unfortunately it was to the same place as yesterday so this time we decided to snorkel around the sand build up of the natural pools. Two of the younger tour guides who had been giving us beers came to see what we were up to and when they saw we were snorkeling they were keen to join in. One of them was pointing out sting rays on the ocean floor but it was way to far down for us to see so he dove down at least 15, if not 20m deep (on one breath!), to poke the stingrays so that they moved and we could see them. He also went down a second time to pick up some starfish to show us. It was cool to see but I’m not sure how good it was for the health of the starfish!

After our trip was finished we were taken back to the beach and given more drinks where we decided if you couldn’t beat all the people having photo shoots you may as well join them. I should probably point out the following (very unflattering photos) were a result of us being a little drunk and very much taking the piss.

Although we did get some nice ones too! So we’re not total munters after all…

That evening we were alerted it was dinner time by the blowing of the Conch Shell and this time we asked if we could try blowing it, it’s a lot harder than it looks!

After dinner we bought a bottle of rum and played lots of drinking games for Mouse’s birthday. Including a very silly one called vikings, where one person is the Viking and has to wiggle some fingers on her head as viking horns, the people either side have to mime rowing a boat and everyone else has to sway about pretending to be a wave all shouting ‘Viki Viki Viki viki’ until the Viking points at someone else to be viking and everyone mush change thier action and the last one to do it drinks. It was really fun and some french guys in their 50s joined in with the games but they were soon verrry drunk as they had already had a bottle of rum before joining us. So at 10pm we all pretended to go to bed so that one of the guys could convince the drunker one it was time for them to go to bed too.

After they had gone to bed the rest of us came back out and watched the stars and chatted for a bit before heading off the bed ourselves.

The next day was our last, in the morning we chilled on the island and did some snorkeling and in the afternoon we were taken to the main Guna island where a lot of the population live and where most of the children got to school. There were children absolutely everywhere and they were all eager to say hello, practice their English or just show you a cool trick they could do it was really fun engaging with them.

We got to look around their town meeting room where they have debates and council meetings and we also got to see the shops selling supplies (I assume from what we ate of mostly rice beans and potatoes! ?) We also got to see the women working on traditional clothing and textiles they call molar. I didn’t take many photos as it feels a bit intrusive, but it was very interesting to see.

After our visit to the main island was done we headed back to the mainland and a jeep journey back to Panama City. Our time on San Blas was truly beautiful and not something we will forget in a hurry.

I’ll tell you all about Panama City soon, lots of love, Alice x

We only had one full day in El Valle, it was just a filler stop to break up the long journey from Santa Catalina to Panama City, but we actually really liked it here and probably would have stayed another day if we had time.

But the short time we did spend here was super fun. We were staying in the same hostel as the girls we had met in Santa Catalina, Liv and Rachel, and also saw two of the guys, Patric and Jamie, we had met in Bocas del Toro. We arrived late in the afternoon and sat in the hostel garden chatting, we were all too tired to do much else. It was Liv’s birthday the following day and our only full day here so we decided to pack it full of activities.

We started the day at 4am ready for a hike up a nearby hill to watch the sunrise. Well all of us except Patrick, he claimed the very idea of waking up early to do a hard walk was barbaric and that anyone who woke him would meet his wrath. Seeing as he was a good foot higher than the rest of us we left him be!

We hailed an open back collectivo to take us to the start of the walk, he seemed unsure when we got on of where we wanted to go, but insisted he could take us there despite us saying we could get a different collectivo. It turns out he did not know where he was going at all and took us 10 minutes in the wrong direction. Eventually we got him to stop and he admitted defeat and phoned a friend who gave him institutions. We got to the start a little later than we had hoped for but this turned out not to be a problem as the driver just kept on going up the path, off road, until he had taken us up about a quarter of the trek and the car physically couldn’t fit any further along. At this point he finally stopped and us four and 6 other people from our hostel doing the same hike got out.

I asked the driver how much we owed him and he said $25 USD and looked shifty about it but before I could question it further one of the guys from the other group was collecting $2.50 from each of the 10 of us and handed it over. The guy then asked if he could take a photo of us all and had already blinded us with a flash from his camera before we had a chance to respond.

When the lights had faded and the collectivo had finished it’s 90 point turn and headed off, we started the walk. It was a little strenuous but the hardest part was seeing where you were going in the dark, there were a lot of loose rocks prime for a twisted ankle. Luckily after carrying her head torch around for 3 and a half months it was finally Grace’s time to shine and put it to use.

Gradually we made our way upwards and as we went it started to get lighter enough to see a little, although the higher we got the windier it got too until we almost at the very top and on a thin path on the side of the hill, the heaviest of us were struggling to push forward into the wind and the lighter of the group we actually being blown backwards. Luckily the wind dropped slightly and we made it around the other side of the hill. The final part of the assent was up a thin path to somewhat of a peak. Grace, Jamie and myself didn’t quite fancy risking ourselves going up there as we already had a pretty cool view for the sunrise so we let the girls go on ahead while we found a good spot.

It turned out to be a pretty average sunrise anyway as there was a lot of cloud, but it was still nice to see.

Afterwards we headed back down the hill, this time in daylight and I must say it was much more pleasant and there were lovely views all around, although it was still slightly treacherous in the wind. At the bottom we got a collectivo back into town it cost 25cents instead of $2.50…. turns out our last driver had scammed us and then taken our photo as bragging rights!

Once we made it back to the hostel we all took a nap for an hour or two. For lunch we decided to go to a pizza place Patrick highly recommended. Grace ordered a pizza but the rest of us went for a panini after hearing Patrick go on about how good they were for the last hour. Plot twist they were not good. Not even close. They were very anemic looking rolls with so little cheese that a mouse would have starved to death from eating there. A very disappointing birthday lunch for Liv!

In the afternoon we decided to visit some thermal springs, it was a good way to relax our aching muscles and they even had some mud from the springs that you could rub on yourself, so obviously we gave it a go and smothered ourselves from top to bottom. We then sat and played cards while the mud dried and found ourselves cast in the positions we had sat in… Once we had crunched ourselves up straight again we washed the mud off in the shower and had lovely smooth skin underneath.

In the evening we went out for a meal to celebrate Liv’s birthday and to hopefully make up for the awful paninis. We chose a local restaurant that was very tasty, and Rachel even managed to get a birthday cake made. Although something was lost in translation and it was huge and very very sweet with thick marshmello frosting, so it was hard to eat more than a small slice. We ended up giving slices out to everyone, the staff at the restaurant, some local homeless people and anyone who was around at the hostel when we got back.

We planned to go out that evening but apparently the one bar in town was closed so instead we stayed drinking at the hostel and playing drinking games and unfortunately our poor Costa Rica playing cards with frogs on ended up covered in beer! But apart from that it was a really fun evening and a brilliant end to our brief time in El Valle.

Next we’re off to Panama City, ready to be picked up for our tour to the San Blas Islands! Something I’ve wanted to do since our last trim and that I’m hoping will be the highlight of our trip! I can’t wait!

Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

I feel like a lot of posts I have written on this trip have mentioned how hot it has been, turns out those places were nothing compared to Santa Catalina. Just existing here is unpleasant and you are covered in sweat from sitting in the shade. Unfortunately for us, the hostel we had picked was a thirty minute walk from the beach in the baking sun all the way and there was no pool or Aircon or restaurant at the hostel. Just one fan for a room of 9 people.

On our first day we decided to walk down to the beach in the hope of getting some food, we tried to shorten our walk by heading down various side paths that all claimed to have restaurants down, but every time they were either closed or super expensive. After an hour of many detours we reached the beach, by this point we were absolutely dripping with sweat and had discovered new revelations about ourselves in the heat. Apparently when I’m uncomfortably hot I start puffing out air and sound like a pissed off horse huffing away, gryace on the other hand sounds like a pissed if sailor and swears and curses anything that moves and a lot of stuff that doesn’t.

When we reached the town by the beach, most of the restaurants were closed as it was now nearly 3pm. We noticed an elderly couple from our hostel at a restaurant at the far end of the town waving us over as it was still open, so we hobbled over and sat down. The main meal was nice although the waitress slammed the food and drinks on the table as if we’d personally offended her by daring to order food at her restaurant. That didn’t stop us from ordering dessert however, as we were determined to fill up on enough food that we wouldn’t need to make another long trip down for dinner. Unfortunately for us the cheesecake we’d chosen to share lived up to its name a little too well and tasted very cheesy indeed, accompanied by a chewy rubbery texture. The dogs on the beach were well fed that afternoon!

We chilled out on the beach for a bit hoping the temperature would start to cool off but around 5pm it was still baking hot so we syked ourselves up and started on the walk home. It finally cooled down from the high thirties to the low thirties/ high twenties around 1am and we finally got some sleep.

The next day Grace had booked a scuba diving trip and I had paid for a snorkeling trip, both of which were in the national marine park. The older Dutch couple from our hostel, Peter and Madeleine, who we had seen at the restaurant the previous night were on the snorkeling trip too.

The guide had promised we’d see a lot on the trip, however our first sighting was very unexpected indeed… We spotted the president of Panama! He landed in a helicopter right next to the pickup point for our snorkeling trip. There were special police everywhere. With grey camouflage on and black balaclavas with just a slit for their eyes. They looked very much like baddies from a bond movie, but we were very impressed they hadn’t already roasted to death inside head to toe clothing.

Our second spot of the day came on the boats out to the reservation islands. We saw dolphins as they swam and jumpued out of the water right next to the boat! It was very cool to see!

The first island we visited was a tiny thin split of land surrounded by coral reefs, we saw lots of cool colourful fish and also a reef shark. Although sadly I also ended up telling one couple on our boat off for standing on the corals. I mentioned this to our guide who also reiterated not to do this, the coral grows only a cm each year so standing on it and breaking it cases decades of setbacks, it’s also full of bacteria that you really don’t want in your foot.

The second spot we headed to was another island, this time with lots of trees on. The reef here is a cleaning spot for turtles, they stop by and tiny fish nibble at their dead skin. Although these fish aren’t picky and will also nibble humans as well as I found out! I have been to the fish feet spa so I assumed fishes nibbling me in the water would feel the same. However, after swimming over a dense part of the reef my legs were absolutely covered in fish, I assumed if I started swimming and kicking my legs this would stop the rather forceful nibbling, it did not. It was a rather unpleasant and unsettling feeling and I swam as fast as I could for 10+ minutes to get far enough away from the reef that they would leave me alone! After catching my breath I swam again to the edges of the reef, careful to avoid any fish, and I was rewarded by seeing not one, but two huge turtles! The guide remarked after they were some of the largest she’s ever seen.

Our next stop was onto the largest island on the reserve, here we climbed up to a viewing platform and our guide explained how the islands on the reserve used to house prison buildings and no boats were allowed in the area to prevent escapes, this is why the area is so untouched. There is also a huge crocodile on this island called Tito that the locals feed and it will appear if you call for it, but none of us fancied making the call, especially as we had nothing to feed him, we didn’t want to end up his snack!

Our last stop was at another island with lots more colourful fishes and here we also saw a sea snake and a puffer fish, so we definitely got our money’s worth!

I had spent most of the day chatting to the Dutch couple, they were really nice and told me how they were retired and spent a month of every year traveling around a new country. Madeleine also insisted on creaming my back for me so I didn’t burn and also asked if I would like a lift to town for dinner as they had a car! Very nice people indeed! That evening we couldn’t resist a free lift in an air-conditioned car so myself and Grace got a lift from them into town and we ended up having a nice dinner together, chatting about all the different places they and we had been. At the end of the evening they kindly offered to take us half way to our next destination in two days time as they were headed in a similar direction.

The next day we decided to chill on the beach, this time walking down super early when it was at least slightly cooler and finding a spot of shade to hide from the sun in. It was honestly too hot to do anything that took us too far away from the water. In the evening we got chatting with some girls at our hostel, we were all going to go out to a party although none of us could stay late as the girls had to catch the 7am bus and Peter and Madeleine had offered us a lift at 8am (although they later said they were happy to leave at 10am so we could have fun at the party as they’re complete babes!).

We ended up losing track of time and sat chatting until midnight, at that point none of us could be bothered to do the sweaty walk into town and, as it turned out we would all be staying at the same hostel in the next stop, we decided to call it a night and go out at the next town.

So we had an early-ish nights sleep and a beautifully air-conditioned journey halfway to our next destination, El Valle de Anton. Which meant we didn’t have to get up at 6am and we only needed to get two buses instead of four!

I’ll tell you all about El Valle de Anton soon, lots of love, Alice x

P.s. I almost forgot to tell you about the unluckiest person we met while traveling. A German girl in our dorm here. Santa Catalina was her second stop on her holiday and not only did she also end up in this booking hot Hostel in the middle of nowhere she managed to get diarrhea on her first day in a dorm where all 7 of us shared one bathroom connected to the room, there is no keeping that one to yourself. That evening the girl in the bed above her accidentally unscrewed the top of her water bottle in her sleep and it all leaked out onto this German girl in the bed below. She didn’t realize it was water and thought the girl above had wet herself so she slept on the floor. The next day she decided to go to the beach and got bitten by a dog, the local hospital patched her up and gave her a tetanus shot but she needed to take a 8 hour bus the next day to Panama city to get a rabies shot. Then on her final night before she left for Panama city a big wooden slat from the bottom of the bed above her came loose and fell on her head leaving her with a huge bruise! Honestly talk about being unlucky! I only hope her luck improved in Panama city!

Staying in a castle, did a walk that was supposed to be flat but was definitely uphill and was supposed t be cloiudy but was very sunny. Hitch hiked on the way back to save $10

Day two market and chill market was like a church fate lots of American expats

Day three swinging bridges canceled as I was too heavy

We arrived in the mountain village of Bouquet and were greeted by our very unusual hostel, we were staying in a castle! It was a bit out of town, built by a Dutch man who, after moving to Panama, had missed seeing European castles and what else was there to do, apart from build his own of course! He had chosen to build it on a hill overlooking the countryside, so the hostel has beautiful views. It also had these cool hobbit hole like houses you could stay in!

We were both still a bit knackered from our partying in Bocas del Toro and the long journey to get into the mountains, so we just wanted a chill activity for our first day here. We saw online that there was a flat walk not far from the town, it was supposedly a gentle walk to a waterfall and back. We checked with our hostel who confirmed it was a flat easy walk, they also said it would be cloudy all day so perfect walking weather. So we decided to go for it.

After being wayyy overcharged for a taxi to the start point and then paying a further $10 USD each to do the walk at the entrance, we were ready for our relaxing stroll along the flat walk.

The cloudy day turned out to be boiling hot sunshine without a cloud in the sky… and I can only assume the locals here are descended from mountain goats, there is no way in hell I would describe the walk we did as flat by any stretch of the imagination! It was a fun walk but definitely one we were not in the mood for. After forcing ourselves up hill for 20 minutes we did get to see a tree that was over a thousand years old so that was pretty cool! Grace was very much not in the mood for a hike and would complain ‘ohh look another flat bit’ every time we had to climb up some rocks or walk up a hill!

We did get some added danger in the walk though when we had to cross over some rivers and got to wobble about on some pipes and very ropey looking bridges

We eventually made it to the ‘waterfall’ which was a trickle through some rocks and very unimpressive and then headed back to the start of the trail.

After paying $20 each for a taxi to the walk and the walk itself, we were reluctant to spend yet more money paying for a taxi back again. As Panama is one of the richest and safest countries in central America, hitchhiking is relatively safe and common here. We decided to give it a go, luckily for us the first car we saw looked like a good bet. It didn’t have tinted windows, meaning we could see the driver and he didn’t look like a huge angry man fresh from prison, but rather a friendly looking guy in his 50’s and the car itself was a pickup truck, so we would be able to sit in the back, not with the driver, and in the extreme case we could easily jump off the back if necessary! So I stuck an arm out and did my best Spanish negotiating, the guy kindly offered to drop us off on the outskirts of town as he was only going past it and not in. It was a bit of a bumpy ride but saved us an hours walk and the man refused to take any money. All in all a successful first hitch hike.

On our second day we had decided to check out a local market we had seen advertised, we had really enjoyed most of the markets we had visited on our trip, it’s normally a nice way to see the locals going about doing their day to day activities and experience some local food, music and culture.

It turns out that Boquete is mostly inhabited by American expats. So the market was mostly various church groups and retirement communities advertising for members. On the plus side we did get a nice Cuban sandwich to try which I’d never had before but had always seen on American shows. It was very tasty.

After viewing what little there was of the market we headed back to the hostel and made use of their swimming pool and jacuzzi for the afternoon!

The next day we were supposed to be visiting some hanging bridges, they asked our heights and weights and gave us a ticket, however when they realised we were two women not a man and a woman they told us we could no longer go, as I was to heavy for a woman. Admittedly I am heavy for a woman but probably weigh the same, if not less, than an average male so I’m not entirely sure why I was too heavy? Surely the bridge wouldn’t know or care if I was a male or female but they refused to allow us to go so we didn’t get to see the bridges!

On the plus side, we used the day instead to plan the next leg of our travels to Asia!

But first we’ll be moving on to our next stop the beach town of Santa Catalina, I’ll tell you all about it soon, lots of love Alice x

Chilled tried to go to a party was dead until after we went to bed, shelf fell on graces head

Day two explored the island met Sophie and co. Grace’s taxi got lost Went for lunch and a swim came back, party was already happening had a really fun night free drinks very thirsty

Day three more chilling

We decided to try and do our own cross border transfer to Bocas del Toro as the busses in both Costa Rica and Panama are reliable and a lot cheaper than the very expensive direct mini buses. We had a two hour bus ride to the border and had no issues getting our passports stamped out of Costa Rica and into Panama. Entry into Panama did require a scan of all of our fingerprints and a front and side profile photo, so we had the added bonus of feeling like we were on a police show to liven up the crossing experience! On the other side of the border we saw minibuses collecting people to take the rest of the way to Bocas del Toro, we managed to haggle a seat for $20 USD a person, on the agreement we didn’t tell any one else on the bus we were paying €100 less than them! We could have gotten two local busses the rest of the way as planned for even cheaper but the direct route would be a lot quicker, so we decided to splurge out. Once we reached the Bocas del Toro port, we had to board a taxi boat that would take us the rest of the way to the Bocas del Toro islands.

We had chosen to stay on one of the smaller, quieter islands. The island itself took about 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other. It had two restaurants, a hostel and around 20 houses. The Hostel and houses were all built half on the sand and half protruding out into the sea on stilts. The sea was absolutely beautiful blue and filled with fishes and starfish.

We arrived in the late afternoon and decided to walk around the island, after walking end to end we decided to stop for dinner in one of two bars/restaurants on the island. The did tasty pizzas and even tastier cocktails. After a few drinks we headed back to the hostel. We saw adverts for a party that evening, starting at 10pm (we complained how this was far too late for a party to start and then realized we are getting old!).

We got ready and headed out to the bar for 9:30pm in the hope of getting chatting to some people and making friends but the whole place was absolutely dead and remained that way until midnight at which point we gave up and headed to bed. After we had taken our makeup off and gotten into bed we heard taxi boats arriving on mass around 1am but decided we couldn’t be arsed at that point once we were already comfortable in bed.

The party continued until around 3am and although we were in the dorms furthest away from the bar, it still felt as if we were trying to sleep on the dancefloor it was so loud. The wall Grace’s bed was connected to vibrated so much the large wooden shelf above Grace’s bed fell off the wall and onto her head. Not wanting to appear older and grumpier than we already probably seemed, Grace didn’t complain and just sobbed silently in bed, which probably succeeded in not making her look grumpy but instead probably made her look slightly mental!

The next morning,Grace and the new egg-shaped bruise she was spouting, headed of scuba diving. I stayed at the hostel and got chatting to a girl and a group of six guys she was traveling with, who had all met while working in Lapland at a Santa’s grotto experience over Christmas. They were super friendly and invited me to join them on a bar crawl around the islands that would finish at our hostel. As Grace had just texted me she was on her way back and wanted to go get some lunch, I declined their offer and told them we would meet them back at the hostel at 5pm when the bar crawl would arrive on our island.

Grace’s taxi boat should have only taken two minutes to drive from the island she was on over to our island, she could have probably swam it in 5 minutes. Yet somehow she took an hour to arrive. Her driver had insisted on dropping everyone else on the bus off first to various different islands, then had needed to stop to get fuel, then had gotten lost! But eventually she arrived back safely and hadn’t been kidnapped as I’d feared/hoped!

We went to lunch at the same place as the previous day and afterwards had a lie in the sun and a swim in the sea. I tried to combine the two by laying down in the shallow water at the seas edge. As soon as I sat my bum down I felt something concerningly large move beneath it, I then thrashed about screaming in the shallows, retreating from a crab who had already had the worse end of our encounter after being sat on and then screamed at.

We headed back to the restaurant in case the crab had any ideas about revenge…and also because I was really thirsty after all the shouting and thrashing about. I wanted to get a soft drink but grace convinced me to get a nice cocktail. Five minutes after delivering our cocktails the waiter came to check on us and remarked, after seeing my empty glass, ‘wow you a very thirsty girl’. To which Grace fell about laughing and continued to use every time I drank anything or appeared slightly drunk!

At 4pm we decided to head back to the hostel so we could be ready by the time the bar crawl arrived for the afternoon party. But it turned out we were already far too late, the party had arrived early and was already in full swing. Luckily the dress code seemed to be swimming costumes (and sunburn), one of which we already had and the other we were hoping to avoid anyway.

The hostel was absolutely heaving with people and it was a really fun evening, even if all of the music we knew and enjoyed most was labelled as ‘old school’ and ‘throwback’ songs. Nothing like a party aimed at 18-20 year old to make you feel old! Grace even got a lift on Patric, one of the guys I had met earlier’s, shoulders. Seeing as Grace is tiny and Patrick is a huge 6ft+ northerner, this was not an issue. However, his friend Jamie, who was the same height as me and probably only 2/3rds of my weight, then tried to do the same to me. That was less successful and eventually after 5 minutes of him shouting ‘Ive nearly got it’ and me shouting ‘let me down!’ and trying to jump off, he gave up. But not before a crowd had already gathered to cheer him on, just my luck! He insisted he be allowed to try again and this time I shouldn’t try and get off as apparently that’s what was stopping him being able to lift me… But seeing as I like having all of my front teeth (and what was left of my dignity at this point) intact I declined the proposal.

The party at our hostel ended around midnight and we headed to an after-party at another hostel on a different island and we saw some cool fire jugglers and danced a bit more before heading home to bed. After seven hours of dancing we were absolutely knackered but I returned to find a girl asleep in my bed! After waking her and helping her into what I hoped was her bed I could finally get to sleep.

The next day we were treated to a free breakfast at the hotel as an apology for nearly killing Grace with a shelf. We spent the rest of the day chilling out and recovering from our hang overs. We did however take a swim underneath our hostel and saw loads of cool coral that was growing on the supporting legs of the structure.

The following morning we headed on to our next stop, Boquete. Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

Our stay in Puerto Viejo was a very chilled one, Rob and Hannah would be staying here for the remainder of their trip and having a week to chill out before going back to work. Grace and I decided to join them for a few days.

I would love to tell you all the exciting stories of what we did, but after two weeks filled with lots of activities and tours, what we mostly did was relax and chill out on the beach! We did plan on doing a snorkeling trip but after being told it was $85 USD per person (!) we decided snorkeling on the beach was fine after all!

It was the perfect place to relax, beautiful chilled beaches with a Carribbean vibe, we tried more Carribbean sauces and dishes, they were delicious if not a little on the salty side.

We also made sure to test out the local ice creams including a ‘Blob’ flavour which was intensely chocolatey.

We had a fun two days messing about in the sea and relaxing, on our last day we were laying in the shade under a tree on the beach when another tourist walking past pointed out there was a sloth directly above us. Would you believe it, it was the best sighting of a sloth we’d had all holiday, and for free!

After saying our goodbyes to Rob and Hannah we got on a bus to our next and final country Panama. I will tell you all about it soon lots of love, Alice x

We had a short stop in Cahuita, a small town on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica close to another national park, this time one on the beach including a coral reef.

It was absolutely boiling in Cahuita when we arrived and we spent the first afternoon very close to the hostels pool and playing with the owners puppy, who unfortunately for grace was going through his biting phase!

The next morning we headed into the national park early in the hope to do the bulk of the walking around while it was still relatively cool, or at least not absolutely boiling.

It was an enjoyable morning, Hannah and Rob saw their first hermit crab! We also saw monkeys, sloths, a snake and lots of Lizards.

We walked to the tip of the park where the Coral reef was located in the hope of snorkeling but found there is no snorkeling allowed without a guide to protect the reef. So we decided to head back for some lunch instead.

We headed to a local soda and tried some ‘pattys’, the Caribbean take in empanadas, we had one each but they were so nice we went back for another round and also tried some sweet pineapple ones. The savory ones were a stewed beef mixed with a coconuty sauce. It was delicious and I was really enjoying it until Hannah spotted a dead ant in hers. I couldn’t eat another bite after that.

After our pattys we headed back to the hotel pool to cool off from the afternoon sun.

The next day we headed to the bus station to catch a bus to our next stop, Puerto Viejo, and while waiting Rob brought us some fried chicken, another plus of being on the Caribbean side of the country. Rob and Hannah were already sick of rice and beans for most meals (including breakfast). We also brought some dulce de leche pastries, a tried and tested favourite of mine and Grace’s, for Rob and Hannah to try. It went down a treat and even better there were no ants in sight!

I’ll tell you all about Puerto Viejo soon, lots of love, Alice x

Tortuguero is not the easiest spot to get to via public transport so we booked a transfer to take us, which meant we spent most of the day on a bus before disembarking into a speed boat to take us across the small canals and rivers that separates the town from the mainland. The canals and rivers form a wetland that is host to a whole load of wildlife and we saw some of this on our journey. It was absolutely tipping it down but the driver was still able to spot and point out caimans, herons and monkeys to us.

We knew we wanted to do three tours while in Tortuguero; A guided tour through the national park, a canoe tour of the canals and rivers and a night tour. When we went to book these, they informed us that it was better to do all the tours that were inside of the national park in one day, so we would only have to pay the park entrance fee once. As the second day looked less likely to rain, we decided to chill on our first day and do the night walk in the evening and then do the rest of the tours the following day.

Our chill day was a mix of brilliant sunshine and then torrential downpours. We spent the morning by the pool. Rob, Hannah and Jess were having a great time spotting large lizards, toucans and hummingbirds in the trees and all rushing over to take a look and snap photos. Meanwhile me and Grace, who are a bit desensitized at this point, would simply glance up from our books for a quick look. The others were amazed, commenting on how, unlike me and Grace, they would never become tired or desensitized by the amazing wildlife.

In the afternoon we decided to take a stroll into the center of town, a trip that took all of 3 minutes as it is tiny, and have a look around. Tortuguero is on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and you can definitely notice the Caribbean culture in the people, the pace of life, the food and the music. We were watching some locals play dominios and eyeing up some BBQ skewers (we came to name ‘meat on a stick’), when we were hit with another torrential downpour, so we headed into a local soda and ordered a disappointing lunch. Rob and Hannah opted for the local rice and beans dish, this time with the Caribbean influenced coconut rice. Grace went for a vegetarian quesadilla which was basically some frozen veg in a tortilla and I thought I’d branch out and get some garlic bread as I wasn’t very hungry. My garlic bread turned out to be burnt toast with a basil leaf on top which Rob found hilarious. Unfortunately the meat on a stick people had also fled from the rain so I had to suck it up and eat my burnt toast.

It clearly rains a lot here as the locals have mastered riding a bike with one hand and holding an umbrella in the other. Eventually we braved the rain again and headed back to the hostel.

In the evening we headed out for our night walk, we were given torches and set off towards the forest at the edge of town, with a brief put stop as it chucked it down again for 10 minutes.

We saw a lot on the walk, but with no thanks to our guide who was particularly useless, when rob spotted a raccoon in the tree and asked what it was the guides response was ‘I don’t know, some sort of mammal I guess’ when Hannah found a spider and asked if it was dangerous, his response was ‘No idea’… a Costa Rican lady on our tour informed us it wasn’t. He was also playing frog recordings from YouTube in the forest to try and attract frogs (which you are warned not to do as it upsets the natural order) but he wasn’t paying attention and when the video skipped to the next in the queue it nearly deafened us all with an advert and scared off lots of sleeping birds, but at least the wildlife is now informed about where they can purchase low cost second hand cars.

However, with our keen eyed group (excluding me ofc, who spent much of the time almost walking into spiders webs) we managed to spot a lot of things, even the famous red eyed frog we spotted in Manuel Antonio but this time with its colours on show!

On our second day we were up at 5 am ready for our canoe tour, it’s cool but bright in the early morning so is the best time to spot the animals when they are more active. It would be our last activity with Jess before she headed back to London so she was really hoping to see a sloth.

We were all seated in the canoe and given binoculars. The guide was paddling us along and also looking for any animals he could see. Unlike our previous guide this one was brilliant, he had eyes like a hawk and could spot camouflaged animals from the other side of the river that even when he had rowed us right over in front of them, we would still struggle to see. But we saw loads of stuff, hundreds of cranes, herons, lizards, caiman, snakes and loads of spider and howler monkeys.

The guide told us they also get large crocodiles and alligators but they tended to be in the larger rivers. About 2/3 of the way through it started raining again and we didn’t see much more after that unfortunately, except monkeys and herons which the others were already bored of despite their earlier comments on not becoming desensitized.

After the morning tour we had to say goodbye to Jess who was starting her journey back to San Jose, the Costa Rican capital, to fly home. Meanwhile the rest of us grabbed a quick lunch of meat on a stick before heading off to our walk in the national park. Thankfully it had stopped raining at this point but the guides suggested we changed into Wellington boots before heading into the forest. They didn’t have any wellies in my size so I ended up tripping about in some huge size 11’s. Luckily we didn’t have to be quiet while evening up on anything!

By this point we were quite the tour connoisseurs, our guide was impressed by me knowing the number of hummingbird species in Costa Rica (52), the most photographed frog in the country and the sleeping habits of the two and three toed sloths (two toed are nocturnal, three toed are not). Luckily for us the guide knew his stuff and had many more interesting facts and information for us.

Along with the usual birds and monkeys he pointed out wild cacao (chocolate) trees, bullet ants (whose sting feels like being shot), huge terminate nests, cool plants that closed when you touched them and he also showed us a toxic frog that locals used to use to make poison darts to hunt with, he also showed us the trees they got the small dart like thorns from. It was super interesting and Rob and Hannah got to see their first (visible) sloth. Up until then we had mostly seen just grey balls of fluff far away or arms or just the movement of trees. (Jess was very gutted she had missed the sloths by a mere hour!)

He also took us to the beach to show us where the turtles that give the town it’s name come in the summer to lay their eggs. There were none there, as it is currently out of season, but we saw discarded eggs and some shells and bones of the adult turtles that had been caught and eaten by jaguars. We also saw some jaguar footprints along the beach.

It was a really fun tour, towards the end the guide gathered us all as around in a crouch near the ground and told us to sniff, and just as we had taken a big wiff explained that the puddle we were gathered around was jaguar piss. That was a less fun experience, but hey, how many people can say they have smelt jaguar piss? And I bet even fewer would admit to it!

The next morning we headed out of Tortuguero towards our next stop, Cahuita, but we had one more surprise on the way out. Our boat driver spotted a huge crocodile on the banks of one of the larger rivers. He drove over to it but, before anyone could get a photo, it quickly and very disturbingly disappeared into the shallow water without a trace. Our driver very quickly backed up and drove us out of there!

Eventually we made it to our next stop without any crocodile bites! I’ll tell you all about it soon, love Alice x

Our transfer to La Fortuna felt like an excursion in itself. We started in a minivan and after we waited for the driver to have breakfast, (for some reason in Central America if you get a bus at meal times, the driver will always stop for food, even if like this case it’s only 10mins into the journey! You would think they would just eat before they left for work.) We headed down south until we reached a lake, we then boarded a small ferry that took us across a scenic lake for an hour. We had great fun, me and Jess had taken to making boiled eggs in the mornings for day snacks, much to Grace’s dismay as she can’t stand them. So we decided to eat them on the boat, mainly to annoy Grace. Unfortunately during our egg photo shoot some of the egg got caught in the wind and hit a woman behind us. Thankfully she took it well but Grace was less than impressed and we weren’t allowed boiled eggs again after that!

We disembarked the ferry at the other side of the lake with a view of a huge volcano, before boarding a bus to La Fortuna a town close to the volcano. Once we had checked in at our hostel we went to meet up with two more of Grace’s friends, a couple called Rob and Hannah who would complete our group of five for the coming week.

We went for a quick lunch in a local cafe or ‘soda’ as they are called here. Hannah was excited to try the food here so they both ordered the local casada dish which is normally a meat of your choice, salad, rice and beans and plantain. Minus the meat for vegetarians. Casada is always filling but very average and uninspiring as food goes.

Once we were full we headed out to find a local swimming spot with a Tarzan style rope swing over a river. It was located under a road bridge for cars to cross the river so we scampered down from the side of the road to take a look.

The swing turned out to be a lot higher than it had looked the the photos and all of us, except Rob, were less keen to try it now. After a lot of peer pressure from Grace, Jess also agreed to give it a go and after a few attempts to build up the courage, she swung in unharmed. Next it was Grace’s turn but after talking the big talk, she decided it wasn’t for her after all! So I decided to have a go, although I’m scared of heights I tend to be okay with stuff like this as you just have to get on with it before you get a chance to get scared, once you’ve let go of the rope it’s too late to chicken out! I nearly didn’t get my attempt on video, as Hannah had assumed it would take me a while to work up to it, but I just grabbed the rope the first time and went for it. After we had all been in, except Hannah and Grace, the tables turned in terms of peer pressure until Grace had been bullied into going in too. After we were bored of swinging in we had a sit in the river for a while until we were cool enough to walk back.

In the evening we decided to check out a Mexican restaurant and bar and had great fun sampling their chilli tequila and their huge sombreros!

On day two, the others did the volcano hike, but after hitting my knee two days before I decided to rest it rather than strain it on the two hour descent. I stayed behind and had a lay in before buying previsions and making them all a packed lunch. Once they were back on flat land, I brought them their lunch and we headed to some free hot springs.

There are lots of hotels and restaurants where you can pay $80-$100 to use the hots springs but we’d heard about some free ones you accessed again under a road bridge. The hot springs were actually more like a river of bath temperature water, which was very odd at first but the others appreciated it on their sore muscles.

There was a deeper pool near to where we had initially sat, but we couldn’t all sit there together as our bags were on the banks and we had been warned to watch them closely in case they were stolen. So we took it in turns to sit in the deeper pool with our backs against the small waterfall. When it was my turn to swap back to bag watching position, I had the bright idea to just float back over. However, I didn’t realize how strong the current was, and got washed away towards the edge of another pool. I became effectively beached on a small collection of rocks, which I then had to wriggle over before flopping into a pool full of attractive German guys. It was certainly one way to make an entrance! Luckily they found it hilarious and said it was the most life-like portrayal of a salmon they had ever seen.

Once it started to get dark we ordered an Uber back to the hostel, we were just paying the driver when Grace did the most smelly fart ever. We all started to shout and hit her and the Uber driver seemed lost and quite concerned about what was happening until the smell reached him, at which point he couldn’t get us out of his taxi quick enough!

In the evening, after we’d recovered from Grace’s chemical warfare, we decided to check out a Mediterranean restaurant. Me and Grace were looking forward to the BBQ meat and the other three veggies were planning on having fallafel. Unfortunately for them the meat smelt so beautiful that none of them could resist it!

On our last day we decided to go for a horse ride. I don’t think I’ve ever been on one quite like it. There were 20 horses and only one guide, who was content to just let the horses guide themselves. It’s common for horses to know the routes and to guide themselves. However, instead of a single line, we were in a large group with the horses all jostling for position, which lead to them all squeezing past each other and smashing or legs into other horses. Grace’s horse was in a very bad mood and kept biting the other horses, she asked the guide why her horse was so grumpy and angry and he said it was because ‘the horse channels the rider’s energy’ which we all thought was hilarious and would repeat to her every time her horse barged into ours.

The ride itself was quite enjoyable, when we weren’t barging into each other, we rode around the national park and got to see parts that were destroyed in the volcano’s last eruption including a cool church with a view of the volcano that we stopped in.

After the ride we were allowed to use the horse riding hotel’s hot pools. They were a lot fancier than the free ones, with a pool bar and also some slides. We spent all afternoon playing about in them like big kids, at one point coming down the slide as a group and nearly drowning Grace.

We headed back in the early evening to pack, ready to move on to our next stop Tortuguero.

Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x