Garden of Eden Resort Isla Solarte

Another slow start to the day, breakfast and off for another border crossing.
We follow the coast, forest and plantations for about 10km then kick off inland a bit at Bribri and then continue heading along the highway 36 to Sixaola.
It starts raining again!
The road starts to get in worse condition with bigger and better potholes or even no road, just rubble as we get ...

... cats and dogs. The one day we did manage to get going was a bit of a disaster all round: our scheduled departure time of 10am was delayed until 11.30 by - you guessed it - rain. Then, on arrival at the landing point for Red Frog Beach the heavens opened once more, so we decided to bring forward our departure time, leaving us with just an hour and a half to do our thang.

Ploughing on despite the rain, we made it to the beach after about ten minutes only to find ...

... chicken tandoori that we made the night before.

This morning he got more chicken (two legs and two wings, no bones), a cup of rice and two pancakes. Tonight he'll get the same thing and tomorrow before we leave we'll feed him our last bit that we can before leaving.

He's so sweet, but you can't pet him. I'm pretty sure he's got mange and he definitely is flea ...

... black carribean descent rather than central american or ngobe. There was a marked change in the demeanor as well, a bit more stern and gruff rather than smiles and hola's. I suppose when living conditions are what we saw, it would be tough to see two gringos and greet them with smiles.

On our way out of town, we noticed that this is where the huts on the water lodge was that we were considering staying at, glad we didn't. They stared ...

... quickly and we called it a day after a brief look at a sandy bottom of the ocean.

Tomorrow we're planning on heading back to the Bocas town area to have a bite to eat and a little interaction with town folks. We've heard a rumor about a small little place that has really good Thai, so I think that'll be the destination. We'll be at this location until Wednesday morning when we fly to David and then drive (yikes!) to Boquete.

... a tolerable rain but not for long. We soon found ourselves in our ponchos but still going, as there was no reason to end the tour. We did see theManteled Howler Monkey ... a great treat to see ... three of them perched high in the trees. There were several species of animals we saw, all were beautiful. Once we completed the canoe tour, we were taken to a large room where we watched a short 10 minute video about the history of ...

... Sarah was staying at to see about getting a bed (even though I knew not returning home would mean my parents having a heart attack). The hostel worker said they were full but for $8 he´d give me a key to the room that they used for emergencies only because the roof leaks and of course they floodgates had already opened up outside. After getting my key and sheets someone at the hostel thought the boat taxis might still be open. So one last attempt to save ...

... indians.. time will tell! im in for a night of drinking and maybe even a game of auzzy footbol - i met up with my buddies diego, coach, o town and hungry. we sat around and drank for a bit and decided to hit the local beach careneros sat around and beach bummed it hard. walked over to the pickled parrot and had a few with hungry.. went back to the main land isla colon got some creep and posted. later that night i encountered a ...

... and then I walked over the one lane, wood-deck bridge to the Panama side, only to find out that the guy who stamps passports had gone for lunch. Of course, this is a big deal in Panama, so they shut the border down every day while the guy eats. And man, he must eat a ton, because I ended up waiting over an hour just to get my entrance stamp. There was absolutely no real security or order - I could have walked right into Panama no questions asked, and I´m sure lots of people have ...

Had a lot of fun in my few days in Bocas Del Toro , a group of islands off the north west coast of Panama quite close to the Costa Rican border. Bocas is a hugely popular and very fast growing backpackers destination and its easy to understand why with the superb setting , watersports , beaches and buzzing nightlife. Highly enjoyable boat ride from Changuinola on mainland Panama to get over to Isla Colon , the main island of the Bocas ...