My required 72 hour vacation

More than a month has gone by since my last blog post. I appologize to all my blog's enthusiasts for the inconvenience. Actually, on second thought, perhaps you all should be thanking me for not posting in all that time. I was just looking over my last few posts and I noticed that since school started all my blogs got really dull.

I've been meaning to write something up to expound upon how my classes are going at the UCR but, although I suppose there is a lot I could say, I just never get excited enough to sit down and write about it. It's still on my "to do" list. So if for some reason you were looking forward to hearing me go on about all the nerdy classes I have, don't feel too disappointed 'cause I'll get to it some time. (Maybe after I get around to actually making a "to do" list... haha)

So it's been just about 90 days since I first got to Costa Rica, which means my travel visa is about to expire and so it's time for my required 72 hour vacation outside the country. Thanks to the wonderful efficiency of the bureaucracy down at the Costarican immigration office and some ill-considered changes in the immigration laws, the Study Abroad office at the UCR unofficially told us that it might just be easier to take a trip to Nicaragua or Panama. So... here I am...

Bocas del Torro is an archipelago (group of islands) Just south-east of the Costa Rica - Panama border. I really wish I had heard about this place sooner! Not only is it relatively close to San Jose, but it happens to be a great place for diving! I actually barely got here in time this morning to fit in a dive and I just got out of the water a couple of hours ago. It was so cool that I had to come write about it!

Like I said after my scuba trip in northern Costa Rica, on the Pacific side, I recommend scuba to everyone. I simply can not find the words to describe how amazing life is under the sea. There is so much life down there it is just amazing. I love just watching a certain spot on the ocean floor and noticing all the things that I had never known existed. And, especially here in the Caribbean, the colors are wonderful! My last dive was by a coral reef that was covered with all kinds of colorful coral which naturally provides a home for all the other cool animals there. The place company I dove with today has some really good underwater camera equipment and will photograph your dive and burn a picture CD for 20 bucks. My blog just may get some really cool pictures pretty soon!

So getting to this small island town was quite an adventure. My 7 hour bus ride from San Jose, across the border, and about 30 km into Panama ended up taking about 11 hours and only taking me to the border. About 2/3 of the way here the bus broke down and we had to wait for some mechanics to show up and fix the bus while it sat there in the middle of the road. Though at first I wasn't too excited about the delay, it ended up being a great opportunity to see a part of Costa Rica that I had been missing out on. I suppose it was a great place to break down 'cause it was right by the ocean. I ended up chatting with a guy who lives right off the road where we were stopped and he took me to a little restraunt a little way down the street ticked in the palm trees between the coast and the road. I took a bunch of pictures of the place and hope to get some posted here soon. I just loved having a taste of the relaxed Caribbean culture, and some tasty Caribbean stew.

The bus got fixed right as I was finished with my stew, and so the journey continued. We ended up making it to the border at about 7:30 pm, but the immigration offices had closed, so I ended up having to find a place to stay there. I wouldn't have wanted to spend any time in this sketchy border town, especially not with all my luggage unequivocally branding me a gringo tourist. I ended up finding a hotel room and crashing until the border opened back up at 7:00 am.

Once in Panama I hired a taxi to take me to the port where I could take a water taxi to the island. The next boat was to leave about an hour after I got there, so I got to eat breakfast in this small pueblo on the edge of a tropical lagoon. It was beautiful there!

While eating breakfast and watching the kids play out in the street I realized how much I am missing by living in the City. I feel kind of ripped off in a way that most of my time in Costa Rica is spent in the city at the school. For some reason I love seeing the small towns. They are old and run down, but they are beautiful in a way. San Jose is old and run down too, but it sure isn't the same! It is so nice to get a chance to skip town and start seeing Central America again!

Well, until next time... Expect to see some awesome pictures up here soon!