Panama - Back to School

Am writing to you from Aeropuerto Rafael Nuñez in Cartagena. Ya, I know, I said I was heading to the beach... and I almost got there. However I found an incredibly cheap flight, made a spur of the moment decision, and here I am! In other good news, my parents have booked their flight. Will be meeting them in Cusco, Peru early August. That gives me approximately 3 weeks to make my way there. It's a long way, so i'm going to take my time and making stops to enjoy the views.

In Costa Rica I had the bright idea to go back to school to brush up on my Spanish. I did an internet search and stumbled across Habla Ya in Bocas del Toro Panama. Learning Spanish + beach? Sign me up!

Shortly after I arrived to Bocas, it started to rain. It rained so hard that the streets turned into swimming lanes. To get from one place to another, you had to walk barefoot in the middle of the street. Even then the water was mid-shin.

Rain rain, go away...

After enduring 3 full days of rain, the sun came out and Dina hit every beach she possibly could. School was from 8am-12:20pm - then we'd form a group and head to a beach. My favourite was Red Frog beach on Bastimentos Island. It was stunning and had great waves to play around in. That's also where I saw my first Sloth. I saw many throughout Panama, however I found it curious I didn't see a single Monkey, as they were EVERYWHERE in CR. I've concluded that Sloths and Monkeys are in the midst of a major territory gang war. Monkeys have Costa Rica, Sloths have Panama. West side vs East side. Sure to be an epic battle. Though I have my money on the monkeys. They're quick and can throw a mean pitch. From what I've witnessed, Sloths don't tend to move... ever. Standing their grown and could be a case of Hare vs Turtle. We shall see.

Red Frog Beach

Along with some schoolmates, we also organized day long trips on the weekends. One weekend we went sailing around the Islands. I saw a gang of dolphins, snorkled some reefs, had a staring competition with a Barracuda (he won) and basically just lounged all day long on the Catamaran and had a grand old time. The second weekend we chartered a boat and headed to Zapatillas Islands.

We got there early and the whole Island was ours. It was a beautiful day with the sun kissing us, the water was a pale blue green and the sand white. After spending 5 hrs on the Island we went back to Bastimentos where they had filmed parts of Survivor Panama, then slowly made our way back to Bocas trying our hand at Wake Bording.





One of the best tours I've taken had to be the Oreba Organic Cacao Tours. Man almightly you would not believe the amount of work that goes into producing Cacao beans. These people dedicate their entire lives to these farms for basically peanuts. Of course their biggest export country is Switzerland, as Panama does not have the facilities to produce chocolate. I got to try the cacao in every stage from right out of the pod to roasted and mashed against rocks. YUM!

After 2 weeks in Bocas, I felt it was time to move on. So I decided to do my last week of School in Boquete with my schoolmate and "little sister" Pauline from Switzerland.

Pauline, profesora Yaira y yo 

Boquete is a small town nestled in the hills. They are known for having great coffee and a Volcano which is the highest peak in Panama. For some reason, I thought it would be awesome to climb up this beast because someone told me you can see both oceans from this vantage point at approx. 3500 meters above sea level and the sunrise is amazing. Cool Right? Sold, I was climbing Volcan Baru at midnight so I can see the sunrise and both oceans.

 The brave ones

I must have been drunk cause this was one of the toughest things I've ever done and after 30 mins of straight 45+ degrees of uphill hiking I immeditately regretted my decision. 3500m above sea level. We started the trek at midnight to be able to reach the peak for 6am to see the sunrise. We were a group of 9 ppl that set off with another group of 3. "One foot infront of the other" was the tune I was signing to myself throughout the hike. The trail after 4 kms became a dried out river bed. The jagged loose rocks made the journey all that much more enjoyable.  Other than the complete uphill misery I had subjected myself to, the night was beautiful. It didn't rain once, and the sky was covered in stars and the moon shone brightly on us. It was cool, but walking kept us warm. Once we reached the top, we soon realized the clouds beat us.

7 out of the initial 9 made it to the top, and we have no idea where the other group of 3 went. We got there just in time to see the pink sky of the sunrise peak out before the clouds took us over. It was quite a sight to see the clouds rolling in on us.

 MADE IT! Where's my bed?

Though we didn't see a sunrise or any ocean, I was elated I made it to the top. It got cold and my pal Laura and I realized we had to get off this peak before we could rest. Let me tell you, I rule at going downhill! We made it to the bottom in 3.5hrs. Once back at my hostel, I took a short nap and ripped myself out of bed to watch the Spain vs Italy Eurocup finals. Italy lost... I went back to bed.

Dina & Laura, volcano climbers extraordinaire.

School was done, I had climbed up Everest and hiked to the Lost Waterfalls (which we got lost trying to find, but eventually found the Lost Waterfalls). Once I regained contiousness from my trek, I forged ahead to Panama City. Stayed in Casco Viejo at hostel Casa Luna. Was a pretty cool place with lots of backpackers. The area was equally nice, however most of it was under restoraton. I did some walking around and visited the Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal. My last night there I met back up with Annalisa, a girl from Cape Town, S.Africa, whom I met in Bocas. We both signed up to sail to Columbia on the same boat. Her name was the Gypsy Moth and it was to be a 5 day trip, 3 days in San Blas, 2 days at open sea. I was ready to fall in LOVE with sailing. Armed with all the nautical terminology I would need, we set off early morning to board our ship.

Next post, I'll tell you all about how I lost my sea legs and how our English Captain was replaced by a Colombian.

Hasta lluegos amigos!