Tuesday 17 January 2012

Time for Panama

After the festive period, partying in Costa Rica and not really doing much else, we got back into the backpacker mode & mindset. Meaning we realised we had spent far too much money and couldn't keep up with the prices anymore (!) - so we headed for Panama from the capital San Jose.

We arrived in San Jose at 7am with 2 hours to get our tickets sorted. We soon learnt that the main bus terminals in Costa Rica are basically non existent and some literally consist of a man sat on a plastic chair with a clipboard.

To have even this for our trip to Panama, we would have been spoiled! Ours was an international bus which are normally pretty well marked with proper ticket booths etc, however after asking what seemed like 50 people where we needed to go, we pieced together that the bus 'terminal' was just a piece of pavement next to a car park where you waited for a grey unmarked bus to pick you!

Eventually we got on the bus and set off. The border crossing was hilarious, where we had to walk across a rotting, old, rickety bridge, with the steel railings all cracked and completely twisted and a long way down below. Ah always fun & games in Central America!

We then had to take another 2 buses before finally reaching a basic town which had barely anything there except a little boat terminal which would take us on the 30 minute boat cruise over to the Boca Del Toros group of islands.

xxx