Thursday was spent at the beach in Manual Antonio, watching crabs, taking pictures, and turning down offers from guys to teach me to surf (long story) and get me into the nation park for free. (He said it would be an adventure and that's what life is all about. Eerr, not. I think I'd rather not get kicked out of the country for sneaking in without paying...) It was a really relaxing day but I (like always) wanted to go DO something, and hated all the tourists, and the guys were rediculously creepy, so I was really glad to get on the bus at 6 am Friday morning.
They are so punctual with their buses. It's really nice, because usually down here "6 am" could mean anything from 5:45-6:30...
We went back to San Jose where we had a three hour wait for our next bus to David, Panama. While we waited some children next to us started being children and we running around and climbing everywhere and hitting and pushing each they like true loving siblings - working together to give mom grey hair. So I got out some crayons and ripped some pages out of a coloring book and gave it to them...woweee, I have never seen such a happy little boy.
At first we just gave them each one crayon, but he seemed bored with the green one and was trying to take his sisters red one so I gave him a whole pack. It happened to have a dinosaur on it, and man, his smile was so priceless. :))
He colored for awhile, then started building with the crayons, then was sticking them in the slots in the chairs...and then he bit the pointy top off of all of them, held them in his mouth, then went and spit them in the trash before going back to climbing and running and giving his mom grey hair. Aha. Such a boy.
We boarded our bus to Panama at 11:45 and left at exactly noon. And then, besides one stop for food and another at the border, we sat on the bus for eight hours driving through the beautiful country...but making for an extremely long day. Of course everyone loves sitting on a bus for 12 hours...
It was definitely watching interesting as the landscape changed from city to mountains to rows and rows of palm trees to small towns and farm fields.
At the border around 5:00 pm we jumped off the bus, got our passports stamped to exit Costa Rica and walked about a quarter mile in no-mans-land to the entrance of Panama. I was telling Kayla how simple it all was, but then I was told I couldn't enter because I didn't have a return flight ticket to the states. Um, oops. I guess I forgot that detail from my last trip. Thankfully Kayla had hers, but I was starting to have a mini heart attack and going over worse case scenarios in my mind. (Ill be stuck at the boarder and have to be homeless until my Panama friends come to rescue me. Oh wait, there's no way to contact them! Ahh...) Wonderful people on our bus (the bus driver was the sweetest guy ever) kept trying to explain and asking if I understood. I kept saying yess!! I understand but I don't have it! So the bus driver showed me to an Internet cafe where I paid to print it out and was good to go. The men on the bus were so sweet, always checking to see if I was okay and carrying my luggage for me. One good thing about it though is through all the chaos they didn't even check out bags. So nice to not have to unpack everything.
We got back on the bus around 6 (I felt awful for putting us behind schedule, but no one seemed to mind. Like usual, they were calm, chill, loving, and cared more about my safety and well being than getting to their destination on time. I felt so safe with all those wonderful people.
We arrived in David around 7, and got on a little school bus PACKED with beautiful Panamanian people for an hour ride to Boquete. They took our bags and immediately some boys got up making room for Kayla and I to sit. There were three (or four) in every seat plus several people standing. These bus rides are one of my favorite parts about the country. Everyone talks and laughs and has such a good time with their friends and family, and no one seems to care that you can hardly move. I love watching the way they interact and deal with situations that most people I know would just complain about. Such a different, beautiful place. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment