Weeks 41 to 42

Monday 5 May to Thursday 15 May

We spent a couple of days trying to sort out flights and itineraries and we now have a very complicated route home via Mexico City and New York!!

We left Panama on the overnight bus and arrived the next morning at the “Lost and Found Cloud Forest Eco Hostel”. This place was in a beautiful setting amongst orange and lemon groves and an organic coffee farm with great views of the volcano. We spent 3 nights here and did lots of trekking in search of unusual wildlife. On the first trek Darryl spotted a red and black snake which we believe was poisonous. At the hostel there was a kinkajou called Rocky. Rocky had been taken from the wild as a baby to be kept as a pet but the owners of the hostel had convinced the family to let him come and live back in the cloud forest but unfortunately his reintegration to the wild did not work as the wild kinkajous kept attacking him. He now lives in a lovely spacious cage and is very spoilt! One hike took us to a beautiful river which Darryl decided to jump in, but it was very cold! At night lots of different bugs were spotted including a tiger moth which was nearly the same size as a mobile phone. We also saw a cacklemistle which looks a bit like a raccoon, many huge blue morpho butterflies and some wonderful coloured birds.

Next we headed off to Bocas del Toro (which literally translated means mouth of the bull!!) which is a group of islands on the Caribbean side of Panama. Bocas used to be the main banana growing region until it was killed off due to diseases. The first bus that came along stopped for us, it was just a little minibus which was already cram packed but they squeezed us in, just. However, about half an hour later they “squeezed” another 12 people in!!!! On arrival in Bocas we caught the ferry over to Bastiementos. This island is famous for the red frogs that live there and within a couple of hours of being ashore we had been for a walk and spotted one, which was very exciting. From here we went to another island for some good snorkeling and then we spent a day on the main island of Bocas where we went kayaking in the mangroves and snorkeling and saw lots of star fish. One evening in a bar a Jamaican chap was playing the guitar and singing and he sang a wonderful song about what you would do if your wife and your mother were drowning and you could only save one of them.. The song said you should save your mother ‘cos you´ll never get another, but you can get another wife”, it was a great song.

13 May Happy 40th Birthday Carolyn!!

We said our goodbyes to Braam who we had been traveling with since Colon as we were heading off in different directions. We caught the ferry to Changuinola which goes along the old banana route where the bananas from Bocas were transported to the mainland. It was a beautiful route through backwaters full of floating lilies and beautiful trees and birds. It was a shame that the ferry driver was a complete lunatic and drove at full speed through the beautiful scenery!! From Changiunola we caught the bus to the Costa Rican border and having cleared immigration walked over a very unstable looking bridge into Costa Rica (and gained an hour in doing so as Costa Rica is an hour behind Panama, although we are not sure why!!). Caught another bus to a lovely seaside town called Punta Viejo which is famous for its surfing beaches. Found a lovely little cabina to stay in which was run by a really friendly couple, in fact everyone in Punta Viejo seems really friendly. Hired some bikes one day and cycled 12km to the coral reef beach and did some snorkeling and saw the most enormous barracuda either of us have ever seen, and he had really big teeth! On the way we saw the most beautiful red and black bird, the red was so vibrant it almost glowed but sadly we did not manage to get a photo. We also saw some howler monkeys in the trees along with lots of various coloured, beautiful butterflies. The next day we went to the Cahuita National Park which is a rainforest that runs along the edge of the beach, a beautiful setting. In the Park we saw lots of beautiful butterflies, a bright yellow snake and a huge 5 foot long brown snake which made Christine jump out of her skin. We also saw howler monkeys, white faced monkeys and red and blue crabs. We were actually hoping to see a 2 toed sloth but unfortunately we could not spot one anywhere. On the bus journey back to Punta Viejo there was a police road block and armed police came on the bus and wanted to check everyone’s passports. Outside, every car and person was being stopped and checked for drugs. We saw one man be handcuffed and put in a van and another man very thoroughly searched and a few items were confiscated!