The Boozing Boondoggle

I returned to the lovely South Eastern Carribean in Costa Rica. I called some friends that I met in Nicaragua to see if they wanted to hook up for a bit. It turned out they were planning on driving down to Panama in an old Volkswagen Westfalia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Westfalia_Campers
with their friend who in San Jose. I was planning on heading to Panama, however once I got to San Jose, to my dismay, yet not to my surprise, the van was broken so we all went to Cahuita for the weekend. After a three nights with Jeff, Jill, and Jake, I headed to Manzanillo with Jeff, Jill, and two friends we met in Cahuita, who also had previously met Jeff and Jill in Nicaragua (far right and far left in picture). We also had this crazy, true Rasta guy come up trying to sell burned reggae CD´s. (middle)

*Side note: One of the best parts of traveling... and wow there are many... is how often you run into people you met in the past. On Ometepe for example I turned around and out of nowhere my friend Philipp from Granada climbs up a ladder and into the loft. I only have a little over a month and a half left, but I´m sure I´ll run into at least a few people I know.

Manzanillo was great. For an entire day all we did was snorkel. The coral reef there is beautiful. I saw so many crazy fish, a nurse shark(completely harmless) a stingray, and a huge crab.

I had to go to Puerto Viejo again to take the bus to Panama. It brought back great family vacation memmories.

Now I´m in Bocas Del Toro, a small island in the far West of Panama. Panama seems a lot safer and richer than anywhere else I´ve been. They haven´t sold their souls to tourism like Costa Rica has so maybe it´s teh Canal. They seem to have something different going on here, but I can´t put my finger on what.

To end I´d like to point out this picture to the right. This is in my current Hostel, Mondo Taitu.

You may need to click on the picture to blow it up, but you will quickly notice that half of these over achievers are Canadian. Cheers Canada.