Days 80 and 81: Boca del Toro, PANAMA

Day 80:

We left Puerto Viejo at 9am, and quickly covered the 30-something km to the border with Panama. Checking out of Costa Rica was easy, but getting into Panama turned into our worst border crossing yet. We got to the customs around 11am. There was a long line up, as there was a power outage. When we finally got our passports stamped, it was 1:30 pm. The next step was to purchase the mandatory liability insurance for the bikes, but the only guy in charge of that was nowhere to be seen. He finally showed up around 4 pm, and at 4:30 pm we were finally back on the road. Over 5 hours of waiting in scorching heat had all of us slightly irritated ;)

We drove another 45 km to Almirante. Our plan was to spend the next two days on the Boca del Toro island, and we didn't want to bring the bikes along with us; the ferry cost 40 USD per moto, and we were not going to ride there anyway. Fortunately, someone has previously tipped us off that it was possible to leave the bikes at the fire station in Almirante, so we went there directly. It all worked out, and we managed in extremis to catch the last water taxi at 6pm.

The never-ending border crossing between Costa Rica and Panama.

Bridge between Costa Rica and Panama. I might be smiling, but I was NOT having fun.

Secure parking at the fire station in Almirante

Fire station in Almirante, where we left the bikes.

Water taxi

Day 81:

The next day, we did a cool day-long boat trip, which included some snorkeling. Boca del Toro is a great place. I definitely recommend it.

GoPro shot on our boat tour in Boca del Toro (photo credit: Josh)

Crappy underwater picture, but you get the idea. The corals are spectacular (photo credit: Josh)

Almirante, on the other hand, is not that nice. Slums right by the canal.

Ship wreck... Almirante again. 

Days 76 to 79: Costa Rica

Disclaimer: I don't have many pictures from Costa Rica, so this post will be mostly text. 

Day 76:

We finally left San Juan del Sur on day 76, at 10 am in the morning, with the intention of crossing into Costa Rica in the early afternoon. Peter, a British rider we had hung out with a couple of times during our stay in SJDS, decided to join us on that day.

Once at the border, the first step was to check out of Nicaragua. For the first time on this trip, we decided to hire a helper. Not that the process is difficult, but it always takes a while to ask around and figure out where to get the paperwork stamped. 

Mihai and Pete took off with the helper, while I stayed to watch over the three bikes. After a moment, some guy with a bucket of water showed up, and insisted on washing the motos. I politely told him ''no, thank you'' a few times, but the dude just wouldn't leave and kept talking some gibberish that I wasn't able to understand. I was getting irritated, but just sat down on the nearby steps and chose to ignore him. The guy then sat down close to me, and only then I noticed that he pulled out a knife and was still talking more gibberish. My first reaction was to stand up and get away from the bastard. At that point, my options were to either yell at the guy, kick him in the face right there (I was standing, he was still sitting down), or pull out my own knife, which I had near by in the tank bag. So I just screamed at the guy in English: ''Don't you f**** threaten me with that knife, you POS!!'' Fortunately, that worked. The dude tossed a few insults in my direction and left. 

When Mihai and Pete returned with the helper, I told him about what just happened a moment ago. He just said ''Don't worry, that guy is crazy'', as if it's supposed to be reassuring...lol.

It took us another hour and a half to check into Costa Rica. We rode for another 100km, until we reached the pacific coast. It was quite a contrast with Nicaragua. The area is quite ''americanized'', with the usual McDonald's and others. We stopped for the night in Playa del Coco.

We couldn't say no to the McD's.. It's been a while.

Day 77:

The next morning, we parted ways with Pete. He was heading south along the pacific coast, whereas we decided to head towards the Caribbean sea. That day we rode through landscapes that were somehow reminiscent of Europe and Canada. It definitely was not what I had imagined I would see in Central America. We stopped for the night in Arenal, a small town close to a large lake carrying the same name. There, we met two other moto travelers from the USA. It turned out that we will be taking the same boat to Colombia, so we will see each other again a few days later in Panama City.

One of the most unusual things I've ever seen. There was a rainbow-like glow right behind those mountains. Very spectacular.

Lake Arenal area

Lake Arenal

Narrow, but very fun road around lake Arenal. Lots of twisites.

Anybody knows what these guys are?

Day 78:

Josh, who we had traveled with recently for about 2 weeks, has emailed us the day before that he was in Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean coast. Team Canada and the 'Murrican had good chemistry, so we decided to reconnect again.

It was relatively long day, as we had to cover 400 km to Puerto Viejo. We were warned that costa rican cops had radars, and that fines for speeding were quite high. So we drove at a relaxed pace, rarely exceeding 80 kmph. We did get busted at 84 kmph in a 60 kmph zone (sometimes it's not easy to figure out what the damn limit is... ), but this time we were lucky and the cop let us off the hook. For the first half of the day, we rode some nice backroads, but the fun was over when we merged onto the Panamericana. Way too many trucks. We made it to Puerto Viejo around 3 pm, and quickly found the hostel where Josh was staying.

Puerto Viejo is another surfer/backpacker spot. It is fun, but still no match to San Juan del Sur, in my opinion. The vibe is definitely Carribean: you hear Bob Marley everywhere, and people are smoking weed all over the place.

Day 79:

Josh and Mihai went to the beach that day, whereas I decided to do some overdue maintenance on the bike. Not much else to report. We did have a few beers in the evening, though :) 

Beach in Puerto Viejo (photo credit goes to Josh)

Tomorrow morning (day 80), we are off to the Costa Rica - Panama border.

Random Stuff:

Costa Rica definitely appears wealthier than Nicaragua. There is a lot of farming going on, and the Pacific coast is very touristic. It is also more expensive. We were glad that we had decided to spent the holidays in Nica. Thanks to Andrzej for advising us to do so. Costa Rica is nice, but Nicaragua is so far our favorite country in Central America. It is poor, but is feels safer than Honduras or Guatemala. It has a lot to offer, yet it is one of the cheapest places to travel. What's not to like?

I'm really looking forward to replace the keyboard on my netbook. Typing with a few defective keys is super slow and annoying, and the main reason why lately I have been falling behind on the blog (the two other reasons being slow wifi connections and a lot of partying ;). Fortunately  we will be meeting Mihai's mom in Panama City in a few days, and she'll bring me a replacement keyboard that I ordered on ebay a few weeks ago.

Days 71 to 75: Back to San Juan del Sur, NIC

We enjoyed San Juan del Sur so much, that we decided to return for a few more days and spend New Year's Eve there. Finding a hotel was a struggle. After a few unsuccessful attempts, we took a break and pulled up to our favourite ice cream shop (we've been going there twice a day... possibly the best ice cream I've ever had). Only then we realized that there was a hotel upstairs, so we enquired and they had a room left for 25$/night. Sweet. We booked for the next 5 nights, as our plan was to get back on the road only on January 3rd.

View from our balcony. The hotel was shit, but location great.

The next few days were all about the beach and nightlife. It felt like a vacation from the vacation. Partying for a few days straight was fun, but by January 3rd we were pretty worn out and ready to move on.

 

View of the San Juan del Sur bay, from the Jesus statue on top of a nearby mountain.

Pacific coast in Nicaragua

One evening, we tagged along to an organized tour to do some sea turtle birth watching. This actually a rare event, as it is seasonal and occurs only on very few beaches in Nicaragua. The small turtles get active by night. Once out of the egg, they dig their way up in the sand (sometimes up to a few feet deep), and then they start crawling towards the ocean, until they reach the water and swim off. Most off them go solo right from birth. There was hundreds of these little buggers all over, and you had to be real careful not to step on them. It was a pretty interesting thing to see.

 

Turtles crawling out of the sand.

The New Year's Eve celebrations were mayhem. Central America loves fireworks, and they like it LOUD. The tradition in Nicaragua is to put together a human sized rag doll, which is then filled with a whole bunch of fireworks. At midnight on the 31st, everyone lights up their dolls at the same time and the explosions begin. It's a way for Nicaraguans to kick the previous year out the door, and definitely a lot of fun.

Family enjoying the view of their rag going up in smoke.

Explosions and smoke everywhere at midnight. Fun!

We've seen a couple of funny situations in SJDS. One was a cop letting a young kid ride his quad on the beach. In North America, this would never happen. Safety first!! In Central America, everyone just laughs about it.

Cop letting a kid ride his quad...LOL.

The other odd event is shown on the picture below. This kid was riding on the roof of the bus, and lifting up the cables out of the way whenever there were too low for the vehicle to pass. I hope they were only telecom cables...hehe. The next day, some truck ripped out a bunch of these cables off the post while passing underneath, right in front of my eyes.

We've had a good time in SJDS, but were ready to leave as planned on January 3rd. There's only so many days of celebrating you can do in a row, and I was looking forward to get back on the bike. However, this a great place where I will definetely return eventually for a week or two. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Days 69 and 70: Omatepe Island, NIC

After a few days in San Juan del Sur, we were ready for a break from partying and a change of scenery. We decided to check out the Ometepe Island, which is on the enormous lake Nicaragua. The island itself is well known because of its two large volcanoes.

Layout of the Omatepe Island

After a short 40 km ride, we were in San Jorge, ready to board the ferry. There are a couple of ships operating on this line; 3 roll on car barges, and a few smaller passenger only boats. We arrived in San Jorge around noon, and found out that the next car ferry was leaving only two hours later. However, there was a passenger boat leaving in 30 minutes. Bingo. Some guys pulled out a couple of wood planks, and there we were pushing the bikes on the upper deck of the boat. The operation was a bit sketchy, but it all worked out OK and none of the motos ended up in the lake. An hour later, we were on Ometepe.

Our boat to Omatepe.

Pushing the bikes onboard.

The island, as seen from the boat.

We quickly found accommodation, grabbed something to eat, and then went for a ride to check out a few beaches, and to snap some photos of the volcanoes.

The next day (day 70), the plan was to ride around the island (there is a road, but mostly unpaved), and to do a short hike to check out the San Ramon. The waterfall was nice, and it felt great to jump in the cool water after struggling up the trail for 45 minutes in pretty hot weather.

At the end of the day, we agreed that we would head back to mainland the next morning.  Josh wanted to cross into Costa Rica, whereas Mihai and I wanted to return to San Juan del Sur for new year's celebrations.

Last beer with Josh. We split up the next day, after riding together for 11 days.  

The ferry on the way back was a little less sketchy.

Omatepe is a quiet place, great for outdoors. I would have liked to do some more hiking there, but the beaches in San Juan del Sur won us over, and were were impatient to return there.