Central America and me

So, off to San Jose I went: via Dallas Fort Worth from Tokyo Narita. Over the date line once more; a very long and tiring flight, not helped much by American Airlines (no vegetarian food despite having made a request for it, and no in flight entertainment). I arrived at 11pm, a little late and was picked up by the hostel I'd booked with. My first opportunity to speak broken Spanish came with the driver, I think I understood about 15% of what he said to me, and some of the conversation almost certainly involved football (made clear to me by the references to David Beckham). The ride cost me $28 which is more than a regular taxi, but I was a little uneasy about taking a taxi by myself in San Jose at night - have you read the dangers and annoyances part in the Lonely Planet?!

Driving through the streets it also became clear that a local football team had been playing, with crowds of people dressed in stripes and colours in the streets. Upon arriving at the hostel it turned out that they'd been celebrating a local win there too. Although the hostel owners were hitting the town with some of the guests, I declined in favour of some sorely needed sleep.

The next day, having resolved to make no plans whatsoever for my trip to Central America, I decided some research was in order. I spent the day researching Spanish schools and deciding which border to cross - the Nicaraguan or the Panamanian. After much deliberation, I'd made up my mind to cross the boarder into Panama and head to the Isla Bocas del Toro to attend the Spanish by the Sea school there. My temptation lying in the idea of learning Spanish on the beach!

I spent a day exploring San Jose with a guy from the hostel named Jimmy; he was a ball of broken-English speaking, stream of consciousness nuttiness. I have literally no idea where we went but managed to sample an ice cream before heading back. In the evening Jimmy took me and another girl from the hostel out for dinner but we ended up wandering around the coca cola bus terminal for about half an hour looking only at fried chicken. Things got a little confusing and Jimmy began to accuse me and Suzuki of only eating "gringo" food when we travelled and how we had no idea about local food in San Jose. Time to head back to the hostel and cook some food there. I was actually happier to cook my own food, most of the street food in San Jose seemed to be chicken based as well as this it was far cheaper to cook.

San Jose was interesting for a day, but it's a city and is mostly shopping, museums and the odd nice looking building. Having just been in Tokyo, I'd had my fill of cities and was looking forward (but not without some trepidation) to heading to Panama for my week of Spanish lessons.

Now without going into too much detail, I researched my journey to Bocas del Toro as though I was going to write a dissertation on it. There is one bus a day from San Jose to a place called Changuinola, from here you can get a local bus or taxi to a small town called Almirante, from here you can get a water taxi to Bocas town. The bus left San Jose at 9am, so (after a brief spell being locked in the hostel and some missing keys) I headed to the Coca Cola. Upon arriving I tout-dodged a man trying to tell me the bus had already left and that he'd drive me in his taxi to the next stop for a nominal fee, and joined the queue.

I'd packed only a small rucksack worth of stuff for my trip to Panama, and the bus wasn't full so I had plenty of room. The trip was pretty straight-forward and comfortable and only cost $9. I met a friendly local called Lenny who helped me with some of the language barriers. This was my first overland boarder crossing and I was a little apprehensive about it. Upon arriving at the boarder, I made one mistake: I forgot to get stamped out of Costa Rica. Now this wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to therefore walk over a very rickety old bridge, with big gaps between the boards and a 40ft drop below. Being a little nervous of heights, this experience was one I was glad to get over and done with.

To get the stamp into Panama I needed to buy a return ticket which is of course at a premium here being tout-central. There were a number of touts swarming around me and another Dutch guy who was on my bus, prophesying that we were going to miss the last water taxi to the island if we didn't go with them in their taxi. I make a point of not trusting anyone who stinks of alcohol and is offering to drive me somewhere. I convinced the Dutch guy we should just get back on the bus and stick with our original plan, and (despite a hairy moment when a herd of cows escaped onto the road) we made it to Changuinola in plenty of time.

I bartered a taxi for us to Almirante and we made it well before the last water taxi. It's a 45 minute boat ride to Bocas town and it costs $4. The currency in Panama is the Balboa and the American dollar. Dollars are widely excepted, but not Costa Rican Colones (as the Dutch man found out when he tried to pay with them and had no other currency).

After a pretty scenic ride in a very cramped boat I was arrived on Isla Bocas. We two were met by a gentleman who was asking where we were staying, my tout-alarm bells began to ring but turns out he was just a friendly representative from the tourist office and he walked us both to our respective destinations. So I arrived at the Spanish by the Sea school, utterly shattered and gagging for a beer.