The Journey So Far...

It's been an interesting journey since Ian and Eco departed to the states and IB arrived down here. Had some adventures, some great times and met some really cool people.

The Saturday the aforementioned traveling companions departerd, there was a big, much-hyped concert in El Tunco. Four bands/djs, tons of people from San Salvador. The concert actualy turned out to be a bit of a bust, but the next few days in Playa Tunco were fun. Hit the beach, ended up at this crazy Salvadorean birthday party where everyone was painting each other in paint and spent a good ammount of time by the pool.

I then headed into San Salvador with Michelline and Lynn, two Canadians I had met in Tunco. They let me crash in thier hotel room at the Marriot Presidente (one of the nicest hotels in the city) in advance of my 3am bus ride to San Jose in Costa Rica. We ended up getting dinner at this really nice Itallian place where I had a great plate of papardelle with rabbit ragu. We then ended up playing Wii in the lobbly till 2:30 am with these guys from Louisians. Very random, but a great time.

The bus ride to San Jose took 22 hours and was about as fun as a root canal. It ended up getting in late and my hotel had cancelled my reservation, so I crashed at this sketchy place in some part of the city I had no idea where it was. The next day I figured out how to get to Bocas Del Toro in Panama without having to take another 12 hour bus ride to Panama City, and then have to fly back to Bocas.

I headed down to Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica for the night, with the plan to cross the border the next day. Puerto Viejo was one of the least appealing places I've ever been. It was this mix of burnout backpacker, rastas, and surfers, that mixed together with an undercurrent of violence made for a miserable place. A night at a crappy hostel with rain pounding on a corrugated roof rounded things out and I couldn't wait to get out of there.

The next day I crossed over into Panama and took a water taxi to Bocas. I crashed in a dorm with some random people and then IB arrived the next morning.

We found a pretty nice hotel and set up camp there. It was raining intermmitently for the next few days, and we tried to get in as much beach time as we could, but it wasn't as much as I would have liked. We took a tour of some islands, wandered around another, played futbol on the beach with locals and had a few fun nights out. For those that know IB and I and how we operate, one can imagine what I mean by fun nights out.

Tuesday, we headed by water taxi and local bus to a little mountain town called Boquete. We got here, grabbed some dinner with some INSANE girls from Boston and then hit the one bar in town open past 9. After closing the place down, we had to talk the crazy girls out of stealing beer from the fridge in the hostel that belonged to some other people. All in all, another fun night.

This morning we got up at 6:30 am and did some whitewater rafting. The river wasnt as hardcore as I would have liked, but it was still lots of fun. We are taking it easy tonight as we have a very early flight tommorow to Panama City. We are going to see the canal tommorow and then IB departs Friday morning. After that I've got a few ideas on what I might do, but nothing concrete. We shall see what transpires.....

No pictures as the stupid computer I am on wouldn't let me upload them. I will get them up as soon as I can for my loyal readers.