The story of the trip...

And so I have returned from a week long vacation, with many stories and pictures to share.
We left last Friday, midday, from Monteverde via our private van. There were eight of us in the van...Tricia, Emma, Erica, Katy, Valentine, Tim, Carlos, and myself. It was a long, long, LONG, trip to the Carribean cost of Costa Rica. We were in the van for around nine hours, with a brief stop for dinner. It was quite a pleasant ride, nonetheless. The views were interesting for much of the way and we listened to music and chatted to pass the time.
We arrived in Puerto Viejo around 11:00 in the evening, and luckily found a place to stay for the evening- Hotel Puerto Viejo-- nice clean rooms, but very noisy. We slept in bunkbeds all together in one big room. The next morning we woke early to the glorious sight of sunshine...and saw the Puetro Viejo is a lovely little town. The Carribean side of Costa Rica has a reputation for being "dangerous" and less desirable than the Pacific side, however, we found the Carribean really beautiful and unique.
A bit later that morning we boarded a crowded and extremely hot bus bound for the border of Panama- to a town called "Sixaola."
We assumed the ride to the border would be short, as it appears to be a short distance on a map. Ha! Ha-ha! Some very important lessons we learned on this trip are that you should a) never trust a map for distances in Costa Rica and b) never trust a guidebook about anything.
So, the bus ride was quite long and very warm but we finally arrived at the border. I have included here a picture of the foot bridge you must cross to get to Panama. It is not the most well made bridge I've ever seen. In fact, it is quite rickety to the point of terrifying. As you walk across, the wooden boards wobble and occasionally move around in such a way that you are sure that you are soon to end up in the river in floating somewhere in between Costa Rica and Panama. There are giant cracks in the bridge everywhere...including some huge gaps large enough for several plump people to easily fall through. You have to step very, very carefully. Some of us (meaning: me) very stupidly chose to where flip-flops on this particular day...and I learned there is nothing scarier than crossing a rickety bridge with a huge backpack on your back in your flip-flops. Also, for some reason, you thought it was a good idea to put your passport in your pocket so that if you were to trip and fall...it would fall out and float gently down into the river. This is what I was imagining while stepping gingerly across the wooden slats that hardly qualify as "bridge." I imagined myself tripping in my flip-flops, falling flat on my face, and then watching my passport fly away from me as I cried in misery.
Luckily this did not happen. We made it to the other side. Unfortunatly, we did not all make it into Panama. Carlos, a native of Costa Rica, was turned away because his passport had expired. He had to turn around and walk back across the rickety bridge. We were all very sad about this. Now the group was down to seven.
Oddly enough, we ran into a parent from our school at the Customs office in Panama (a tiny concrete room). Small world down here in Central America. More on the crossing in the next entry...