traveled down the coast to cahuita with steffi and jen, two entertaining volunteers leaving at the same time. cahuita is a really cool relaxed place with all the infrastructure for tourists, just not the crowds.
hiked along beautiful beaches in the national park, heard a bi possibly tri-lingual parrot, saw heapsa animals, watched steffi take photos of two crabs getting intimate and it was very nice to be able to eat what i wanted when i wanted as much as i wanted.
really enjoyed hanging with them, was a lot of fun-especially when this little kid was sick on steffis foot on the bus to puerto limon. would have love to go and discover more of costa rica with them but am starting to feel for the first time this year that i need to quicken my pace.
i hadnt crossed a border for a coupla weeks, so i headed further down the coast to bocas del toro, a heap of party islands where people also come to do some snorkelling. i jumped on a $20 all day snorkelling/beach/dolphin viewing trip which was pretty good, ended up a bit red though.
jumped on a bus down to panama city and ended up staying at a hostel owned by a bloke from burnie. panama city was mix of modern americanised areas and fairly dilapidated older areas. went walking around through the new parts, along the foreshore and touristy causeway and through the old centre proper which was nice despite the fact it was falling apart. was walking back from the causeway one day when i had my first run in with the cops in central america. they were pretty nice really; just told me off for walking in a dangerous neighbourhood and gave me a ride back to the centre (which was good as i had done a bit of walking that day). katie and kyle, a couple of other volunteers from the turtles, had the same experience in the old centre (where i had gone walking the day before). to be fair there was a picture on the front page of the paper the next day of some bloke who had been assassinated in the city that night, so their caution is warranted.
also took the ferry out to taboga island, which sounded alright in the LP but the last few years havent been good. went for a hike and had a look around and was ready to leave long before the ferry was going back. do like how things are simple over here though. i ordered a fried fish and a fried fish is what i got; a whole one with everything still intact. delicious.
by far my favourite thing in panama city was heading out to the canal. was really cool seeing those huge ships so close up and with only a couple of feet to move on either side. awesome.
so panama city is good for a coupla days sightseeing, after that the only thing left to do is to hit the clubs and casinos
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