Panama!!

Day 90, vrijdag 12 oktober 2012  11:14

Panama!!!!!

Wow the Panama trip was amazing!! My first time in the Carribean! I’ll just start writing at the start, on Monday.

Monday I packed my bags, and took the bus to Esparza. After waiting in the park while chatting with some local girls (blond hair does miracles!). After a while I met Maxi and Adrian and we went to drink a smoothie, I took chocolate mint, delischous. ( I know the spelling, but it’s a inside joke you know). After this we went to pick up an other exchange girl, and we went to see their school. Pretty much like most private schools, small and nice. Then it started raining but we arranged to go to see the public school as well, don’t know why but they wanted to see it. When we arrived there, soaked by the rain we couldn’t enter because they had exams. So we went to have lunch at a pizzaria. There we met Romeyn, Henry, Kaarina and some local guy who is their friend, he was really nice and it was good to see my friends again. We chilled in this pizzaria, walked a bit through Esparza and drank more smoothies. In the night I went to Karolina’s house to have dinner there and after this we went to the park to get on the bus. I met a few more people who I didn’t see for a while but not that much.

The busride is a big and fun part of the trip. First we went to San José to meet the other bus and other people. I finally got to see a lot of my friends again really really nice! I switched bus so I could sit with Frida, Valentina, Lena, Henry, Henry, Eric, and some other, the bus was pretty crowded! Most of the time we spent talking about about all kind of stuff, and eating. Around 1:30 I fell asleep, not the most comfortable positions though, then around 3 I woke up because everybody was screaming and being crazy, there was a sloth climbing on a electric wire across the street, I didn’t get a picture but I hope somebody else does have. Then I couldn’t sleep anymore so we talked more and then we reached the border at 4:30. We couldn’t cross the border untill 7 so I tried to sleep a bit more, the border was pretty scary because I swear I saw people with big guns walking around our bus but that’s probably just me.. when I woke up I was like where the F am I? But I knew when I saw Ellie’s head popping into the bus. It was 6 so I sat in the sun and we waited. Crossing the border was way easier as I thought, we just filled out a form, showed our passports and walked across a creepy bridge. On the other side again passports, and we were ready. The busdriver vanished so we had to wait 1 more hour untill he came back. We drove 1 more hour and we were at the boat place. It was a cool carribean speedboot where 20 people fit in, and we went pretty fast to the island.

It was so cool to see the carribean, it is so different! The houses, the climate the plants everything is like the movies. At the island we had breakfast, got settled in the hotel and we went back to the boats, this time we went with a bit smaller but faster boat. It felt more like a lake because we were surrounded by islands. We went to Starfish Beach, made me think of ‘Oh Oh Cherso’ starbeach. This beach was very remote and there was just white beach, blue / green clear water and forest and a few cabins. It was soooo relaxed and the water was delicious! There were a lot of starfishes on the seafloor and we were just relaxing of the 16 hour travel we made. At 4 it was time to go back to the hotel, and around 4:30 we were there again. We had freetime untill the next morning so we changed our clothes and went to discover the villages, which is the most touristic hotspot of Panama. I went with Frida, Valentina and Lena to an  Italian restaurant and we ate some pizza.  After the pizza we got ice cream and went back to the hotel. At the hotel we met more people and we actually went back to this restaurant to chill at the bar. Most people left pretty quickly because they were tired but Eric, Henry and I stayed since it was a pretty nice bar. After this bar got a bit boring we walked around the village and found an other cool restaurant on the water, we had 1 drink there and went back to the hotel. In the hotel we chilled a bit in our rooms and went to sleep like at 1 because we didn’t have that much sleep.

The next morning we went to the boats again after having breakfast at the bakkery across the street, we had a small sandwhich, it was a small breakfast and I was hungry so I got more, I bought some cookies, cupcakes and cinnamon rolls, I cost me $1,50 yes, Panama is soooo cheap! We got into the boats at 9 and it took as half an hour to get to  a different spot, at this spot we went to see dolphins! We saw I few dolphins from distance but when we got closer they went away, but I saw I few jumping high out of the water though. And this 1 time the dolphins didn’t go away but swam with our boat! I sat at the front of the boat and could almost touch the dolphins!! Really really cool, to bad I just got 1 photo…

After the dolphin seeing we went to a in water restaurant to order lunch, and after this we went to an other small island. This island was amazing, just jungle, white beaches and clear water. We could snorkel and I was really really happy that I brought my underwater camera! I saw beautiful coral and amazing tropical fishes, I wonder how the photo’s will be. We stayed at this island pretty long and we walked around in like 1 hour. It was so beautiful and relaxed and perfect. Sadly we had to leave to island to have lunch, I just chilled in the hangmacks with some people since we didn’t buy lunch because it was way to expensive, instead we ate oreo’s! At this restaurant we swam a bit more and we justed the snorkel again, I had a lot of fun! Around 4 we left again to go back to the hotel. We had free time again untill the next morning. We went with a few people to an other beach just half an hour away, here we played like beachvolleyball and stuff and just relaxed in the water, Carribean water is really nice! We decided to go back when it got dark. At the hotel we changed clothes and went to a restaurant to have dinner, we went to the restaurant where we had drinks the day before. I had a delicious chicken salad. It was like 10 when we got back at the hotel, we wanted to go out at this amazing club which is in the water, and has like swings and a trampoline going in the water, so we got ready for this but then we didn’t get the permission since it was at an other island to bad.. Tosca and I decided to go to a bar and play pool, it was very nice because it felt so Dutch! When we walked back we felt pretty grown up, walking in Panama at night, with just 17 years of age. At the hotel most people were chilling in my room so we joined, it was pretty bad that we couldn’t go to this water palace club thingy.. but we enjoyed the rest of the night by just chilling in our room and doing some pranks. I fell asleep at like 3:30, so that meant pretty much the end of the trip.

In the morning we had 1 more breakfast and went to the boats the go back to our busses. The busride was cool again, this time at was at daytime so we didn’t sleep that much, again it was a lot of talking and eating. Frida got the good idea to play some games, so we played some games, we laughed a lot. After 7 hours of driving we got back to San José and here we had to see goodbye again, really sad, because I don’t know when I will see everybody again. After 1 hour more we were at Orotina and I was home again. I told my family all about the trip, which somewhere made me feel bad towards them but I don’t know about that. I went to bed at 8 because I was so tired!

This morning I woke up at 7 and I joined my hostmom and hostbrother to some sort of project of my little hostbrother at school because of culture day. I didn’t feel like going to be honest, I just wanted to sleep because I was so tired but I did go, just because they asked and I don’t wanna say no to stuff,especially when it is my family.

I enjoyed this  trip soooo much overall, just because it was in Panama, at the Carribean, at amazing island seeing and doing amazing things with amazing people! It especially were the people we made this trip so much fun, I actually really love some of the friends I made, and that makes everything so much better. I can always talk to them about everything and they make me feel good, they understand me and are just as crazy as I am sometimes!

These days are some to never forget!!