Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

On the 21st we left our van parked at our apartment in Alajuela, and walked off into the neighborhood to catch a bus to town.  We left with 1 backpack, 1 diaper bag and each of the kids had a small backpack of their own with the toys and books we are bringing with us.  The rest is in the van and we wont see it again for another 3 or 4 weeks as we are going to backpack through Panama.

We first got a bus into Alajuela where we caught a bus to San Jose.  We spent the first night in San Jose and the next morning we took a 5 hour bus ride to Puerto Viejo, which is on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, just north of the Panamanian border.  Puerto Viejo is a laid back town with a huge rastafarian influence.  It was much more humid than we were used to in Alajuela and a bit overcast.  We found a nice hostel with a swimming pool and went swimming quite a bit.  We sampled a bit of the local Caribbean cuisine, rented some bikes and went swimming in the ocean.

When we were in Puerto Viejo we meet two Germans traveling together.  Bernie and Trixi were also planning on going to Bocas in Panama so we decided to travel together.  We all got on the bus together and headed towards the Panamanian border.  The border crossing went really smoothly.  We got a ride to the city of Almirante which where we caught a boat out to Bocas.  Bocas are a group of serveral islands off the northern tip of Panama.  We were able to find a nice hotel with the hottest showers since we left the US and some comfortable hammocks.

The first day Matthias, William, Julian and I took a short boat ride over to another island and walked along the beach.  The weather was a bit overcast and we had some wicked rain storms, which the Caribbean is famous for.  The beaches here are really picture perfect: white sand, lined with palm trees and crystal clear blue/green water.  The beers are cold, cheap and tasty.  The only problem on this small island was that the sand flies were absolutely unbearable.

The next day Matthias offered to stay with William and Julian.  Bernie, Trixi and I went on an all day boat/snorkeling tour around Bocas.  The first stop was to a place where the dolphins swim.  Next we anchored over a coral reef and spent an hour and a half snorkeling.  We pulled up to palm thatched roof cabins where we had lunch.  The coconut smell was so tempting and we all shared a plate of fresh lobster pulled right from the water.  After lunch we went to a beach where we spent about an hour and a half.  This beach had the softest, finest sand I´ve ever seen and the temperature of the water was perfect.  And no sand flies here!  After we left the beach we anchored one more time for a final hour of snorkeling.  The time away from the kids was very relaxing and I was happy to have some good friends to go with.

Our next stop was Boquete.  Bernie and Trixi aren´t flying out until Thursday so they decided to continue on with us and we all got a boat back to the mainland, a bus to David and then another old American school bus up to Boquete.  The bus ride to David was spectacular.  First we drove along the coast up into the jungle.  Every now and again you would villiages of thatched roof huts on stilts.  The drive up into the mountains was through lush green forests and the drive back down to the Pacific was drier and mountainous.  At times it reminded me of Switzerland, and at times of Arizona.

Boquete is a small town up in the mountains surrounded by cloud forests.  The air is dry and fresh and there is a strong cool wind.  There is a volcano nearby and lots of hiking trails.  I´ve found the sun, combined with the dry air and cool wind very peaceful and relaxing.  Later today we are going to go for a small hike and then meet up with Bernie and Trixi for dinner.

Panama has been great so far.  Not everyone speaks English here and it feels way less touristy to me than Costa Rica did.  In an earlier post I think I described Costa Rica as “a well oiled tourist machine”.  Panama seems much more laid back without the frantic shuttling of tourists to every last little corner of the country.  It also has an indigenous population.  The women still wear their traditional clothing (as they did in Guatemala and Mexico) and I find that much more interesting than skin-tight tank tops all the women (regardless of size) seem to be wearing in Costa Rica.  The traditional clothing that I´ve seen here so far has been a solid color, bright mumu-like dress with a large ruffle and rick-rack like trim in several places on the ruffle, sleeve, waistband etc.  It´s neat.

We may leave Boquete tomorrow, and head toward the Pacific coast.  After that our next stops will be Santa Fe, El Valle and then Panama City.

We don’t have anything major to report, just a few small updates on various subjects.

We went to the doctor with Julian and his foot is much better. They took another x-ray and the doctor says things look good. He’s not in pain and they let us take all the bandages off his foot.

My parents got a message from the Seattle Public School District. They received William’s application in its entirety. I was really happy they called since I was a little worried about it.

Tomorrow we are moving out of our apartment and headed to San Jose. Then on Monday morning we are taking a bus to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. We plan on staying at the beach for a couple of days and then heading into Panama. Major stops we know we want to make in Panama are Bocas, Panama City and the San Blas Islands. We are leaving the Yoda Van at the apartment we have been staying at and will pick it up on the way home. Keep your fingers crossed that we don’t run into any trouble for leaving our car in Costa Rica for a few weeks.

Matthias’ birthday was on Thursday. He was a little upset that not more of you sent him happy birthday e-mails. Even his own mother forgot his birthday. Poor Matthias! He is actually kind of a pain on his birthday because he makes us suffer. “You have to do whatever I say today because it’s my birthday.” “Can’t you please be nice to me today? After all it is my birthday.” Thank God he only has a birthday once a year.

Julian is almost fully potty trained. He goes all day without a diaper and rarely has an accident. We leave the house without a diaper and he does great. We still put a diaper on him at nights, but most mornings it is still dry. For those of you without children this is probably more information than you wanted to read in our blog. For those of you with children you know what a big deal this is to get both of your kids finally out of diapers.

All the weight we have lost over the past 5 months has been swiftly returned to our midsections. Our time in Alajuela has been mostly 3 delicious not-low-fat meals a day, lots of alcohol and a mainly sedentary life. It has also been hard to maintain our great tans sitting in a dark living room in front of the TV. Our plan for Panama is to slim back down and work on our tans again.

The Yoda Van is still running great even after the 10,000+ miles we’ve driven on this trip so far. Here in Alajuela we finally got our leaky gas tank fixed. We’ve also been having a few problems with the passenger’s side window. If the window was rolled down most or all the way and you shut the door the window comes out of its track and you can’t roll it up. You have to take the panel off the door and fiddle around with it to get it back up. Our mechanic here in Alajuela put some sort of reinforcement on the window, but after he did that it was impossible to close the window all the way. That surely wasn’t going to work for us. Matthias and my Dad worked on for quite a while together but couldn’t come up with anything. Matthias finally shoved a bunch of sponges and plastic bags into the bottom of the door, which stabilizes it enough so it doesn’t pop out anymore. If a customs official were to look down there he would certainly think we smuggling something in there.

We’ve been in Alajuela for one month now. Yesterday and today we’ve been cleaning out the apartment and putting stuff back into the Yoda Van. What was crazy is how much (useless) stuff we have accumulated in one month. Again we have had to pare down and get rid of so many things. What is also crazy is how much extremer you have to pare things down when backpacking. We’ll be traveling by backpack for probably 3 weeks, 4 at the most. If you have to schlep on your back everything you will need for the next month you start to think differently about what is really necessary. Honestly we don’t really miss most of the things we leave behind. The two most important things for us recently have been having time to spend together as a family and having a lot of sun. Luckily we’ve had a lot of both lately.

I’ve added a few new pages to our blog.  A long time ago we had some maps on our blog, but they were deleted when BootsNall lost a bunch of postings.  We’ve heard from some of our readers ... [Continue reading this entry]