Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

Yesterday we had our 4th trip to the Emergency room on this trip.  We had just found a hotel room here in El Valle, dropped our stuff off in our room and were about to check out the town.  We walked by a bird cage that had a parrot inside.  William wanted to get a bit closer to talk to the parrot, tripped on a little ledge, fell and smacked his brow bone on a stone wall.  It was bleeding heavily and it appeared that it was a pretty bad cut.  A woman sitting there offered to drive us to the hospital right away.  When we got there they took him right away and he now has 5 stitches over his eyebrow.

William is doing really well though.  We got some pain medication and he hasn´t taken any of it.  He was back jumping around and playing not 30 minutes after leaving the hospital.  In Panama City we´ll have to find a doctor to remove the stitches, but our friends in Panama City should be able to help us with that.

While William was being treated Matthias stayed with him and I took Julian out into the waiting room.  There was a bulletin board with some public-health pamphlets on various pertinant topics for people in the community.  It was really interesting to read.  One was on nutrition and basically contained the same information we hear in the states: eat balanced meals, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, minimize grease and fried foods, don´t drink or smoke, etc.  There was an interesting pamphlet on sexual relations and they stressed the importance that both men and women wash their hands and genitals thoroughly after engaging in sexual intercourse.  I guess no one ever taught me that, so I´m glad I read that.  But the most interesting one was how to prevent body odor.  The tips were straight forward: bathe regularly, change your clothes often, etc.  I just thought it was interesting that they would even need a pamphlet on this.  This level of hygiene is so commonplace in the United States.  Really most people in Panama don´t need this advice – they know what to do to stay clean and odor-free.  But there still are groups of people here that are quite poor and maybe do need this kind of information.  It is hard to imagine, but definitely interesting and eye-opening.

The last entry I wrote was from Boquete.  The morning we were leaving we were planning on going to the coast to Las Lajas with Berni and Trixi.  We were staying at different hotels and didn´t run into them in town.  We were dissapointed that we might not see them again and didn´t get to say goodbye, but the bus was leaving and we were ready to go.

Guess who gets on the bus about 4 stops later?  Berni and Trixi.  We were so happy to see them and all went on to the coast together.  Actually on the travellers circuit it is pretty common to run into people you´ve met along the way.  On the bus to Panama we were sitting in front of a nice couple from Seattle.  We ran into them twice in Boquete and at the David bus stop.  We were waiting for bus on Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua when we ran into a girl we met in Antigua, Guatemala.  When Matthias and Cy were decending the volcano on Isla de Ometepe they ran into a guy we met in Xela.  It´s crazy how often that happens and it´s nice to see familiar faces when you are so far away from home.

We all got a bus to Las Lajas.  The beach is a ways from town, but the bus driver had called ahead and there was a taxi waiting for us when we got off the bus.  He drove us down to a bunch of cabins right on the beach with the Pacific at our doorstep.  They were extremely rustic, but extremely cool, too.  They were bamboo huts and all it contained was a wooden bed made out of bamboo and a thin plastic matress.  No sheets, no pillows, no blankets, no real windows and the door that didn´t really shut also didn´t have a lock.  The best part about it was that we were the only ones on the beach.  And at night you could see only 2 lights way down the beach.  We went swimming, played in the sand and drank lots of Panamanian beers.

The only complaint I have about the beers is that the bottles are so small.  Each bottle only has 285 ml.  On one hand that is good because if they were bigger they would get warm before you can finish the bottle.  On the other hand though, you end up drinking a lot more bottles of beer than you would if they are bigger.  In the end I know it all amounts to the same, but it is just a psychological problem I have that I´ll have to work through.  I think another week of sitting on the beach swimming and relaxing might help me get over it.

After two nights we left for another mountain town called El Valle, where we are now.  It is absolutely beautiful and has a real small town feel.  The weather is better than it was in Boquete and our hotel has 2 hammocks.  This morning we went to hot springs with William and Julian.  They have some sort of special mud that you smear all over your body, let dry and then jump into the pools.  I hope when we get to Panama City I can upload some pictures so you see what we look like covered in mud.

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.