FORT LAUDERDALE
What a weird place to visit, huh? Getting directly from Peru to Panama was not going to be easy or cheap. Our options were either a very expensive direct flight, or a very long overland trip involving days on buses. In the end our best bet was flying to Fort Lauderdale in southern Florida, then flying to Panama City the following day. It was a little bit weird being back in a western country. I kept throwing my toilet paper in the bin and rehearsing what I wanted to say in my head in Spanish. But the USA will always hit you like a tonne of bricks with its american-ness and it wasn't long before we were watching the basketball, drinking beers and eating burgers and wings in a classic American bar.
Air con and hot showers were another luxury we'd been missing, and our cheap airport hotel honestly felt like the Hilton in comparison to what we were used to. Fort Lauderdale is proper suburbia though, and I'm glad we really only had to spend the day there. There was just enough spare time to see Deadpool at the local cinema before we were back to the bar to scoff more wings and beers in preparation for our flight.
PANAMA CITY
We arrived in Panama City at the incredibly convenient time of 2am, where the airport staff were incredibly uninterested in us and definitely did not want to see proof of a return ticket to the US, thanks very much woman at the Spirit Airlines check in counter who forced us to buy one, telling us we wouldn't be allowed into the country without it. Gah, what a waste of time.
Panama City is a pretty cool place. We stayed in the old town which had a fair bit of character about it, a lot of old colonial type buildings that were being renovated and preserved. Parts of it were very hip and expensive but you didn't have to walk far to get an idea of the 'real' Panama City. A really interesting mix. There were a bunch of good spots to get coffee and a decent brewery, luckily as it was incredibly hot and humid so beer was very necessary.
Our trip out to the Panama Canal was definitely the highlight of our time here. Completed in 1914, it's obviously an engineering marvel and it was fascinating to read about the history of it and how many migrant workers were employed because of it. We got a great tip from our hostel not to take the organised tour bus because we definitely wouldn't see any ships and it would be a bit of a waste. Instead we took a cab in the afternoon and were able to watch the locks open so that a giant car carrier could pass through. I'm not a big one for mechanics or anything but it was pretty awesome to see.
BASTIMENTOS
Heading to Bocas del Toro, an island off the coast of Panama, from Panama City SHOULD be a piece of cake as it is the road most travelled by backpackers. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a shit show. Bus tickets can't be bought in advance, you have to purchase on the day and hope there are seats available. The bus station was also super sketchy - while we were waiting a girl had her entire backpack stolen when she turned her back for a moment. The overnight bus ride was one of the worst we've been on, with the air con on so high it was impossible to sleep even if you could get comfortable in the cramped seats. We were also asked to help pay for the conductor's medical treatment for the huge growth on his stomach, which he showed us all before announcing he'd be doing a lap of the bus collecting donations. A bus full of gringos is like the ultimate cash cow.
We didn't actually stay on Bocas del Toro, preferring to head to Bastimentos which is a little bit further out and a lot less touristy. Wanting to stay away from the 'touristy areas' always sounds so wanky but the reality is that it's just so much cheaper. We were able to get a private room in a hostel right on the water (as in you could jump into the ocean from the balcony) cheap as chips. Paradise living on a shoestring budget, we've got this down pat now.
Bastimentos is a pretty small island with one small town, some beautiful beaches and a lot of jungle. Because of its location in the Caribbean it is very different than other parts of Central America. The people look more West Indian, with quite dark skin and a certain swag. I loved the kids on Bastimentos, particularly the boys, with their shaved heads, earnest faces and little school uniforms. Some of the cutest kids I've ever seen. The locals here speak a unique mix of Creole, Spanish and English so we heard a lot of words we recognised but could never actually understand an entire sentence. They do understand Spanish though, and most of the taxi boat drivers spoke a bit of English so communication was pretty easy.
There are two main beaches on Bastimentos, Red Frog beach (so named for the colour of the frogs in the jungle surrounding the beach) and Wizard Beach. Wizard Beach you can only access by trekking through the jungle, a walk we did a couple of times. This is a popular surf beach and not really great for swimming, but I got in some solid sun baking time. Red Frog beach is only accessible by boat so we only went there once ($20USD return and we are tight arses). This beach really was lovely and made even better by seeing a mother and baby sloth on the short walk in from the jetty.
We also spent a lazy Sunday afternoon at Blue Coconut, an over water bar a short boat ride away where you could borrow snorkelling gear, lay in the in water hammocks or just sun bake, drink beer and hang out. Dave saw an eagle ray and I ate jerk chicken. Win/win.
The best thing about Bastimentos was the vibe of the hostel we were staying at. So chilled out and relaxed, with volunteer staff (sidebar: two of the volunteers were a couple from Australian and they were lovely, although old mate had a tendency to drink his beers too quickly and then just drink whatever was left in the fridge, regardless of who it belonged to. One night he drank a couple of our beers and Dave was livid, saying 'you don't touch a man's wallet, you don't touch his beer'. Evidently touching his wife is okay...) and a local owner known as 'Jaguar'. Jaguar was also a teacher at the local school and when he wasn't in his 'professional' clothes he was decked out head to toe in New York Yankees paraphernalia. I've never seen a more committed fan of any sport, anywhere. He made sure we knew that there was a band playing at the hostel next door on Monday night and that beers were $1. That was enough to get us through the door and we were very well rewarded. The band was a collective of independent musicians who have been travelling together in a converted school bus which runs on bio fuel since 2009. Anybody is free to come and go as they please as long as they bring some skill of value to the group and are committed to living a zero waste lifestyle. They played a fusion of reggae, ska, funk, calypso and latino music styles and we danced our arses off.
SAN JOSE
Welcome to Costa Rica, the most expensive country in Central America. San Jose is also widely considered to not be a very nice place to stay so we had just one night here to break up the trip from Panama to the Costa Rican coast. In our first hour in the country we managed to get ripped off by a cab driver to the tune of $60USD. He had his meter on but it was turned away from us and he clearly fudged the numbers somehow. We were seething but there was nothing we could do about it. Luckily our Airbnb host was the loveliest mama you could ever want and greeted us with coffee, cake and sympathy. She called a cab driver she trusted and arranged for him to take us to the bus station the following morning so we wouldn't get ripped off again. She even got up early to cook us pancakes and make coffee so that we could have breakfast before our 6am departure. Too lovely.
PLAYA NEGRA
We missed out on tickets for the 7am bus which meant an annoying wait at the bus station for the next one. The trip to Santa Cruz was four hours and we still had another 2 hours on public buses to get to our destination of Playa Negra on the pacific coast. Unfortunately our Airbnb was nowhere near the bus stop so we had to catch the bus part of the way back and get a cab from the nearest main town. People with money would have just paid the $35 for a cab from Santa Cruz but we always have to do things the hard way. It made for a testing day in 35 degree heat with a hot, dry wind but once we got to our little treehouse room and cracked a cold beer we were feeling much better.
We noticed on our bus trip that the landscape looked remarkably similar to the bush back home in a period of extreme drought. Everything was so dry and fried by the sun and there had obviously been a lot of burning off recently to try and prevent the whole place going up in flames. Our host told us that the water restrictions were getting tight and there had been a lot of fighting between residents over water wastage. Ahh, just like home.
The only reason we had come to Costa Rica was to meet up with my brother Dan who has been living in Toronto since last February. He joined us on our second day in Playa Negra and arrived with a big smile and a duty free bottle of Hendricks. We lay in the hammocks for a bit, drinking gin and tonics and catching up before walking down to the beach to catch the sunset. We jumped into the water and what started as a relaxing 'oh let's lay about in the water and watch the sun go down' soon turned into 'let's try and body surf these giant breaking waves and get repeatedly dumped on the beach'. I was an unenthusiastic participant in this game but Dan and Dave kept swimming back out for more, spurred on by one particularly savage dumping which earned Dave a round of applause from a bunch of surfers up on the beach. The one wave I 'caught' was enough for me as I ended up covered in black sand (Playa Negra literally translates to black beach) and almost lost my bikini bottoms. In hindsight, this was a pretty dangerous activity after a few gins with big waves and fading light but at the time it was a lot of fun.
We made ourselves at home at the giant tiki bar on the beach for the remainder of the night, drinking their overpriced beer and eating their overpriced hamburgers, sampling freshly caught fish from some locals, hanging out at the beach bonfire, stargazing and making new friends. It seemed like a good idea to finish the bottle of gin when we returned home, which unsurprisingly ended with me vomiting in the treehouse and the vomit dripping through the cracks in the floorboards down to the next level. 31 year old Mel is a really mature, adult human.
The howler monkeys living in the tree outside our window woke us up the next morning with their terrifying sounds. If you've never seen a howler monkey before, picture a small, black monkey, cute and innocent looking with a roar on it that is straight from Jurassic Park. These things sounded like a murderous velociraptor and once the monkeys were up, we were up. I nursed my hangover by lying in a tidal pool and playing some excellent board games (thanks Dan) at the tiki bar waiting for Dan's friend Pam to drive over from Tamarindo with empanadas.
A few beers later we were hanging out with Jorge, one of the fisherman from the previous day while he built a fire on the beach and told us how he just happened to be in the right spot today to see a whole bunch of baby turtles hatch and take their first steps into the water. Oh Costa Rican life, what a trip.
Even though Costa Rica blew our budget a little I'm so glad we went, especially to Playa Negra, as it was so much fun, such a chilled out part of the world and we met a bunch of nice people.
SAN JUAN DEL SUR
Onwards to Nicaragua, where a whole series of men with shotguns wanted to check our passports at the border crossing. We arrived in San Juan del Sur (SJDS) in the early afternoon and after checking out our fabulous Airbnb we headed straight to the sports bar on the beach for beers and lunch. This place would become our second home over the next few days, with daily visits either before, during or after our beach time, and Bob the owner making sure we were well looked after and the NBA was always on TV.
There were actually a whole row of beach bars to choose from and we snagged a front row seat in the sand at the place next door to watch the sunset on the first night, with the tide occasionally rolling right in and wetting our feet. I could have stayed there all night but my other brother Brendan was flying in from home to meet us this night so we headed back to rustle him up a midnight meal. Brendan had a long list of Australian treats that the three of us needed him to bring over and he didn't disappoint, presenting us with vegemite, pizza shapes, fantales, milo, cherry ripes, cheese twisties, Turkish delight and tim tams. We feasted that night, I tell you, and just FYI, this is the expected amount of food that any visitor from Australia is required to bring over.
SJDS is a bit of a blur of nights out and days at the beach. There are a few classic stories from our time there which I'm not going to share here because some things just don't translate well into text. Highlights are a tale involving Dan, a transvestite prostitute, a stolen wallet, two corrupt Nicaraguan cops, a small bag of weed found on Dan's person, a bribe to the tune of $100USD, a fence jump to withdraw said money from a closed ATM, and a bank card left in the machine amid all the kerfuffle. Another involves Dave taking a swim in a hotel bar's pool in just his undies, 'someone' thieving his clothes and hiding in the girls toilets, a near nude walk through the packed bar and a bouncer refusing re-entry as him smoking a J in his undies is evidently 'not a good look for the hotel'. So many fun times that we actually decided to stay an extra couple of nights in SJDS. This meant finding new digs though, and a hostel with $15 private rooms seemed okay for a night. The sight that greeted us when we came to drop our bags off at 11am on Saturday should have been a giant red warning light. The hostel was located behind the most poorly themed Irish bar you've ever seen which hadn't worried us when we first saw it as it was completely deserted. Well now it was packed full of locals who were settling in for a long day of drinking. We dropped off our bags and hightailed it out of there reassuring ourselves that if we spent the day out and came back late then the people would not be there when we returned. The people were well and truly still there when we returned, sitting at the tables outside our room, drinking and talking. There was no possibility of sleep so we joined in the drinking to knock ourselves out. There were definitely a few prostitutes working the room that night and because we had booked all the bedrooms (where I assume they normally conduct their business) they moved things into the bathrooms. The bathrooms where I was supposed to shower in the morning! One woman went into the bathroom with three guys and proceeded to make a whole lot of banging noises for the next half hour. Needless to say, we all skipped the shower the next day.
Just to cap off our stay in this hell hole, Dave managed to put his finger through a gap in the cage of the upright fan in our bedroom when he was trying to move it out of the way. The stainless steel fan blade sliced right through his finger, thankfully hitting the nail and not chopping the tip right off. There was blood everywhere, Dr Dan had to perform first aid and we all agreed that booking a nice hotel with air con and no prostitutes was the only way to ride out our hangovers for one final night in SJDS.
LEÓN
On to León! We had mainly come here because we wanted to do volcano boarding, and I honestly can't tell you much else about León. Our hostel was at the back of a bar so we spent a lot of our time there. On our first night they held a trivia comp and some Norwegians at the table next to us started smack talking us very early on, leading to a bet where the lower scoring table had to buy the other table a bottle of rum. Well we weren't the higher scoring table but we managed to prove that they'd been fiendishly cheating so we got the rum on principle. Dan and Dave decided to finish the entire bottle that night and a very hungover Dave could not get out of bed for volcano boarding the next morning. The rest of us went though, and goddamn it was a good time. You had to hike up to the top of the volcano carrying your board which wasn't easy in the hot sun, on unstable terrain, with a hangover. The reward at the top was a freshly cooked potato that had been buried in the ground the day before and cooked in the underground heat. These were delicious and such a cool surprise. We space-suited up for safety and then we were ready to go. The volcano had two runs marked out and you just chose which one you wanted to go down, waited your turn and then pushed off. The first section was a gradual decline where you could start off slowly, before giving way to a small drop and then a long, steep decline to the bottom. Once I went over that drop and really started sliding, I was terrified. I actually said 'I'm going to die' out loud several times and I was convinced I couldn't lean back any further as I was already going way too fast (the further back you lean, the faster you go) but once I hit the bottom and got my speed from the guy with the radar gun I was shocked to find out I was only going 38kms an hour. It felt much faster and I reckon if I had the chance to do it again I'd lean back and give it a real shake.
One guy who did give it a real shake was Dave, who went the following day and definitely did not listen to the tips I gave him. He leaned way too far back way too early and was absolutely flying by the first drop. So much so that he lost control over the drop and came off his board, which kept going down the volcano without him. He then chased it down, tripped over his own feet and face planted, ending up with a face full of gravel and a cut on his forehead. Somehow he still managed to get to his board and climb back on, only to fall off again at the bottom. I really wish I'd been there to see this escapade.
ANTIGUA
Leaving León for Antigua meant taking a 2am shuttle from the hostel. I thought it would be a grand idea to get a couple of hours sleep beforehand so I didn't feel like death the following day. Dan and Dave disagreed, claiming the the best possible option was to go to a karaoke bar and get no sleep at all. The karaoke bar was very unimpressed with their gringo song choices and their general gringoness. Dan got through one rendition of The Other Side by the RHCP before they were told that karaoke was 'finished', although all the locals were allowed to keep singing. Undeterred, they returned to the hostel and drank until 1:30am when they woke me up with a whole range of silly behaviour, culminating in Dan stealing a packet of cigarettes from behind the bar, for which he thought lighting a small fire would create an appropriate diversion. It was going to be a very long day...
My notes for Antigua talk a lot about drunk nights and hangovers but in addition to that it really was a beautiful colonial town. Gorgeous old churches, bustling squares and nice architecture. The place just had a nice feel to it, the kind of place you'd visit and not want to leave. Not surprisingly, there was a big expat community, a lot of whom we managed to befriend over the few days we were there.
There was a welsh bar called the Ocelot that we stumbled across on the night that Prince died. The owner had just completed three months sober and his way of 'getting back on the wagon' was to shout the entire bar free tequila shots repeatedly over the course of the night. I don't think that's actually part of the twelve step program. I hate tequila but I love free drinks and the tightarse in me obviously won this battle. I definitely remember singing Purple Rain at the top of my lungs, having a long conversation with a girl from North Carolina about how great Bernie Sanders is, and possibly doing a very small vomit into my hair and pillow while I was sleeping.
My punishment was to wake up with no voice the following day (apparently singing all night when you have a sore throat isn't a good idea) and 24 hours to ensure that I organised a fun day for Dave's birthday. We booked in for a Guatemalan cooking class, bought a Cuban cigar, devised a delicious breakfast menu and scoped out the best bars to hit up on Sunday. Sorted.
Dave's birthday was so much fun. The cooking class started at 10.30 and the free wine was flowing from the moment we got there. We made a spicy chicken pepián, tortillas, Guatemalan rice, beetroot salad and deep fried plantains stuffed with chocolate. It was amazing and so much food. The staff had also organised a birthday cake for Dave which was such a nice gesture and we sang happy birthday (my voice still just a whisper) as Dave sat there awkwardly, hating being the centre of attention. After a brief power nap (daytime drinking makes you so tired) it was onto The Snug where the beer was cheap, the peanuts were free and two old American guys were singing blues, complete with a selection of harmonicas. The night wore on, new friends were made, a change of venue took us to a 'cafe' that was really a bar with a giant selection of tequila and an excellent night was had by all.
Dave and I had to leave Antigua very soon after his birthday as we had a flight from Cancun booked in less than a week, and we also really needed to give our livers a rest. We said goodbye to my brothers and headed north to Flores.
FLORES/TIKAL
Flores is in the north of Guatemala and isn't really much to write home about, except that it's kind of a little island in the middle of a lake. It's the perfect base for trips to Tikal and it is also ridiculously hot. We had hot weather everywhere in Central America, Antigua being the coolest spot we visited with daytime highs only around 28 degrees. Everywhere else was really fucking hot, but Flores was on a whole other level. Our hostel didn't have air con (of course) but we could pay for it for $12USD extra per night. No thank you sir, I will just sleep in a pool of my own sweat thank you very much.
Our day trip to Tikal was definitely a highlight of Central America. We knew we wouldn't have the time or money to get to Chichen Itza in Mexico and we had heard that the temples at Tikal were as good, if not better so we were very excited to go. The site was fantastic and really well preserved. A lot of excavation work has been done but it was really interesting to see the temples that have only been half uncovered. The jungle really reclaimed these structures and I'm so impressed that they were able to locate them and clear the overgrowth on so many temples. The site is massive and you can't cover it all in a half day tour but we were really pleased with how much we saw. Unfortunately our tour guide was crap, not really explaining things properly and more interested in telling the history of his life rather than the history of Tikal. We loved seeing the beautiful carvings on the top level of temples and hidden stone faces in underground shafts. So much work went into these temples, it's overwhelming to imagine how beautiful they would have been in their glory days. Our tour was the 'sunset tour' and we were able to climb to the top of a west facing temple to watch the sunset. The climb wasn't hard but the stone steps on these things are massive. I'm talking at least my knee height for the smaller ones and they were inconsistent sizes so some were much higher. This is strange because the Mayans were a very short race of people, probably shorter than me. How they walked up such giant steps daily is beyond me. Anyway, my short legs and I made it to the top and settled in to watch the sun set over the jungle and the tops of the temples. Unfortunately there was a low lying cloud which stole the best part of the view but it was still a lovely experience. The climb down was obviously terrifying (I realised halfway up that I had no idea how I was going to get down) but once that was sorted it was just one more sweaty night until we would be in Mexico.
TULUM
God, overland travel is a pain in the arse in Central America. Not only do you need to do a whole bunch of border crossings (I have stamps in my passport for countries that I only saw out the window of a minivan) but there's never anything really 'direct'. There's no network of buses like there is in South America so a lot of trips are like private shuttles in minivans with seats that don't recline. 'Cama' night buses are non existent so you have to waste precious time traveling during the day. There's no central bus station in most towns, instead there is a whole bunch of tour operators booking you into these 'private shuttles' and ripping you off like there's no tomorrow. I won't go into the details of how shitty some of our trips were (Guatemala to Mexico was particularly bad) but it was not an easy transition after being in Peru where the buses were some of the best we had ever taken.
Anyway, we had a few days in Mexico and we'd originally planned to go to Cancun, until a fellow traveller mentioned that Tulum might be a better option for us. I'm so glad she did because we loved it here. Tulum is kind of like everything from 'stuff white people like' together in one town. Sweat lodges, juice bars, yoga retreats, couples clay masks, vegan restaurants, overpriced cocktails, babes riding bicycles in crochet bikinis - in short, totally my kind of place. We stayed in the pueblo though, not down by the beach where all the things I've just mentioned are, because beach accommodation is hella expensive. I'm very keen to return when I have money and make the most of all there is on offer.
We still had a really great time in Tulum, albeit in a different way. The hostel we stayed in was swell, with legendary owners who were so furious when they found out that Dave's phone had been stolen from our dorm room (we are pretty sure it was a dirty French carnie who was travelling with a group of wannabe acrobats. You know the type, usually Argentinian or French, they travel with no money, but they juggle and make human pyramids at red traffic lights for a bit of spare change and really just sponge off society.). We were pretty annoyed as my brother had literally brought it over from home two weeks prior. Fucking carnies.
Anyway, back to the fun bits! The beach in Tulum was nice, with soft white sand and nice clean waves. There was a slight seaweed issue but I'm a beach snob so obviously I'll never be happy. We hired bikes and rode the entire resort strip, choosing a reasonably cheap beach bar to park ourselves at and chill on the sun lounges. We also became regulars at a ridiculously cheap taco joint, where we could each eat five delicious tacos (they were small, don't judge!) with two drinks for less than $7 Australian dollars. We had a great night out with some of the other guests and staff when we got taken to a local dive bar where 200 pesos (about $18) would buy you a beer and half a gram of coke. Oh Mexico. Your reputation ain't for nothing.
One thing I was very keen to do in Mexico was to swim in a cenote, and there were a few to choose from near Tulum. We went to Gran Cenote and spent a couple of hours snorkelling in some of the clearest water I've ever seen. The underwater world here was so cool, I actually wished I could scuba dive and check it out properly. We watched some divers in action, swimming under the rock shelf and down into the caves, the beam of light from their torch the only way to see down there. Above the water was a cave with a heap of bats, and stalactites reaching all the way into the water. Swimming amongst these was so cool, as was having schools of little fish right in front of your face. The network of cenotes and the history around them is just amazing and something that has fascinated me for a long time. I know that we will get back to Mexico one day, and swimming in as many cenotes as I can is high on my list of priorities.
From there it was just a quick one night stop in Cancun (where we ate a pizza that is easily in my top five best pizzas of all time) before our flight to:
¡NEW YORK!
Man, this city has a hold of me and it shows no signs of letting go. We were so lucky to get back to NYC, it somehow worked out to be the cheapest place to fly to Sri Lanka from the US and we were able to use our about-to-expire flight vouchers AND we found cheap flights from Cancun to New York. It all just fell into place perfectly for us to squeeze in about 43 hours of drinking, eating, stocking up on first world products at Duane Read, basketball watching, subway riding, city walking, sightseeing and shopping for hiking shoes to replace my stolen ones. The weather was a not very Spring-like 11 degrees, and coming from weeks of sweltering heat I felt quite unprepared for it. We made the most of the time that wasn't raining though, with a walk along the Highline, hot dogs and pretzels in Bryant Park and strolling around Soho and the West Village. When it started to rain we took refuge at the NY Public Library and various cafes and bars across the west side of Manhattan. The list of things we wanted to eat in NY was long but I'm pleased to say we managed to achieve every item on it. I don't want to say we're heroes but we probably are.
All too soon we were back at JFK to hop a plane to Asia for the final leg of our journey. Central America was so much fun and the only thing I would change is more time to explore it properly. We were definitely looking for a relaxing, holiday break with our time there and that's what we got, with a lot of beach time and a lot of drinking. Obviously there is so much more to do and now having just skimmed the surface we are very keen to see what else these countries have to offer. Central America (with the exception of Cost Rica) is wayyy cheaper than South America and it's easier to travel, in my opinion (you can get by in CA with zero Spanish, something that isn't possible in SA). You could certainly backpack on a budget here a lot more easily and cheaply than we did in South America. No regrets though, just a whole new trip to plan for next time!
