ticket to nowhere

As you can see by the adorable group shot in the previous post, we had some fun with friends in Puerto Viejo. Our hostel was pretty much the epicenter of the social scene, which was so convenient for us! We biked around, went to the beach, and met cool people from all over the world - Chile, Switzerland, Germany, England, Scotland, Australia, and two Brazilian brothers who were so sweet. It turned out that they were leaving the same day we were, and were also taking the overnight bus to Panama City, and were staying at the same hostel there too, so we formed a team and braved the bus ride together, and celebrated our arrival in Panama all together. Just as several times before, we were blessed with meeting two people whom it felt like we had known for years, mostly because we understood each other's sense of humor. We have both found that to be the key to making worthwhile friends while traveling - that way, you don't have to go through all the usual boring getting-to-know you stuff (which you don't have time for anyway since you're only one place for a few days) and skip right to the fun part, which is cracking jokes! And all this despite the cultural differences. It makes us have faith in ourselves as social beings, and in humanity as a whole.

At around eleven in the morning, with our enormous backpacks and the blazing hot sun mercilessly beating down on us, we set out to walk to the bus. Let's just say, it was an infernal experience. We were all dripping with sweat by the time we got there, only to find that the next bus wasn't leaving for another hour and a half. Typical! So we sat and baked a little more, under a tent that provided shade, but no air circulation whatsoever, until finally the bus came and took us to the Costa Rican border with Panama.

At the border, we were told that in order to enter Panama we had to prove that we were leaving the county within a certain number of days. Being the responsible travelers that we are, and having read our guidebook thoroughly, we were prepared for this, and both of us had a printout of our flight home from Colombia at the ready, to show the border officials. As it turns out, in an unbelievably idiotic turn of events, your return ticket needs to prove that you are leaving from Panama itself, and not any other country. If you don't have proof of that (a bus ticket from Panama to somewhere, or a flight out of Panama, etc) you need to buy a 12 dollar bus ticket to San Jose, in Costa Rica. It doesn't matter if you're not actually going to Costa Rica - we know, because we told them that a million times. It also doesn't matter that our flight itinerary proved we were leaving Panama, since our flight home was from Colombia. And as I clarified repeatedly with the border officials, Panama and Colombia are in fact two different countries. Which means, by extension, that one has to leave Panama in order to be in Colombia. It seems simple, right? Well, apparently the Panamanian border officials don't operate on logic. I'm not sure if its a concept they're familiar with. After much sweaty negotiation under the blazing sun, and an unbelievable amount of frustration at the insane stupidity of it all, we had to pay 12 bucks each for a bus ticket to San Jose. Even though we aren't going to Costa Rica. I know. It hurt. Not even because of the money, which was still not so easy to part with considering it was more than what we pay to eat on any given day. It hurt because it was SO UNBELIEVABLY STUPID!!! It made no sense at all! But what can you do. We learn these lessons every day. After buying the useless ticket (they even wrote the date and time of the bus departure! ha!) we then had to exchange the rest of our Costa Rican money, because as soon as we set foot in Panama (literally) they no longer accepted colones, only dollars. So in exchange for what should have been about 70 dollars, I got 57. 57!!!!!!!! That's like paying 13 bucks just to exchange money. Well after all this were close to tears, but we gritted our teeth, got into a shuttle, and took many much- needed deep breaths on the way to the bus stop where we caught the overnight bus to Panama City.

I just needed to get that off my chest. Just you guys know that its not all fun and games!! But really, we are grateful that we're safe, healthy, happy, and in the end it was really no big deal. But at the time... arggghhh!

There is much more to write, but we have to go to a concert we just got some free tickets for. I know, its a tough life. More soon! We love and miss you all.

Your Sophisticated Koala