Beach Redux

Our three days in the beach town of Manzanilla (Spanish for chamomile) were spent swimming, getting sunburned, eating at a very reggae restaurant, hanging out with a young Russian couple from Boston, and spotting howler monkeys in the trees, sometimes more than ten at a time. Lovely, pristine beaches though no good snorkeling or diving to be had due to the season.

Maxi's, the most happening restaurant in Manzanilla.

Beautiful beaches, warm water.

Then we headed down to Panama. After an uneventful border crossing at Sixaola and taxi-boat combo, we found ourselves on the sunbaked Bocas del Toro archipelago. There we stayed at our best hotel yet, a good-valued inn with hardwood floors, nice bathroom, and almost-warm water. The first day of snorkeling on our own was a bit of a disappointment, but our snorkeling boat trip the next day was a winner. We saw dolphins from the boat, and much more underwater life, including a series of seven arrow squid-looking creatures lined up horizontally in a row from smallest to biggest, bubbling a bit and hanging out in place. The icing on the cake was meeting some very cool Americans, including a brother and sister pair (he being an actor and she having spent the year before college traveling around New Zealand, studying at a martial arts school in Xian, China, and working in Shanghai) and a marine biology girl who had graduated from my high school the year before I did.

We left Bocas by plane to David the next day, and crossed back into Costa Rica at Paso Canoas, a large, chaotic place. The bus ride up and boat trip down to Drake Bay left us exhausted, and the subsequent backpack-laden walk around to find affordable lodging in the very expensive area felt torturous. Finally we located an acceptably dingy room at a reasonable price. Drake Bay had been talked up by several people but didn't end up seeming special to me, though my impressions are colored by being caught on a hiking trail for an hour after dark and getting stung by jellyfish while snorkeling off Caño Island.

For our flight back into San Jose, our taxi pulled up to some benches under a covering, like a large busstop. There was an airline representative sitting with a clipboard and swinging his legs. He checked us in by listing our passport information on a piece of paper and we were ready to go. The 12-seater plane landed on an airstrip resembling a wide dirt road, turned around, we boarded, and took off.