Bocas and Shipping - Panama

After sorting out our paperwork at the Panama border, which you may remember from here, we made the long and scarcely populated drive to Bocas del Toro. Well actually to Almirante, a pretty fantastic shit hole where the ferry to Bocas departs from. We arrived to Almirante just before dark and discovered there was only one hotel for us to consider for the evening, as it was too hot to sleep in the van. We had one of the last servings of Chinese food at the restaurant downstairs from the hotel and hit the hay in hopes that we would wake up to a fully intact Dolores in the morning. The small trash filled parking lot and consistent suggestions to remove the surfboards from the top of the van did little for our security confidence.

To our delight, Dolores fared well through the night. We boarded the ferry at 7:30am and it was exciting to see the clear water of the Caribbean again as we made our way through the mangrove islands to finally land on the small island of Bocas. We made our way as far north on the island and away from the little town as we could. At the end of the road we found a fantastic little spot for brunch on the beach. Working our way back to town was perfectly timed with school being out so we turned Dolores into a school bus and carted a few kids around.

One day we took a tour by boat around the island and surrounding area. We spotted dolphins, walked around an itty bitty island, sat on a doc and watched all the fish big, small, colorful and scary, swim about, endured a rainstorm and snorkeled above beautiful reefs and shipwrecks. Although, the highlight for me was loosing the bet with Katie about spotting the first sloth. As we approached Sloth Island, Katie quickly announced, “the first person to see a sloth has to buy drinks tonight.” Not two minutes later it was me saying, “there – I see one!” She laughed, knowing all along she was going to win the bet.

After surfing, playing in the waves, fishing, running on the beach, yoga in the mornings, hot sauce shopping, happy hour at the docs, discovering Bocas Brewery, and witnessing the intense and loud celebration that takes place when Bocas wins a baseball game we decided it was time to make our way off the island and towards Panama City to begin the shipping process. The island, however, had different plans for us. “Yes, the ferry runs at 4 everyday except Monday,” everyone told us. We arrived at 3:30 and to our surprise the only thing at the doc were a bunch of kids using it as a diving board. That seems odd, did we miss it? Nope, turns out the ferry doesn’t run on election day and that day happened to be an election day. Yep, we were stuck on an island. I guess there are worse places to be forced to stay for another night. Happy hour anyone?

The next day we repeated the drill from the previous day, but this time ferry included, and made our way from Bocas to the parking lot of the Lost and Found Lodge. It was set in a cloud forest and one of the only safe places we found to park back to the PanAmerican from Almirante. Only two days away from starting the process of shipping the van it was time to get-a-move-on to Panama City. George, possibly in a little too much of a hurry attracted the attention of the police… Don’t worry his new Spanish vocabulary word demostrar (to prove) helped him work his way out this situation ticket and bribe free. Thank you Spanish lessons.

The actual process of shipping was less of a headache than we thought it would be. It was a few days of paperwork, distributing money to different places and running around to crazy government offices in Panama City (one of which was in the scariest ghetto I have ever seen in my life). It was honestly what I thought was one of the most unsafe moments of the trip. The vehicle inspection office was in the ghetto. Since our engine is in the rear of the car, we had to take everything out of the van. There we were in the scariest ghetto with all of our belongings set out for the world to see and a 7 year old came over and peed not 5 feet from the car. It was laughable how ridiculous it was. Again, everything was fine and we passed the inspection with flying colors. Two days later, after they checked records and made sure that we didn’t have any tickets in Panama (good work again on getting out of the above, George), we drove to the shipping yard and loaded the van and our friends Toyota in the pouring rain into the shipping container so it could make it’s way to Cartagena, Colombia and touch down for the first time in South America.

Oh yeah, and then we went to see the Panama Canal!

The Longest Left

We pulled into Pavones from San Ramon late in the afternoon and successfully avoided Semana Santa traffic as we had planned. The funny thing about Pavones is it was one of the few places in Central America we knew we would go on this trip. George had spent three weeks there years ago when he and his good friend Willy had decided to learn how to surf. It’s always a little odd visiting a place that you’ve memorialized in your head. Everything changes with time and Pavones, known as having one of the world’s longest lefts, was no different. Not bad, not good – just different. We knew we’d be here for a while, our good friend Katie was flying into nearby Golfito a week from our arrival date, so we scoped out the best deal/accommodations we could find during the high season of Semana Santa. After we parked it was time for surfing to commence!

Arriving back to Pavones was a mixed bag of emotions for me; the first time I (George) was there the goal was to learn to surf and for a 23-year-old (see- arrogant, cocky) man from Colorado this would appear to be a simple challenge. However, the world has a wonderful way of humbling people when they truly need it and for the next three weeks after rubbing sunscreen on each other, Willy and I were usually happy to have not drowned after our “surf” session. Getting back in the water in Pavones after surfing on and off for eight years and having spent the previous four months surfing in Mexico, El Salvador, and northern Costa Rica I finally had the experience at Pavones I so desired back in 2005. During the sunset surf I easily caught more waves than I did in three weeks, but surfing in Pavones was one of the most technical and challenging places I’ve surfed on this trip. The current was extremely strong on either side of the rivermouth – you either got sucked out to the point or pushed down to the bay and the waves were consistently overhead.
The swell was big, and then it was huge. So huge that it drew folks from all over the world. I (Rachel) personally enjoyed sitting on the beach and watching the amazing surfers and the carnage. The waves were so loud, the crashing would wake me up at night. After the holiday the crowds thinned out a bit and made surfing a little more fun. So much so that I played in the water for a bit too.
I was so excited to discover the nearby Pavones Yoga Center! It was about a 20min walk up a really steep hill from where we were staying but it was a perfect way to get your morning work out in. Short run, steep hike and an hour and a half yoga class. It was one of the most beautiful studios I have ever seen. Open air, beautiful wood floors, arched doorways, views of the Pacific almost all the way to Golfito, a view of the jungle canopy and plenty of birds flying by to go with it. I loved making the trek up there every day. Indira was a fabulous teacher and I reveled in any minute I could get up there. During one class, while we were in warrior three (one of the most challenging balancing poses) a small earthquake tested our steadiness. Luckily we passed and so did the building.

These cute pups kept us company where we were staying.  Had we not been preparing to ship the van from Panama to Colombia in the next few weeks it’s very possible we would have had new furry friends.

Katie flew in early Thursday morning and we picked her up at the little airport in Golfito. After a beer overlooking the Pacific, it was time to head to Panama. The date we were planning on shipping from Panama to Colombia was keeping us motivated to press on and the heat had us searching for mountains. After a lengthy border crossing, double checking paperwork to make sure everything was perfect for shipping, and showing the inspector and guards how everything worked on the van (including popping the top) we were on our way to Boquete, Panama!